Slashdot Mirror
Lessig on Streamcast/Grokster Decision
scubacuda writes "Lessig has an editorial in Financial Times regarding
the recent court decision in favor Streamcast (which distributes "Morpheus") and Grokster. 'The wisdom of this rule is something innovators in Silicon Valley are increasingly coming to see. When courts intervene to maintain copyright's balance, the inevitable consequence is that innovation is harmed. If every innovator with technologies affecting content must bear the burden of a lawsuit before his innovation can be allowed, there will be many fewer innovations in the distribution and creation of content. That in turn will harm artists and technologists alike. Better to let the innovation happen, and then consider whether the change caused by the innovation is so significant as to require new legislation by the legislature.'"
"Better to let the innovation happen, and then consider whether the change caused by the innovation is so significant as to require new legislation by the legislature."
What about the innovations of monopolies? By the time the changes caused are considered and legislated, it may be too late.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Kinda like "innocent until proven guilty". Right?
Interestingly enough, I do feel that innovation is what is truly being attacked when the DMCA "hammer" (or war drums) are beat upon all the time.
... it's obvious that there is a problem here. We want more content, but when we steal it, the companies we love and hate so much won't be as willing to give it. Hence Palladium, DRM, etc.
.. never.
On another note, and one seldomly discussed
If people could throttle themselves, the problems that we have with content distribution wouldn't be problems at all. Sadly, we can't, so legislation is absolutely neccessary in throttling all those people that can't throttle themselves.
That delicate balance between the rights of the societ and the rights of the owner of the content is dynamically changing, but it is definitely true that technology has given society the ability to very easily steal from the owner of copyrighted material.
Everyone is to blaim. The RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft (in some cases), etc. are hardly in the 21st century. Sometimes I wonder why they complain so much since it's obvious that they should try to start a better music distrubtion model than what they already have. Sometimes sacraficing profits for common sense is a smart thing. We're also to blaim. People using Grokster, Kazaa, Morpheus, Gnutella2, etc. are thieves (for the most part). The last time I found a nice piece of uncopyrighted material on kazaa and not on Google was
At any rate, it's a mess out there. The RIAA and MPAA are definitely stupid. They're planning on waging war with their entire customer base (or a large part of it). I'm not bussiness guru, but I definitely see a problem with that.
Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling now. People should buy their stuff, and big companies need to take their heads out of their rear ends, and realize that their is money to be made where the biggest battles are being waged.
Good fences make good neighbours and the problems at the moment are certainly due to the nature of the business cycle in technology. Once case law has been built up significantly it will be clearer what the risks and responsibilities of innovation and law are.
Personally I think that the courts are the place to argue out the rules of innovation as if you believe in the idea strongly enough then you will be willing to fight, or raise finance to do so. If this forms part of your business proposal then that is right and good. Business decisions are implicitly risky and this will have to be bourne in mind.
However this is with the caveat that copyright should be limited and the public domain requires legislation to prevent unlimited monopoly of ideas for all time...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Consumers are not stupid, they all realize that:
1) buying an album without hearing the songs on it is really foolish.
2) most bands these days have one or two really well produced songs ("singles") and then a slew of filler songs on a record.
People will buy a good album, as Eminem's or any other platinum artist's sales will show you. Before technology like Napster, I never would have bought many albums that I own, because there was no other way to hear the songs. Napster was music on demand. Granted, letting people have the files probably hurt the incomes of bands whose older material is far better than their newer material (Metallica, etc). Of course people are going to steal the good songs! If bands put out enough good songs on their records, people will buy the record because it's easier than hunting for and downloading all the songs. Technology doesn't beget theft, it just shows the true value of the data it is transmitting.
stuff |
I can imagine what the RIAA/MPAA would think if we were today debating the freedom of the press. After all, newspapers can be used to STEAL copyrighted works! This must be stopped! It's not the messenger, it's the message. So maybe Napster/Grokster/Morpheus are mostly used for infringing...but they in themselves are not infringing anything. If I make a telephone call to get my gang together to conduct a bank robbery, the law doesn't hold the phone company liable. I know about common-carrier laws, but this is a good comparison. It's the message, not the messenger.
call downloaders thieves
call downloading or copying theft or stealing.
Copyright infringement is never theft; it does not meet the definition of theft, especially the part about "taking" (if you create a new copy of an item, you are not taking the item).
The argument "you are depriving artists of money" argument does not wash either, due to the fact that many, if not most, instances of copyright infringement involve situations where the copier would not have paid the artist in the first place.
In the cases of bootlegs, mashes, or out of print songs being downloaded off p2p networks, there is never a loss of money to the company and artist: they refuse to sell the material in the first place!
The connection to the artist's money is tenuous at best. If a copier is a "thief", then so is anyone who protests a business. In both examples, no actual theft takes place, but there is sometimes a loss of money to a business.
It may be a crime, but it is not theft.
I, for one, won't accept this logic.
Premise: Things fall to the Earth.
Counter-argument: Clouds don't.
Conclusion: Things don't fall to the Earth.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I disagree slightly with your premise. I don't feel that Apple has debunked any 'myths' about the DMCA. What Apple has done is what the big 5 and the RIAA (and for that matter, the MPAA) have refused to attempt in a truly marketable way, and that is "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Apple looked and said, "We have this great new electronic distribution method for releasing media. PRO: It's extremely low cost, popular, and we can make money off of it by providing a low cost alternative to our target audience. CON: Copyrighting LAWS make it a gray area and difficult to impliment. Solution: iTunes"
This is where the others have failed. They have tried to either squash the technology, or have provided subscription services that are more expensive than the actual cost of purchasing CDs and ripping them yourself. Even worse, most of these services worked more on a rental system and only allowed you to keep the music as long as you were still a member. This is a business model doomed to fail from the start.
Apple's true lesson here is that those that refuse to grow, adapt, and evolve will eventually find themselves dying out and becoming extict."
Change or die.
-Ab
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
I admire Lessig immensely, and maybe I am reading this wrong, but it seems that he is implying it is a GOOD thing to let Congress decide what uses of p2p should exist. Maybe that is actually better than outright judicial control (it is theoretically easier to change congressional legislation than stare decisis), but I have NO FAITH in Congress to consider the people over the millions of $$$ being thrown at them by the media industry.
I believe that the recent decision is a step in the right direction, but I can't help but wonder if this is taking p2p out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Lets be clear first that not everyone agrees on what intellectual property is, or how long it exists. Different countries, different times have had different takes on this kind of property. IP is owned for a time then goes into the public domain. That time was lengthened by congress essentially so Disney would not loose control of Steamboat Willy. The time was lengthened for the rights to be held on this "image" for 99 years I believe, up from what 17 years or 20 years passed the creators death, whatever.
....or duck tape.
The Electromagnetic spectrum used to be public domain. Now it is illegal to listen into certain frequencies. Talk about a human construction. Ham radio's in this country can't be sold if they can tune in frequencies that they should not.
It comes down to business and allowing people to have a monopoy for a time on some business they can profit from. They have lobbied in the governments for that right and have recieved laws to protect those monopolies. But it is a human construction and is not universal. There are peoples that still believe that no one owns land.
When the trains came in the covered wagon's place was jeapordized. Automobiles caused the horse industry to collapse. When IC's came in, the Japanese transistor radio industry collapsed overnight.
The Internet has come and we see the frantic attempts by entrenched businesses to hold on to the value of their property, to not change. But I think the bucket has too many holes in it. The recording industry may change its focus to the live concert industry. That at least is a tangible controllable poperty they have. Bands may have to get off they duffs and tour more. Prices may have to go up. Venues may have to get larger, if these captains of industry want to maintain their current level of riches.