Lessig's "In Defense of Piracy"

chromakey writes "The Wall Street Journal is running an essay from Lawrence Lessig about the fair use of copyrighted material on the Internet. He makes the case that companies who go to extreme lengths to squash minor videos, such as Universal, are stifling creativity in the modern era. Lessig makes specific reference to a YouTube video that was hit by a DMCA takedown notice, in which a 13-month-old child is dancing to a nearly inaudible soundtrack of Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy.' Lawrence Lessig is a board member for the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

Should be happy.

They should be happy they weren't charged for child pornography because of the dancing child. Somebody didn't think of the children?

Re:Should be happy.

Stop thinking about the children, you pedophile!

Re:My piracy experiment on Slashdot

The GPL is a form of copyright licensing that attempts to enforce certain usage restrictions/requirements. I don't understand why you think the GPL would be unnecessary if we didn't have copyright. The purpose of the GPL is to ensure that changes made to something are returned to everybody, and without copyright, there would be no reason to follow the license and distribute any changes made. The GPL doesn't exist as a reaction to copyright; it requires copyright to have any power.

What's particularly interesting...

Is that this was written by Thomas Jefferson, and Lessig just republished it under his name. Yes, Thomas Jefferson knew about YouTube 200 years before it was invented.

Wrong Thomas

It was actually Thomas McCauley [baens-universe.com] in 1841.

And yes, he considered these issues and came to the same conclusions as Mr. Lessig over 150 years ago.

Maybe we should just do away with copyright [abolishcopyright.com]. That would solve this problem permanently without consuming the precious resources of the courts.

Lessig still defends copyright

Even though Lessig wants to change the length of copyright and ensure fair use, he still believes that the concept should be enshrined in law. That makes his status as a hero here on Slashdot odd, because many posters here have claimed that copyright is simply no longer a valid concept at all in the digital era.

Re:Lessig still defends copyright

The obvious point is that he is still championing change, while most of us just sit on our butts and complain. Regardless of our views on just how much more change should be ushered in, you have to respect his efforts.

As a sidenote, my captcha is 'copying'.

Re:Lessig still defends copyright

Why, it's almost as if there's a spectrum of opinions on /. from disparate individuals that are merely communicating in a shared forum!

Re:Lessig still defends copyright

Yes, that's true, but thanks to moderation, you don't have to wade through them all, making up your own mind and forming complex, balanced opinions. The moderators have your thinking for you! You will only have to view the top one or two most popular types of opinions on any given topic!

Copyright is a means, not an end

The US Constitution says:

The Congress shall have power ... 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

Copyright is constitutional only if it promotes the progress of science and useful arts.

Now the question is *ARE* science and useful arts being promoted by copyrights? Would you say that this work [imdb.com] is a progress over this one [imdb.com]? If a remake was made, is the copyright in the older film still valid? Why?

The only thing that's being promoted by copyrights is the profit of some corporations.

Re:Copyright is a means, not an end

"Copyright is constitutional only if it promotes the progress of science and useful arts."

Though I agree with you on this matter, SCOTUS does not -- and (*sigh) SCOTUS is the final arbiter of what is constitutional.

In the holdings of Eldred versus Ashcroft, it was made clear that copyright is presumed consitutional if it is for a non-infinite amount of time and preserves the distinction between idea and expression.

The idiotic copyright laws that now exist and will soon exist are subject to challenges, just not *constitutional ones.

Re:Copyright is a means, not an end

I agree with you that the preface clause doesn't limit Congress to only establishing copyright if the material counts as a useful art or science, nor does it limit terms to only those durations that result in a net gain to the art or science involved.
I disagree that SCOTUS is right (not that they will listen to me). I think that the founders, when they wrote about a limited time, were treating copyright as derived from a natural right to copy, which everyone posessed by Nature, for the agnostic founders (or grant of Nature's God, for the deistic founders). That natural right was of course naturally limited, by death. No one could exercise their right to copy even a fraction of a second after they died. If that's true, then 'for a limited time' would have to mean less than a natural lifespan. Life+50, 70 and so on type limits violate this, AND they make copyright a created right, not a transferred one. By its very definition, a Life+70 type right has to be created at least in part by the government, by fiat, and not exist as a transfer.
      The real downside of this is, if Congress ever shortens copyright, the remaining time now doesn't have to revert to the public. If Congress were to decide tomorrow that authors could only enjoy, say, a 14 year copyright, they could give the remainder to anybody, the public, the federal government, the organized publishing industry as a whole, or whatever, and it wouldn't be a taking without just compensation, anymore than the original extension was a taking from the public (again, as SCOTUS sees it). A lot of authors who think the government is on their side may get a rude shock.
      One last point - while, as far as I can see, it doesn't hurt your argument or mine, there's a real shift in what English meant then and means now. That is, useful arts mostly meant technologies and practical applications, not arts like painting or playwriting, and a lot of things we'd call arts, i.e. literature, rhetoric and philosophy, were more firmly regarded as part of the Sciences in Madison's and Jefferson's days.

Re:Lessig still defends copyright

In fact, I think you have something. If only the sound track in the example were posted to Youtube, would it have been infringement? Would anyone have listened to it? I posit that it would have been useless without the little dancing kid, and therefore is a 'new' work based loosely on impressions from Prince's work, and thus required some semblance of his work to create the second and 'new' work.

How much profit should go to prince? None. He got free advertising and possibly should pay a royalty to the second artist. After all, if it weren't for the video there would only be 4 people thinking of Prince's music... 3 if you don't count him, or something like that.

The "time limit of popularity" has passed. His music is not on the charts anymore so using it is not unfairly drawing off his work to garner profit or popularity. In fact, it can be argued that he garnered popularity because of this second work. Once that "time limit" passes, copyright is arguably invalid.

Re:Lessig still defends copyright

The way I think about it is like this - copyright was essentially invented to stop someone from killing your market for your stuff. (temporarily)

If you record a song and someone else manufactures copies of your song and sells them, they are killing your market.

If someone samples your song and uses a 3-second blip of sound to create their own work and sells it, there's no way in hell they are killing your market.

NOBODY has ever decided not to buy a pop CD because they already have a recording of their aunt singing the song in a karaoke bar.

Why should everything bring a profit?

Why do media companies think that any use of media should be paid for?

Suppose farmers acted like that. They grow grain to sell, but their plants create oxygen from carbon dioxide gas as a side effect. Oxygen is a valuable commodity, it's sold in bottles for many uses: hospitals, aviators, steel-cutting, etc. But farmers are sensible enough to know that it would be totally impractical to try to charge for the oxygen their plants release into the atmosphere.

Media companies should grow up and accept the same fact for their productions. Copyrights should be enforced in movie theatres, someone sneaking into a theatre to watch a movie without paying is somewhat like someone stealing grain from a farmer. But trying to charge for every little use of their media is like a farmer trying to charge for the oxygen their plants release into the atmosphere the same price industrial gas distributors charge for bottled oxygen.

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

"Why do media companies think that any use of media should be paid for?"

Because the metaphor of property was allowed to run rampant, unquestioned.

Not to flamebait or OT, but as in many things, rms was prophetic about this. He begged anyone who would listen not to use the term "intellectual property" as was widely ridiculed, as in many things.

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

With media companies, the media is their primary product. Apples and oranges

Hmmm, I see. So, you're saying that when a company creates a film for theatre exhibition, they cannot charge for the by-products? Such as foreign translations? TV versions? DVDs? Sound tracks? Mpeg files?

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

I don't believe "added value" is a myth.

When I buy food in a restaurant, the chef adds value to the ingredients by preparing them in a knowledgable way. I find more value in, and am willing to pay more for, a fine dinner than I am for a fish and some vegetables. The end product has more value than its constituent parts because of the valuable skills the chef used to create it.

Value is not inherent in anything. Human creativity and ingenuity versus our needs creates value. Iron is not valuable to a stone age society. It becomes highly valuable once they possess the skill to use it in a way that helps meet their needs.

Another example. The hard drive in your computer is more valuable to you than other hard drives or the $30 (approx) it cost to manufacture because it holds data that is presumably important to you on it. So, it is more valuable than its constituent components. And it's not any more valuable to me than another hard drive, because I don't have any interest in the data on it.

So, I humbly disagree that value can't be added to something already existing. I think that nothing has inherent value, and whatever value it does have (financially or otherwise) is placed upon it us. But that's just my philosophical point of view.

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

I don't think he misunderstood you at all - he's just saying your wrong.

A pile of fish, vegetable, and spices in a grocery store have a general value. In their unprocessed form, they are worth little. If I go home and prepare them myself their value will increase a little because of the preparation. If a good chef does it, the value will increase much more. The finished product is worth more than the unprocessed form. To believe otherwise is to essentially reduce the value of human labor to zero - afterall if the materials had all the value at the start then after the labor has been expended in your view the value has not changed.

Try to get by in a world where you aren't willing to pay anything for human labor. Unless you're one hell of a subsistence farmer, it's just not going to work.

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

Here's a relevant quote from Heinlein's Starship Troopers. This story takes place in the far future (I don't much care for the rather prophetic bit about the "tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century", seeing as I live in one) and Mr Dubois gives a very Heinlein-esque definition of value:

He had been droning along about "value," comparing the Marxist theory with the orthodox "use" theory. Mr. Dubois had said, "Of course, the Marxian definition of value is ridiculous. All the work one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a mud pie, value zero. By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero. Conversely, a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary cook uses to prepare an ordinary sweet.

"These kitchen illustrations demolish the Marxian theory of value -- the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of communism derives -- and to illustrate the truth of the common-sense definition as measured in terms of use."

Dubois had waved his stump at us. "Nevertheless -- wake up, back there! -- nevertheless the disheveled old mystic of Das Kapital, turgid, tortured, confused, and neurotic, unscientific, illogical, this pompous fraud Karl Marx, nevertheless had a glimmering of a very important truth. If he had possessed an analytical mind, he might have formulated the first adequate definition of value . . . and this planet might have been saved endless grief.

" 'Value' has no meaning other than in relation to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human -- 'market value' is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible."

"This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts that 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.

"Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain."

Re:Why should everything bring a profit?

Only until it becomes practical to do that. When it does, expect the market of all sorts of airs ("Wisconsin Pasture", "Vermont Forest") -- and expect people trying to sneak into the crops-covering air-collecting canopy for a sniff to get busted (deservingly).

Well, when that day comes, those farmers better make damn sure that none of the carbon dioxide those plants consume comes from my lungs.

People in Rebellion

It has come to the point in America that many people are in some form of rebellion. Copyright issues are but a small edge of the issues that surround us. But as things now stand in the social justice arena piracy of intellectual property is not something I'm willing to get all excited about.Perhaps when our lazy government gets off of its backside and does something about the exploitation of our citizens by outrageous fuel and power prices and mortgages designed by Satan then i'll worry about whether somebody hummed a tune he heard on the radio without permission of a record company.

End all copyright - it's based on flawed logic

Copyright was never intended to prevent private copying for noncommercial uses. Please don't try to argue that "copying = not buying = commercial loss = commercial use" because it's a horribly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest argument. Stealing is depriving someone else of their property. Even if copying is depriving someone of a potential sale, there is no vested property right in potential sales. If so capitalism would not work, as competition would be equivalent to stealing. The makers of cars would be stealing from the makers of horsedrawn carriages. The makers of refrigerators would be stealing from ice manufacturers. The makers of calculators would be stealing from the makers of abacuses (abaci?). You get the point. I should be able to copy and read/watch/listen to/play in my own home, for my own use, any media in existence. The notion that without monopolies, creative people would not create has long been disproved. No monopolies are necessary to foster creativity. The best, most creative people will create regardless. The hacks are the ones who need monopoly protection. For example, without copyright, Neil Young would still be making music, but Brittney Spears would not. Because copyright has been so greatly abused, because it's been proven to be based on flawed logic, and because it only serves to hinder creativity and make money for those who do not deserve it, copright should be abolished completely. There should still be protection for attribution to prevent plaigariasm, in some form.

FYI, Lessig left the EFF board

According to the submitter's blurb:

Lawrence Lessig is a board member for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

According to TFA:

She pressed that question through a number of channels until it found its way to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (on whose board I sat until the beginning of 2008)

Well it's still going to take awhile

This concept of creative common good is going to take awhile to be accepted.
1) It has to be accepted by society.
Many still do not understand the Open Source model. If you look at financial markets and talk to business people they don't understand how RedHat and Novell plan to make money selling free software.
2) Those who appreciate open source, need to reward those who produce for the open market.
Not many have gotten filthy rich from open source.
3) Lessig is correct.
Copyright and IP rights are probably going to be here for awhile and probably should stay. Those who publish and produced copyright and license information software are going to be here for awhile. They choose to participate in a different market. Until there is a detriment or significant benefit to participation in one type of market or another, there is always going to be a choice.
4) Get over it
As long as MS, Universal, .... whoever sees a benefit they are going to do what they have been doing.
Personally, I believe this is going to bite them in the ass big time. They want an open global market and yet they want IP rights at the same time. Well guess what, you manufacture your product in Asia and you've pretty much open sourced your product. They don't like to talk about it very much, but it is a fact of what is happening.
[ubiquitous car analogy] If you make a car and you want it made cheaply, you had better have figured out a way to make a steady income from that car. What is happening is companies are requesting certain manufacturing be done, and then all of a sudden somebody else is manufacturing the same product. They start screaming "They stole our product". Guess what get over it, by the time you finish the legal international law wrangling, there is nothing left.
So as soon as a company accepts open source the quicker they will be able to adjust to the global market.