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So what you're really saying is, "Government is returning to its roots" and that is correct.

government censorship and copyright go hand in hand.

copyright originally started as a government sponsored censorship program as the excerpt from this article states:

The first copyright law was a 1556 censorship statute in England. It granted the Company of Stationers, a London guild, exclusive rights to own and run printing presses. Company members registered books under their own name, not the author's name, and these registrations could be transferred or sold only to other Company members. In exchange for their government-granted monopoly on the book trade, the Stationers aided the government's censors, by controlling what was printed, and by searching out illegal presses and books -- they even had the right to burn unauthorized books and destroy presses. They were, in effect, a private, for-profit information police force.

so, in the UK, the government granting copyright terms in order to censor the works is a return to the roots of copyright.

copyright began as censorship:

Was copyright invented by writers and artists, to protect themselves?

No. Actually, it was invented by publishers, to preserve an information ownership monopoly based on a government censorship policy.

The first copyright law was a 1556 censorship statute in England. It granted the Company of Stationers, a London guild, exclusive rights to own and run printing presses. Company members registered books under their own name, not the author's name, and these registrations could be transferred or sold only to other Company members. In exchange for their government-granted monopoly on the book trade, the Stationers aided the government's censors, by controlling what was printed, and by searching out illegal presses and books -- they even had the right to burn unauthorized books and destroy presses. They were, in effect, a private, for-profit information police force.

the two issue are separate, but still closely related. in any free speech discussion, the issue of copyright and trademark comes up quite often.

Someone? How about the article's author: http://questioncopyright.org/node/1

"As with a lot of "there is no such thing as property" groups, QuestionCopyright.org* seems to not understand the purpose of copyright." Three strikes. First, I guarantee the author of the original article knows more about copyright than you. If you don't believe me, read this: http://questioncopyright.org/node/1 Second, this is not a "there is no such thing as property" post. This is not a communist rant, rather one that seeks to point out that copyright is not some divine right but a privilege granted by society. Third, you're not seeing the big picture. Forget about GPL/BSD/etc for a minute and broaden your scope a little. This isn't about the problems that the open-source community faces, but a larger societal problem. Copyright is an institution that touches many, many aspects of today's life, especially online.

Thanks for the plug, chainLynx. We've also got a response to Greg Bulmash up now: "Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright". I don't think his argument really holds up, and the response explains why in detail.

Despite what some on this thread might have you think, abolishing copyright really does make a lot of sense... I am not alone when I say that society would be better off today without it... see this essay: http://www.questioncopyright.org/node/1

These exchanges always go the same way: someone in the industry (an executive, a production person, an artist) says "Without these high royalty rates, I couldn't make the living I make today!" This is true, but utterly beside the point. The question is, would art and music and writing still be produced if we abandoned the centralized, monopolistic distribution mechanism that DRM and modern copyright law currently enforce? The answer is obviously "yes". And artists would still make a living, just as they always have (since copyright royalties play no significant part in the economic lives of most artists anyway, with the exception of a few stars). Giant publishing conglomerates would make a lot less money from royalties, but that's not society's problem. After all it is not the job of government to enable one particular business model at the expense of other business models.

Spread the word: http://www.questioncopyright.org/

"Copyright was invented by _publishers_
http://www.questioncopyright.org/promise"

I'm replying to this post because of this statement (the rest of the parent spends its time either misinterpreting what I said in my last post or putting words in my mouth, and I think my original post speaks for itself). The article that it's linked to is a very interesting one, it expands on the role of the Stationer's Log (which is a form of copyright protection predating the Act of Queen Anne), but it has a certain tunnel vision and spin that often appears in the extremist grass-roots anti-copyright movement, and I think that it's worth looking at it critically.

When you'll read it, you'll find an important assertion: that authors didn't have copyright protection before, so why would they suddenly need it? This is very misleading for a couple of reasons:

1. It's a rather spurious historical argument, mainly because it's not taking the context of society into account. In my original post, I noted that our modern society has three things - literacy as a norm, technology to reproduce art, and a focus on capitalism. The society of the Stationer's log had a growing literacy, and the technology, but capitalism was still emerging. Creative artists made their living not through proceeds of publication, but instead through a system of patronage where a noble patron would pay the artist a stipend to compose work in his/her honour. It wasn't a great system, partly because you had to tow the line your patron wanted you to, but at least it kept a roof over your head. Society is not a static system, however. By the time the first proper copyright act was written in 1709, a capitalist system was emerging, and by the end of the 19th century, the patronage system was completely gone - it was now all capitalist. So, creators may not have needed a copyright system at the very beginning, but there are no wealthy patrons around today, and an author's income is derived from royalties.

2. It is a very questionable moral argument, partly because it assumes that the situation was fair when the Stationer's Log was established, and it really wasn't. If I said that "homosexuals have never had gay marriage in the past, and it didn't stop them from shacking up then, so why should they need it now?" everybody would immediately see the injustice. The argument the article makes is very much the same. Correcting an injustice is always good.

And there is this: "Authors, having never had copyright, saw no reason now to suddenly demand the rather paradoxical power to prevent the spread of their own works, and did not do so."

This is one of the most common arguments put into play for the abolition of copyright, and it reverses the very idea of modern copyright. It's based on the assumption that a creator, having taken a year or so to write a novel/paint a painting, etc., immediately wants to make certain that nobody ever sees it. What copyright does is allow the creator to set the terms by which the work is distributed, so that a publisher doesn't shaft him/her, and if a third party circumvents those terms, to be able to take some reasonable action against them. It isn't prevention - it's creator's rights. It's also spin along the sames lines as "marriage is a terrible thing because it keeps you from dating other people" - basically, focusing on one negative while ignoring the context and all of the positives.

So, when you read the linked article, please keep in mind that part of it is rhetoric, and facts are taken out of context. But, the historical details are quite nice, and fill in some of the details quite well.

> Frankly, our society needs copyright - it is the single most important tool our culture and society has to advance itself.

Quite astro-turfing. So how did society advance for the last 10,000+ years WITHOUT it??

Copyright was invented by _publishers_
http://www.questioncopyright.org/promise

Copyright is an _artificial_ right, and people know that. I wonder why some countries LEGALLY allow music to be downloaded. Because legality is _subjective_.

> Copyright is the broad tool that allows the various creative artists to do what they want with their work.

There is NOTHING a creator can do to prevent his work from being SHARED. If you don't like, dont create.

What's the point of greating the world's greatest {art}, if it is never shared??

Unknown Soldier
Posting as AC

The your understanding of free markes is flawed. Price has nothing to do with value. The function of the free market is to have profit margin between costs, and what the market is prepared to pay: prise. By competition prise is driven towards costs until the market actors are forced to derive their profit from oppertunity rents by pressing their costs below their competition. Thus wealth is created by lowering the costs to deliver value to the market.

The practice of deriving profit from state enforced monopolies (patents and copyright f.ex.) is nothing but rent seeking.

It is true that some economists believe that the static inefficiency of state enforced monopolies is justifiable by arguments similar to yours. But it's not a holy truth, take a look at the critisism and see who you think has the better understanding.

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://questioncopyright.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Network s
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again st.htm

When somebody can give me a sound, scalable, generic and implementable economic design for goods that cost money to build the first time but are free to copy from then on, I might start to protest against DRM, because I'd actually have an answer to the question of "If not DRM then what?". Until then I'll continue to argue the case for it, use it despite the inconvenience and who knows, maybe even implement it in future.

If the market can't handle this problem. Do you really need the kinds of goods that DRM "enables"? Do you really value this production higher than the production that is suppressed by these systems?

Is it possible that a the costs of producing this cultural and technological goods can be lower if the cost of reusing that which is allready produced is, as the maginal costs suggest, zero?

Is it possible that the costs are low enought to enable the commons-based peer production that Benkler suggests?

But if you really must have a system. What do you think of the street performer protocol?

is to 'make people accountable for their actions without artificially restricting those actions.'" emphasis mine

That will be absolutely impossible while IP law remains on the books. Its entire reason for existence is to artificially restrict action, access, etc.

exhibit the same power over users of the printing press? The very thing tthat started this whole IP mess to begin with.

Actually, it was invented by publishers, to preserve an information ownership monopoly based on a government censorship policy. quote taken from the question copyright webiste.

...that copyright should be about providing incentive for content creators and any laws should be made with this fact firmly in mind

You do realize that the history and economic reality of copyright don't really support that assertion, right? Take a look at http://www.questioncopyright.org/faq for some actual background on the topic.

well, seeing as how the concept is nearly 500 years old i would imagine maybe another 500 years will finally see it's demise.

This site has an interesting argument against the copyright lobby and
in Google's favor: http://questioncopyright.org/node/4

http://www.questioncopyright.org/node/1

Here's something that's very relevant: http://www.questioncopyright.org/ Copyright was created to protect distributors, not artists. Copyright has never "protected the artist." It just keeps lame-duck businesses afloat. The RIAA doesn't care if it wins or loses its lawsuits... it only cares about keeping this mentality alive.

The myth that copyright was created for the public's benefit is very persistent. See QuestionCopyright.org for a detailed explanation of the origin of this myth and its effects today.