New Copyright Alliance Formed In D.C.

jombeewoof alerted us to a story that went past unnoticed last weekend. A new industry-backed 'Copyright Alliance' was formed in the city of Washington, DC. Tasked with the nebulous goal of 'promoting the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs, and growth', the ultimate goal of the organization is to strengthen copyright laws overall. "Backed by organizations like the MPAA, NBC, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, the Business Software Alliance, Microsoft, ASCAP, the NBA, and others, the Copyright Alliance has already secured initial support from several members of Congress ... The group is headed by Patrick Ross, a former senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a strongly free-market think tank. Ross has written about IP issues for years, and in a 2005 opinion piece claimed that he was 'looking for anyone who wants to join me in seeking that elusive middle ground.' His new gig may be a strange place to fight for that 'middle ground' in any meaningful sense, as the Alliance is dedicated to 'strengthening copyright law' using 'bilateral, regional, and multilateral agreements to protect creators' and advancing educational programs 'that teach the value of strong copyright.'"

Comments

Re:What exactly will they "teach"

[Kjella]

Fair use was made vague for a reason. That reason is that it's extremely difficult to pin down exactly what is fair use. You're not a copyright infringer if you tape a show and your wife watches it. But if you pull a "well, we're all 99,99% genetically related as humans so the world is my family..." it won't fly. What about your stepson? He's not a blood relative. Same goes with real friends and all your "friends" on the P2P network.

Backups... how many backups should be allowed? One? Three? Ulimited? That remote backup site that, convieniently, all your friends know the password for? Is it fair use to lend a copy away while you still have it on your media server? Would it be fair use to lend a friend get a copy instead of your original disc? Again, if this is a hundred friends where the one original is making the rounds and everywhere it touches there's copies being made, it's probably not.

In any case, the answer is really quite simple in the end: If it's protected by DRM you can't do shit, it's all a violation of the circumvention paragraph, and fair use is only a defense to infringement. Fair use might as well be stricken from the books as a legacy law only applicable to pre-DRM works. Don't like it? Tough.

As a teacher...

[Anderson Council]

I can tell you that in order to productively "teach" something, there needs to be room for discussion and dissent. More specifically, people don't tend to absorb material as well when it is preached as gospel, regardless of how much of an opinion they may have had on the subject previously. Taking everything at face value is never the mark of a good student.

In this case however, any "teachings" undertaken with regard to copyright will be treated as gospel. If I had to spend time in front of a crowd discussing something as loaded as copyright, something about which basically every person is going to already have some opinion about, I wouldn't assume they will walk away with "my message". More likely I'd be taken aback by the level of opinion (not necessarily legal) being expressed, and more likely than not I'd come away with a broader appreciation of the subject. Needless to say the opinions won't be rooted in legal terms, or formal definitions of the word; however, people already have a life's worth of experience dealing with the issue as they saw it. Someone telling them "you can't do this because it's wrong" means nothing as most of them aren't of the opinion that it's wrong =). Tough sell, even outside the /. crowd.

This should not come as a surprise though, and I'm sure we have many more years of this nonsense ahead of us. The push of the corporate juggernaught has brought us to a time when one of the few genuine homegrown exports coming out of the US (or perhaps "the west" more generally) is entertainment. If they can't leverage their power in other countries (many of which don't care --- and I'm not referring to Mozambique here; I live in Canada and I don't care much about them wanting tighter copyright laws), there is no room for growth.

Tell me we aren't already at the limit of the $200M summer blockbuster machine ;).

--
~AC

Re:Too much control

[daeg]

Most aren't debating that point. The main point of contention is the Copyright to Public Domain point. Copyright hacks like Disney, etc want obscenely long copyrights so they can profit continuously.

Conversely, I believe that shorter Public Domain laws would create more growth. Would you rather companies continually invest in their employees to continue creating new works or have a few select individuals profit endlessly?

Another main point of debate is fair use. Copyright owners don't want any fair use, they want to license EVERYTHING. Should I be allowed to let you listen to my CD? Why or why not? Etc.

Re:This is why

[ToxikFetus]

As a resident of D.C., I find this whole discussion incredibly ironic. A despicable lobbying organization forms in my backyard, but since I have no Congressional representation, I can't do a damn thing about it. I'd *love* to be active in government, but by Constitutional interpretation I can't. This is a case where the big evil corporations *literally* have more governmental influence than me.

Re:Too much control

[cpt kangarooski]

Why should content creators have to give [the distribution] right up in the digital age?

The right isn't inherent in them, it comes from the public. Why should the public continue to give it to them? I'm not averse to it, but we shouldn't give it to them unless it provides a greater net public benefit to give them that right, given the costs it incurs, than it would if we didn't.

Merely to support authors or the publishing industry isn't a good enough reason. How does supporting us benefit us more than it costs us? Are there no alternatives that would yield a greater net benefit? Remember that having more works created and published is beneficial, but that it is also beneficial for the public to have more freedom to do with works what they will.

Just gets better

[hamster.powered]

After what I just heard on the radio this week... I can only imagine the kind of crazy extensions they'll try to start tacking onto copyright.

On my local radio station, every monday morning the morning show DJ's (Stuck 'n Gunner, if anyone's heard of 'em) will do "Microwave Monday". This involves either putting something in a microwave that one is not supposed to, or otherwise somehow mangling, tormenting, and/or destroying a microwave.

A couple months back, they had a popular band on the show (who I guess I better not mention, as I haven't purchased the rights to say their name in public). The DJ's and said band proceeded to bash the living hell out of a microwave on video, and posted the video (as they do with all their MM videos) online.

This past week the record label for that band got the video taken down on some kind of alleged copyright violation... for a video of the band smashing a microwave; no musical performance involved. WTF?!?!?! Glad i didn't become a musician. Apparently becoming a big name US musician means you can no longer do anything on video, ever, without paying the label.

Re:Too much copyright

[LarsG]

What about an office in either USPTO or LOC that registers copyright holders?

Berne.

Does anyone see a reason why this wouldn't work?

Berne.

More specifically:
"Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration"

The idea has been voiced several times by copyright scholars and others, and it isn't such a bad idea (would fix the orphan works problem, works not making money anymore would enter public domain sooner). The largest stumbling block to make it a reality is that it would require changing international copyright treaties.

What rights?

[Garwulf]

"WE ARE NOT TO STAND BY WHILE THEY TAKE OUR RIGHTS AWAY!"

Polemic aside, what rights exactly are you talking about?

One of the biggest problems in this debate is that both sides have extremists who have little objection to stretching the truth, and just plain making stuff up when it suits them. Frankly, there are a lot of reformers who don't have the first inkling of what copyright actually is and does. I still remember getting into a debate with somebody who I challenged to tell me what was wrong with copyright law - and he raised several objections, all of which were based in patent or trademark law. He couldn't raise a single point that was based in copyright law itself.

Perfect example of extremists making stuff up: the Sonny Bono law, known to the reformers as the Mickey Mouse act - the problem being, of course, that the law was supported by Disney, but actually put into place to bring American copyright law in line with the current European standard, so that American intellectual property would have the same length of protection in Europe as European intellectual property. And that does make logical sense, when it comes down to it. The idea that Disney pushed it through in the middle of the night just to protect Mickey Mouse is fiction. (A great deal of information on this can be found here: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf )

So, I have to ask - what rights are being taken away here?

Re:NOT free market -- free reign for cos.

[Red Flayer]

but to claim that a support of copyright and a support of the free market are somehow philsophically incompatible is just ridiculous.

How so? Are not copyrights an government-induced restriction on supply of a good? Doesn't a free market require no artificial restrictions on supply?

IP has infinite supply sans regulation. This reduces its value to near zero in a truly free market. This is fact. Just because it doesn't serve the profit motives of IP holders doesn't mean that it isn't true -- but instead, we have an artificial restriction of supply in order to make sure that the price of IP remains high enough to maintain a profit incentive. Regardless, it's an artificial restriction of supply, and thus contrary to free market ideology.

All that said, I don't know what the best solution is -- I'm in favor of limited copyrights, but enforcement is a huge problem. What we're actually seeing here is the free market at work -- government-enforced restriction of supply is being overwhelmed by the infinite supply of IP and the ease of 'buying' and 'selling' IP for its true value as a commodity.

Personally, I think we're going to end up with a patronage system. Since supply is impossible to restrict, we'll see wealthy individuals patronize artists and musicians; we'll also see groups of individuals patronize the artists they like (i.e., donating money to artists they like). A more democratic approach to patronage than what existed in the Renaissance and later, but patronage nontheless.