Looking Back At Copyright Predictions

Techdirt has an interesting look back at some of the more interesting predictions on copyright. The article looks at two different pre-DMCA papers and compares them to what has happened in the world of copyright. "The second paper is by Pamela Samuelson, and it discusses (again, quite accurately) the coming power grab by "copyright maximalists" via the DMCA, entitled The Copyright Grab. It clearly saw the intention of the DMCA to remove user rights, and grant highly questionable additional rights and powers to copyright holders in an online world. Samuelson lays out many concerns about where this is headed -- including how these proposals appear to trample certain fair use rights -- and in retrospect, her fears seem to have been backed up by history. Samuelson, by the way, has just written a new paper that is also worth reading pointing out how ridiculous current copyright statutory rates are -- an issue of key importance in the ongoing Tenebaum lawsuit, which (thankfully) the judge in the case is going to consider."

Comments

Copyright Law

[JCSoRocks]

This is just another example of how the citizens have completely lost control of their government. Elected officials no longer see themselves as being responsible to the electorate but to the corporations that fund their campaigns and posh trips. This crap needs to end. Is there anyone outside of CEOs that really agrees with the sort of copyright policy we currently have? The laws need to reflect the people's wishes rather than the politician's corporate sponsors.

Re:Need to make it clear

[nine-times]

I'm not sure whether we're quite on the same page (we might be). It's not that "intellectual property" isn't a useful idea, but that it was never intended to control what happened to your ideas when they went out into the world. Owning the copyright on a book wasn't intended to control who read your book, or whether that book could be lent or shared among friends. It was intended to allow you to prevent other commercial publishers from profiting from your work without paying you.

It's also noteworthy that in the US, the government is only granted the power to give copyrights for the sake of promoting the "useful arts", and traditionally there has been the concept that copyrights were only applicable for a limited time before the work become public property. In fact, the concept was that the intellectual property would become public by default, and that copyrights were an additional reward that the public was willing to grant for the sake of encouraging and promoting the work.

I think we have to start from that foundation. From there we can ask, "Given this new age of ubiquitous information, what kinds of temporary rights is the public willing to part with for the sake of encouraging artistic work?" It should not start from believing that people have an inalienable human right to control the destiny of every thought that happens to pass through their heads.

Copyright not meant as individual property right

[Geof]

I fully oppose those people who would like to take it a step too far, and claim that there's no such thing as intellectual property, no property rights, that people don't have the right to the product of their own ideas

Copyright was created as a monopoly privilege, not a property right. In recent years maximalists have waged an ideological campaign to redefine copyright. The individual property rights position is radical. In the U.S., it is also well outside what the constitution allows: copyright is a regime intended to further the public interest (advancement of arts and sciences), *not* preserve or create some kind of individual rights. That individual "moral rights" approach is from the European (particularly French) tradition, and has been rejected by the United States. Lawrence Lessig (who is quite moderate) asserts that the only justification for copyright is the creation of works that would not otherwise exist.

You can talk about the foundation of copyright in moral rights in theory, but in practice it is almost never used for anything other than economic gain: and in fact promotes control and consolidation by media companies to the exclusion of all others - including artists.

It wasn't until quite recently (the 19th-20th centuries) that the idea of moral rights and individual originality even made sense. Many cultures still don't recognize it. It's a product of a particular culture at a particular moment in history. In practice, it creates all sorts of inconsistencies. It's a romantic notion that has very little to do with how creativity actually operates. It's interpretation and fleshing-out by courts has led to extremely weird and contradictory outcomes. For example, a doctor can patent your genes without your consent because he is the "creator" of his discovery. I can film people being shot in a demonstration, and *I* own the images - they have no right to them. But if those people are performing theater, all of a sudden copyright steps in. Copyright demands hard boundaries between what is "mine" and what is "yours", when no such hard boundaries really exist. Governments can create laws and call them "rights", but they are legal fictions, not reflections of some preexisting reality.

Re:Artists react to the PirateBay verdict

[Stiletto]

If songwriters, musicians, etc. get no money for their work there will be no good music.

This opinion keeps getting repeated and repeated as if it's fact.

Participation and contribution over quality

[Geof]

If this rebellion against copyright comes to pass, nobody will create anything as polished as what we see and hear today.

If this were true (I don't know that it would be), how bad would that be? In other words, how important is it that our entertainment be polished?

I'm not going to make the full argument here, but I'll throw out some thoughts.

The pyramids are great works of architecture. Wonders of the world. But we don't build them anymore. The cost is not worth the benefit. (As it happens, one of those costs was slave labor.)

I love television. I prefer good TV shows to good movies. Has TV made the world a better place? Research strongly points to television as a reason for a collapse in social and political participation since the 1960s. There's no question of abolishing television, but should we step in and enforce onerous regulations in order to preserve it as it is?

What is better: listening to highly polished music, or learning to make music and playing for your friends? We used to *do* culture instead of simply observing it. Most people could sing or play an instrument. Many more played sports. Drawing was a basic skill for educated people. But we were not professional artists. We were not usually able to both compose the song *and* sing it. We drew on the culture around us, and transformed it to enrich our lives. Now our entertainment is provided to us, and for the most part we don't contribute. Copyright as it stands entrenches that passive role because wit forbids us from most forms of participation - particularly when we use the everyday digital media and technology through which we live our lives and connect with the people we care about.

Re:Need to make it clear

[foobsr]

You can't put 90% or even 30% of the people in jail

You can make the country a jail.

CC.