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Do IP Laws Stifle Popular Culture?
A reader writes: "This could probably fit under 'Patents' as well. Anyways, here's a long but very intelligent essay on the abuse of copyright and trademark laws we see today, full of examples showing that these laws are being used to restrain enterprise and free speech instead of
promoting them. Writing in Reason Online , Jesse Walker concludes that the 'culture industry' just wants us to 'shut up and get back on the couch.'"
This mirrors very strongly with the RIAA case, in which there are several artists under major record labels that want to support MP3s but their record label says no. The true creative owners of the works, because of signing deals with megacorps, have lost the ability to be able to be said what is done with their work. On the other hand, the way that music and creative work distribution has been done before the internet, any creative person that signed with an independant distributor would have quickly faded into obscurity. Along these lines, I would suggest that part of the deal with CSS and the MPAA is that they want to limit the number of films out there that do not go through the MPAA. Up till recently, they've done a good job, but the recent successes of art house films (Blair Witch, Pi) are beginning to push the envelope.
It all comes down to the fact that RIAA, MPAA, the major television networks, the major publishers, all want to be the sole distributor of creative works. If they had there way, most of the money that we spend on our entertainment will go through them, and then they distribute to their respective creative artists, but keeping a large portion for themselves. Sure, before the internet, people made their own works, and distributed them without the help of the major channels, but the audience they would achieve would be very very small compared to major distribution artists. The internet has changed all that, and allows anyone with simple tools to become their own publisher; in some cases, enterprising people have become small distribution houses themselves but certainly without the same cut that the major ones take (e.g. MP3.com, goodnoise.com).
In otherwords, RIAA, MPAA, and the rest appear to be trying to maintain a monopoly.
Sure, there's no strong evidence for that, and a lot of connections would have to be made for that. But if these groups are successful (hopefully not) in their current court cases, it might be easier and easier to prove that such a monopoly exists. Remember one of Judge Jackson's key points on Microsoft and it's monopoly was that the cost of entering the field that Microsoft has set is too high to be overcome reasonably, thus suggesting monopoly powers. Try to get your own film to more than 30 screens accross the country, or a fiction book you wrote yourself in every bookstore without the aid of one of the major companies. Can't do it, can you?
One additional point, however, that was made in the article, and in all fairness is a concern, is the issue of dilution. I know it wasn't mentioned specifically, but I remember hearing that one of the reasons that Disney did not want to give up the copyright on Mickey Mouse was that they were afraid of people placing him in high erotic (and beyond) situations with no ability to protect that. Ok, sure, you and the rest of slashdot readerships would know that if you saw such a picture, you would know for sure that it wasn't by Disney. But this is America, where a woman can win millions of dollars for spilling hot coffee all over herself. We HAVE to think that everyone is stupid, lest we avoid legal problems. I could see a case that if dilution of trademark laws were not in place, that a parent may be able to sue Disney over that pic (even though Disney didn't make it) as it traumetized her child. Such cases are more a concern when the characters and situations are aimed at young audiences, but the concept is still that the distributor must make sure they don't into such a situation. While extending the copyright time is one way, it's a placebo (and a bad one at that); instead, education of the masses on what "derivative works" mean, and co-operation with the various fanbases to help establish guidelines (as has been done for some shows like B5) will help set rules that need not be extended time after time...
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Instead of writing fan fiction, get together with other people and create your own setting, that you can write about and do whatever you want with.
This is an excellent point.
Not to long ago I posted a proposal to forego the products of Hollywood altogether and return to fireside chats and more traditional, noncontrolled forms of entertainment. However, while I have had little trouble boycotting Hollywood (indeed, they have lost hundreds of dollars in DVD sales in the last couple of months from me alone), most of my friends are unable to tear themselves away from their bread and circuses, even knowing the harm the publishers of the material they consume are causing.
Your suggestion is I think much more powerful and interesting. Create our own content and take back our popular culture from the media moguls! With the open video disc project working toward a fully unencumbered digitial media standard, and ever larger storage media emerging (making patented video encoding and compression methods possibly obsolete altogether), the logical next step is to create our own content and completely divorce ourselves from hollywood altogether.
The open source community could take the lead in developing free software which would allow anyone to create digital special effects, and perhaps even digital casting (computer animation instead of acting, with the ultimate goal to be rendering of scenes where one could not tell the difference). Coupled with one of the open content licenses, this could become a very powerful counter-cultural medium which would do to Hollywood, the MPAA, the DVD-Forum, and the RIAA what open source is doing to the likes of Microsoft - obliterating them from the grass roots.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You forgot about the Internet. It replaces every single large company that artists must sign their life's work away to get promotion money. The kind of money that buys Tom Poleman the Program Director for WHTZ-Radio (Z-100) in New York City an all-expense paid trip to Bermuda after he put Ricky Martin's latest "sure to be #1" on the playlist. That money came from Ricky's marketing budget.
That's where the problem comes in. By lobbying to help make barriers of entry harder, and creating an environment where you can't help but sell your soul to get a bit of radio airplay, the established players in the market are trying to make it a CRIMINAL ACT to compete with them. Or at least slow that competition with ridiculous lawsuits based on lobby-writtn laws.
Money made art possible. Money still makes are possible.
This is utter complete and total bullshit. So money made the cavepaintings? Money is why for generations the elders of a tribe would recount their legends? Money is why workers sign in the fields and gather around a campfire to sharet their voices?
Money destroys art because it takes away the passion that lead to its creation. It makes the "best" art the most common, the most profitable, the art that communicates to the lowest common denomenator. Money makes art shit.
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+&x
You say that there are more books, music, movies, and software today than ever before. What does that prove? Would you seriously suggest that we have enough culture, that we don't need to write any more books or record any more music because we already have all we need? A stagnant culture is a dead culture. Or perhaps you are suggesting that we only need a half-dozen or so voices to define our culture, that we have Time-Warner and Disney, so we don't need any more voices? Wrong again. Culture thrives when there are a multitude of voices, each giving its unique perspective. Take a look around you at what comes out of the movie and music industry. Most of it isn't necessarily bad per se, but much of it does have a bland, cookie-cutter sameness about it. That's what happens when you allow a small number of cultural gatekeepers to take over; it all starts to sound the same because it's largely the same people producing it.
The bottom line is that all great works of literature, art, music, science, and film have borrowed themes and ideas from stuff that has come before. The increasing trend toward cutting new works off from what has come before does stifle those new works because a work that is produced in a cultural vacuum is generally irrelevant. It doesn't "speak" to its listeners and viewers.
You seem to have the sarcasm down to a fine art, but you don't do much to refute what the article actually says. I'm curious, what do you say to the article's claims that George Lucas will not allow new artists to borrow from Star Wars the same way he borrowed from Kurasawa and from popular myth? What do you say to the article's claims that for (certain types of) new music to evolve they must be able to sample from previous music the way that music lifted guitar riffs and other musical elements from music that came before? Why, in your own words, is it ok for the current gatekeepers to have borrowed from work that came before, but it is no longer acceptable for anyone to borrow from work that is currently popular? Why was it necessary to extend lengths of copyrights? Were artists really having trouble making money with the shorter terms, or are they just trying to guarantee their continued dominance into the indefinite future?
Try as you might, you simply aren't going to get me to feel sorry for the media compaines. They are doing just fine, and they would continue to do just fine, even if intellectual property law were rolled back to what it was 50 or even 100 years ago. However, if I don't like the crap they're churning out, I would like an alternative, and media companies seem hell-bent on preventing me from having one. But, then, God forbid anyone consider anything besides corporate profit in determining social policy or anything.
-rpl