World Copyright Summit and the Lies of the Copyright Industry

Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has an incredibly in-depth look at two presentations in particular from the recent CISAC world copyright summit. Rep. Robert Wexler and Senator Orrin Hatch both gave deeply troubling presentations calling opponents of stronger copyright "liars" and suggesting that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works, respectively. "Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called 'creative class' which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this 'great story?' Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the 'great story' is one that suppresses the rights of everyday users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again — and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up? "

Comments

Re:There is no debate

[DAldredge]

Do you work for free?

Re:Wait a second...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Look, I am not trying to push a bill through congress, I am only providing information to people hoping some will pull their heads out of the sand.

For example, if I see you under your car pulling your oil filter out, but notice you haven't drained the pan first, I will warn you that you are approaching the task incorrectly. If you demand it, I will not however trot home and grab a copy of "changing oil for dummy's" for you, I will consider my warning good enough and walk away to let you enjoy your face full of oil.

Well, if you insist on holding your advocacy for radical change without evidence, you'll have to excuse us when we don't take your opinions too seriously.

For example, if I'm pulling my oil filter out, and you tell me I'd be better off first lying on the road, face down, chanting a prayer to the flying spaghetti monster, I would listen to you, but then I would conclude that there is no evidence to support the claim that it will be anything other than obscenely dangerous, even if it lead me to getting oil all over my face.

Copyright is simply unenforceable. It is not even imperfectly enforceable. I can share a piece of media I have in my possession with absolute strangers if need be by emailing them an encrypted copy of the data. P2P isn't any easier to enforce than email, but that is more complex to illustrate here. The point is that the progression of hardship we face to continue to pirate is in inverse geometric progression to the hardship producers face to try and stop us.

This is the mindset I was referring to (again). I would call it defeatist one more time, but it isn't technically defeatist, because it automatically assumes that inevitable == good.

Yes, copyright is difficult to enforce. Yes, we can't intrude on people's private communications. Yes, we can't assume that enforcement bodies will be able to crack encryption. No, this does not mean it is unenforceable. No, this does not mean we should give up and stick our heads in the sand, chanting, "This is good. This is what we want. I am happy." It means that we should be first deciding whether this is good or not, and evidence tends to support that it isn't, and then we should be looking to redouble our efforts in order to enforce the damn thing.

We actually don't need, like I mentioned before, to stop friends sharing with each other. The sharing capabilities of friend groups are severely limited. Compared with public sharing networks, often which share files automatically, the effort of sharing with one person is vastly greater than sharing with thousands. Both you and the friend must communicate first, and if the friend has moral doubts about the practice, they have the opportunity to share them with you. Even if you devote your entire time to sharing everything you have with friends, the damage will spread much more slowly than through P2P networks.

Thus, I submit that P2P networks are, by far, the most important targets. These are very large and obvious targets, and police or the **AA can easily infiltrate them without privacy concerns, since they are completely public. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they make up a vast majority of piracy, in both current practice and potential, and hence, we only really need to concentrate on taking them down, rather than snooping on people's private communications.

But, I know, they can encrypt these networks, right? Well, first I'd like to point out that you're holding copyright enforcement to a ridiculous standard. In any crime, smart criminals don't get caught. If I murder someone, and I put gloves on, and I'm not seen, then I won't be caught. Period. These are simple measures I could take, and it means I get away with murder. Does this mean the murder is unenforceable? Does it mean that we should just abolish murder as a crime? Does that mean that murder is automatically good? No! Of course not. It means we catch, primarily, stupid murderers, and we hope the smart ones