Only 2 in 500 College Students Believe in IP

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "David Pogue of the New York Times has an interesting story about how fewer and fewer people believe that infringement is wrong. He mentions talks he gave back in 2005 where people were willing to believe that making backups of DVDs you own is wrong. Today, however, at his talks, he was only able to get two people out of a crowd of five hundred college students to say that downloading a movie or album is wrong. He goes on, like many before him, to bemoan the immorality of young people today, saying: 'I do know, though, that the TV, movie and record companies' problems have only just begun. Right now, the customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?'"

Comments

Re:Why not reduce?

[Kadin2048]

Why not reduce this to 1 in 250 when reporting? Not reducing it also gives us the size of the sample; 1 in 250 with a sample size of 250 is a lot different than 1:250 with a sample of 5,000. Changing raw values into ratios is one of the things reporters are pretty terrible at, actually. I think it's better when they just leave the raw values.

Re:What will happen then?

[peipas]

Stricter enforcement, of course. A professor at the University of Utah law college describes how everybody infringes. It's a veritable goldmine!

The good stuff starts at the bottom of page 7 of the PDF.

Re:Sounds about right

[ComputerSlicer23]

I'd have to go look up exactly when copyright was conceptually founded (I believe someone posted in a article a couple of months ago that it has existed since the days of the Romans conceptually that puts it back into at least 1000AD or so), but it is explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. So it's been around since the late 1700's. I believe John Locke wrote about it prior to the 1780's or so. Johnson and Johnson is currently suing the American Red Cross over a trade mark registered in the 1890's. The U.S. Patent Office has been around since around the time of the founding of the United States. For instance, Abraham Lincoln was proud of the fact that he was a patent holder.

So at least two such concepts pre-date things like Women's Sufferage, or the concept that African American's shouldn't be held as Slave's in the South in the United States. Given those dates, I'm reasonable confident there is no one alive who remembers before the three concepts of Intellectual Property existed (alright, there might be a handful alive from the trademark date I quote, but I think trademarks pre-date the early 1890's, I'm just too lazy to go find out when).

So while you refer to them as "new"... You can only mean new in comparison to concepts like "bipedal humans that walk upright" or "humans forming civiliations and moving from hunter gather to agricultural modes of survival", and still be intellectually honest (or grossly uninformed on the concepts).

We have the works of Shakespeare and Newton, because they eventually fell into the public domain. Now, if you want to argue that current U.S. copyright law is just stupid, I'll back you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, as a citizen of the U.S. and the U.S. being a signer of the Berne Convention, means that Copyright Law can't be made to be sane. It could however be lowered to limits of the Berne convention, and then at least copyright would expire in 50 years after the work was published.

Assuming that Disney isn't successful forever, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck will fall into the public domain. The entire music catalog of the Beetle's will be in the public domain in Britain within the next 20 years (they refused to increase copyright past 50 years recently). The original works of Einstien, Dirac, Godel, Turing, Plank, Hemmingway, Authur Miller, Tennesse Williams and others should eventually fall into the public domain (contemporary notable scientists and and playwrights). Hopefully within my life time (the next 40-60 years). The works will be preserved as long as it takes to get them into the public domain. The sad part is that 99% won't be. Only the things that were recognized as great works at the time will be. Who knows, maybe Shakespeare had a truely great pupil lost to the sands of time. It'd be far easier for libraries and other archivest to preserve if they didn't have to worry about copyright being an issue. It'd be easier to stand on the sholders of giants if I could use giants who were alive during my lifetime...

Kirby

Re:Sounds about right

[cpt kangarooski]

I'd have to go look up exactly when copyright was conceptually founded

The first modern copyright law (as opposed to the stationers' copyright, which was a different animal) was the Statute of Anne, enacted in England in 1710. The very basic underlying principles are related to (though quite distinct from) patent law, which dates back to the Venetian Patent Ordinance of 1473. However, we do know that the very fundamental concept of patent law dates back to at least circa 215 BCE -- sort of. There was this joke about the Sybarites, who were Greek colonists who had, some centuries earlier, lived on the Italian peninsula, and who were infamous for their luxurious lifestyle. The joke was that if a chef in Sybaris invented a new recipe of merit, he could have the exclusive right to make that food for one year. This was intended to encourage chefs to create new recipes which would then ultimately be enjoyed by everyone once the period of exclusivity ended.

but [copyright] is explicitly mentioned in the U.S. Constitution

Well, not explicitly. The word copyright never appears; it's just an "exclusive right" granted to authors for their writings. The term 'copy right' was already known, though; in fact, Congress had used it prior to the drafting of the Constitution. But this is neither here nor there.

The U.S. Patent Office has been around since around the time of the founding of the United States. For instance, Abraham Lincoln was proud of the fact that he was a patent holder.

Well, no. The United States was founded in 1776, but the United States did not grant patents or have any power or means for doing so, until 1789, and even then the first US patent law wasn't enacted until 1790, effectively creating the Patent Office. Lincoln wasn't around until quite some time later.

but I think trademarks pre-date the early 1890's, I'm just too lazy to go find out when

Trademarks are ancient, probably dating back to before recorded history. Federal trademarks are of more recent vintage.

We have the works of Shakespeare and Newton, because they eventually fell into the public domain.

Actually, copyright didn't exist in Shakespeare's time, and as far as I know, Newton never sought any. More importantly, we have their works because they published them or because noble pirates pirated them, thus happening to preserve them for us.

Now, if you want to argue that current U.S. copyright law is just stupid, I'll back you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, as a citizen of the U.S. and the U.S. being a signer of the Berne Convention, means that Copyright Law can't be made to be sane.

All we have to do is withdraw from Berne. The political branches can do this fairly easily if they choose. It's far from impossible, and since the one most called-for copyright reform is for terms shorter than Berne permits, I think we can anticipate withdrawal for sure. I look forward to it, as Berne is worthless.

It'd be far easier for libraries and other archivest to preserve if they didn't have to worry about copyright being an issue.

Again, something that is far easier if we dump Berne.