U.S. Copyright Lobby Out of Touch 293
Ontheright writes "The BBC is featuring a story on
how the U.S. copyright lobby is increasingly out of touch with the rest of the world. The article focuses on a recent report designed to highlight the inadequacies of IP protection around the world by arguing for a global expansion of the DMCA and elimination of copyright exceptions. Michael Geist penned the article, which specifically calls out the United States for expecting the world at large to adopt its non-standard standards for copyright law."
They aren't out of touch, they're out of time... (Score:5, Interesting)
For 200 years, copyright was considered the only way to protect your creations, but what came out of copyright is the worst-case scenario for amateur artists: instead of copyright protecting your creations, it only protected the monopoly networks of distribution, what I would call distribution cartels.
Now, 200 years later, we have a majority of opinion that believes that people wouldn't create if their intellectual property wasn't protected. But this isn't true. I created the Global Unanimocracy Network"> [unanimocracy.com] of blogs and forums in order to prove that you could generate an income for your talents without the need for copyright. All my writings are now public domain -- I freely encourage others to copy my writings and posts and repost them under their own name, on their own sites, for their own income. Why? Because it generates interest in the niche topics I cover, and eventually people find their way to my site. I make a decent income through advertising and individual support for my future writings. People pay me so that I will write more in the future. Even better, my network of blogs has also gotten me writing gigs for other sites that pay me to write content for them in a "ghost writing" type of deal.
If you are a musician, you have two options: record a record and use it as marketing to get people to your shows (as my brother's band Maps & Atlases [maps-atlases.com] has done), or go and get a job as a studio musician creating music for commercial ventures (movies, TV shows, muzak, etc). The idea that you can spend 2 weeks or 2 years creating one record and then reap 70 years of income is ridiculous. Does a plumber go to school for 2 years to learn how to fix toilets only to get paid for 70 years whenever you flush that toilet? No, they continue to work. Does an architect spend 2 years designing plans only to get paid forever by those who live or use the building that came forth from the plans? No, they keep designing. Artists are no different -- they should continue their labors in order to continue to reap incomes.
Right now, copyright has placed in the hands of powerful mercantilists the monopoly of distribution. The FCC decides who can transmit over public airwaves, and this blocks amateurs from the airwaves. Yet those days are coming to an end as the airwaves are growing less important as the Internet is available in more and more places (for example, I have a consistent WiFi connection to the net in my car at about 200kbps via T-Mobile's EDGE network). As the Internet finds its way to more parts of the country and the world, the public airwaves will be less utilized and way less efficient. The copyright lobby knows this, and they're trying hard to restrict future growth in "piracy" and non-licensed distributors. Yet for amateur artists, the non-licensed distributors are the best way to get the word out about their real product: continued labor to make new and unique art.
A friend's band, 38 Acres [38acres.com], now tells their audience and online visitors to freely copy their albums for friends. They make a decent income selling unique performances, and they also make an income selling their T-shirts and hats and posters. People who "pirated" t
Re:Non-Standard? (Score:2, Interesting)
In Europe ages ago, they also used all sorts of funky units. But you know what? at some point people figured out there was something better than guilds and pounds, invented something better and moved on. The US however, once a country driven by ideals and new things, has since stopped evolving and insist on clinging onto how things once were. It's definitely not a new thing too, and there are plenty of signs that Americans just refuses to be part of the future in many areas: refusal to go metric is an obvious one, but also the scary religious revival, insistance on using fossil fuels for energy and nothing else,...
In short: you'll see the US patent system change when you see the US going metric. Ain't happening anytime soon...
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite true (Score:2, Interesting)
We need:
- Compulsory licencing (it's not like anyone has any real choice in whether files are copied anyway).
- Some mechanism whereby creators are compensated for each copy.
- A distinction between large scale commercial copying and small scale private copying.
- Extra consumer rights for copying of pout of print works.
This is actually a pretty corporate biased set of rules, and there would be practical problems. Many people will object to paying a fee per commercial download, even if the privacy and owner identification issues are solved. But I submit this as a starting point. It does allow consumers to have large scale access to a vast collection of works, and ensure compensation for creators."Free" Market (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing free about our market. Our trade agreements are not free either. Both are loaded with protections for business in the form of restrictions in copyright, intellectual property, and patent laws.
A truly free market would have none of these protections in place. True free market agreements would also not have these protections.
In the end, we just have a normal market. And those are just normal trade agreements.
Re:Non-Standard? (Score:3, Interesting)
And don't think I'm some wishy-washy 67 yr old timer looking back at yesteryear. I'm 25 for crying out loud. I've been in various business of various shapes and while they weren't bad places to work, they did seem to desire the allure of status over the pride of accomplishment way too much.
Look at the CPU wars for instance. It's not about what you actually need, it's about what they *want* you to need. When you start devoting your entire career towards making people think they need your product, as opposed to actually needing it, you lose track with reality and stop earning an honest living. At the end of the day you didn't advance science, or cure the next disease. You just sold millions of power sucking really fast processors to people who won't even use 10% of the potential [well I guess that's where Vista falls in]
Tom
Why is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
A corporation exists to make money. The method of making money can vary, but in this case we are talking about catering to a consumer trading money for something. Ultimately, they don't particularly care about the consumer, just maximizing profits, granted, there are corporations who have found a business model where being customer friendly DOES maximize profit, but the point is still profit.
I never understand why this surprises people.
A corporation uses any method it can to garner the maximum income for the investments they make, the only real differences are how far the people controlling the corp are willing to go and what techniques they are willing to use to get there. But there is no difference between EMI, Sony, Microsoft, General Motors or anyone else.
That said, if you, as a creator, don't want to turn over your copyrights to some big corporation because you aren't interested in the way they do business, or their logo suck, or you want a bigger cut,then don't sign. You are under no obligation to market your work to them. There are other outlets that bypass that distribution system, and, with a lot of luck, you will make money on your work.
The other side of the coin is if anyone creates a work, it's theirs, not you the consumer. If you purchase a song, a book, a bit of art, or a software product, you understand you are purchasing it for your use under certain conditions of the sale. If you don't like those conditions, dont buy it. If enough people don't buy becasue of the conditions of the sale (Like they don't like the DRM restrictions, for example) the system will change. You have the right to NOT enter into an agreement with the owner of the work, simply don't purchase.
If we were talking about "Air", "Water", Medical services, Broadband, you know, the things that you HAVE to have to survive, it'd be different, you don't have a choice, but we are talking about music - you Have a choice, and frankly, the new stuff the major lables are churning out isn't worth buying anyway, if everyone would stop buying that crap, we'd fix it all in one shot, get good music and get it on the terms we want.
Not really... (Score:4, Interesting)
This really isn't a case of "do what I say, not what I do" -- the RIAA (for one) is actively campaigning against fair use in the US as well. They are, if nothing else, consistent.
Re:Why is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong.
EMI, Warner, Sony, the RIAA, and the other components of the music and recording industry are shielded from certain anti-trust provisions by 17 USC 114(e)(1). That makes them different, and they should be held to a different standard on their pricing and behavior. Otherwise, the exemption should be removed.
If you purchase a song, a book, a bit of art, or a software product, you understand you are purchasing it for your use under certain conditions of the sale.
Again, this requires full disclosure, which is not always in existence. Sony did not disclose that it was putting auto-installing software on CDs to prevent copying, so that decision could not be made. They got caught, and paid a financial price for it, but that behavior is not acceptable. It is the same reason that some shiny discs that operate in CD players are not technially CDs, because they do not meet the standards of the format. (That is disclosed because they cannot place the "Compact Disc" logo on the package). Software licenses and not being able to read them before opening a package are also an issue that has made it to the courts because it produces an imbalance of information and ability to make good decisions.
You have the right to NOT enter into an agreement with the owner of the work, simply don't purchase.
That is true, and it is why I only purchase music on CD.
However, let's look at this from a slightly wider perspective. The contract society originally entered into with copyrights was to provide a monopoly to the owner (either the creator or an assignee), for a limited time. There are items that balance out that monopoly power:
- In 17 USC 109, which codified the doctrine of first sale. This allows me to resell a book without the permission of the copyright holder
- In 17 USC 107, fair use
- In the expiration of copyrights
What licensing attempts to do - and what DRM enforces - is leveraging technology to impose a contract which curtails my rights which are part of the social contract enshrined in Title 17 (Copyrights). My issues with the limitations imposed by today's DRM systems are that:
- DRM strips me of my rights under 17 USC 109 (they should not be able to claim copying digital bits is a violation of their copyright while avoiding the ability of me to transfer that copy legally under 17 USC 109(a))
- DRM strips me of any fair use rights under 17 USC 107
- DRM strips me of any ability to have the work beyond the copyright period (since there are no provisions for removing DRM)
DRM today eliminates my rights by leveraging the monopoly granted to them by the copyright act. As far as I'm concerned, that's a violation of the social contract in the copyright act, and if they wish to use DRM, then they should be able to do so, but their work should no longer be protected by the US Copyright Act or the Berne Convention. If any party is capable of subverting the limitations imposed on them when society came to agreement on the terms, then they should also lose the benefits.
Double standard (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They aren't out of touch, they're out of time.. (Score:3, Interesting)
You might want to read Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture [free-culture.cc]. (It's even downloadable for free.) In it, he gives a number of scenarios where highly restrictive copyright laws, combined with the fact that there is no central registry by which one can determine what works are copyrighted any by whom, do inhibit creators from creating content.
This is the most insightful work I've read yet on the problems of modern copyright.
Why does the RIAA hate America? (Score:3, Interesting)
-- SomPost
Re:They aren't out of touch, they're out of time.. (Score:3, Interesting)
So the history of copyright begins, not with aiding publishers and rewarding creativity, but with controlling access to already existing information. Keep this in mind when you discuss copyright law: controlling access is its primary purpose. There can be benefits to this, to protect trade secrets and to reward authors, but its fundamental nature is to prevent access to information.
Re:They aren't out of touch, they're out of time.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The term "intellectual property" needs to die as it is most often used in an inherently meaningless and contradictory way. Copyright, Trademarks and Patents all exist for different reasons and empower producers and consumers in different ways. Co-opting the emotional rhetoric of the civil/black/womens rights movements 'Give us our rights, our intellectual property rights!!' is a means of obfucation and extortion as it intentionally clouds the issue with hysteria which obstructs reasoned analysis.
Looking at the demands of the media cartels in the cold light of day, one can only conclude they are demanding enslavement and mandatory serfdom. They demand a fascist, feudal world where the all property is owned by a single entity ( the media companies ), and people own nothing - not the devices they buy ( thanks to the DMCA 'circumvention technology' agenda ), nor the original content they produce ( thanks to the guilty-till-proven-innocent part of the DMCA that allows any website/content to be taken down, how can an independent artist afford to prove they own their content in court when facing down the MPAA/RIAA/BSA? ).
The current copyright regime in the US is illegal and unconstitutional - how does 'for limited times' mesh with DMCA/DRM that makes 'copy-protected' content illegal to access forever? ).
The current patent regime in the US is so riddled with blatant fraud that it is also broken. Patents taken out when prior art clearly exists, or when 'obviousness' of the invention is unquestionable is common fraud.
The current trademark regime in the US is also pretty busted. In a court of law we have seen the 'Lindash' trademark ruled to be 'confusingly similar' to the 'Microsoft Windows' trademark. Its subject to all the bribes and corruption of patents and copyright, and is broken for the same reasons by the same groups of felons - Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and others.
Its a state of anarchy, looting and pillaging by corporates & conglomerates who will not follow the law.