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Congress Must Make Clear Copyright Laws
WSJdpatton writes "WSJ's Walt Mossberg takes a look at what's wrong with the DMCA and DRM given the recent lawsuit brought against Google's YouTube by media giant Viacom — 'Under fair use, as most nonlawyers have understood it, you could quote this sentence in another publication without permission, though you'd need the permission of the newspaper to reprint the entire column or a large part of it. A two-minute portion of a 30-minute TV show seems like the same thing to me. But why should I have to guess about that? What consumers need is real clarity on the whole issue of what is or isn't permissible use of the digital content they have legally obtained. And that can come only from Congress. Congress is the real villain here, for having failed to pass a modern copyright law that protects average consumers, not just big content companies.'"
The big companies get to lobby 24/7 and 365 if they want. Consumers only get to lobby every four years, and not enough turn out to vote, and make their preferences felt.
I can parody it.
I can use it in satire.
I can use it, with limits, for educational purposes.
In some cases I can make backups.
If I've purchased it on a media and never broken the seal, I can usually resell it under the doctrine of first sale. In some cases, such as a book, this applies even after I've read the book.
I can wait for the copyright to expire and do pretty much whatever I want with it.
I've left a few things off the list, researching copyright law is left as an exercise to the reader.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Further, once your "content" is displayed/performed/exposed, you can't take it back. Therein lies the biggest motivation for the whole of copyright legislation. Without it, we as a society would end up being a bunch of information hoarders. There would be no open exchange of ideas. There would be no derivative works. Information would be exchanged under contract and NDA between interested parties. There would become a horrible social rift between the information-haves and the information-have-nots.
Copyright is a contract between you, the content producer, and "we the people." In exchange for a short-term monopoly, complete with "force of law" coverage, you agree to contribute said production to the "we the people" at the end of the term. During the short-term monopoly, it's up to you to make a buck (or not.) There's no guarantee of profits. You aren't entitled to anything other than fair treatment under the law.
Unfortunately, the **AA and their ilk are in material breach of this contract. Many works should have entered the public domain by now, but through lobbying and outright bribery, the content distribution cartels have stolen that content from the people. And yes, "stolen" is the correct word to use here, because I am deprived of access to the content. I've also paid taxes supporting the copyright enforcement during the term of the original agreement, so I'm out financially as well.
Finally, you're not obligated to participate in the copyright program. You're welcome to hoard information in your vault. You're also welcome to produce a work that is contributed directly into the public domain without restriction. You shouldn't expect compensation in either case. The current crop of content dstributors seem to think that they're entitled to something. They're not.