Jumping In On The Lessig / Adkinson Copyright Debate 163
An Anonymous Coward writes: "LawMeme has an excellent response to William F. Adkinson's critique of Larry Lessig's ideas on copyright reform. What I found most interesting about the article though, was the link to this paper by Ernest Miller (of Yale's Information Society Project) and Joan Feigenbaum (editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cryptography) that says we should take the copy out of copyright."
Copy of all three articles. (Score:2, Insightful)
My counter-critique of Adkinson below
Adkinson first takes issue with Lessig's claim that overly strong copyright threatens creativity. Indeed, Adkinson asserts Lessig's theory "is difficult to square with basic facts about the Information Age." Adkinson notes that Lessig apparently agrees with the idea that copyright can encourage creativity, and asks, if that is the case, why "Lessig is so concerned about the future of creativity?" But it is Adkinson's characterization of Lessig's argument that is difficult to square with basic facts. For Adkinson's question to be an intelligible critique of Lessig, it must be that Lessig's position is that copyright should be abandoned. This, of course, is not the case. Lessig's argument is not that copyright should be abandoned, but that there needs to be a balance. Too much copyright can harm innovation just as too little copyright can harm innovation as well. Given that copyright has continuously expanded over the past 100 years, is it unreasonable that Lessig believes the balance has shifted too far in favor of copyright holders? Adkinson would seem to be saying so.
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Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig's new book, The Future of Ideas, was recently excerpted in these pages. Lessig describes two possible futures for the Internet--one an enormous but vacuous shopping mall, the other a flowering of barely imaginable forms of creativity. He argues that through legal and technological machinations--and specifically, the over-assertion of copyright--business interests are charting a course toward the first. And he darkly warns that "the future of ideas is in the balance."
From the outset, this thesis is difficult to square with basic facts about the Information Age--particularly with the explosion in access to information made possible by the digital revolution. Indeed, Lessig approvingly quotes Judge Alex Kozinski, who has said that copyright "encourages others to build freely on the ideas that underlie" copyrighted expression. But if copyright leaves a rich public domain, why is Lessig so concerned about the future of creativity?
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Copyright is Not About Copying
Under current U.S. law and common understanding, the fundamental right granted by
copyright is the right of reproduction - of making copies. Certainly, the first
"exclusive right" granted to the owner of a copyright under Section 106 of the
Copyright Act 1 is the right to reproduce the copyrighted work "in copies or
phonorecords" or to authorize such reproduction. Indeed, the very word "copyright"
appears to signify that the right to make copies must be a fundamental part of any
system of copyright. Nevertheless, we believe that the primacy given to the right of
copying, while seemingly intuitive, is both illogical and counterproductive,
particularly when one considers its application to digital documents. We base our
analysis on both the nature and characteristics of the digital realm and on a historical
and instrumental understanding of the law of copyright.
Our examination of whether reproduction should play a central role in copyright
law is motivated in part by the question of security in digital rights management
(DRM). Many designers of DRM technology seek to enforce copyright by
controlling copying. Consequently, there is careful attention paid in the security and
cryptology literature to the question of whether such control is technologically
The problem with copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
facts, please (Score:5, Insightful)
People like Adkinson keep repeating this claim ad nauseam without any facts to back it up.
As far as I can tell, the tightening and extension of copyright law over the 20th century is correlated with a deterioration in quality art. Many of the greatest works of history were created without the benefits of copyright protection. Many great works of art would, in fact, violate copyright if today's copyright laws had been in effect at the time because they are the highly evolved end product of a long line of copies, with incremental improvements at each step. Much of creativity involves craftsmanship, and craftsmanship requires copying and recreation before creativity can be achieved.
So, some facts, please. If the government grants 100+ year monopolies to people and corporations, I'd like to see some evidence that this is beneficial to the rest of us. Because, Adkinson's ideological mumblings to the contrary, copyrights are not "property rights"--they are limited rights granted by the government only because they are beneficial to society.
The Miller article and libraries (Score:5, Insightful)
piracy is the greatest threat (Score:4, Insightful)
These producers of digital works are the greatest threat to performing artists. The ability to reproduce at minimal cost an artistic experience is an obvious threat to those who would otherwise be able to make a living at their craft - ie live performers.
Now that mass production has disenfranchised several generations of performers - their ox stands to be gored by the same technology they have used to destroy others - namely the performing artists.
So begins the funeral procession of the cheap reproducers of art - Lead by the even cheaper reproducers of art. Let the tears of irony flow like wine - let us wring our hands in pathos and mourn the passing of the unnecessary.
What the world should miss is not the Anderson accountants who would otherwise be record and movie executives - but let the world miss the Waiters and Carpenters who would otherwise be Poets and Playwrights - Violinists and Sopranos.
Re:The problem with copyright (Score:2, Insightful)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Nope
Pinocchio - Nope
Dumbo - Nope
Bambi - Nope
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad - Nope
Cinderella - Nope
Alice in Wonderland - Nope
Peter Pan - Nope
Lady and the Tramp - Nope
Sleeping Beauty - Nope
101 Dalmatians - Nope
The Sword in the Stone - Nope
The Jungle Book - Nope
The Aristocats - Yep
Robin Hood - Nope
The Many Adventures of Winnie-The-Pooh - Nope
The Rescuers - Nope
The Fox and the Hound - Nope
The Black Cauldron - Nope
The Great Mouse Detective - Nope
Oliver and Company - Not Really ("Based on Oliver Twist")
The Little Mermaid - Nope
The Rescuers Down Under - Yep (allthough it is a sequel to an "adaptation", this movie is an original story)
Beauty and the Beast - Nope
Aladdin - Nope
The Lion King - Not really
Pocahontas - Not really
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Nope
Hercules - Nope
Mulan - Not really
Tarzan - Nope
The Emperor's New Groove - Yep
Atlantis - Yep
So in 75 years of making animated features, just about every last one of them has been either based on a fairy tale, novel, or folk lore. Geez. If Disney had to be original in order to copyright their work, they would be really screwed. Of course it is okay for Disney to rip something off and call it their own. If you want to use a PVR to time shift TV shows or watch DVDs on a Linux box though, watch out, cuz that's obviously a sinny-sin-sin.
The focus on copies is about control (Score:3, Insightful)
1. They can utilize pay per view and subscription models. WIth these, the larger the catalog, the more potential dollars they make over time. --I am talking about very long periods of time.
2. They stop the consumption problem. Right now we are busy buying media both new and old that we find interesting because the two primary digital formats promise long life and high fidelity. Once the boom in old media purchases is over, they will be left with the blockbuster profits they generate with new media productions. Over the next 10 years they face quite a revenue shortage with the current media and distribution models. Look for format changes that favor them and not us. (DIVX style, or at the least copy restricted media formats worse than what we have now.) You can bet that they will push the heck out of the blue laser DVD media and correct the "mistakes" made with existing DVD media.
3. They eliminate potential competition. Anyone wanting to distribute anything will have to go through an authorized distributor. No more "Blair Witch Project" releases stealing revenue from the first-run hits. A secondary effect here is about control of speech in general. Harder to make artistic statements without distribution. All they need to is say "the market is not ready for that!" and you are done. Maybe they buy it from you, or knock it off to marginalize your work and its all over.
Personally I have little sorrow for them. I am sure profits are important, but the benefit of the emerging distributed creative culture is more important to me. As others learn, they will agree. This is a large part of why this stuff does not get a lot of mainstream press.
Maybe the above is a little alarmist, but I can find few other sane motives that explain their actions of late.....
Reinvention of the public (Score:3, Insightful)
Now the public is being reinvented again and is becoming anyone the artist or a fan of the art can communicate with. What we are seeing is not simply a war over copyright - it's a war over what the public will be and who will have the right to communicate with it. The mass media would prefer to have a public that remains large with easily controllable desires and means of distribution to it. The new public wants to control its own desires and means of distribution; it wants to be the artist, the publisher and the audience.
There can't be laws to enforce the old mass media copyrights without enforcing the old, outdated mass media model. This is not just a battle over who has the right to distribute a work but who has the right to distribute any work and who can create a public to communicate with. The performers would like to have their public to be anyone they communicate with - the mass media moguls are calling for laws against the technologies that would make this communication impossible.
You still give them the power by wanting the works (Score:2, Insightful)
If we can eliminate the attachment or wanting for these corporation's works, their power is as real as the value in a dot gone's stock options.
Think about it, if your parents wont lend you a car and you never wanted the car from the start it will not affect you that much.