Correction: I initially mistook the name of Paul Di Filippo's regular column for the title of the story itself. Post has been updated with the correct title.

As copyright issues have been propelled into the mainstream conversation, they have become an increasingly juicy target for lampooning by authors and artists. Satire is a clumsy tool for explaining an unknown concept, but an ideal way to skewer one that people are already talking about. Reader aethercowboy points us to a new creative construction of copyright found in the latest issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, in the form of a short story by author Paul Di Filippo for his regular column Plumage from Pegasus.

In What Immortal Hand or Eye Could Frame Thy Dreadful Copyright?, Di Filippo muses about the effects of "life plus 70 years" copyright terms in a future where medical science allows people to live much, much longer (not an unrealistic notion). The story is no masterpiece—rather a quick scene geared at sci-fi wonks, heavily indulging in the pulp technique of tossing out references to unexplained futuristic details and relying on the reader's knowledge of science fiction tropes to fill in the gaps. It's like a less elegant version of Kurt Vonnegut's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, with copyrights in place of beds. But Plumage from Pegasus is fun because it takes a central concept we talk about a lot—that copyright law is out of sync with technological realities—and pushes it to an exaggerated extreme in the way that only sci-fi can. Overall, of course, it's just neat to see the copyright discussion turn up in yet another cultural corner.

I'll leave you with the beginning of the story—you can read the whole (short) thing on the F&SF website.

Today was my father's five-hundredth birthday, and also the day that I had determined to murder him.

But before you think too poorly of me, let me inform you that my father was Arden Pence.

Yes, that Arden Pence! Creator and sole owner of what had once been one of the most beloved entertainment franchises in the inhabited Solar System: Rajah Robot and Poxy Toff, Oort Cloud Explorers. A multi-platform, full-sensory, optionally immersive fictional construct that had generated trillions in profits, but which, for the past two centuries, had not manifested a single new idea, instead gradually frittering away all its goodwill and prestige in an endless series of self-imitation and recycling, until now the series was practically a byword for staleness and decrepitude.

I was Arden Pence's sole heir, his son, Kilmer. Although a youthful two-hundred-and-sixty-five years old, I was not getting any younger, and my well of patience had steadily evaporated to undetectable amounts. For two hundred years I had been biding my time, watching in frustration as my father's intellectual property, the delight of my own childhood, dwindled and became a source of predictable mild amusement for the public, all the while waiting for some mortal accident—a quench in the nearest zero-point capacitor, a hail of rogue strangelets from an exploding spaceship—to strike my progenitor and legally deliver the franchise into my hands.

For years, we've discussed how the US has put all sorts of pressure on China to boost its intellectual property enforcement regime -- and each time we warn that this is going to backfire in a big, bad way. To "appease" the US, China keeps ratcheting up its enforcement... but seems to have a habit of doing so in ways that hurt foreign companies. And, even though China declared its supposed copyright crackdown a "success," under increasing pressure to change its IP laws, China has announced plans to double the "fines" for infringement up to 1 million yuan (~$158,000). That seems perfectly in line with the ridiculous statutory rates currently found in the US, but seems even more out of place in China where the average citizen makes a lot less than the average American. Not that there's likely to be much of an effort to use such a law, but laws like these don't get people to respect copyright more. They do the opposite. When the penalties are so out of proportion to the action, no one takes the law seriously.

The last days of school are coming up in the US (if they're not here already), and kids all over are getting ready for "no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks." Summer school, summer camp or a few weeks of mental atrophy are ahead, so here are just a few links on the subject of not having school all year long.

• If the goal of public education is to just produce good students, then it makes sense to keep them in school for 11 months out of the year. But maybe if we want well-rounded young adults, summer camps or summer jobs are better for giving kids a break from school-learning. [url]
• The season opener of The Simpsons in 1992 was an episode called "Kamp Krusty" -- an instant classic about the last day of school that showed kids destroying their school with animated violence. It's all fun and games -- until life imitates art. [url]
• Decades of research show that kids forget a lot of the stuff they learn in school over the summer, and the losses can be cumulative. Summer school shouldn't be punitive and remedial, but it typically has that stigma. How do communities improve the reputation of summer school? [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

For years now, we've been pointing out the ridiculous situation that the US has with denying visas to entrepreneurs. Over and over again, research has shown how skilled immigrants starting companies in the US help create new jobs. So we were excited earlier this year when plans for a Startup Act were presented in the Senate. Some aspects of that were taken care of by the JOBS Act, which came a month or so later, but key issues concerning startup visas and entrepreneurs still need to be addressed... and thankfully, Senators Moran, Warner, Coons and Rubio recently introduced the updated Startup Act 2.0. And, yesterday, Representative Michael Grimm, along with seven other House colleagues, introduced a the House version.

There's no way around it. This bill makes sense. In fact, looking around to see if anyone is arguing against the bill, the only thing I could find was a column at HuffPo arguing that Startup Act 2.0 Is Embarrassing. I was curious why the author would think so... and it turns out his reason is that it's embarrassing that we actually need a law for this, in this day and age, when what's in there should have been in place decades ago:

So why do I hate the Startup Act 2.0? Because it's embarrassing.

As a business owner and an American I'm embarrassed that such a fuss is being made over something that has been needed for so long and everyone agrees is necessary. That will clearly help this country over the long term by keeping those people who our own universities educated here, where many of these students want to be, rather than forcing them to leave. As a small business owner it seems so fundamentally right that it's unbelievable that these rules weren't changed decades ago. I hate that.

I also hate that we're celebrating the "bipartisanship" of the proposal. "I would guess that 80 percent of my colleagues in Congress would agree with the visa provisions in this legislation," says one of the bill's sponsors, Senator Jerry Moran. "And what I would encourage is that we not take the attitude or approach that unless we do everything, we can't do anything." With all that Congress has not accomplished during their past few sessions, we're applauding them for agreeing on something so fundamentally obvious and right? And who are the 20% of those that would oppose something like this? I hate that we have elected representatives that actually think this way. It's embarrassing.

And that's why the damn thing just needs to get passed. There's no reason to bicker around it. There's no reason to argue. Congress just needs to pass it.

But, of course, this is Congress that we're talking about, and they might not pass it because actually doing something useful is apparently not in their job description. However, one thing that is clear is that Congress does care about jobs -- and there's no question that startups create jobs. Research has shown that most of the net new jobs in the US have been created by startups over the past few decades. And, Congress is finally waking up and willing to hear from the startup community about what will help them create more jobs.

Our friends over at Engine have created an easy way to contact your representative to let them know that it's time to finally pass this bill and help entrepreneurs create more startups, and help those startups create more jobs. And, while you're at it, you should join Engine, as well, in order to keep on top of these things -- and help get your voice heard by Congress.

I was recently alerted to an interesting project and organization seeking to get more new works into the public domain. It's been started by Aaron Pogue, who self published some books last year, selling well over 100,000 copies, and allowing him to not just quit his job, but to start an entire organization focused on helping content creators get paid to put their works into the public domain. The goal is to use systems like Kickstarter and others to allow fans to support the organization, called The Consortium, to pay them a salary -- just like a normal job -- for which they can then create content to release into the public domain.

Pogue is kicking this off with an attempt to raise $30,000 for the third book in his trilogy. If he hits the goal, he'll release the book into the public domain, allowing anyone to do whatever they want with it. Make a movie out of it? Go for it. Do a fan edit of it? No problem. Whatever you want, once it's in the public domain.

That said, it's not clear if he'll make the goal, though it is an interesting project. I'm wondering why it hasn't raised that much and I have a couple of theories: first, the production quality on the video with the Kickstarter project isn't great. I know this isn't always easy, but for some reason, projects with better quality production seem to just do better on Kickstarter. The other thing is that I'm wondering how many of the buyers of Pogue's first two books in the trilogy even know about this offer. In fact, I wonder if this is one of the limitations of relying on a platform like Amazon -- in that it can put a wall between an author and his or her fans.
Either way, I'm really interested in these types of projects. And it's great to see people like Pogue out there -- a successful artist -- not just explaining that copyright isn't "the only" way to make money as a creator, but almost certainly not the best way to make money. And then to take that even further, and to help other artists make money without relying on the crutch of copyright, is a very cool thing to see, whether or not this particular Kickstarter campaign succeeds. In the meantime, though, if you would like to show some support for this type of project, check out the Kickstarter campaign and see if you think it's worth backing.

Pre-trial hearings for Bradley Manning, the guy accused of leaking State Department cables (and other info) to Wikileaks, are kicking off this week, with many assuming that he's clearly guilty and will spend the rest of his life in jail. Of course, reports suggest that many thousands (and perhaps hundreds of thousands) of people had access to the exact same documents, and we're still waiting for any proof of any harm from the leaks. That said, the most interesting question about the Manning trial comes from Gautham Nagesh, who asks if Manning would even have been prosecuted if he'd leaked the exact same info to the NY Times, rather than Wikileaks (even though the eventual publishing of the documents went through the NYTimes and others).

And that brings up an interesting point. Is this really a trial of Manning... or a trial-by-proxy of Wikileaks itself?

That said, I'm not convinced it would have made a huge difference, but the overall attention level might have been different. If we went back a decade, perhaps it would have been an issue. However, starting under the Bush (the younger) administration and certainly ramping up under the Obama administration, the federal government has been pretty aggressive in going after whistleblowers -- even when they are going to the press (including some specific cases involving the NY Times).

Where I think it might have made a bigger difference is in how the case finally works out. There seems to be this presumption that Wikileaks is obviously "evil" and therefore anyone working with them must be trouble by association. The concern if the leaks had merely been to the NY Times perhaps wouldn't have been nearly as strong.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the ever-increasing storage capacity of portable hard drives made it unlikely that the sharing of music could ever be stopped. That was a somewhat theoretical piece based on general trends in technology; but here's some supporting data from a rather unusual source: North Korea (aka the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" - DPRK).

It comes in the form of an extensive study entitled "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment" (pdf). It's long but really worth reading for the insights it gives into a world that has been almost entirely hidden from the West for half a century. Rather surprisingly, it shows the impact that the physical sharing of pirated materials from South Korea and elsewhere is having on the once isolated nation. As TorrentFreak puts it:

With Internet unavailable to all but a tiny percentage of the elite, citizens of North Korea are obtaining their information through other means, notably file-sharing devices such as DVDs, MP3 and MP4 players, and USB drives.

The vast majority of those music and video players are owned by young people:

"About 70-80 percent of people that have MP3/4 players are young people," a 44-year-old male who left DPRK in 2010 reports. "When you do a crackdown of MP3/4 players among high school and university students, you see that 100 percent of them have South Korean music."

That's significant because the penalties for anyone caught with forbidden music and videos are severe: months or even years in a North Korean prison camp. TorrentFreak makes the obvious connection:

despite the massive risks, young people in the DPRK are apparently prepared to defy the regime by consuming unauthorized media anyway, something they have in common with the US youth who share files in the face of $150,000 statutory damages.

That explains why the copyright industries' current approach to enforcement isn't working, and -- more importantly -- why it will never work, no matter how harsh the penalties become. Whatever the risks, people will carry on sharing.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

There has been plenty of talk over the years about why we keep extending copyright. Of course, we've discussed the infamous Mickey Mouse Curve, showing how copyright extension always seems to happen whenever Mickey Mouse is going to hit the public domain.
However, Julian Sanchez notes that this doesn't explain the whole story. After all, if it was just about protecting the very, very small number of works that still have commercial value after so many years, then you would think we would have evolved away from the "copyright absolutely everything for as long as possible" model, to one that plenty of people have suggested: one where there are regular (and perhaps escalating) recurring fees to keep renewing your copyright registration. That way, works like Mickey Mouse could stay covered by copyright, but all the other works which have been otherwise abandoned can actually contribute back to culture and be used by anyone who wants to make something with them.

As Sanchez notes, you would think that even the Disneys of the world would like this model better. Even if it had to pay such recurring fees, the overall cost will ultimately be tiny compared to the value of the copyright. Plus, it would then open up a treasure trove of public domain material that they could use in their own works -- and Disney, in particular, has a well known history of making use of public domain works.

So why do we still have a "copyright everything for as long as we live, plus 70 years" (for now)? Sanchez posits a compelling theory. That Disney and other big copyright holders like this, because it keeps them from having to compete with their own back catalog:

Insanely long copyright terms are how the culture industries avoid competing with their own back catalogs. Imagine that we still had a copyright term that maxed out at 28 years, the regime the first Americans lived under. The shorter term wouldn’t in itself have much effect on output or incentives to create. But it would mean that, today, every book, song, image, and movie produced before 1984 was freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Under those conditions, would we be anywhere near as willing to pay a premium for the latest release? In some cases, no doubt. But when the baseline is that we already have free, completely legal access to every great album, film, or novel produced before the mid-80s—more than any human being could realistically watch, read, or listen to in a lifetime—I wouldn’t be surprised if our consumption patterns became a good deal less neophilic, or at the very least, prices on new releases had to drop substantially to remain competitive.

This story certainly fits with Disney -- who famously decides to completely stop selling certain old classics and put them "in the vault" for a while, pulling them off the market entirely. For Disney, it's all about keeping out competition, which it wouldn't be able to do if copyright didn't last so long.

This actually reminds me of the missing 20th century of books that we discussed a few months back, highlighting how the amount of new works from each decade drop off rapidly the further back you go, until you hit 1923 -- the current cut-off for the public domain.

Sanchez does note that it's possible this actually drives more investment into new works, since they don't have to compete with the old. And, if you believe (which he doesn't) that new works automatically have more value than old, then you could make a twisted sort of argument that this kind of protectionism, and effective locking-up of about a century's worth of creativity, does "promote the progress" in that it moves the focus to newer works, rather than older ones. But I don't buy that at all. It ignores the fact that the giant gap doesn't just represent competitive works, but also raw material and inspiration for all kinds of amazing new works -- which are effectively killed off.

That gap represents lost culture. But, for the big legacy entertainment players, it might also represent repressed competition. That shouldn't really be surprising. After all, that is the whole purpose of government-granted monopoly privileges.

The latest Radiolab "shorts" episode, entitled Grumpy Old Terrorists, seems like a bit of a departure in subject matter for that program -- but fits right in with something we've been talking a lot about lately. Over the past few years, we've noticed the rather disturbing trend in how the FBI keeps publicly celebrating stories about stopping terrorist plots -- but in almost every case the details show that it was actually just stopping its own terrorist plots that it feeds to hapless individuals, often nudging them and pushing them down the road to "become" terrorists, despite commonly displaying little to no aptitude for actual terrorism.

In the last few weeks, the mainstream press has started to notice this as well, with stories about it appearing in both the NY Times and Rolling Stone. However, the Radiolab episode highlights a similar, but slightly different story, that was actually covered in great detail in an article in Esquire a few months back, entitled Waffle House Terrorists -- which includes the mugshots of the four "terrorists."

The youngest one of that bunch is 65-years old. The oldest is 73. As the Radiolab episode and the Esquire piece detail, while these guys do seem hateful, they also seemed absolutely unable to do anything... until an "FBI informant" joined their pack and pushed and prodded them along, introducing them to the "contacts" to get weapons and even providing "the money" to buy said weapons. The Esquire article goes into great detail about the "informant" and his rather questionable legal history (he first contacted the FBI while in jail for molesting his wife's daughter from a previous marriage).

On Radiolab, they play the audiotapes the guy made of the plotting -- and there's obviously some crazy stuff being said. But, as they look deeper into the role of the informant, the Radiolab hosts conclude the episode by noting that the whole situation doesn't really make them feel any safer. Yes, these old guys were hateful and helped join in this plan to cause lots of death and destruction. But, so much much of the plot and the participation of these guys really does seem driven by the "informant," who does not seem like the most credible of guys. And it's this exact scenario that we keep seeing over and over again. It may not reach the level of entrapment, and it may put some people really ignorant and crazy people in jail -- but is this really the best use of the FBI's time and efforts? Creating bogus "terrorist" plots involving people who had no real means to actually do anything?

Oracle apparently has no sense of irony when it comes to patents. The day after a judge issued a complete smackdown in Oracle's "big" patent and copyright lawsuit against Google, Oracle has suddenly decided that it doesn't like patent bullies. Well, as long as the bully isn't Oracle. It filed its own case against Lodsys -- the quite infamous patent troll that has been threatening and suing tons of companies for daring to do in-app payments. Apparently, Lodsys has targeted Oracle customers and the company has had enough. It's actually good to see more tech companies fight back against Lodsys, but it does seem a bit odd on the timing for Oracle, given its over-emphasis on the importance of not violating patents in the earlier case.

Too often we read that the Internet is making us stupid or fat, or destroying the "fabric of society." Indeed, judging by the all the digital jeremiads it's a wonder that anybody dares to use it at all, since it's clearly irredeemably bad in every way. So it's refreshing to come across an upbeat piece from Lauren Weinstein with the inspiring title "How the Internet Can Save the World." His basic point is this:

When people have the easy and inexpensive means to communicate directly, especially in informal settings and about the everyday aspects of life, they usually discover that they have much more in common than they perhaps expected. This seems true whether we're using written communications, or audio and video links like Skype or Google+ Hangouts -- working our way ever closer toward a full "virtual presence" that makes our common humanity impossible to ignore.

In other words, far from always isolating us, or bringing out the worst, the Internet also has the power to unite us and bring out the best. That's another reason why we need to worry when governments or interest groups try to control the Internet, and dictate what we can and cannot say and do on it: it's not just an assault on our freedoms, it's also an obstacle to greater understanding between people and nations.

Weinstein concludes:

I spend much of my time considering the ways in which the wonders of the Internet could be wrecked, or blocked, or subverted. But it's also important that we consider the vast potential the Net holds for improving the world in the most relevant and important of ways.

Not just in terms of science and research, though those are great. Not just in regard to commerce and the global economy, though these are crucial.

But also in terms of the basic fact of fundamental human communications, of being able to as freely and openly as possible discuss with other mere mortals around the planet the nature of our lives, hopes and dreams, our loves, and yes, our fears as well.

It's a post that makes you glad you use the Internet, not guilty, as the pundits of pessimism would have us feel. Read the whole thing -- and then to go back to what you were doing before: helping to save the world by communicating with others online.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

We've seen politicians in South America note some significant concerns about the TPP efforts, and it appears that some politicians on the other side of the Pacific have similar concerns about the agreement. Some Australian elected officials are starting to ask serious questions about Australia's participation in TPP. The full line of questions and answers from Senator Scott Ludlam to the lead Australian negotiator shows that TPP negotiators Down Under are similarly evasive as our friends over at the USTR. One bit of questioning seems particularly relevant: Ludlam notes that Australia already has trade agreements with nearly all of the participating countries, and questions why TPP is even needed. He specifically asks: "Is this not a case of doubling up somewhat?" The official answer? "No." No elaboration. No, nothing.

The Australian Digital Alliance (the other link above) goes a bit further and notes that the TPP negotiations appear to violate the Australian Prime Minister's explicit trade policy directive:

IP provisions should only be included in cases where a rigorous economic analysis shows that the provisions would likely generate overall net benefits for the agreement partners.

And yet no such analysis appears to have been done. In fact, when quizzed on the economic analysis behind TPP, the negotiator doesn't seem to think one should be necessary at all. Makes you wonder what they're hiding from.

One other point: as with the US situation, the Australian negotiator seems particularly insistent that no one -- even the minister in charge of trade -- see the document until it's completed. And, even then, he notes that the agreement will be 1,000 pages long -- meaning by the time it's done there will be so much crap in there that no one will suitably be able to dig through the whole thing to find the easter eggs inserted for the benefit of certain industry players. This is all the more reason to make the negotiating documents public, but of course that's not going to happen:

Senator LUDLAM: Are you aware of whether or not the foreign minister has seen the current negotiating texts for the agreement?

Mr McCormick : The Australian foreign minister?

Senator LUDLAM: Yes.

Mr McCormick : I do not believe he has.

Senator LUDLAM: Is that because he is relatively new to the job? Should he have? Will he?

Mr McCormick : No. The agreement is the responsibility of the minister for trade. Obviously, we have not got a text that is agreed; therefore, the text has not been shown to the foreign minister. It is a text that is under development rather than a text that exists at this moment. The negotiations are ongoing.

Senator LUDLAM: Has the trade minister seen it?

Mr McCormick : An FTA agreement, when completed, will be approximately 1,000 pages long. As I said, it is not an agreement that is on the table for anybody to have a look at. We are negotiating in different negotiating groups on text when we have not yet agreed on text. It is not something that exists physically where you can say, 'Here, have a look at the text.' That is not the way these negotiations proceed.

Senator LUDLAM: That is fair enough. Very few members of the public have seen the text, so we are all in the dark. I am just wondering to what degree the minister has been brought into the loop. Perhaps DFAT could share the anticipated economic benefits, or the justification, for permitting provisions in the IP chapter of the agreement restricting parallel importations.

Mr McCormick : There is no agreement on that outcome. We are involved in a negotiation in which different parties have different objectives, and we are discussing those, but there is certainly no agreement.

Senator LUDLAM: The reason I am referring to that-and the only reason we know about that-is that there was a draft text that was leaked to the public last year that included language on rigid parallel importation restrictions. Is that missing from the versions we are negotiating now?

Mr McCormick : What I can say is that the text of the agreement is confidential between the parties. I know there are claims that there has been text released. We do not talk about claims of that, but certainly nothing is agreed until all the current nine-or more if we move to 10, 11 or12-members have agreed to it. Nothing has a status until it has been agreed at the end of the negotiations, so anything that people talk about is purely speculation.

McCormick here is being disingenuous in the extreme. While there's no final document to release, it is absolutely possible to release the negotiating position of the Australian government and/or draft texts. Since this agreement is going to clock in at a complex 1,000 pages, that's all the more reason to let not just the public pick through it, but also the very government that McCormack supposedly is representing.

Is there some rule that if you've been put on the TPP negotiating team, you have to be obnoxiously insulting to anyone who dares question why such an important agreement is being negotiated without public input?