Thinking About Real Copyright Reform
from the is-that-even-possible? dept
Michael Scott alerts us to a recent paper by professor and copyright expert Jessica Litman about “Real Copyright Reform.” While there’s been some chatter here and there about doing real copyright reform, there seems to be no real effort behind it. That’s for a few reasons, including the fact that many people still remember what a pain the last attempt at real copyright reform was (it took decades) combined with the realization (especially on the part of copyright holders) that their ability to push through laws that solely favor themselves to greater and greater degrees may not be so easy this time around. Thanks to the internet and various “wars” on consumers, copyright isn’t just an arcane subject that the day to day person doesn’t know much about. A serious attempt at remaking copyright laws might actually draw out well-reasoned and well-argued points that go against the current views held by the record labels and movie studios. See what’s been happening in Canada, for example.
Litman’s paper goes through the problems with today’s copyright law, and begins to explore what real copyright reform should entail, even while noting the political difficulty of having it go anywhere:
A wise approach to copyright revision might inspire us to rethink the model. If both creators and readers are ill-served by distributor-centric copyright, and if the economics of digital distribution now makes it possible to engage in mass dissemination without significant capital investment, perhaps it is time to reallocate the benefits of the copyright system. The consolidation of control in distributors’ hands does not appear to have made life easier or more remunerative for creators. Copyright lobbyists have not shown that recent enhancements to copyright have made it easier or more rewarding for readers, listeners and viewers to enjoy copyrighted works. Perhaps the classic picture of copyright is too far removed from its reality to be useful.
From there, Litman makes similar arguments that have been made recently by James Boyle and William Patry (among others), wondering why there is little investigation into the actual impact of changes in copyright law, rather than just assuming that “stronger protections” lead to better results, when so much of the evidence suggests otherwise. And, of course, all of this harkens back to the speeches by Thomas Macauley from over a century and a half ago, back when he was able to point to the lack of evidence from those who wished to extend copyright law:
Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly…. I believe, Sir, that I may safely take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety challenge my honorable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Companys monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essexs monopoly of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.
And yet, in copyright reform today, there seems to be no one in the political realm with enough power to play the role of Macauley today. But Litman raises these same issues:
Instead of asking how to enhance copyright owner control, I suggest, we ought to be asking why. Does a particular proposed enhancement of copyright owner prerogatives seem likely to expand opportunities for creators or improve reader, listener or viewer enjoyment of copyrighted works? Is it likely to make the copyright system simpler, more effective, or more transparent? Does it seem to be designed to shore up copyright’s apparent legitimacy? If not, it seems as likely to make the current mess worse instead of better.
Litman goes on to suggest that the fact that so many people out there don’t have any respect for copyright law at all is pretty clearly the fault of the current copyright holders who have twisted and abused the law to the point that people just don’t respect it. So, her ideas for copyright reform are based on bringing back “legitimacy” to copyright law by focusing on four principles:
- Radically simplifying copyright law
- Empowering content creators (rather than intermediaries and distributors)
- Empowering readers, listeners and viewers (who, after all, are supposed to be part of the beneficiaries of copyright law)
- Disintermediating copyright away from the middlemen who seem to control the law today
To then accomplish this, she suggests the following steps:
- Focus on commercial exploitation (rather than personal use)
- Simplify what copyright covers (rather than breaking out each separate exclusive right within copyright)
- Reconnect creators to their copyright (via a termination right that lets them take copyrights back from third parties)
- Clearly recognize readers’ (or viewers’, listeners’, users’, etc) rights
- Get rid of existing compulsory license (and similar) intermediaries, such as ASCAP, BMI, SoundExchange and others
It’s definitely an interesting proposal, though I think there are some serious problems with it. I’ve said in the past that the line between commercial use and personal use is increasingly blurry, so trying to draw that distinction may be a lot harder than most people think. We’re already seeing the kind of mess termination rights create, and I’m still not sure why they help matters, rather than just make them more complex. And, of course even as Litman notes, new intermediaries will spring up to fill the void of the old ones.
Still, if you’re interested in copyright and copyright reform, it’s certainly a worthwhile paper to read just to get you thinking.
Filed Under: copyright, copyright reform, jessica litman
Comments on “Thinking About Real Copyright Reform”
A copyright system is designed to produce an ecology that nurtures the creation, dissemination and enjoyment of works of authorship.
This paper is clearly wrong, because the One True Purpose of Copyright is “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Shouldn’t, then, any copyright reform be geared toward more effectively securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries? Where does the Constitution say anything about ecologies or enjoyment?
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Copyright evolved as a way of paying for the transfer from the private to the public domain of the ownership of things/ideas that could be mass copied. The size of the payment was based on how many times the ‘thing’ was copied, the more useful an ‘idea/thing’ was the more copyright payments the author got.It was never meant to go on and on forever.
It developed in the 1700s in response to the beginings of cheap mass production of copys.
It was also never meant to benefit “authors and inventors”as a class, It was definitely not a transaction tax on the sale of mass copies , such a tax would have rewarded the failed much more than the succesfull author.
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Copyright reform should be more geared toward abolishing it.
Thankfully, all these young people are doing such a wonderful job of ignoring copyright laws that it will only be a matter of time before they fade from the view of history.
And without copyright in the 21st century all human expression will cease to be. No one will create anything. Why would they? Need to get paid. Money is the most important human invention ever created.
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“And without copyright in the 21st century all human expression will cease to be. No one will create anything. Why would they? Need to get paid. Money is the most important human invention ever created.”
Wow, this statement is either the most ignorant I’ve ever read or the most dishonest. Everything on my hard drive(including my os) is under a license that allows both redistribution and derivatives. (You can get paid to write free software, but most of what’s on my computer was created just for the sake of creating it)
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“You can get paid to write free software, but most of what’s on my computer was created just for the sake of creating it”
That is an equally ignorant statement; I think you’ll find that the large majority of FOSS contributions are written by paid programmers as part of their job.
The difference is that in most cases the software or improvements to existing software are written because some employer needs that specific piece of software or that specific feature for their own ends. They pay the programmers, they get the software or feature, and once the work has been done there is no harm to them if others benefit from the work too. There may even be a benefit if other users fix bugs or add features of their own, and share those improvements back.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
This sounds like communism, or socialism.
It will never succeed. How long has this been going on? Have the American capitalists been informed?
Why hasn’t the US government declared a War on Free?
Re: Re: Re:3 "communism,"
exactly , though more facist than marxist
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
He said – “You can get paid to write free software, but most of what’s on my computer was created just for the sake of creating it”
You said – “I think you’ll find that the large majority of FOSS contributions are written by paid programmers as part of their job.”
Looks to me like you guys are in agreement. You said the same thing with different words. I do think that the first part of his sentence does not have much to do with the second half but that is a small quibble.
So I think that you saying his statement is ignorant is wrong when you turn around and say mostly the same thing, from a different point of view.
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AC said “Money is the most important human invention ever created.”
given: money is the root of all evil
substituting into the sentence from AC gives us:
evil is the most important human invention ever created
interesting indeed
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“given: money is the root of all evil”
Actually The original quote is “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”
So by that earning money itself is not evil, and not all evil has greed as the root cause.
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I love people who misquote this. MONEY isn’t the root of all evil and never has that been claimed. Rather, the LOVE of money is the root of all evil and that point cannot be denied!
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Ayn Rand? Is that you? I love your simplified vision of reality, can I have it too? Oh wait, maybe I should pay you for it.
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“This paper is clearly wrong, because the One True Purpose of Copyright is “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Shouldn’t, then, any copyright reform be geared toward more effectively securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries?”
The problem is that the copyright industry lobbies to increase terms whenever they’re about to expire, effectively granting unlimited terms. Any reform should be geared toward making sure those limited times are actually limited.
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Umm, you’re being purposefully (either that or you just are) dense. The purpose is the first part: to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Securing for limited (*cough* times…is the METHOD.
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Which is the second amendment about, then, militias or the bearing of arms?
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Which is the second amendment about, then, militias or the bearing of arms?
That damn comma…
re "Reconnect creators to their copyright (via a termination right that lets them take copyrights back from third parties) "
It is a very good aim but it will a hard one, the copyright industry largely sees copyright as their ‘right’,and bugger anybody who gets in the way of their management fees .
The problem of moral hazard; managements that are not answerable to their right-holders/shareholders or to the public, managements that in effect have become the owner without the risks of real owners is very current. The copyright industry is free to pursue policy’s that are actually harmful to all but the most successful artists/creators, its not their problem.
Macauley(a liberal/conservative in the old usage ) understood well that talk of extending economic rights are always in reality claims being made for power,and they should always be very carefully looked in the mouth.
If both creators and readers are ill-served by distributor-centric copyright, and if the economics of digital distribution now makes it possible to engage in mass dissemination without significant capital investment, perhaps it is time to reallocate the benefits of the copyright system.
This I think is a very poor assumption, which leads to a poor train of thought. He is making the mistake of confusing copyright (the concept) and the current business model using copyright.
There is no reason that the current copyright can’t continue, with other types of distribution. They are not mutually inclusive. You can have strong copyright owner rights, and an open peer distribution system that requires no middleman.
The current middlemen exist in part to help to convert product (books, articles, music, movies, whatever) to money in a timely and simple manner, where producers can do what they do best (make more great stuff), and distributors do what they do best (distribute the great stuff). The system helps all parties to get some money back in a reasonable time on their product. Those artists who choose to sell their rights up the chain to holding companies, record labels, publishing companies, etc, usually do it in return for something. They are not forced to do it.
The entire piece basically starts from an extremely flawed premise, and goes from there.
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“There is no reason that the current copyright can’t continue, with other types of distribution. They are not mutually inclusive. You can have strong copyright owner rights, and an open peer distribution system that requires no middleman.”
I think the point is that the current copyright system actively damages the public good and the good of the creators, to the benefit of the middlemen. The problem isn’t the middlemen per se, but rather that they have subverted the system to the harm of everyone else.
The solution is to unsubvert the system, i.e., copyright reform, not eliminate middlemen as a direct goal. Of course, the effect would be that the middlemen would be stripped of a great deal of power and many of the would become significantly smaller or vanish.
Re: "They are not forced to do it."
“They are not forced to do it.”
That is exactly what the copyright industry spent a decade seriously trying to get, the power to force right holders to license for life + 70 to the agency. They failed but it was very hot for a while.
I get the feeling that you have not had much actual dealings with their kind , they are not real good.
a bit more on reform
Modern copyright is a mess of two very opposite intentions : Tax’s are for public benefit . Royalty’s are for individual authors benefit & mixing them up delivers neither.
Many ,perhaps most, royalty payments are no longer paid to an individual authors right.
And the multitude of tax-like ‘levys’ do not fund publicly run programs for whole community gain.
If it is desirable to collect a levy/tax on the sale of Ipods or whatever, for the benefit of all authors/musos as a class, then it should be directly administered by a elected government and be purely for public benefit.
It should not pretend or confuse this aim with the aim of the encouragement/reward of success; taxes are to level things out, they are to help the relatively helpless, not to reward the powerfull.
Governments can be fired by the public and the holders of traditional “Full Individual Rights of control of usage” can fire their managements.
The managements of these tax/royalty rights look more like the sort of inalianable right of royalty that I thought ended with Charles the first.
Full Text Download Link
The paper itself could not be downloaded from the linked page (that I could find — did I miss it?) but she has the draft posted on her personal UMich site:
(pdf) http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ejdlitman/papers/RealCopyrightReform.pdf
1841 or 2009. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
We have a tendency to think that computers and the internet have changed everything. In reality, the fundamental principle of copyright as monopoly, and the consequences of monopoly have not changed at all.
For those who take the time to read Lord Macaulay’s 1841 speech in Parliament (it is much longer than the excerpt presented here), you may be amazed at how well he predicted the consequences of extended copyright, including widespread piracy and disrespect for the law because many would perceive that law as being unreasonable. His analysis addressed arguments in the very same issues we hear raised today.
In case you might be tempted to think that while Macaulay was arguing for the benefit of the general public, he could not understand the viewpoint of authors, it is worth observing that Macaulay himself wrote several books and published essays.
real reform
Real Copyright reform already exists for content creators in the form of Creative Commons licensing.
http://creativecommons.org
Radically simplifying copyright law?
check.
Empowering content creators?
check.
Empowering readers, listeners and viewers ?
check.
Disintermediating copyright away from the middlemen who seem to control the law today?
check.
The problem with “copyright reform” is that it starts out stuck in its own little misshapen box, and never manages to escape.
Imagine what would’ve happened if, sometime in the last 400 years or so, the wealthiest members of society had convinced government that a system of sanctioned professional assassination was necessary. The ability for private individuals to buy murder — while certainly a legal compromise — would have wonderful potential benefits for society. For instance, if you knew that any of your neighbors could have you killed, you would tend to be extremely polite to them. And in situations where troublemakers disrupted society without actually doing anything illegal, groups could band together, pool their money, and have the irritant wiped out. Further, any politician who knew that his constituents could have him whacked legally would be very careful to represent them in an accurate fashion.
Or so the advocates of sanctioned professional assassination might claim.
Of course, flaws would crop up in the system over time. As wealth concentrated in a few individuals or large organizations, these would tend to use their legal assassination power in counter-productive, dictatorial ways. But what the hell, it’s nothing that some fundamental reform of the sanctioned professional assassination system couldn’t fix, right?
Except of course that reforming such an insane, stupid, counterproductive idea is ridiculous. It should never have come into existence in the first place.
Ditto copyright.
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A nice blah blah comparison that isn’t very relevant or likely.
re-frame the question: Where would we be without any copyright? Think it through – who would produce what? Would we have any signficant commercial artist activity? Would we fall back to the 14th and 15th centuries when “art” was most often paid for and kept hidden by a small wealthy elite?
When it comes time to toss out a system and replace it, you have to consider the reality of where you are and where you are going. The paper quote fails massively because it spends it’s time blaming the current distributor / rights holder system, without first seperating it from the laws and looking at how we end up in the current position.
It isn’t so much an intellectual discussion as a passionate plea that doesn’t make anywhere near as much sense in the real world.
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“Think it through – who would produce what?”
Artist who are passionate abut art would create whatever they damn well please, probably something like you would find in jamendo’s attribution and attribution share-alike sections.
Would we fall back to the 14th and 15th centuries when “art” was most often paid for and kept hidden by a small wealthy elite?
You have to remember that p2p didn’t exist back then, so there was more of a cost in distributing works. Now the cost is so low that either the wealthy elite or the artist would be more likely to make works available to all.
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Lisa, your comments are interesting, but you missed the deeper point:
Would the tools that are used by the artists even exist if it was not for copyright? Would Industrial Light and Magic have existed without the commercial need of George Lucas? Would we have high end NLE systems that everyone can use? Would there be music to have driven the MP3 revolution that lead to Napster and on down to P2P?
You have to think on a much broader scale: If there was no copyright for the last couple of hundred years, where would we be today?
As some suggest, there would be “more art”, perhaps in an aggregate way yes, but only because much like centuries ago, there would be a jester, a minstral, and a fool in every town. In modern terms, I think of it as a million crappy garage bands and a million crappy video makers, turning out on aggregate a huge amount of material that nobody really wants.
It takes a very big rethink to actually back track and remove copyright and see where we end up.
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“Turning out on aggregate a huge amount of material that nobody really wants.”
We have that now with copyright lasting more than a century.
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“Would the tools that are used by the artists even exist if it was not for copyright?”
Perhaps not the ones currently used, but ones nonetheless satisfactory for creating original works. Those truly passionate about the arts and sciences have always found ways to advance them.
“Would we have high end NLE systems that everyone can use?”
Possibly. History has show there are always those who seek to improve the way things are done regardless of whether or not IP ‘protection’ exists or not.
“Would there be music to have driven the MP3 revolution that lead to Napster and on down to P2P?”
Given the history of recorded music and the early days of free software, yes.
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Sorry Lisa, but those are non-answers.
The real answers are No, probably not, and I doubt it.
Artists are phenomenal at usings the tools and resources they have to create things. But many of the true marvels that separate us today from where we were as a civilization 50 years ago even is sheer money to make things happen. Someone to pay the bills with the hope (and expectation) that they can make it back.
true artists don’t worry about that, but true artists rarely advance things much, more like render them in prettier colors.
Again, I don’t think you are thinking with an open enough mind.
MP3s? You are only going back to the early days of free software. But you forget all the things like routers, higher speed internet connections, developments of fibre optics, underlying network equipment, each of which was built on copyright code, methods, and patented designs. Those things didn’t happen out of art, they happened out of desire for commercial redemption.
So without copyright, example, might a company like Cisco exist today? Probably not, because everyone and their dog would steal their work 1 second after they release it. The commericial benefits of copyright would be lost, which would raise the price of entering into new markets too much, which would in turn slow or even stop development.
That is just a simple example. You have to think way past the end of your “infinite distribution” world and check to see if we would even be anywhere near here. Without copyright, the music industry might not be the same, and perhaps there wouldn’t be enough of an international market for anyone to even bother with a Napster. Wind back your mind, open your eyes, and look to see where we would be in the last 50 years with no copyright. The answer would be something much closer to how we looked 50 years ago.
Rotary dial phone anyone?
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I am a profesional artist.
copyright has its uses but it is not very significant. reproduction is for me free advertising, I encourage it.
My muso friends make far more from live performance and other sources ect
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“True artists don’t worry about that, but true artists rarely advance things much, more like render them in prettier colors.”
You officially don’t understand anything about art. Seriously. Read a book. An art book!
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For the past six years (in Australia), I have been fighting an attempt by the copyright industry to impose a royalty on the resale of artworks. I make art for a living. These organisations have attempted to suppress, ignore and treat with contempt, actual artists, in this debate. I have nothing but loathing for them. Compulsory collectivisation is what they do and that is a euphemism for fascist. I would sooner accidentally cut my head while shaving than join a compulsory, collectivisation of anything. Dear Anonymous Coward, I presume you do not create things for a living. What make me very angry about copyright as it currently operates, is that creators have become the cash-cows for the industry to service, and I use ‘service’ in its agricultural sense.
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News flash: Answers you don’t like aren’t “non-answers.”
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?? what non-answers
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No, sorry, non-answers are non-answers, or at best, incomplete answers (marks deducted). You cannot pick and choose history, everything we are today in arts, entertainment, internet, and pretty much any computer operated anything is based on copyright material, or material specifically shared through CC or similar. The commercial nature of much of the developments from 1945-today are very much leveraged on strong copyright and patent laws that give developers a reasonable expectation of return for their often sizable investments in time and development.
You have to go back a very long way and refigure a bunch of things to see how things would turn out without copyright.
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Ah, of course, and naturally you can view such alternate dimensions and see the actual outcomes play out right in front of you.
A non-answer is better than an incorrect answer. A non-answer is also more truthful than a “believe me because I’m right” answer.
Hell, not to mention that many of your statements are complete bull. The internet was NEVER developed for public consumption in the first place, it was first designed for private use without any thought of commercialization.
How can copyright be the incentive for an innovation that wasn’t initially intended to be sold?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
You are correct in that the internet was not developed for the use of consumers or for commercial purposes, however it was indeed invented for a public purpose, not a private use. It was invented by the US Department of Defense (DARPA actually), and its original motivation was to develop a reliable communication method that could withstand the unpredictable disruptions that would occur in the event of nuclear war.
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And was invented regardless of intellectual property laws.
E=mc2 is not copyrighted. Neither is the internet.
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Sorry guys, but once again you fail because you aren’t looking past your nose.
The internet? Would it exist on, say, if microchips hadn’t happened, or discrete transistors, etc? You keep forgetting that each block you look at has a hundred other copyright or patent blocks under it, research, development, and so on. It’s the thing that is amazing, and the thing you have to look at so closely – any one of those steps doesn’t happen, and the dominoes tumble. Think of it as the butterfly effect of copyright and patent.
Expand your minds, and see reality.
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THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION HAPPENED IN THE ABSENCE OF ABSURD COPYRIGHT AND PATENT AND TRADEMARK LAW.
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“You keep forgetting that each block you look at has a hundred other copyright or patent blocks under it, research, development, and so on.”
And further underneath that?
Oh, that’s right, copyright has only existed for a few centuries. I like how you ignore everything ever created before that.
Creation and innovation has been happening since the dawn of man. It doesn’t suddenly start and stop with some arbitrary laws.
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Anonymous Coward
The stuff I am talking about is literally an attempt to impose a copyright on the sale of things that are not copies.
Is that your idea of a appropriate extension of copyright?
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The commercial nature of much of the developments from 1945-today are very much leveraged on strong copyright and patent laws that give developers a reasonable expectation of return for their often sizable investments in time and development.
Heh. Someone is clearly unfamiliar with the history of both the copyright system and the patent system.
Homework assignment: how have both of these changed since 1945? Extra credit: Prior to 1976, what % of published works were covered by copyright? What % renewed their copyright after the initial term expired.
We’ll wait.
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“You are only going back to the early days of free software. But you forget all the things like routers, higher speed internet connections, developments of fibre optics, underlying network equipment, each of which was built on copyright code, methods, and patented designs. Those things didn’t happen out of art, they happened out of desire for commercial redemption.”
I didn’t forget, those are exactly the kinds of things IP is NOT needed for.
There is plenty of incentive for everything you just mentioned without IP. How can you sell internet service if the technology isn’t mature enough? And hiring OS coders still would make sense because it opens up a new revenue stream. (Using software to sell your hardware)
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I’d also like to point out patents can hinder innovation as well, by making an implementation forbidden for anyone else to use you limit the improvements that might be made. This is particularly true with software patents because any number of them can(and given the broad nature of sw patents probably will) apply to your project. You’ll just research the patents that might apply to your software and work around them you say? I hope you enjoy your day in court when you miss a relevant patent.
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You might want to look into the history of the internet just a little.
“The Internet” only exists because of open standards. Standards that were not protected by patents, and that were made available for anyone to copy and implement without needing permission or payment.
And most services on the internet (particularly the older or most critical services) are provided by Free software; things like the root name-servers run BIND on BSD. Almost all email is passed around by sendmail, courier or postfix.
And as for ‘patents’ contributing to the growth of the computing industry; “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” — Bill Gates, back in 1991
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Hey, we can not let facts get in the way of a good emotional argument
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Same answer for you. Those standards are running on what? Think past the end of your nose. You are looking too closely. Everything comes from something.
It’s funny to watch you guys go, because you aren’t thinking past the ends of your noses.
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Copyright of course has its place, the point at the end of the nose is about discriminating between uses/abuses of copyright.
AND
Creativity travels light, big collective groups can maintain standards , but they ,by nature, enforce standards, original is never typical or standard or found in groups and power.
Re: Re: Re:6 "Everything comes from something."
literally true , their is nothing new under the sun, invention is very recurseive.
Re: Re: Re:4 gosh ! you are brainwashed.
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“who would produce what? Would we have any signficant commercial artist activity? “
I’m always fascinated by this argument, because of the fundamental and obvious wrongness of it. The only thing that I can figure is that the people making it are businessmen (for whom money is always the primary driver) not artists (for whome, as one of my artist friends says, mental illness *ahem* passion is the primary driver.)
I know quite a few top-notch artists in various media (writers, painters, musicians, sculptors) and not a single one of them would stop producing art if copyright were to go away.
Without copyright, the artistic world would expand, not shrink, as there are many legitimate forms of art which are simply illegal under our current copyright laws. The art market would barely notice the difference.
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I find copyright hinders my artistic expression. There are so many things that I would love to do with the culture of my youth but I’m afraid I don’t have the money or knowledge to do so.
Unless I turn the culture of my youth into parody or satire which is pointless. So to hell with it.
Copyright is useless for artists.
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COPYRIGHT IS USELESS HMMMMMMMM MUST BE ANOTHER QUOTE FROM MORON STREET!!!!! LISTEN SAYING THAT COPYRIGHT IS USELESS AND WOULD HINDER CREATIVE WRITERS,I THINK YOU SHOULD,LOOK BACK ON HOW MANY CREATORS OF,LYRICS WERE BURNED.NOT HAVING COPYRIGHT LAWS WOULD HINDER ALL WHOM CREATE,COMPOSE LYRICS MUSIC NOVEL ETC…WITH ALL OF THE RIP PFFS FROM THE PAST UP TOO NOW,COPYRIGHT LAWS ARE A MUST AND FACTUAL REALITY.I DON’T WHY SOME OF YOU LOOK AT THIS IMPORTANT PIECE OF KNOWLEDGE AND STUFF IT IN THE FILE 13 AREA.HMMM MAKES ME WONDER JUST HOW MUCH YOU PEOPLE CHEATTED FOR?????HAVE ANOT SO NICE OF A DAY FOR ALL OF YOU NAYYYYYY SAYERS.NOPE I WON’T LET ANYONE DESTROY MY WORKS JUST BECAUSE SOME OF YOU THINK THAT ITS OK TO RIP AWAY AT SOMEONES ORIGINALITIES.TYVM LV FROM CANADA.
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Dude reading that made my head hurt … perhaps you didnt realize your cap lock was on …
Oh and we arent feeding any Trolls today, so crawl back under you bridge
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They would still produce it, and nobody would ever find out about it. Producing art for the sake of art is a wonderful thing, but having enough income and money to produce the art without concern for having to have a real job, or having to submit to someone else’s whims on your time… that is the difference.
The opportunity costs of a great writer working in an office, or a talented musician selling burgers… that is tragic. Without a commercialized system to allow them to profit from their efforts, and to be able to spend their time doing what the do best, that too is tragic.
there are many legitimate forms of art which are simply illegal under our current copyright laws
Please cite some examples (and don’t say remix music… that is something that would be lost because there would be nothing majorly commercial to remix… remember, you have to think past the end of your nose on this stuff!)
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Without a commercialized system to allow them to profit from their efforts, and to be able to spend their time doing what the do best, that too is tragic.”
Here’s the thing though, you don’t need copyright to insure that art becomes commercialized. It will happen without intellectual property laws.
It’s just the nature of art.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
WIthout copyright, the commercialization is “wealthy patron pay for artists, hides work”. Most of the middle centuries were centered around very rich people buying, keeping, and mostly hiding talented artists, from painters to singers, from great thinkers to the court fools. There is no commercialization as we know, no resale market, no mass market. Just a single artist doing work for a single wealthy patron.
You have to remember, pure art (paintings, etc) are not the only thinks protected by IP laws. COmputer code, design, all of that. Just think, in the process of visiting this site, you are using a copyright browser, on a copyright operating system, on a computer filled with patent and copyright parts, to connect via modem with copyright and patent parts, over a network filled with the same, to connect to a computer running software that are all likely copyright in some form or another, to look at a page with copyright images, text, and all displayed by a copyright software package… The important question is “would we have all of these things without IP laws?”. Perhaps someday, but not now.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“WIthout copyright, the commercialization is “wealthy patron pay for artists, hides work”. Most of the middle centuries were centered around very rich people buying, keeping, and mostly hiding talented artists, from painters to singers, from great thinkers to the court fools. There is no commercialization as we know, no resale market, no mass market. Just a single artist doing work for a single wealthy patron.“
You’re building a straw-man argument there.
The wealthy of the middle-ages had no good channels of mass-distribution, nor a good way to monetize such if it existed.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
The wealthy of the middle-ages had no good channels of mass-distribution, nor a good way to monetize such if it existed.
There is no strawman here. One of the ways that ‘art’ in all it’s forms has rapidly advanced is the commercialization of products. it has allowed massively expensive undertakings (say designing a new car) to be spread over a large enoughgroup of buyers as to permit them to each pay a reasonable price. However if it was required that one person first buy a single car at the full cost of development, cars would not have advanced past the stages we saw in the 1900-1910 range. Widepsread distribution of product is nice, but it’s the widespread dispersal of costs over that large base that makes things really work.
With the move to “free everything”, and the idea of removing copyright, you create a system where there is little change to truly be able to disperse the costs over a wide audience. You get back to needing wealthy patrons willing to pay without the desire for return to make things operate.
So there is no strawman here, rather a suggestion to look at the true economics of a system without protections and IP rights. Mike will pipe in and say “aggregate output will go up!”, but he never wants to discuss that the output will be mostly duplication, innovation by paint color or box shape rather than true innovation where something truly new is produced. There is a significant difference between true innovation (unique new products) and close innovation (repackaging) that economics doesn’t easily seperate out. The numbers would look great for a while, but in the end, true progress would slow dramatically.
The best way to explain it is this: If copyright and patent laws were repealed in 1950s, it is very likely that we would still be watching some of the best tube based TVs in the world, enjoying out 3 network channels, and this internet thing would be right up there with other pieces of science fiction. Why would a company want to invest millions to develop a new product, only to have other mass produce it with no development costs? Yes, everyone would have the same marginal costs, but only one would have major development costs that likely would never be recovered. When investments in development stop, where would most of the developments come from? Who would move them to market? Who would take such a risk knowing they will probably lose their shirts?
The implications of removing copyright and patent protections is profound and dangerous.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“The implications of removing copyright and patent protections is profound and dangerous.”
No it isn’t. You just lack any sort of imagination or vision.
“With the move to “free everything”, and the idea of removing copyright, you create a system where there is little change to truly be able to disperse the costs over a wide audience. You get back to needing wealthy patrons willing to pay without the desire for return to make things operate.”
Or a whole bunch of non-wealthy patrons. One might call them “fans”. Stop trying to apply 16th century patronage to the 21st century.
And no, copyright won’t be abolished, too much money in it.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
So there is no strawman here, rather a suggestion to look at the true economics of a system without protections and IP rights. Mike will pipe in and say “aggregate output will go up!”, but he never wants to discuss that the output will be mostly duplication, innovation by paint color or box shape rather than true innovation where something truly new is produced. There is a significant difference between true innovation (unique new products) and close innovation (repackaging) that economics doesn’t easily seperate out. The numbers would look great for a while, but in the end, true progress would slow dramatically.
It is obvious from this comment that you have never had a creative thought yourself. Otherwise you would understand the motivation of genuine creators, which is rarely if ever focussed on financial reward but rather on the burning desire that their creation should exist.
On your model Frank Whittle would have stopped developing the jet engine shortly after he let his patent lapse – whereas in fact almost all of the development happened after that point.
And of course you forget the motivation that is responsible for funding almost all the great inventions of the 20th century : The necessities of War! (Under which intellectual property considerations have usually been shelved.)
The aircraft, the piston internal combustion engine, the jet engine, the computer, nuclear energy, the integrated circuit, the internet. All of these owe the majority of their development funding to the public purse driven by war or the threat of war.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
You need to think harder. Who paid the inventor to sit and invent? Who paid for the labs, the staff, the buildings, the prototypes? I have plenty of great ideas and I have turned many of them into money. But I am also understanding of the idea that if I have to spend all of my time earning my daily bread, I won’t spend my time coming up with the next great whatever it is.
The necessities of war? That’s just the government picking up the tab. In the end, it’s the same thing, a rich patron paid for it.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Except today, while there still exists rich patrons, there is also a class of have-a-little-money patrons who are more than happy to give a piece of their “wealth” to artists.
In aggregate. Once again, like the rich patrons of old who were fans we now have poor patrons of new who are also fans.
Artists will be fine without copyright.
It’s the middlemen who are royally fucked.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“you are using a copyright browser, on a copyright operating system”
But the ones I’m using are released under terms that allow me to redistribute and modify them, the exact things that copyright is meant to restrict.
“to look at a page with copyright images, text”
The sites I usually go to generally release their works under free licenses, or have the freely redistributable content that I came for. Techdirt is the exception to this rule as I don’t see any information on copyrights anywhere.
I’m rarely interested in what the entertainment industry churns out as they ironically just wind up copying each other most of the time.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
But the ones I’m using are released under terms that allow me to redistribute and modify them, the exact things that copyright is meant to restrict.
Sorry Lisa, but this is exactly where you are wrong.
They are still copyright, and they permit you certain types of redistribution. I would say that you might find yourself in trouble if you tried to resell them, example, or to claim them as your own.
Your assumptions of copyright as only an obstruction are just wrong. Copyright doesn’t stop creators from sharing their work for free, unless they happen to sell or transfer those rights to someone else who doesn’t allow it. There is nothing, nadda, stopping people from putting out stuff under various forms of GPL / copyleft, or whatever you prefer to call it.
Copyright isn’t mutually exclusive from sharing. The only difference is copyright enpowers the creator or rights owner to make the decision, not you. That gets to a matter of respect, something that the current online generation sorely lacks.
As for copyright images, consider this: Been to a news site recently? Visited CNN? Checked out Perez Hilton or TMZ? Perhaps checked out sports news or the latest speech from a techie guru? Guess what? All of the images you saw are copyright, potentially released under share licensing, but still licensed and copyright.
I just don’t think you realize the scope and magnatude of copyright, and how it plays in your everyday life.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“They are still copyright, and they permit you certain types of redistribution. I would say that you might find yourself in trouble if you tried to resell them, example, or to claim them as your own.”
I never claimed they weren’t copyrighted. None of the licenses restrict resale, and only a few require attribution. Thanks for ignoring my actual point though, real nice.
“As for copyright images, consider this: Been to a news site recently? Visited CNN? Checked out Perez Hilton or TMZ? Perhaps checked out sports news or the latest speech from a techie guru? Guess what? All of the images you saw are copyright, potentially released under share licensing, but still licensed and copyright.”
Again, techdirt is the only (possibly)non-shareable content I view on the net. Are you implying people who release only under freely redistributable licenses would stop doing so if all works were freely redistributable?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
As for the licenses used, their purposes are:
1. Emulate pure public domain for an individual work, requiring all derivatives to allow free use/sharing/remixing
Nothing more needs to be said on this
2. prevent plagiarism
Which copyright does not completely prevent as claiming authorship is the same as claiming copyright. What help copyright gives in combating such false claims could be had with an anti plagiarism law.
3. make the source code available
Given this is the reasoning by the free software movement(anti copyright group) and the open source movement(open is the only right way to do software) there isn’t much loss of incentive for creation here. Although there would be occasional cursing about poorly maintained documentation and the like.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
People with no unterest in protecting their works wouldn’t change with or without copyright. Claiming to change copyright to benefit them is meaningless. If they are going to give their work away all the time, copyright or no copyright is a non-issue for them.
However, it is safe to say that many of the freeniks you talk about would also scream to high hell and get a lawyer if their work product was turned into a multi million dollar business. Then they would suddenly love the effects of the automatic copyright of their work.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
I wouldn’t get a lawyer.
I would be far too busy with the unlimited creative access now available to me thanks to the destruction of copyright.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
I wouldn’t get a lawyer.
I would be far too busy with the unlimited creative access now available to me thanks to the destruction of copyright.
You sound like a hobbyist, not a professional.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Nope. I was born an artist. When I was delivered the doctor exclaimed, “Is that a pencil!”
It wasn’t but my point is simple. I am a professional. I can prove that. But even with that in mind, so what if I were only a hobbyist? Suddenly my point of view is worth less?
But seriously, a hobby?!? Ha. I wish!
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
“Claiming to change copyright to benefit them is meaningless.”
Attribution law would not be the same thing as copyright law.
“However, it is safe to say that many of the freeniks you talk about would also scream to high hell and get a lawyer if their work product was turned into a multi million dollar business.”
Most agree they’d be delighted that someone would find their work useful. And getting a lawyer would be pointless since they chose a license that explicitly allows commercial use. In fact, a good deal of them chose said licenses because they believe restricting commercial use is immoral.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
Again Lisa, sorry, but that would only happen in a fantasy world. Almost everyone without exception would flip out if the idea they gave away was taken by someone else and turned into a multi million dollar enterprise.
I think your “believe restricting commercial use is immoral” probably applies to a very, very, very small number of people. I think they are called either socialists or communists in most place.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
“Again Lisa, sorry, but that would only happen in a fantasy world. Almost everyone without exception would flip out if the idea they gave away was taken by someone else and turned into a multi million dollar enterprise.”
Why do you keep assuming that since some people flip out over that everyone would flip out? Fallacy much?
“I think your “believe restricting commercial use is immoral” probably applies to a very, very, very small number of people. I think they are called either socialists or communists in most place.”
After reading some of their blogs it seems that the issue is more about the belief that ownership should be in individual copies and not the idea itself. Nothing socialist about that.
And you keep forgetting that copyright itself is based in socialistic principles. It’s about talking ownership away from individuals to serve the common good.
the magic of creative labor
In society in general and western society especially we place a premium upon creative labor. It is almost as if we assume a type of magic exists in the creative act that elevates those who create above those who do not. While I would not take away from the prestige of the artist in general, I would argue that the remuneration requisite popular creative labor and that requisite other forms of labor is often grossly disproportionate.
We do not pay the ditch-digger a licensing fee to use the ditch, yet we are expected to pay the middlemen for use of a product which they represent. Because of the premium we place upon our entertainment the dichotomy of the millionaire movie-star or record executive juxtaposed against the poverty of the nurse’s aide or the teacher does not rankle us as it should. A great deal of the problem with copyright issues is that the artist and his work are are granted so much more prestige than those who would wipe our asses or fill our minds. Because the popular art work is given such prestige an industry arises surrounding that work to profit from it. At the root of the problem is the paradox of our values.
Re: the magic of creative labor
The sort of sentimental toss about artists that you are talking about actually comes from middlemen for whom artist: “poor helpless victim ” is an intention.
to Mike Masnick
About the same time as Thomas Macauley was writing.
A visitor to Britain, the American, Emerson also sensed the beginings of decline.
He felt that Britain was increasingly dominated by management; that Britains skills were all of ” a secondary level” that it ” seemed to exist in a kind of submind”.
He felt that too much power had created a situation in britain like :” walking on a marble floor where nothing can grow”.
Time would prove that both author’s fears were right.
Another word for corrupt is rust: all power rusts, No?
Re emerson
The quotes come from an essay by Vs Naipal “memories of a great occasion” about the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Niapal sensed back then that america too was becoming a place were nothing could grow.
Re: Re emerson "by Anonymous Coward"
Anonymous Coward.
I dont understand the emeron /naipal stuff was by me. I did not intend to put words into your mouth-
to Mike Masnick
In the essay Naipal mainly wrote about the replacement of tradional ‘open source’ political; language that is is full of recursive calls,- new uses of older formulations, by a then new proprietary-managed political speak.
Open source languages like English , art , poetry or mathematics are, because they are very recursive, not fully controllable and thus can generate the unexpected.
Hence the concern about sterility
Anonymous Coward a thought for you
the chinese have always valued performance far more than ideas.
They are I think right ideas are mostly unoriginal and any fool can copy ,ideas are cheap. Top performance takes hard work and is rare and thus valuable
ONCE AGAIN I’LL BE BLUNT BY SAYING,WHAT I CREATE THINK AND WRITE IS AN AUTOMATIC COPYRIGHT.IF SOMEONE BEING NOSY AROUND MY WORK WHEN I’VE TURNED MY HEAD FOR A SECOND OR TWO STEALS THE COPYRIGHT AND BRINGS IT SOMEWHERE ELSE,IS’NT THAT BREAKING ALL OF THE COPYRIGHT RULES THAT YOU CAN THINK OF AND,EVERY GOLDEN RULE BROKE IN THE (LAW BOOK)ITSELF?IF YOU USE SOMEONE ELSES WORK IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM YOU’VE GOT TOO CREDIT THAT PERSON WHOM YOU TOOK IT FROM OR STOLE IT FROM NO MATTER WHAT YOU MAY THINK OR SAY OR DO.THAT IS THE LAW AND NO ONE AS YOU ALL KNOW,IS ABOVE THE LAW!!!END OF STORY.PS.IT DOES’NT MATTER HOW LONG AGO IT HAPPENED THOSE INVOLVED IN BETRAYING,THAT PERSON,IN EVERYWAY THINKABLE,IS LIABLE TOO THE FACT THAT YESSS THEY DID INDEEED ABUSE AND RIP OFF AND MISLEAD,THE LAD(Lou)IN EWVERYWAY YOU CAN THINK OF.THEY OWE HIM TONS OF MONEY!!!!!TY FOR READING ON,WHAT I HAD TOO SAY ABOUT COPYRIGHT AND THE LAW ITSELF,PERTAINING TOO WRITERS AND COMPOSERS OF WORKS.
ONCE AGAIN I’LL BE BLUNT BY SAYING,WHAT I CREATE THINK AND WRITE IS AN AUTOMATIC COPYRIGHT.IF SOMEONE BEING NOSY AROUND MY WORK WHEN I’VE TURNED MY HEAD FOR A SECOND OR TWO STEALS THE COPYRIGHT AND BRINGS IT SOMEWHERE ELSE,IS’NT THAT BREAKING ALL OF THE COPYRIGHT RULES THAT YOU CAN THINK OF AND,EVERY GOLDEN RULE BROKE IN THE (LAW BOOK)ITSELF?IF YOU USE SOMEONE ELSES WORK IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM YOU’VE GOT TOO CREDIT THAT PERSON WHOM YOU TOOK IT FROM OR STOLE IT FROM NO MATTER WHAT YOU MAY THINK OR SAY OR DO.THAT IS THE LAW AND NO ONE AS YOU ALL KNOW,IS ABOVE THE LAW!!!END OF STORY.PS.IT DOES’NT MATTER HOW LONG AGO IT HAPPENED THOSE INVOLVED IN BETRAYING,THAT PERSON,IN EVERYWAY THINKABLE,IS LIABLE TOO THE FACT THAT YESSS THEY DID INDEEED ABUSE AND RIP OFF AND MISLEAD,THE LAD(Lou)IN EWVERYWAY YOU CAN THINK OF.THEY OWE HIM TONS OF MONEY!!!!!TY FOR READING ON,WHAT I HAD TOO SAY ABOUT COPYRIGHT AND THE LAW ITSELF,PERTAINING TOO WRITERS AND COMPOSERS OF WORKS.
Liked the article, and Prof Litman's proposals...
… so much I wrote a follow-up to it, which Jon Newton was kind enough to post on a2f2a.com and p2pnet…
People love to share
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/30827
http://a2f2a.com/2009/11/10/people-love-to-share
all the best
John