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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.'"
The best way to create more pirates is by trying to provide to much control over copyrighted works. What I mean is that if copyright becomes to complicated for the average member of public, then they will just give up trying to play nice with copyright holders.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
advancing educational programs 'that teach the value of strong copyright.'
What exactly are they going to teach. Most laws do not remotely cover what is needed with today's technology. For instance, if you start teaching about copyright "infingement" someone will ask if it is an infringement if you rip a CD or copy a movie for personal use. The current problem is that NO ONE KNOWS 100%. These issues have not been hammered out in a court of law and the current statues have no opinion either way.
The first thing that really needs to be done (besides possibly shortening copyright) is to define what exactly can and cannot be done with an existing work. Until then, whatever anyone attempts to teach about copyright is 100% opinion and speculation.
As a side note: The really pathetic thing about copyright is that it was initiated to promote the science and arts, but has since been hijacked by what I believe to be the lowest benefit to our society - the Entertainment Industry.
This just goes to show that many of the free market idealogues out there aren't really about free markets; instead they are all about unrestricted corporate activity. The two are not the same, and shouldn't be conflated. It's been shown time and again that maintenance of a free market requires government intervention (see Sherman Anti-Trust Act in the US); even the Austrian school will admit that their economic model requires adjustment (and by implication, government action) to correct for monopolies.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
We're setting up a new group to funnel money to incumbents prior to the '08 election.
[Insert pithy quote here]
It's long copyright I have a problem with. Like copyright that exists long after the original creator is dead.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
The inability to share knowledge will collapse a democracy. A democracy can only survive with free access to information, and a population willing to be educated. Soon, we will have neither. How can we trust our neighbor to help run this country when they know nothing?
In fact, we as a soceity cannot survive without free exchange of information. Culture, the shared information of a group, includes not only "book learning" but stories, music, patterns, and ideas. All of those are being taken from us and gifted to monied interests.
Once, poems like Beowulf would be told, retold, and changed according to the zeitgeist. The characters would be familiar, the plot would be familiar, but the small changes over time would stand out to listeners, and the bards and shapers would emphasize or change different parts to better reflect their audience and the state of current culture. That is what held us together.
Now, we no longer have the power to control our own culture, it will be permenant and immutable for all eternity. Star Wars is a new Beowulf, but we as a culture cannot own it and make it ours. It is now eternal and unchanging, as will be our culture. Another word for eternal and unchanging is dead.
Add to the dead culture and uneducated citizenry a new type of tax- the culture and learning tax, paid to everyone who holds IP. Do you think that given the total control of information flow that IP-holders wouldn't leverage every dollar from their holdings? They'll go so far to protect their "property" that they will certainly cut off all fair uses, such as critical review. Expect even bad movie reviews to go the way of the dinosaur. "Sorry Mr. Ebert, you gave us one too many bad reviews, your license to view all Universal movies has been revoked."
The only silver lining is that the same technology to lock down all ideas has given us a massive, nearly infinite virtual library. The internet, large hard drive arrays, and instant communications have given us the means to acquire and archive massive amounts of data. Do you remember your grade-school librarian? She was a scary old woman probably, and would scare the pants off of little kids. Librarians have always needed to be scary, as they have a hard job keeping information from the hands that would hide it. In the future, we are our own librarians. It's time to get scary.
The point is not that people want less copyright, the point is that these corporations want MORE. They're shifting the paradigm (pardon my French) from "copyright is a government granted monopoly" to "copyright is ours by default and you're a pirate."
The government grants the copyright monopoly not because it wants these firms to make money; they grant it because they hope that ARTISTS (see what I did there?) will make more of their art when they can make a buck off of what they do, for the purpose of making a rich culture. So, the purpose of copyright is not financial but cultural gain. This comes with the implied benefit that the ARTIST can make money. When the copyright is held by anyone but the artist, there is no more cultural gain to be had.
The default setting for stuff that goes out of your head and into other people's sight/ears/whatever is that it is no longer yours. I tell you my Great Idea, now you can use it. I sing you my song, you can play it as well. That's the default mode. It's very easy to copyright something (just stick on your name, the year and the alt0169 symbol) but it's so hard to get it back into the public domain where it belongs (after a reasonable period of time,) it's ridiculous.
Also, extending copyright past the death of the artist involved. Make more art, Jimi! Make more art, Django! Make more art, Pablo! Make more art, Joan!