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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? "
We're talking about restrictions on free speech.
No, we don't. We are talking about, whether creators -- of movies, music, literature, software, fashion designs -- have the inherent rights to control their creations, or whether whoever happens to be able to copy their work has the same rights to it as the creator.
No, the earlier poster is correct. Everyone has an inherent right to make, distribute, etc. copies of works, whether they created those works or not. This is a matter of freedom of speech. It's the reason why, for example, you have the right to recite Shakespeare in public, even though you are probably not Shakespeare. During the term of copyright, the public willingly surrenders a portion of their right to make use of the work of the author as part of a scheme to derive a greater public benefit than the public harm caused by suffering such restrictions. When the copyright expires, the author loses his right to prohibit other people from making use of the work, though he retains his natural right to use the work himself. This is why we talk about copyright as an exclusive right -- i.e. a right granted to the author to exclude others from doing certain things with the work -- and why when copyright expires, no rights in the work are, or need to be, granted to the public. The public has always been possessed of rights in the work, and upon the expiration of the copyright, the public is once again free to exercise those inherent rights.
What's not an inherent right is copyright. Authors have an inherent right as to whether or not to create a work to begin with, and they have an inherent right as to whether or not to reveal that work to anyone else, or to hide or destroy it. No one is suggesting that authors be compelled to create or compelled to publish. However, copyright is the right to prohibit the public from making, distributing copies, etc. with regard to works that members of the public have managed to obtain copies of, most often by publishing. The right to prohibit other people from, e.g. reciting Shakespeare, is certainly not anyone's inherent right! And as it is impossible to reconcile the idea with the much more reasonable idea that people do have an inherent (but not inalienable) right to recite Shakespeare, or whatever else, it's clear that this nonsense about inherent rights of authors to censor the rest of the public is absolute tripe.
I'm also rather surprised by the specific language you used. Movies, music, literature, software -- these are not unusual. But in the US at least, there is no copyright for fashion designs. Copyright in pictorial, graphic or sculptural works (such as clothing) can only subsist where the work is separable from any parts which have utility. (The idea, basically, is to avoid having people use copyright when they ought to be using patents) This just isn't the case for clothing, and it's long settled that this is so. Nor is there any need for copyright in the field of clothing design; copyright exists for utilitarian purposes, i.e. to encourage authors to create and publish new original and derivative works, while minimally protecting those works in both scope and duration of protection. That is, copyright exists to get the most stuff in the public domain fastest, with as little copyright as possible along the way. The field of clothing is terribly healthy without copyright. Many new works of fashion design are made all the time. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that there would be a substantial increase in the number of works if copyright were granted. In fact, there is an excellent reason to believe that there would be far fewer, as unauthorized derivatives would not be as common. Further, rent-seeking behavior amongst monopolists being what it is, the public would likely lose access to cheap copies of the designs. There is simply no public benefit _at all_ for copyrighted fashion design. So I'm wondering, why did you mention it?
Long story short, you seem to be quite backwards on this matter. You might want to read up on the utilitarian basis of copyright law, and the actual laws on the books.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
There are two balanced rights. You only listed one. Here they are, together (this phrasing taken from the two parts of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights):
(1) "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."
(2) "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."
Sure, you can say that one particular implementation of part 2 (i.e. copyright) is not an inherent right. But part 2 itself is the fundamental inherent right which we have to figure out how to implement.
Care you share your reasoning? Or is this "belief" in the religious sense?
Half-and-half, or thereabouts. Prior to the establishment of modern copyright,* creators suffered pretty badly. The Statute of Anne makes a note of this as preamble. Although lawsuits, legislation, and Irish book piracy ran wild for the next century, a lot more authors got paid and a lot more books got writ. Based on this, I conclude that copyright works - at least somewhat.
The faith end of things is a general belief in property as a viable concept applied to a belief in the work ethic. A writer, like a carpenter, deserves a day's pay for a day's work.** As noted above, copyright is the only method we've used that's even been marginally successful at achieving that. While intellectual property may not be an inescapable conclusion of those premises, it's the only one I've got.
* That is, a limited, protected copyright granted to the author.
** Yeah, I'm ignoring a lot of nuance, such as what a bad author or carpenter deserve, but I don't want to start a discourse on the work ethic. I'll note that artistry is (generally), and I think should be, a meritocratic vocation.
While I want to believe you. I also know the game played by writers and textbook publishers. It is dirty, mean, anti-education, and money grubbing. As a recent grad pardon me if I'm untrusting of a group of people who seem to generally view small edits, endless "editions" (with no real changes), endless copyright, and people assigning their own books and at $100+ each. Perhaps you are not like them, but its like trusting an oil executive to tell you the truth about the environment. You are simply too attached to the machine to be taken at face value. By the way, posting AC certainly doesn't help your credibility.
The problem we're having now is that the massive extensions to copyright terms mean that the writer is getting decades of pay for his day's work (ok, so you can't write a book in a day, but you get my point).
Sure, I support lowering the protection period. I also support eliminating laws against circumvention and reverse engineering. I highly support civil procedure reform to prevent the thuggish tactics so popular with IP attorneys (or at least I'd like to see these mass-threat tactics treated as the barratry they are).
But I won't advocate eliminating copyright. I like copyright; it's put food on my table.