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Lessig On Free Content, Copyright
Glyn Moody writes "In an interview with the Guardian, Lawrence Lessig explains exactly how he'd like copyright reformed, and has this to say about free content: 'I think it's going to be a more significant movement than the free software movement because whatever the importance of the freedom of coders, coders will still be just a tiny proportion of the public, but culture is ... much broader.'"
The culture is effected by the media and the content in it. A great example of this is the fact that the media was able to turn the word 'liberal' into a profanity. Language is perception, and the media controls the perception of most of the people.
Whatever it is that Lessig is selling, John and Jane Sixpack ain't gonna be buying.
Shit, CNN/Foxnews will make sure they don't even see it!
Right. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of forked Robert Jordan novels. shudder
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Copyright laws are just like unions now. In the beginning, they both had their use, but as timee have changed, copyright laws, like unions have not adapted to suit current conditions. In the end, they cause more bad than good. Hello GM!
http://psychicfreaks.com/By free content does he mean free as in bear or free as in iPods?
Lawrence Lessig is awesome. If you don't know anything about him (or even if you do), I highly recommend watching his last talk given in 2002. You can hear him and see his slides here. Even if you're not into legal things like copyright (like me) his speech is fascinating and compelling.
http://www.talknerdy.org
I stopped reading after it was apparent he'd lost total control of his book (ok well past that since I got through Lord of Chaos) and started tap dancing on the Demandred thing.
George R.R. Martin, now that's an author! Jordan's just a wannabe Tolkien who won't let his characters fuck.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
http://www.tor.com/jordan/
KFG
Really, now...while I feel the creative landscape would be a much brighter place if copyrights didn't last indefinitely, I don't see Lessig proposing any real plan here. 14 years renewable to 28 sounds fair to me, but I'm part of the choir in this situation, and I don't see any indication that our lawmakers are going to be receptive to this. To my knowledge, one of the major reasons for the lengthening of copyright terms in the US is that we needed to bring our laws in line with the copyright laws in Europe, and nothing is changing there.
There are billion dollar interests at stake here. I'm glad that there are academics like Lessig that want to stand up for their principles, but unless he's planning to raise the funds for a massive lobbying campaign, I think he's fighting a losing battle...
The most realistic part is definitely the bit about requiring people to register for copyrights, but I worry about this - if you need to register, chances are you'll need to pay. Even if it's just a little, I'm not in favor of giving the government more knobs to turn...I fear that this particular step would only further help the moneyed interests at the expense of the little guy.
The idea of triggering only on commercial distribution is a logical no brainer. Makes perfect sense therfore will never be passed in the U.S.
Keep up the good fight LL.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
- 1) Ability to create content and distribute it , exclusively, for profit, for a period of time.
Supposing I write a significantly different story, using existing concepts in only a vague way, and develop (or discover) a market for that story, I should be able to tap into that market, exclusively, for a given period of time. The idea is "mine" (humanly speaking), and supposing the content isn't prurient (e.g. child porn), or a damn lie (e.g. telling you that the Olsen Twins are morbidly obese) or some other nasty damnable shite ("I murdered Bob's wife! Here's how & all the details"), I have every right to profit from it. 2) Ability to resell content previously purchased and "used" but not "consumed". If Joseph E. Schmoe buys my book & decides to resell it before, or after, he reads it, that's fine. I'd like to have a profit off of it, but I do not, and I should not. Joe sells it to Bookz By The Tunn, and they resell it. Perhaps I'll get some name recognition, but that at the most. 3) Ability to maintain the integrity of content. Joe's brother, Ed, cannot copy my book, change all of the "I have"'s to "I have not"'s or change the meaning in some other way and republish it under my name. 4) Parody Joe's brother can, however, quote some of the book and parody it. I may not like the parody, I may take it in stride, but I probably can't prosecute him.every historical era is defined by an ideological struggle which defines the status quo of future eras. in our time, that struggle is the balance between corporate ownership and public culture. the riaa/ mpaa won't stop until they own all of our culture, period. every single bit of expression of it. every venue, every time period
what lessig gets but many don't is that it is a trade off: financial wealth versus cultural wealth. ip law makes sense because it rewards creators for creating. but the balance gets lost when ip law is extended unnaturally into areas of content expression and lengths of time which are totally unreasonable
then the social compact between those who consume culture and those who create it, becomes null and void. the ip lawyers are crushing the natural free exchange of ideas that lead to cultural wealth, and eventually financial wealth, and their corporate masters don't understand how they are shooting themselves in the foot by giving these ip lawyers free reign to extend, extend, extend their grasp. the corporate masters don't seem to understand that, paradoxically, by extending ip law unnaturally, ip lawyers are effectively handing their corporate masters diminishing returns over the long run: decreased cultural wealth eventually leads to decreased financial wealth
its a pathology: greed, greed, greed, and it will never stop, until it kills cultural wealth in the name of financial wealth, even if that means that eventually, financial wealth is sacrificed too. because the financial masters don't really understand how the free exchange of ideas in a respected, natural, reasonable cultural public spaced eventually enriches them. they just have an unthinking pathological allegiance to the concept of bloated ownership, with no appreciation for the nuances of how respecting a free zone of cultural trading creates more riches for them to own in the long rin
unfortunately, this struggle is too esoteric now, too new to have reached the man in the street yet. only us dweebs and tech heads see the outrageousness of this creeping doom on the horizon right now. but give it time. eventually it will rear its ugly head on the radar of public consciousness
and then maybe, hopefully, this pathology that is ip law that wants to own absolutely every bit of cultural expression will get the bitch slap down it deserves
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i have been having problems reading slashdot as of late. it seems it has been hacked or something and the hacker uploaded a new website design that makes it very unusable. i talked to cmdrtaco and he said that they are working to fix the problem. whoever hacked slashdot really messed it up bad and made it change colors all the time when you click on links. i can't wait till slashdot is fixed
It's open source so submit a fucking patch you lazy cocksucker!
This will require a paradigm shift from the sole creator and possesor of a 'natural right' of control and ownership of ideas.
Coders collaborate to create complex things whereas artists are often individualistic sorts, possesie of their ideas. As an art student my college would not mark 'collaborative' works as they could not figure out how to apportion credit.
Open source Creativity has occured but the very word Artist has a certain idea of sole author - seemingly this came about in the Rennaissance. When Vasari started bigging up Michelangelo.
Before this it was believed that Authorship was a kind of heresy as God was the Prime Creator. Many Artists and Author before then saw themselves as part of a stream of culture and thought. They would attribute their works to historical figures or were anonymous.
The Public Domain has fallen into disrepute, it is a kind of 'bin' were all the old stuff ends up. Copyright a limited monopoly for publishers, a concession by the public was concieved to enrich this public sphere. Now Copyright is seen by many as a sort of natural right of creators.
Better to believe that you stand apon the shoulders of giants, that personal art derives from the canon of language, culture, folk-music that once was commonly owned by all ( or rather the nature of property was inimicable to ideas ).
Interestingly Publicly funded Science has moved away from the public domain and instead of researchers publishing findings for the common weal they patent with their University.
While dreams of rich patents may provide investment funds to inventors, consider that the price of research has increased astronomically as progress accelerates there are more sub-patents to be liscensed (or withheld to prevent rival research).
Now there are so many Patent & Copyright Squatters who neither create nor fund creators but use law to leech fees from those who do.
Thank goodness you can't patent software or algorythms (in Europe anyway).
Copyright is theft from the Public domain.
It used to be that we got some payback, now we just pay and pay and pay.
FTA: Lessig would like to see copyright reduced to 14 years, renewable to 28
I think that we should gradually scale down the copyright lengths. If it happens suddenly big business would react and try and bring them back up.
If copyright lengths were gradually scaled down people would eventually realize that we're better without copyright existing at all.
~= scwizard =~
Should we really pay heed to what Lessig has to say anymore after he blessed DRM? Look folks, Lessig has joined the dark side. DRM is now okay in his mind, so why should the Slashdot community relay his propaganda any further?
"[...] it's going to be a more significant movement than the free software movement because whatever the importance of the freedom of coders, coders will still be just a tiny proportion of the public[...]"
The free software movement (free as in freedom) directly affects programmers by giving them the source code and ability to change it, but this also indirectly allows anyone the power to have problems fixed by whomever he or she wants to hire. In the arena of computer software, what more freedom could you need?
Creative Commons can become what GPL is to software, something which liberates the content from the misuse and apprehension of huge corporations. Free Software Foundation and the GPL-licenses was invented as a reaction to ever increasing prices, EULAs, NDAs, copyright lengths, and every other toll-booth the corporations will impose just to squeeze the last drop of money out of our souls, for software.
With Creative Commons, we have a chance to reclaim our culture as a whole. A real, culture, indie artists, not sponsored and RIAA-breastfed brats copying the latest fad.
The irony being, that the stronger copyright becomes by lobbying from the corporations, the stronger Creative Commons and GPL also become.
In the long-term future, I believe in a reclamation of our culture on the local level too. More people will be fed up with way too many hours spent in front of a screen, and desensitized by an everlasting surge of noise in their ears. People will start to appreciate silence more and more, not in hordes, because that is a paradox in its own right. However, slowly more and more will look for alternative ways, something local. Playing in a local band, or just with friends. Meditation. Yoga. Tai-Chi. Quigong. Whatever to breathe life back into the soul.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think the key concept in intellectual property laws should be that the creations *must* enter public domain at some time, and remain in the public domain forecer after that. Therefore, the law should provide no protection at all to anything that's protected by anything other than the law itself, or for that which isn't fully disclosed.
No copyrights for anything distributed with any sort of DRM, no copyrights for anything distributed under proprietary standards, no protection for any software distributed without source code.
As much as I respect Dr Lessig's works and achievements, he's clearly dead wrong this time.
Software, and more particular Free and Open Source Software will continue to be an important part of culture.
Moreover, the role of Free and Open Source Software will be critical to the preservation and free dissemination of culture for the public at a moment when *ALL* culture products are becoming digital.
For every piece of software, thousands of works are produced.
The works are important, but so are the tools we use to create and disseminate them.
Without the possibility of free tools, there's no possibility for free works, it's as simple as that.
In 1984 how will you produce digital works without Free or Open Source software ?
Will you rely on Microsoft Powerpoint allowing you to do that ?
Nah, don't count on them.
Is there a site or something that actually explains what he means in 30 seconds or less?
Not really. The article (I won't say Lessig, because the article may be distorting his views) ignores the fact that the GPL relies on copyright. Only with copyright can a GPL licensor ensure that other users of her code grant access to the source code.
Perhaps a better analogy for the point the article is making would be the BSD license, which has spurred creativity without the heavy reliance on copyright that is a feature of the GPL.
But overall the article is unconvincing because it ignores the fact that both GPL and BSD-licensed software exist even though (and indeed because) we have today's regime of long copyrights. One can certainly argue that the state's scarce resources are better spent on things other than enforcing 50-year-old copyrights (or even on enforcing some 1-year-old copyrights.) But creativity isn't being stifled by long copyrights--to the contrary, the Internet is promoting new waves of creativity, with scores of authors of works of all kinds--software, photographs, writings, and more--willingly submitting their works to the public for its use.
Penny - plain text accounting
is it too much to ask that /. editors actually edit the summaries a BIT? You know, to at LEAST have something like the follow:
"In an interview with the Guardian, Lawrence Lessig - a few words on why the heck I should care what this prune has to say - explains.."
I'm typically a very patient and forgiving guy, but it seems like over the last few months this has gotten worse and worse.
Where was the "Free" concept before the computer age? Let's say even before 1995... Why did no other segment of society invent it?
... but people would refuse to even fund those basic things if they had the choice.
Stephen King is rich as hell and loves to write. Was it really impossible for him to give a book away? Just one?
How about music? Art?
I suppose the main difference is that before the computer age everything had a replication cost, and now it doesn't, but can that be the only issue?
Madonna never gave away CDs at cost, nor did any artist I've ever heard of. Why wouldn't have someone done that just once to see what happened? Maybe the publicity would do you well. The only thing that I know of that came close is a few bands encouraging bootlegs, and even at that it wasn't strictly "Legal", just encouraged (as far as i know).
The government makes a few things "Free" such as parks, streets, beaches, police, army,
In the computer realm, we are dedicating massive numbers of man-hours to open source projects and not even expecting to profit from the publicity!
Okay, so most people are fundamentally selfish to such an extreme that makes me embarrassed to call myself human, but what makes these programmers so different from other "Creators"?
I can't even attribute it to the fact that many got rich in the 90's because many of the open source projects had/have nothing to do with rich people, at least not Stephen King rich.
any ideas?
As much as I respect vruz's works and achievements, he/she/it is clearly dead wrong this time.
Birdwatching will continue to be an important part of culture.
Okay, so the parallel isn't very good, but the point is that you're criticizing Lessig for something he didn't say. He didn't say that free software isn't important, he said it is a smaller issue than free culture.
I understand you're saying that software freedom can help to protect free culture, but that's only because free software is one of the few forces currently acting to counteract the media industry's push to lock up our culture. If we can help the rest of the world understand the importance of our cultural data being free to flow around and not locked up either by code or by law, then free software's importance to free culture will decline to almost nil.
I think Lessig is right: free software is a subset of free culture, and a small one. The fact that the free software movement predated the free culture movement (such as it is) doesn't mean it's more important or a prerequisite. The reason it came first is because it's computer technology that made this sort of freedom an issue, and it's reasonable to expect that those closest to the technology (programmers) should see the impact of the changes first, and that they should first take action to protect the freedom of the cultural objects that most interest them (programs).
None of this is meant to minimize the importance of free software. Instead, it should put the massive important of free culture into perspective.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You've never heard of "The Grateful Dead"?
They permitted taping of their concerts and trading of the tapes since very nearly their first concert. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead#Tapers
As long as the tapes weren't being used for commercial profit, it was effectively a free-for-all, to the point of them setting up a "taper's area" to allow their own sound crew to have access to the area where they'd need to set up their equipment for the best sound for the concert.
There were/are a number of other bands that had/have the same practice: Rat Dog, The Other Ones, etc..
-- Terry
"I understand you're saying that software freedom can help to protect free culture, but that's only because free software is one of the few forces currently acting to counteract the media industry's push to lock up our culture. If we can help the rest of the world understand the importance of our cultural data being free to flow around and not locked up either by code or by law, then free software's importance to free culture will decline to almost nil."
A couple things. I'm writing "Peace and pieces". Now how is big media "locking up" YOUR culture? Second I find it funny that slashdot defines IT'S culture in terms of what big business produces. Third I find it insulting that slashdot presumes that what others produce belongs to IT. Can I likewise presume that what OSS coders produce is mine to do with what I want? After all it's part of MY culture.
The free software and free culture movements are full of great people including Lawrence Lessig. I got a chance to interview him. During the interview he expressed his over commitment to the movement. Lets acknowledge the larger organizations in order to reduce strain on any one figure. All of the people at Creative Commons, Electronic Freedom Foundation, Free Software Foundation, etc. deserve credit for their dedication to the cause (if you will).
That said, one critical aspect to promoting a digital culture is supporting revolutionary projects and artists. Some examples are Project Orange, Cactuses and Chance. Each has a different unique aspect but each hopes for a future which is better for artists. They aim for equal opportunity for artists to sustain themselves. Free software tools along with flexible creative licenses will allow this.
The most important aspect of Creative Commons licenses is that it allows for a new art form, remix art.
Alteration can create something unique.
You can create a unique Alteration.
For more interviews with revolutionary people/projects see my own project, Open Road Trip.
To write a program that generated _huge_ (TBs) amounts of content; speaches/essays/articles about the current state of politics including the real players out there today, and what's really going on and copyright them. Then sue anyone who you don't agree with politically who writes an article that comes close enough to your generated content that their 'political free speach' could be considered infringing.
Could it technically work? What would those cases do to the laws?
How can we convince people that copyright laws are out of wack when they legally can't sing 'happy birthday' to their kids at their birthday party without paying royalties...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Apparently slashdot gets it's facts from the same place it gets sex ed. From the streets. Now try reading what Arstech has to say on the issue.
I think it was Joni Mitchell at the '71 Isle of Wight festival who asked gate crashers why they expected her and others to perform for free. It's a nice utopian thought that cultural creators would share everything with everyone, but most creators have to worry about paying the rent. Now Joni Mitchell probably didn't have too much to worry about in that regard, but I think her point is still valid. Getting rid of copyright won't help people pay the rent. If you want to propose a system of generously distributed grants and stipends to cultural creators, an anarchistic or communist reorganisation of society, or even something like the WPA projects for writers and artists that's fine -- and much more realistic than saying culture ought to be free. Culture is not going to be free until people are free to make it. Tinkering around with the length of the copyrights isn't going to change the situation, either.
I fully realise that in the end most creators end up working for nothing or taking a loss and that copyright doesn't do anything for them -- but neither will "free culture" or shorter copyrights. People make culture, but people have bills to pay and kids to feed. I'd work for free too if I didn't have to worry about groceries, rent, day care, saving for retirement...
Kinda OT, but I listened to this clip on what's called the most used 6 sec sample drum loop. Anyway it's a good listen and he brings up copyright and quotes Lessig
A society free to borrow and build upon the past is culturally
richer than a controlled one.
Another bit I found interesting is this bit:
To trace the history of the amen break is to trace the history of a brief period of time when it seemed digital tools offered a potentially unlimited amount of new forms of expression; where cultural production, at least muscially, was full of possibilities, by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past, to make new combinations and thus new meetings.
The only ones now who can sample are the ones who have deep pockets or expensive lawyers.
Anyway here's a link on youtube of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
But I think that's the main reason free software has florished and other types of free content haven't. Coders are a small, 'elite' group with skills most of the public don't have. What they produce (free or not) has tangible value to others.
On the other hand, the world is full of self-proclaimed writers, musicians and other artists. Yes, there are lots of no-talent hacks, but many are every bit as good as the famous artists, and that's the problem. The only thing to distingish the professionals from the talented amatures is promotion; and if everyone is promoted equally via free content, there's just too many to choose from. Unfortunately (free or not), the world can only support so many artists; the rest are doomed to toil in obscurity or give up and get 'real jobs'.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Besides which, why does anyone think programmers will always be a "tiny proportion of the public"? Today, the vast majority of citizens in the "developed " world are literate. A couple centuries ago this was very definitely not the case. Heck, when writing was invented it was known only to a few palace scribes and such, a tiny elite. No one today doubts universal literacy is possible; what exactly makes "universal programming literacy" impossible?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
And WRT Feast For Crows not going very far. . . true. But the reason was 4 and 5 both were Feast at one point, and were split into two different books.
Anyway I'm responding to the wrong post I think but, yeah. Best fantasy writer in a long long time.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
totally off topic, but have you considered the possibility that the Others bring winter, and not the other way around?
Makes the Stark motto, Winter Is Coming all the more interesting. Just something I picked up in one of the Sam the Slayer chapters in 3.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Free software works because it reduces duplication of labour: anyone can write a Bubble-Sort routine for language X, so if the first person who writes a bubble-sort in X releases it freely, no-one is forced to rewrite the Bubble-Sort. This is efficient. Is the coder being ripped off? Probably not, as someone else will have programmed it, so he can pick it up free. Distribution of labour.
However, it is only me who can write my songs -- they are the product of my brain and my personal interpretation of my environment and culture. No-one else is ever going to write the same songs independently of me. By making my songs free, I reduce the impetus for others to write their own (they can just cover mine). This leads to a reduction in effort, definitely, but also to a reduction in variety.
And here's the killer. What if I get involved in a road accident which crushes my right hand and leads me to need a trachyotomy? I would never sing or play any musical instrument again. Thus to make a living from my music, I would need to be able to sell my songs, not just my performances, which I couldn't do if all other songs were free.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
First of all it's speech, not speach. Second, no you cannot. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.
I'm getting really tired of this bogus claim. It's just not true.
If copyright only protected literal copies of a given expression, I could legally make any derivative work I wanted, because the expression of a derivative work is not the same as the expression of the original idea. However, the law forbids production of any form of expression for a given protected idea.
Suppose you write a book, and express your intangible ideas as printed symbols on the page. Fine. I can't copy your book verbatim. I also can't copy the ideas in your book (the words and sentences and turns of phrase) into any other medium, no matter how distinct the expression. For example, the tangible expression of an audio tape is magnetized regions; but since a clear mapping exists between the ideas of the words and sentences in the book, and the ideas spoken on the tape, copyright forbids me to make an audio tape recording of the words and sentences in your book, even though the expression (and indeed, the very medium of expression) is different.
In order for me to use your work, I need either (a) fair use, or (b) to alter the ideas in it so fundamentally that the courts don't recognize them as "the same". That's a problem, because no one knows in advance what a court will do (not even lawyers!), so it's impossible to be creative and obey all the laws, because you can't know in advance what the laws are. For people who believe in obeying the rule of law, the current copyright situation is infuriating. Artists can be sued for not being "creative enough"; and it's never clear where the boundries are; judges aren't consistant in their rulings, and lawyers are terribly expensive ($600/hr for a good corporate lawyer around here).
In order to deal effectively with modern copyright law, you have to do what the large companies do; tell your creative people to ignore copyrights altogether, and hire a team of fantastically expensive lawyers to minimize the amount of money you have to pay out when some court decides you've crossed a line, and broken the law.
There is no "expression of ideas" versus "different ideas" metric that can be reliably used to indicate whether you can legally speak or write a given idea, and I'm tired of people pretending the situation is anything less than the totally broken mess that it really is. Free speech is great and all, but if I don't know which ideas I can legally speak of (or write about, or paint about, or draw, or write screenplays about), and which ideas I must not use because they're protected under copyright, the right to free speech does me little good in practice.
Put a moratorium on copyrights and patents for 10 years then see how it affected "the incentive to create".
What I like is you don't force copyleft on a publisher and that's the key, just like with torvalds' GPL (voluntary code sharing contract).
Yeah, I also propose a moratorium on feeding you for 10 years then see how it affected "the maintenance of bodily functions".