Larry Lessig Challenges ASCAP Boss To A Debate Over Whether Or Not Creative Commons Undermines Copyright
from the throwdown dept
We’ve already written a couple of times about ASCAP’s bizarre anti-artist decision, as part of its fundraising campaign, to falsely imply that Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge are seeking to undermine copyright. So far, about all this has done is piss off a bunch of ASCAP members who actually like these groups (especially those who use Creative Commons). Larry Lessig has now written a response, where he points out that Creative Commons relies on copyright and doesn’t seek to force anyone to use it at all. It just offers artists more choices in how they license their music. More interesting, however, is that Lessig then challenges ASCAP’s president, Paul Williams, to a debate on the topic:
So here’s my challenge, ASCAP President Paul Williams: Let’s address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate. I’m a big fan of yours, and If you’ll grant me the permission, I’d even be willing to sing one of your songs (or not) if you’ll accept my challenge of a debate. We could ask the New York Public Library to host the event. I am willing to do whatever I can to accommodate your schedule.
Let’s meet and address these perceived differences with honesty and good faith. No doubt we have disagreements (for instance, I love rainy days, and Mondays rarely get me down). But on the issues that your organization and mine care about, there should be no difference worthy of an attack.
So, will ASCAP and Williams — who has been on an anti-Lessig rampage for a while now — step up and actually debate? And if Williams agrees to such a debate, will he finally stop making false claims about these groups?
Filed Under: copyright, debate, larry lessig, paul williams
Companies: ascap, creative commons, eff, public knowledge
Comments on “Larry Lessig Challenges ASCAP Boss To A Debate Over Whether Or Not Creative Commons Undermines Copyright”
sadly, lessig will stand up, say something about the first amendment, and pretty much nobody will listen after that.
Re: Re:
What does the first amendment have to do with the ASCAP guy accusing CC of being anti-copyright?
Re: Re:
MORON!!!
Re: Re:
Predictably, lower case coward will type something stupid.
Re: Re: Re:
What the hell is up this lower case bullshit?
It’s like you can’t see past the grammar to the actual words (this is a bad case, of course)
You idiot(s) have been hitting every case of someone missing an “I”. It really doesn’t distract from the words and at least it ISN’T IN ALL CAPS LIKE IT COULD BE.
Get over your fucking self.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Since you asked so nicely I will explain it to you. There is an AC who while refusing to adopt a name to refer to looks to identify himself/herself by only typing in lower case. Stating the comment is in lower case is something stupid is the same as saying senshikaze typed something stupid.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Be nice, now, I suspect TAM and senshikase share their single brain cell. Don’t want to hurt them, do we?
Re: Re:
Sound like a reprise of Eldred, and we all know where that went…
ASCAP are chickens
Re: BUTPLUG are cows
Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Sadly nothing, Larry Lessig is one of the best communicators when it comes to copyright law. I envision him burying Mr. ASCAP under an avalanche of facts, economic studies, and common sense pragmatism. There is no way the ASCAP folks would share a stage with him.
Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
sadly, all the studies and stuff is meaningless when it comes to this discussion, because at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system by creating doubt in the publics mind. rather than there being really one system (the art work is copyright) there are potentially many different situations. this could lead the public to make false assumptions about copyright work, or allow people to create such false assumptions by illegal adding creative commons attribution to a work.
there really isnt much for mr lessig to argue here, although i am sure that the professor could go on for hours and hours about it.
oh, mike, why did you mention that lessig is part of eff and public knowledge, yet you failed to mention that an actual poster on your site the other day was a member of the pirate party? why the difference?
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
“sadly, all the studies and stuff is meaningless when it comes to this discussion, because at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system by creating doubt in the publics mind.”
Right! Just to be sure, let’s abolish the public domain as well, in case some people get confused.
Oh, no wait. That’s not how this is supposed to work.
“oh, mike, why did you mention that lessig is part of eff and public knowledge, yet you failed to mention that an actual poster on your site the other day was a member of the pirate party? why the difference?”
And you write in all lowercase, but I don’t see Mike take jabs at how you choose to express yourself.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
sadly, all the studies and stuff is meaningless when it comes to this discussion, because at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system by creating doubt in the publics mind.
CARE TO POINT OUT THE STUDIES OR EVIDENCE THAT SHOWS THIS? OKAY, THANKS!
Re: Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
no studies required. do you know for absolutely certainly, without looking, if all of the content on your machine is copyright, creative commons, copyleft, or public domain? can you identify which is which? the only ones you could likely clearly pick out is public domain (very old) or copyright (newer). but on the newer stuff, you would be guessing. welcome to doubt. you are your own best study.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Here’s some new work in the public domain that I have on my computer.
http://www.timleeland.blogspot.com/
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Creative commons is a fairly relaxed copyright, and is a modern equivalent of what the public domain used to be before it was eradicated by copyright.
So, you got it backwards. Copyright is undermining the commons, not the other way round. It always has been.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Do you know for absolute certain that you own the copyright on something? Are you absolutely certain? Maybe you forgot that you did not or maybe the world was created in the last five minutes with all your memories in place and therefore you produced nothing, you just remember a false memory. Based on this we should just abolish copyright since you might not own anything.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
and you know, with all these corporations owning so many works it’s possible for them to sue for works they thought they owned but didn’t really own. There is a techdirt article about it, though I can’t find it. Because of this possibility we should abolish copyright law altogether according to TAM’s logic.
There is always the remote chance that the car you bought from the car dealer was stolen by the car dealer. Do you know for absolute certain it wasn’t? Lets ban car sales to prevent such a scenario.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
and lets also not forget that copyright encourages copyright trolls to sue thousands of people in an attempt to extort them out of settlement money despite the fact that many of those people didn’t infringe. Copyright should be abolished because not only might this happen, it does happen and it happens too often.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
So you solution to solving confusion is…by making the most confusing system out there the universal one?
Let’s say that I want to play music in my store, and it’s music I own. CC, Copyleft and Public Domain, assuming those are the only systems, say that I can play them publicly as freely as I want.
Copyright, apparently, says I have to pay even when I don’t play the copyrighted stuff, to multiple organizations that I may or may not know about, and I will still run the risk of being fined even if I am in compliance of everything.
If you want things to be less confusing, get rid of the copyright that requires jumping through hoops.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
“Copyright, apparently, says I have to pay even when I don’t play the copyrighted stuff, to multiple organizations that I may or may not know about, and I will still run the risk of being fined even if I am in compliance of everything.
If you want things to be less confusing, get rid of the copyright that requires jumping through hoops.”
That sentiment is being expressed more and more. It is why the usage of the Creative Commons or something like it will continue expanding. There is a confusing set of rules and self entitled organizations, their hands out stretched, reaching for your wallet. As is discussed here convinience and simplicity, oft-trumps bother and complexity. Or … in the end the simplest and cheapest system tends to win.
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
“do you know for absolutely certainly, without looking, if all of the content on your machine is copyright, creative commons, copyleft, or public domain?”
Why can’t we look? Why shouldn’t we look. What do you mean by without looking? Isn’t the whole idea behind CC for us to look?
“but on the newer stuff, you would be guessing.”
You mean if we didn’t look? Well, why wouldn’t we look? We should look for the license and if it’s CC we freely download. What’s wrong with that?
If you mean did someone falsely release it under a CC license? That causes no more confusion then the possibility that a newspaper article was copied by someone other than the copyright holder. How do I know the newspaper that I have doesn’t contain infringing content? How do I know those who sold me the newspaper or those who produced it didn’t infringe? Or any book for that matter? Do I know for certain? Without looking? If I buy a CD from the store how do I know for certain that songs from that CD don’t infringe on someone else’s work? That the people who put the CD together didn’t infringe? How do I know with absolute certainty that any content I receive is properly authorized and that the entity that created and later sold it didn’t in fact infringe? With this logic I should never buy newspapers, books, magazines, music; all of this should be banned because in all of these instances there is the potential that someone might sell me something against the will of the true copyright holder.
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
than *
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Actually, I can. I basically have two copyright folders(movies, music) and the rest of my entire hard drive (minus the nvidia drivers) are copyleft.
Thanks, for playing, though!
Re: Re: Re:2 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Baby talk time.
“no studies required. do you know for absolutely certainly, without looking, if all of the content on your machine is copyright, creative commons, copyleft, or public domain? “
Now sit down and listen. No talking and no picking your nose.
Copyright is copyright, creative commons a license of copyright material, “copyleft” (assuming you mean GPL and other assorted open source licenses) is a licence on copyright material and public domain (say the works of Aristotle or The Gospel of Mark) is the public domain.
Creative Commons and “copyleft” are licenses stating the terms that one can use the copyright material legally. Nothing more and nothing less. “Commercial” copyright can do the same thing while often charging exorbitant fees. It’s all copyright.
Please be prepared to include this on your essay of “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” to enlighten and amuse the rest of your remedial Grade 3 class.
Now you can pick your nose and chew it.
Dismissed!
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Incidentally, because it’s all copyright no one need bother to identify those things other than common sense of what does or doesn’t fall into the public domain.
Now, get out of the cat litter because the sandbox is over there!
Re: Re: Re:3 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
> Copyright is copyright
Not quite.
Works that are Copyleft don’t come with a pack of vicious attack dogs. That’s a very important distinction. It also leads to some serious practical benefits for more functional works.
Something with Flint’s name on it is very different than something with Ellison’s name on it.
This is why ASCAP is scared and warming up the FUD machine.
People (and even artists) might decide to choose the lower BS alternative.
Re: Re: Re:4 Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Actually copyright IS copyright.
“Works that are Copyleft don’t come with a pack of vicious attack dogs. That’s a very important distinction. It also leads to some serious practical benefits for more functional works.”
The GPL has a legal folks who enforce the license and the copyright on the software code itself and it’s batting something like 1.000 doing that.
I’m also hard pressed to say the work licensed as open source or Creative Commons et cetera isn’t functional or, somehow, is less functional than other licenses. That’s value judgement and you’re as free as I am to make that judgement.
Neither of us, however, is entitled to say that the copyright on that material is somehow less enforceable because it’s licensed as something other than a traditional commercial license.
Now, then, you’ll be staying after class for a week!
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
It’s posts like this that convince me that IP laws are nefarious and aren’t intended to promote the progress at all. They’re only intended to hinder progress and that’s exactly what they do.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
“Predictably, lower case coward will type something stupid.”
I knew it – heh.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
sadly, all the studies and stuff is meaningless when it comes to this discussion, because at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system by creating doubt in the publics mind.
Wow. Statements like have convinced me that copyright supporters are a bunch of lying scoundrels and the best thing we could do would be to just get rid of copyrights completely. The sooner the better.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
oh, mike, why did you mention that lessig is part of eff and public knowledge
Um. I didn’t.
Reading comprehension is a really wonderful thing. You should try it sometime.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system by creating doubt in the publics mind.
Well, they certainly created doubt in your mind – since you can’t grasp that Creative Commons, copyleft, GPL, and so on are all forms of copyright.
The notion that copyright ever was about “there being really one system” is utterly ridiculous.
this could lead the public to make false assumptions about copyright work, or allow people to create such false assumptions by illegal adding creative commons attribution to a work.
I have no idea what “false assumptions” you think the existence of a legitimate form of copyright could give to the public. It might get them to think about the issue though, and I’m betting that’s what you don’t want to happen.
And CC does not allow people to “create such false assumptions by illegal [sic] adding creative commons attribution to a work.” If you are the rights holder, adding a CC license is not “illegal” in any way. If you aren’t the rights holder, putting a CC license on that work is just like any other form of copyfraud.
Clearly, what you’re against is for copyright holders to license their “intellectual property” in any way that you don’t approve of.
Re: Re: Re: Fundementally opposed objectives.
Copyleft and Copyright are philosphically at odds with each other. One encourages sharing and dissemination while the other tends to be championed those who want to sue anyone that isn’t paying.
The FSF in particular is very open in their disdain for Copyright and their interest in using the system against itself.
The Creative Commons of course is far less extreme. However, they too seem to understand that the point of any published work is to be published as widely as possible.
Propagation is more important than payment.
Re: Re: Re:2 Fundementally opposed objectives.
Copyleft and Copyright are philosphically at odds with each other.
No, copyleft relies on copyright:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
The FSF recognizes that the public domain (the opposite of copyright, if you will) doesn’t accomplish all their goals.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
sadly, all the studies and stuff is meaningless when it comes to this discussion, because at the end of the day, creative commons, copyleft, and other systems do in fact undermine the copyright system
and that is a good thing because copyright is evil.
“Be not overcome of evil – but overcome evil with good”.
Re: Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
What I mean of course is that if (as you say) copyright is undermined by people doing things that are good then copyright must therefore be the opposite of good – ie evil.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
Speed limits are confusing. There should only be one speed limit.
Re: Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
It should be at least +95mph.
Re: Re: Lessig would wipe the floor with him
“oh, mike, why did you mention that lessig is part of eff and public knowledge”
Just curious where this occurs – perhaps you could point out where Mike does this?
After you read the article 3-4 times – just stop and save yourself some time – it’s not there.
I rarely agree with your comments but this one is just a flat out lie and accusation. Please go “cry wolf” elsewhere.
Are elections soon?
Because if they are near, you can bet the RIAA scum will not debate anything in public.
Just like the French politicians scum passed a draconian law and now are backtracking because of the public reaction. They want to be re-elected.
What I find amusing is that France can end up like Japan.
Japan passed some pretty impressive laws and all that talk, but nobody noticed the lack of “punishment” clauses on the law, it just say it is illegal, but the courts basically can’t punish anyone caught.
The U.S. pushes and people go around them.
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Elections are in November I believe. These are for seats in Congress. I believe there will be a huge ramping up of money spent in September for the seats.
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The best politicians that money can buy
if the debate is in america all you have to do is say its socialism and you win the argument.
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“if the debate is in america all you have to do is say its socialism and you win the argument.”
… if you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.
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“if the debate is in america all you have to do is say its socialism and you win the argument.”
Really? If that were true America(capital A), would not presently be sliding toward an Authoritarian Government, a Constitution without meaning and a crushing debt that will collapse the economy and the USA.
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Mentioning socialism is different than its actual implementation. Most Americans probably don’t know what socialism is, they just think to react negatively whenever they hear the word.
A link for the French political landscape right now, what is not in there is the part about how France can gut 3 strikes by not having harsh punishment and some music exec complaining.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89860/french-ump-members-having-second-thoughts-on-three-strikes/
Not to mention the bribe scandal of the chihuahua they call president.
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I always thought he was more of a poodle, actually.
ASCAP’s strategy was to keep the existing copy protection laws by saying that CC shouldn’t be allowed and when challenged, to “compromise” by accepting the existing laws instead. That way they can claim to be a compromising group and argue that those who want the current laws changed are the uncompromising ones.
my comment
+100 insightful
ASCAP. Assholes Still Complain About Profits.
"Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
too bad techdirt is not a forum for addressing “our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate.”
Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
This thread is case in point. Totally meaningless posts on a good source for debate. Ever wonder why Lessing does not post here Mike ?
Moderate and Facilitate Mike ,, and you will get more “quality debate”,,— and more good traffic & ad clicks .
———–
I really do not understand why you Mike let threads here fall into the gutter. How does that help a good public policy debate? What purpose does it serve? Entertainment for posters?
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
If you think you can do better then start your own blog.
Re: Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
“If you think you can do better then start your own blog.”
I did ten years ago- still active — see my profile..
but I just do not have the time in life to accept and moderate comments there ,, other then comment by email– please do comment of you wish. If it is worthwhile I post and reply
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
and there is a lot of reasonable debate on these forums. Sure, there is a lot of name calling, personal attacks, etc… but none of that negates the good discussions. Even you come here and I imagine you benefit from the discussions as well.
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
“I really do not understand why you Mike let threads here fall into the gutter. How does that help a good public policy debate? What purpose does it serve? Entertainment for posters?”
Free speech is such a pain in the ass isn’t it?
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
If you don’t like it here, please go somewhere else. Send Mike a message, tell him why you don’t like his site and then leave and never come back. By continuing to visit the site and post in the forums, you’re really showing him you like Techdirt.
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
I really do not understand why you Mike let threads here fall into the gutter.
Say, aren’t you the one who screams “WRONG!” whenever someone cites a fact you don’t like, accuses rational debaters of using “pirate logic,” and told me I’m not a “real musician” because I don’t believe in strict copyright laws?
I guess what you’re saying is that Mike should ban you. Personally I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s his call.
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
Wow, you really raped Mike there.
Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
Point again — 5 meaningless replies
Re: Re: Re: "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
Mr. Williams chose some rather inarticulate language, as perhaps was done by Mr. Israelite from the NMPA.
Mr. Israelites recent speech identified 10 specific areas where the believes that certain of these groups are engaged in activities that in his view are inconsistent with current US law.
Clearly the EFF, CC, PK and other similar groups are not anti-copyright per se. Equally clearly, however, is that their views are based upon a philosphy that bumps up against the philosophy held by at least the ASCAP and the NMPA. EFF et al. place a very heavy emphasis on the First Amendment, but in doing so are out on a limb given that the Supreme Court has decided their view of copyright law advocates a position regarding fair use that would swallow up copyright law as a whole and render in many respects the remaining portions of copyright law superfluous.
Re: Re: Re:2 "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
better
Re: Re: Re:2 "Let's address our differences the way decent souls do. In a debate."
Mr. Israelites recent speech identified 10 specific areas where [he] believes that certain of these groups are engaged in activities that in his view are inconsistent with current US law.
He never claimed they were “engaged in activities” outside the current law. He claimed that they held positions that were “radically” outside current US law. Most of those positions are not all that radical, a few are actually law right now, and the rest he misrepresents.
Techdirt has a detailed article about it here.
He does not mention Creative Commons, by the way.
the Supreme Court has decided their view of copyright law advocates a position regarding fair use that would swallow up copyright law as a whole and render in many respects the remaining portions of copyright law superfluous.
Can you tell me precisely where the Supreme Court said anything even remotely close to this?
I'd love to see this debate too...
Folks like the ASCAP guys are really interested in protecting a system that gives them negotiating advantages through its very opaqueness. I’d like to see them defend this aspect of it.
The beauty of Creative Commons (though I’d consider it to be incomplete in its current form) is that it rejects opacity in favor of simplicity and the ability to be understood by lay people. Last time I heard people from ASCAP and RIAA try to defend their existing systems (against the chief counsel of YouTube on a panel discussion a few months ago), they hurt their own cause by failing to agree amongst themselves on arcana such as when a server cache copy requires a license.
The average content creator neither knows nor cares about such things – she just wants to get paid. Systems that survive on inertia and inscrutability are always ripe for replacement by more efficient and transparent alternatives to which people can gravitate. Unfortunately, the EFF’s proposed idea of a “voluntary Internet tax” fails most of these criteria (in addition to being both commercially unworkable and oxymoronic).
Still, I’d love to see this debate.
Re: I'd love to see this debate too...
Leaving the EFF proposal aside for the moment as we both agree that it’s unworkable let’s go onto the idea of a debate.
It’s long past due that folks like Paul Williams actually did defend their positions in a debate with Lessig. It might actually come to Mr Williams mind that he’s very wrong in his statements about this. Or he may be put in the position of having to admit that what he’s talking about is a perceived threat to ASCAP’s money collection machine though I’m not sure that’s demonstrated anywhere.
It’s getting sadder to see so much confusion over what copyright is and what licensing is which is the source of Mr William’s agrument and not copyright itself.
Of course, I’m expecting a bit much from such a pedestrian composer who certainly never borrowed as much as a riff from another composition or from the public domain.
“falsely imply that Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge are seeking to undermine copyright.”
Those two links are the same. I think you meant your first link to link to the first article, not the second one.
Paul Williams Is Not the Person to Debate
I’m an ex-employee of ASCAP (laid off after 20 years) and I can tell you that Williams is not the person to debate. Lessig should debate either ASCAP’s CEO, John Lo Frumento, who’s glib, but basically a numbers guy who doesn’t really know that much other than to cut staff and expenses or Vincent Candilora, the former CEO of SESAC who has been ASCAP’s Director of Licensing since 1995 and, when I knew him, a man more addicted to his nicotine habit than to dealing with the people who worked for him. Lessig would wipe the floor with either one of them.
Re: Paul Williams Is Not the Person to Debate
He’s not looking for someone to wipe the floor with, he’s looking for the best, most articate, most well-informed reperesentative possible from the ASCAP. He doesn’t want a PR win, he wants to convince people that CC is consistent with and supportive of artists’ rights. It wouldn’t be very convincing if he won a debate against someone “who doesn’t really know that much other than to cut staff and expenses”.