A Rant About Copyright Rants

Unless you've been bound and gagged and locked in a "naughty box" by your significant other for the past couple of months (I don't know what you people get up to in your spare time, but I'm not judging), then you are surely aware of all the hullabaloo and folderol surrounding the issue of copyright in the world of quilting. Everybody who's anybody (and probably a lot of people who aren't) has weighed in on the topic. I thought that the tidal wave of umbrage and pseudo-legal opinions had passed, but, no. I just read two more this morning. A dead horse will keep on twitching as long as there are bloggers out there to get indignant about it.

There are a lot of things that bother me about some of these rants that keep ending up in my email inbox, but the main one is how, after soapboxing grandiloquently about laws that, as far as I know, may not even exist, people are now starting to call for civility. "Let's all remember that, when all is said and done, we are all sisters. And brothers. Well, some gay brothers—not that there's anything wrong with that—and a few heterosexual brothers who are totally welcome too. So let's stop calling each other names like 'stupid meanie-pants' and 'booger-butt.' "

Please. For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, do NOT stop calling each other "stupid meanie-pants" and "booger-butt." Because if quilters stop saying stupid stuff on the internet, what will I have to write about? I'm not just a humorist, I'm a satirist, for god's sake, and if people don't act like asshats, I won't have any ridiculous attitudes to lampoon. And besides, you know me. I think people are entirely too tame. I'm willing to bet that you cannot find one comment on any blog anywhere on this topic where somebody has called someone else a "fucking copyright whore." Nope, not there. I checked.  (They must have deleted my comment.)

I can't help it. I love controversy in the world of quilting, and though it has made me some enemies, I'm still going to point it out and laugh at it when it happens. I think that we have to laugh at ourselves and our  little quilter squabbles in order to move on from them and to ultimately learn from them. And because, if we don't, we're all just a bunch of cocksucking booger-butts.