World Copyright Summit and the Lies of the Copyright Industry 423
Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has an incredibly in-depth look at two presentations in particular from the recent CISAC world copyright summit. Rep. Robert Wexler and Senator Orrin Hatch both gave deeply troubling presentations calling opponents of stronger copyright "liars" and suggesting that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works, respectively. "Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called 'creative class' which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this 'great story?' Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the 'great story' is one that suppresses the rights of everyday users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again — and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up? "
Re:There is no debate (Score:1, Informative)
"If you accept to be ruled does it really matter how?"
Umm - yes?!?!?!
I remember nine years ago, people blathering on about how George Bush and Al Gore were hardly distinguishable and it made no difference.
A terrorist attack, two and a half wars, with eight years of dark age science, torture, and pissing on the Constitution later, I've come to the conclusion the 'How' makes a difference.
Sure opinions are like assholes. Oddly enough it turns out informed opinions are as rare as informed assholes.
Pug
Re:There is no debate (Score:5, Informative)
We're talking about restrictions on free speech.
No, we don't. We are talking about, whether creators -- of movies, music, literature, software, fashion designs -- have the inherent rights to control their creations, or whether whoever happens to be able to copy their work has the same rights to it as the creator.
No, the earlier poster is correct. Everyone has an inherent right to make, distribute, etc. copies of works, whether they created those works or not. This is a matter of freedom of speech. It's the reason why, for example, you have the right to recite Shakespeare in public, even though you are probably not Shakespeare. During the term of copyright, the public willingly surrenders a portion of their right to make use of the work of the author as part of a scheme to derive a greater public benefit than the public harm caused by suffering such restrictions. When the copyright expires, the author loses his right to prohibit other people from making use of the work, though he retains his natural right to use the work himself. This is why we talk about copyright as an exclusive right -- i.e. a right granted to the author to exclude others from doing certain things with the work -- and why when copyright expires, no rights in the work are, or need to be, granted to the public. The public has always been possessed of rights in the work, and upon the expiration of the copyright, the public is once again free to exercise those inherent rights.
What's not an inherent right is copyright. Authors have an inherent right as to whether or not to create a work to begin with, and they have an inherent right as to whether or not to reveal that work to anyone else, or to hide or destroy it. No one is suggesting that authors be compelled to create or compelled to publish. However, copyright is the right to prohibit the public from making, distributing copies, etc. with regard to works that members of the public have managed to obtain copies of, most often by publishing. The right to prohibit other people from, e.g. reciting Shakespeare, is certainly not anyone's inherent right! And as it is impossible to reconcile the idea with the much more reasonable idea that people do have an inherent (but not inalienable) right to recite Shakespeare, or whatever else, it's clear that this nonsense about inherent rights of authors to censor the rest of the public is absolute tripe.
I'm also rather surprised by the specific language you used. Movies, music, literature, software -- these are not unusual. But in the US at least, there is no copyright for fashion designs. Copyright in pictorial, graphic or sculptural works (such as clothing) can only subsist where the work is separable from any parts which have utility. (The idea, basically, is to avoid having people use copyright when they ought to be using patents) This just isn't the case for clothing, and it's long settled that this is so. Nor is there any need for copyright in the field of clothing design; copyright exists for utilitarian purposes, i.e. to encourage authors to create and publish new original and derivative works, while minimally protecting those works in both scope and duration of protection. That is, copyright exists to get the most stuff in the public domain fastest, with as little copyright as possible along the way. The field of clothing is terribly healthy without copyright. Many new works of fashion design are made all the time. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that there would be a substantial increase in the number of works if copyright were granted. In fact, there is an excellent reason to believe that there would be far fewer, as unauthorized derivatives would not be as common. Further, rent-seeking behavior amongst monopolists being what it is, the public would likely lose access to cheap copies of the designs. There is simply no public benefit _at all_ for copyrighted fashion design. So I'm wondering, why did you mention it?
Long story short, you seem to be quite backwards on this matter. You might want to read up on the utilitarian basis of copyright law, and the actual laws on the books.
Re:dead simple (Score:2, Informative)
The way for musicians to make money is concerts.
This is actually how they are earning their money today. Musicians don't earn much from CD sales, really.
This can be generalized to all artists, and also craftsmen and the like, fairly easily: money comes from exhibitions and orders.
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Informative)
no, that's not entirely true. The actual story is far more releveant though.
A local doctor, who fancied himself an amateur mathematician 'invented' some proof regarding circles which also dropped out the value of pi as exactly 3.25. He they passed this to a friend in the state legislature and got it written into a bill, such that Indiana would have free use of his proof in school textbooks, etc., in exchange for protecting his 'invention' against other people ripping it off. The lower house pushed it around a few committees (who pushed it to other committees, wondering why it had come to them) before passing the lower house fairly overwhelmingly - many members commenting how they didn't understand it, but that if he was willing to let them use it for free, they were all for it. In the upper house, it passed its first reading and got packed off to some more committees. At that point, a professor of mathematics, who happened to be visiting to lobby for university funding, got wind of this bill; looked at it, picked his jaw back up from the floor, and promptly briefed a bunch of the state senators on what they needed to know about it. The bill was torn apart on its second reading in the upper house, then quietly forgotten.
Re:There is no debate (Score:4, Informative)
There are two balanced rights. You only listed one. Here they are, together (this phrasing taken from the two parts of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights):
(1) "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."
(2) "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
Sure, you can say that one particular implementation of part 2 (i.e. copyright) is not an inherent right. But part 2 itself is the fundamental inherent right which we have to figure out how to implement.
This is a math problem (Score:2, Informative)
And apparently a distinguished mathematician has done the math [rufuspollock.org]. Benefits are optimized at about fifteen years
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Informative)
Did I say he should? Mighty nice strawman you've tried to build there friend. It'd be a shame if some flames hit it and burnt it all up. Perhaps you want to go back and read the complete thread before attempting to put words in someone's mouth again.
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. Free speech is an inherent right. The First Amendment does not grant it, but forbids Congress to restrict it.
That depends a lot on your definition of inherent. The authors of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that all people (with varying definitions of "people") should have certain rights that the government could not take away. Either these rules apply only to the government, and any other person can take away your rights, or the government must enforce rules to prevent others from taking away your rights. If it's the latter, then those rights don't really exist without government. If it's the former, the only inherent rights you have are those that you can prevent others from taking away from you, either by fighting off aggressors or evading them.
Re:There is no debate (Score:4, Informative)
Care you share your reasoning? Or is this "belief" in the religious sense?
Half-and-half, or thereabouts. Prior to the establishment of modern copyright,* creators suffered pretty badly. The Statute of Anne makes a note of this as preamble. Although lawsuits, legislation, and Irish book piracy ran wild for the next century, a lot more authors got paid and a lot more books got writ. Based on this, I conclude that copyright works - at least somewhat.
The faith end of things is a general belief in property as a viable concept applied to a belief in the work ethic. A writer, like a carpenter, deserves a day's pay for a day's work.** As noted above, copyright is the only method we've used that's even been marginally successful at achieving that. While intellectual property may not be an inescapable conclusion of those premises, it's the only one I've got.
* That is, a limited, protected copyright granted to the author.
** Yeah, I'm ignoring a lot of nuance, such as what a bad author or carpenter deserve, but I don't want to start a discourse on the work ethic. I'll note that artistry is (generally), and I think should be, a meritocratic vocation.
Re:dead simple (Score:2, Informative)
TV shows: I don't see Bloomberg news or reality TV having profit issues. Bad sitcoms spoon fed through government mandated monopolies are having a rough time of it.
Books: Anyone can write anything anywhere that everyone everywhere can read all instantly, why should anyone be paid for doing what anyone can do from the smallest child to the oldest altzheimers victim. A timely analysis of a situation is another thing altogether, I would pay for information before others have received it.
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There is no debate (Score:2, Informative)
Facts aren't copyrightable; works of authorship are. The law in this area is pretty well-settled. The original poster wasn't saying no one should be able to use his work in new ways -- only that he thinks it is fitting that he should retain the right to control who publishes it. Your reply does not address this point.
Re:There is no debate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:dead simple (Score:3, Informative)
Now that's irony.
Re:dead simple (Score:2, Informative)
They're no different than the rest.
Actors are paid to perform, they don't earn money afterwards depending on the sales of their film. The same principle, being paid for the work rather than for the benefits earned through distributing the work, is already applied to certain programmers and book writers.
This falls into what I called "orders".
Also, cinema can be considered an exhibition for film producers.
The ones that get hurt by lack of copyright are not the artists, it is the distributors.
Internet already killed distribution networks anyway.
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Informative)
Shakespeares plays were being played by 2 bit actors in small theaters within days of the opening of the play.
Many times a Song or a play were transcribed by people in the stands and available and being performed by others almost as fast as we can do it today.
This has happened forever, and will continue to happen forever. You cant stop it.
Re:There is no debate (Score:4, Informative)
The problem we're having now is that the massive extensions to copyright terms mean that the writer is getting decades of pay for his day's work (ok, so you can't write a book in a day, but you get my point).
Sure, I support lowering the protection period. I also support eliminating laws against circumvention and reverse engineering. I highly support civil procedure reform to prevent the thuggish tactics so popular with IP attorneys (or at least I'd like to see these mass-threat tactics treated as the barratry they are).
But I won't advocate eliminating copyright. I like copyright; it's put food on my table.