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Siva Vaidhyanathan On Copyrights and Wrongs
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Jason Haas writes: "While bad copyright laws such as the DMCA are having strong negative consequences, an even worse bill, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), is now before Congress. The CBDTPA would have radical effects upon many of the devices that we take for granted -- including the computer you are now reading this on. Bad copyright law is among the many things that we talked about. Siva Vaidhyanathan has a thing or two to say about this. An avid defender of peer-to-peer, Siva recently debated one of the MPAA's top lawyers on copyright law. A recorded version of this will be available on the web in late May.
Furthermore, he has written Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, the first fully fleshed history of American copyright law ever to be put in book form. The cool thing about this book is that although it's about copyright law, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand it. Copyrights and Copywrongs covers American copyright law's origins in seventeenth century English law, tracks Mark Twain's efforts to extend copyright in the nineteenth century, and ends at the dawn of the twenty-first century with the rise of Napster and the DMCA."
Jason Haas: How are you?
Siva Vaidhyanathan : Stressed. I'm trying to finish my second book, which will likely be called "The Anarchist in the Library." Basic Books will publish it next year.
JH: That sounds like it may be of interest to Slashdotters.
SV: Probably. I lifted many of the insights from Slashdot posts. The book will be an examination of the battles between efforts to centralize information and efforts to decentralize information. It starts with peer to peer, and moves on to battles over encryption, the commercialization and regulation of science, the regulation of algorithms, and the efforts to fight terrorism using information policy. One of the most interesting stories I'm following is the role that encryption plays on both sides of these battles. Some efforts to centralize and control information rely on encryption. For example, DVDs, and some efforts to distribute and liberate information (Freenet) depend on encryption.
JH: Your book, Copyrights and Copywrongs, covers the evolution of copyright law from its origins to the late twentieth century. Where did you get the idea for this?
SV: From rap music. I grew up with rap music. But in the early 1990s I noticed the music was changing. Everyone else was paying attention to the lyrics -- the sexism and the violence and the anger. I was observing how the underlying body of samples were getting thinner, more predictable, more obvious, less playful. I had heard that there had been some copyright conflicts in 1990 and 1991. So I suspected that lawsuits had chilled playful and transgressive sampling. I was right. The courts had stolen the soul. And rap music is poorer for it. We used to get fresh, exciting, walls of sound that were a language unto themselves. By the mid-1990s, all we got were jeep beats and heavy bass.
JH: Are you dissing Ice Cube?
SV: [laughs] No! He's an O.G.! He and other artists are handcuffed by the law. From my research on rap, I got curious about the evolution of American copyright law and how it altered and got altered by the rise of different media technologies and forms of expression. So I traced the changes from the 19th century publishing industries through the rise of film and television, through blues, jazz, rock, and rap, and finally to the digital moment.
JH: The book ends just after the DMCA has gone into effect and Napster has begun its rise. What's happened since then?
SV: I knew that Napster would radically change the ways we interact with the copyright system. And I knew the DMCA would radically undermined the democratic safeguards that were built into our copyright system. But I knew that there was much more to this story. So I wrote an article for The Nation which defended Napster and peer-to-peer. I used this as the starting point for what would become the second book.
JH: In your first book, you refer to the DMCA as an example of what you call a "thick" copyright law. Can you explain the difference between "thick" copyright law and a "thin" law?
SV: I think the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is misnamed. I don't consider it a copyright act. I consider it an anti-copyright act. Copyright is a fluid, open, democratic set of protocols. Conflicts are anticipated by Congress and mediated by courts. The DMCA wipes out the sense of balance, anticipation, and mediation, and installs a technocratic regime. In other words, code tells you whether you can use a piece of material. Under copyright, you could use a piece of material and face the consequences. The DMCA replaces the copyright system with cold, hard technology.
It takes human judgment out of the system and drains the fluidity out of what was a humanely designed and evolved system.
But getting back to thick and thin copyright.
One way to measure the thickness of a copyright law is to look at the duration of protection. If works enter the public domain before an author's life expectancy expires, then it's a thin and democratic system. If the duration of copyright protection is absurdly long and potentially indefinite, then it's way too thick.
JH: Senator Fritz Hollings' has introduced a new copyright bill to Congress, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act. What what would it do? Is it another "thick" law?
SV: Yeah, it would be as thick as the Berlin Wall. But again, it's the extension of a technocratic control regime and a further abandonment of real copyright. All the attention this bill has received has generated an impressive movement for users' rights. People are finally waking up to the fact that their rights to make private, non-commercial use of material they buy is in danger. I think we should all thank Senator Hollings and the MPAA for sparking a revolt against copyright tyranny.
The title of the bill implies that by giving movie companies what they want, they will give us this wonderful library of streamed films, and we will finally have a reason to sign up for and pay for broadband. Paradoxically, nothing sells broadband like peer-to-peer, which is exactly what it would try to stop.
JH: CBDTPA would make a new computer ship with copy protection. What would it do to things like the iPod?
SV: The iPod would be hard to justify under the new law. But the real issue is the personal computer. The computer does three basic things: it does math, it stores data, and it copies data. A computer can't operate without those three basic functions. The law would limit these three basic functions, thereby cutting the Achilles heel of the PC. It would be just another appliance.
JH: It's that bad?
SV: Yes. If the law passes, I could send you a file that I made, but the machine would prevent you from making copies of just about anything else, including sound from web sites, video from web sites, etc. The law works completely for the benefit of big media companies that can afford to conform to the licensed encryption standards of the industry. Only the big boys could benefit from this law.
The law would only affect new stuff, so it'd be your next DVD players, your next TiVo, your next PC. The stuff you have now is going to do more and work better than any hardware that anyone could roll out after the law passes. But there's another, bigger issue. According to an early version, the bill covers not just hardware but software. Under it, you can't distribute a software package that has copy features. Furthermore, how in the world can anything released under the GPL have closed copy-protection standards embedded in it? It can't. It would make the GPL illegal, and future versions of Linux illegal. Even if Congress focused on hardware and excluded software, we all know that distinction is a matter of modular convenience and industry practice rather than a natural distinction. But nobody ever accused the U.S. Senate of understanding technology or thinking through long-term effects of tech policy.
JH: What can people do to stop this bill from passing?
SV: The first thing people should do is check out and support such organizations as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, digitalconsumer.org, and publicknowledge.org. The latter two are fairly new. And they are a sign that people are getting angry and active about these issues. I am particularly excited about publicknowledge.org, a public interest advocacy group that is coordinating and publicizing the concerns of a wide array of concerned citizens and groups.
But just as importantly, discuss this measure with your local librarians. Librarians are very active in opposing it. In 1998, very few groups actively opposed the DMCA, but librarians were at the front lines of its opposition. And once again, librarians are our best friends in this battle. And of course, the simple answer is, write members of the Senate Judiciary Community. [The American Library Association is a national organization of librarians that is active in defending freedom of information and access. The Senate Judiciary Committee can be found over here.]
If public anger doesn't stop this bill now, then we know that the corrupting power of the entertainment industries is at crisis level. The changes in copyright have not been great for our culture and our democracy. But I am optimistic that this new level of awareness and activism will make a difference.
Jason Haas retired from the computer industry in April 2001, and now juggles being a student, fatherhood, and progressive political activism.
This past year, Siva Vaidhyanathan has been an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin, but is moving to New York University in the fall. The web page for his book, Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, is at NYU Press.
Archiving (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm working on a large (HUGE) archiving project with a major library and the copyright issues are becoming increasingly stickly. All the librarians want to do is rip the cd's/lp's and stick them in a vault for protection. Then allow a (highly) limited number of users to access the ripped versions.
It's gone far enough that Hillary Rosen (of RIAA fame) has become involved. Woohoo.
Re:Archiving (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds great to me. You've got a big vault, which may or may not be airtight. You've got Hilary Rosen. The possibilities may not be endless, but they're certainly obvious.
good technique? (Score:5, Funny)
This comment intrigued me, so I looked in Mr. Vaidhyanathan's latest book:
Table of Contets
I demand a cut of his profits! (Score:1)
SV: Probably. I lifted many of the insights from Slashdot posts.
And I'll bet he didn't use full source documentation, either!
:-)
Brilliant! (Score:2)
Finally, too, the first GOOD thing that EVER came out of somebody listening to Rap:
"JH: Your book, Copyrights and Copywrongs, covers the evolution of copyright law from its origins to the late twentieth century. Where did you get the idea for this?
SV: From rap music. I grew up with rap music
Slashdot TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh-oh (Score:2, Funny)
SV: Probably. I lifted many of the insights from Slashdot posts.
The last chapter is called The Next Frontier: The DMCA, Frist Prost, Natalie Portman and The Battle For The Goatse Trademark. How Far Hot Grits?
what a load of crap (Score:1)
Come on. There are MANY, MANY histories of American copyright law. Just because this dork and the interviewer are not familiar with them doesn't mean they don't exist.
When will Hollywood ever learn? (Score:1)
Why does Hollywood think that people will sign up for broadband for movies? There are plenty of viable delivery systems for movies in place now.
Most people wish for broadband mostly for online gaming and even simply for faster web surfing in general. There are plenty of reasons right now to get broadband. The main problems for broadband are that not everyone is eligible for a connection, reliability issues, and cost.
Improving broadband service by improving reliability and ensuring ease of installation will help broadband more than movies ever will.
Being serious for a change... (Score:3, Insightful)
But as history has shown, they __CAN__ pass these laws. And they have. And unless we start a fund to buy ourselves our own politician, know that the RIAA and MPAA are saying "All your politicians are belong to us!".
We do need to be vocal about this, but not just in
Become a member of The Electronic Frontier Foundation [eff.org] or of one of the other sites mentioned in the article. Let your voice be heard!!
---
Strong with you, the force be. -Yoda
Defend humanity (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, that point hit home. If we remove all the instances of human judgement from our social activities and interactions (like what we do with our spare time, music, movies, etc.), our society ceases to be a human, flexible, diverse society, and becomes a rigid, homogenous, and sterile machine which is merely comprised of humans.
If this legislation (and consequential social shift) sets the precedent for removal of the human factor in our societal system, where will it end?
I didn't like Brave New World.
RAP vs. Hip-Hop (Score:1, Offtopic)
Siva and Lawrence Lessig (regarding L.L.'s comments about rap from THE FUTURE OF IDEAS) both need to understand that RAP is just one part of a larger culture of Hip-Hop. Vocalists and MC's are just one fragment of a culture that includes DJ's, artists, dancers, etc...
Referring to a whole branch of music, one that began with DJ's and Break Beats is ignorant and almost insulting to the artists that create the music. You can tell - Siva's depth of understanding of Hip-Hop culture and sampling stops at corporate mega-artists like Jay-Z and that guy on all the Jennifer Lopez albums - hardly representative of much of Hip-Hop...
Well put. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are intentional limitations to the power an author holds over his/her respective copyrighted works. These limitations exist to encourage other individuals or companies to expand and build upon those copyrighted ideas/works, thereby increasing innovation and promoting scientific development for the benefit of the public. The most important limitation on author control is the "fair use privilege". This right of the people specifically addresses the ability of an individual to use copyrighted works without consent of the owner to a reasonable degree. In Sony v. Universal City Studios; the U.S. Supreme Court stated that, "any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use;' the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." This "doctrine of fair use" was initially created via judicial review, but has since been intentionally written into copyright law. Although this principle may seem to be counterintuitive to the overall premise of copyright, it is an extremely important link between the inventor who wishes to recieve payment for his work, and the public that wishes to access and make use of it. The U.S. Supreme Court remarks, ""the fair use doctrine exists because copyright law extends limited proprietary rights to copyright owners only to the extent necessary to ensure dissemination to the public." This is directly correlated to the goals of the constitutional explanation of copyright.
The obvious issue associated with this doctrine is how exactly to detirmine what is fair use as opposed to copyright violation. The law is not at all clear as to how a process is to be determined "fair use", but over the years many examples have surfaced. In general, criticism, comment, parody, new reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, or personal use such as time of format shifting are considered to be within the guidelines of fair use. Companies have in the past been relatively acceptant of the fair use clause within copyright law. As of late though, the tide has shifted as corporate profits have taken an ever increasing priority over public relations and proper customer satisfaction. Older ethical standards for customer rights have become less important to business executives then their efforts to increase profit margins and market domination.
Just how exactly media corportions lost site of the usefulness of this doctrine is beyond me. Think of video rental stores: They facilitate piracy. With two VCRs I could own every movie under the sun for about 5 bucks a pop. I don't. Both is it not worth the time to pirate, but it is also easier to pay the extra coin to ensure a good copy. People will pay to support media they like and to ensure good quality fun. They will NOT pay for over-priced crap forced down their throats.
Likewise (and perhaps more importantly), it is idiotic of the RIAA to assume that every person downloading an MP3 is a "diehard" pirate. Since the media companies have not ventured into this new market (digital music) they facilitate the piracy better than any P2P network could.
I will not support corporate theivery.
-----------------rhad
i've seen a debate involving Siva.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the interesting tidbits from that session that I can remember (this was in October I think, so my accuracy should be called into question):
Someone suggested that DeCSS may not exist if there were a DVD player available for Linux. The MPAA guy argued that all programs written for Linux must be open-sourced, which would compromise what is essentially their security-through-obscurity scheme of handling CSS. And Siva AGREED! Now correct me if I'm wrong - isnt it possible to write programs for Linux that are closed-source?
Tidbit #2 - Someone asked about making backup copies and their allowance under fair use. The MPAA rep countered that making a backup of a movie (whether it be video or DVD) is not permitted under fair use. A big look of shock on many people's faces after that statement.
Justice Talking used to keep RealAudio recordings of their shows on their site, but I never did see this session on the site in the weeks following the debate for whatever reason. (I suspect maybe it didnt appear because they played a 3-5 second clip from a musical version of DeCSS during the show, and then asked the MPAA rep if they violated the DMCA) Unfortunately, looking at the site now you have to buy a transcript or CD recording.
Changing notions of copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
The new notion of copyright seems to be based on a cyptographically and legally enforced "secure pipeline" from the content creator to each individually authorized end user. All new developments trend towards this end. Unauthorized viewing is as serious as unauthorized copying, in fact the distinction often disappears. The right to make a living from printing and selling a creative work has been replaced by the right to control how a creative work is used, and to be compensated for each use, every step of the way.
It is an entirely new paradigm, and if it succeeds in establishing itself, an entirely new information economy will result. Unfortunately, free speech will be an early casualty. Orwell's 1984 will no longer be a dystopian speculation, but a first-year business text.
Minor correction (well, not so minor actually) (Score:4, Insightful)
ahem. No.
The original concept of copyright was instituted by the British Monarchy to facilitate authoritarian control over the then-emergent printing press, by requiring all works to 'register themselves' and provide certain information making the publisher known, accessible, and ultimately accountable to the Crown if they printed something the Crown found offensive. It was a means of controlling the printing press (by banning unauthorized printing presses) and, most importantly, controlling what was printed.
In other words, copyright was designed from the beginning to do exactly what it is becoming most famous for doing today: facilitate censorship.
Later refinements insured the profitability of those publishers so "blessed" by the crown, by setting up a book in which they could register works they were publishing so that the oligarchs wouldn't be competing with one another.
It wasn't until much later that the justification of "protecting the artist's right to profit from their works" was introduced, almost as an afterthought, well after the publishing oligarchy was well entrenched and generally as a way to mitigate criticism in some quarters with respect to the restritive (and monopolistic) nature of copyright. Unfortunately for the artists, copyright law then, as now, favors the publishers over the authors in most respects, belying its real intent (today: the maintenance of the copyright cartels and oligarchs, then: the maintenance of the authority of the Crown over what information was, and was not, available in print).
The United States adopted both copyright and patent law more or less intact from our former British overlords, with little questioning of the propoganda that justified such strictures (Thomas Jefferson was a rare exception who did question, and criticize, both concepts). The British Empire rose upon the force of tightly controlled trade monopolies and ultimately met its demise when said force, coupled with their weakening navel power to enforce it, couldn't withstand the pressures of a more open, modern marketplace. It is interesting that the two most restrictive, dangerous democracy-threatening aspects of American law both have their roots in British monopoly regimes we adopted more or less unchanged and without question.
The new notion of copyright seems to be based on a cyptographically and legally enforced "secure pipeline" from the content creator to each individually authorized end user.
Again, this is really only new in form, not in underlying substance. There have even been people drawn and quartered for copyright violation in England, and more recently, at the turn of the 20th century shopkeepers were beaten, businesses burned, and people perhaps even killed for copyright violations when the copyright holders of musical scores hired thugs to enforce their copyrights in accordance to a new law granting them such powers. Coercion has always been a part of copyright, as it must be since it creates an unnatural monopoly and artificial scarcity out of something which is inherently bountious (information).
if it succeeds in establishing itself, an entirely new information economy will result. Unfortunately, free speech will be an early casualty. Orwell's 1984 will no longer be a dystopian speculation, but a first-year business text.
That economy is likely to be relatively short lived and short circuit itself. Monopoly economies never operate at anything approaching the effeciency of an open, more or less free market, and there is only so much people are willign to spend, and so many hoops people are willing to jump through, before they will simply say "to hell with it, I'll do without." The Copyright Cartels, if they get what they want, will likely make far less than will if freedom of information wins out. It is similar to when they tried to ban videotape, only to have more than half their profits coming from video tape sales and rentals a decade later. Multiply that by a dozen emergent technologies, and who knows how many more that will never emerge if "Disney" Hollings has his way.
You are right, though, the first casualty of the New American Copyright will almost certainly be freedom of speech, exactly as copyright was designed to do in the first place, four centuries ago.
Re:origins of US copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Far from freeing itself from oppressive monopolies, the framers of the US constitution used the British copyright law as a model. The controlled press to which you make rather hysterical reference in fact lapsed in 1694. It was replaced by the Statute of Anne in 1709, intended to free the press while protecting the rights of authors.
Attempts were made by copyright holders to increase their power, including extending the term from the then 14 year period to permanence, but these were struck down by Parliament in 1774. These issues were therefore much in the mind of the framers, and, as with the Bill of Rights, they made free use of the example set.
Perhaps the UK should have copyrighted the civil law book?
Reference: Law Professors Amicus Curiae in DMCA Case [eff.org]
We all know (Score:1)
Even if Congress focused on hardware and excluded software, we all know that distinction is a matter of modular convenience and industry practice rather than a natural distinction.
We all know that anything that can be implemented in hardware can be implemented in software (sans physical devices like storage etc.), so isnt this point moot?
flag stripes? (Score:1, Offtopic)
copyright (Score:1)
Mirror (Score:1)
Spare me. (Score:1, Troll)
Hmmm, I wonder... it has the word Anarchist in it... YA THINK? =P Maybe "Anarchist Cathedrals in the Cryptonomicon Nutshell" would do a bit better, but it'd be a close thing.
"JH: Are you dissing Ice Cube? SV: [laughs] No! He's an O.G.!"
Credibility: out the window! Woosh! Buhbye!
"I knew that Napster would radically change the ways we interact with the copyright system. And I knew the DMCA would radically undermined the democratic safeguards that were built into our copyright system. But I knew that there was much more to this story."
I suppose you also know the Unified Field Theory and the color of Sharon Stone's panties, right, smartfuck? Get over yourself and your 20/20 hindsight. Oh, and it's "undermine".
"JH: CBDTPA would make a new computer ship with copy protection. What would it do to things like the iPod?"
Maybe things like this [macuser.co.uk]?
"But I am optimistic that this new level of awareness and activism will make a difference."
Yeah, 600,000
"I was observing how the underlying body of samples were getting thinner, more predictable, more obvious, less playful."
Only intelligent point he had to make. For this I load an article? Feh.
-Kasreyn
Sampling other songs is the soul of rap? (Score:2)
That's just bizarre. So rap is completely dependent on sampling the music of other artists? That's like piecing together a book based on snippets of other books.
Napster may have changed things. (Score:1)
Musings on copyright and technology... (Score:3)
One side effect of this is that it is now trivially easy for a sizable segment of the world's population (and an even larger proportion of the U.S.'s population) to violate copyright laws by (for example) purchasing music legally, making copies of that music, and disseminating it (illegally) for free to thousands of other people all over the world.
I argue that the primary purpose of law is to impose order upon a society, in a form of natural selection. Societies that lean toward laws and order are more likely to survive than societies that tend toward anarchy and chaos. Laws themselves tend to reflect the moral character of the times they are created in. Laws, like any moral system (or system of controlling behavior) are never absolute or inherent to the fabric of the universe (unless you believe that some god's laws are the "inherent morality" of the universe, but good luck getting me to believe that).
When laws conflict with reality, social stress results. There are those in society who hold the law as (almost?) sacred, and those who (in my opinion, more rightly) see the law as merely the current set of rules we must live under. (Tangent: I was dismayed to see a DEA official state that the DEA "does not want to encourage anything which might lead to a lessening of drug laws" (paraphrased) -- nevermind that the DEA, as a part of the Executive branch of our government, should not have any interest in WHAT the law is, merely in enforcing the CURRENT law, whatever it may be.)
This particular issue of stress has a particular set of industries on one side, and the bulk of the nation's citizens on the other. (I refuse to refer to people as "consumers"; it is demeaning.) Content creation industries -- music companies, film companies, publishing companies, and others who control large numbers of copyrights -- have historically based their entire business model on the idea of scarcity. They could charge money for good like music and books, because those goods could not be easily replicated by individuals. In this respect, books, music, and movies were much like any other product -- cars, power tools, furniture, or even food.
But with the dawn of the Internet and the abilities mentioned above, information like movies, music, and books can be endlessly replicated at almost zero cost by virtually any individual. Hence, the obvious conflict -- many people do not see such copying as "wrong". Why not?
The traditional view of "stealing" or "theft" involves taking an item from someone, such that the person no longer has that item. They have suffered a real, measurable loss in this instance. If I steal your car, your power tools, your furniture, or your food, you no longer have those things. Inversely, if you freely give me those things, you no longer have them to use. But information is different. Nowadays, I can freely give you a COPY of a piece of music, a book, or a movie, and still retain the original. Each of our two copies are indistinguishable -- they are identical and interchangable.
This was vaguely recognized by the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Constitution -- they understood that works (mainly books, at that time) could be bootlegged and sold illegally. They believed that a goverment-granted, and government-enforced temporary monopoly on the right to make money from the production of easily reproducible works, would help the nation, its economy, and its citizens. By giving authors that temporary monopoly, the law would encourage authors to produce more without fear that their work would be profited upon by those who had contributed nothing to it.
This was a fair idea, at the time, and indeed it is still a fair idea today. Unfortunately, the content creation industry has made great efforts toward extending the length of copyright, and if current trends continue, we can expect that no copyright will ever again expire. This obviously goes against the original intent of the copyright provisions, which was to allow authors a chance at fair compensation for their works, in exchange for that work entering the public domain after a certain period. Technically, that is still true, but it is quite obvious that the content creation industry has no intention of letting it continue to be true.
Back to the issue of being able to cheaply replicate any data. The problem here is that since many people do not see copying as theft, they are inclined to believe that the law is wrong and can be ignored. There is obviously a wide variety of views on the subject; some citizens believe in sticking to the letter of the law, while others will do casual copying in certain circumstances, and yet others will massively and freely distribute copyrighted information to anyone who wants it. Even further along are commercial pirates, those who actually try to make money selling copies of copyrighted works.
The content creation industry is generally responding to this widespread "threat" by trying to purchase legislation that specifically preserves their business model. Either they do not want to embrace new technologies and figure out how to profit from them, or they are just lazy, or whatever... but the upshot is that they believe that they have a right to profit, and that it is moral to buy legislation in their favor. Some citizens and government officials believe this as well, and support such legislation, either because they REALLY believe it's wrong, or because they've been bought off by media companies.
Depending on your political views, you may or may not support the idea of direct interference in an industry by the government, for purposes of "saving" that industry. I personally believe the following: A free-market economy is generally a good thing, but if left completely unregulated, it will lead to severe abuse by the most powerful entities in the economy. Certain governmental measures are warranted, in order to prevent such abuse. Rescuing a faltering industry can be warranted, but it depends on the particular instance. If privately owned utility companies (power and water) are faltering and cannot easily be saved by the market, it is acceptable for the government to intervene -- if those companies disappear, millions of citizens may be left without water or power for extended periods of time, which is not acceptable.
However, the content creation industry is not so critical. For one thing, they do not have localized monopolies -- if I live in Westwood (a suburb of Los Angeles), I don't have any option for who provides my water and power. I get it from the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (yes, we make our own power, so no rolling blackouts for us!). If they go under and cannot provide power, then there is no way (aside from moving, which isn't feasible for hundreds of thousands of families to do at once) for me to get water and power until someone replaces the DWP. However, I can get music from numerous companies -- any of the big media conglomerates will have their music available for sale in numerous stores in the area, many of which are owned by different companies. If one (or five, or half) of the music companies goes out of business, I can still get music. Even if all music stores and companies went out of business simultaneously, I would still have all the music I had ALREADY purchased, and could listen to that while new music companies and stores were formed. (Unlike electricity, which you can't really store up in significant quantities.)
Essentially, industries which meet a certain limit of criticality are GENERALLY acceptable targets for government intervention when necessary, but of course that depends on exactly what the situation is. Trying to apply the same rules to everything, all the time, is stupid.
If the content industries can't hack it with their current business models, it will not significantly hurt anything for them to have to adapt -- even if some of them end up going out of business. It makes no sense to attempt to cripple the pace of technology and social development so that a few (relatively small) companies can survive. (By relatively small, I mean, for example, taht General Motors grosses more money in a year than all the music and film companies... COMBINED.)
Well, that's enough rambling for now. Hopefully this will inspire some creative thought in readers.
The lost art of reading (Score:1)
You might want to make mp3s of all your albums, but that doesn't mean you authorized to. Now, honestly, the RIAA probably does not care if we space-shift music. I mean, once you buy the CD, does it really matter to them if you listen to the CD, or the mp3s you made? They already got their money.
But, there is a rather large difference between making mp3s for personal use and making said mp3s available for thousands of people to download. Or grabbing up mp3s for songs you don't have on cd.
I'd love to believe that the p2p users really are only doing it to find new music. Or because that is easier than making the mp3s yourself. And I know some of you are. But I also know that some people use it as a way to not buy CDs. This is what's gotten them all riled up. The continued abuse of the "fair use" concept. It's not like fair use isn't defined [cornell.edu] or anything. It's pretty damn clearly defined.
P2P file sharing is not fair use. It never has been.
Now, that I've gotten you all upset, I'll say that I am basically on your side. I want to be able to make mix cds. I'd use mp3s if that was practical for me. The over-reaching "solution" they have come up with is an abomination and I can only hope it blows up in their faces. And yet, it's not a-typical for how Americans think. Nor is entirely against the grains of our US-ian culture.
To boil it down: breaking the law will not convince them you are right.
Some responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in must be placed on people abusing fair use.
-r
Double edged sword (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me explain. A 100 years ago, when there was no concept of recordings, musicians performed in the public. Anybody who was adept enough could listen to their music, and perform it as his own a few miles down the road.
Then came the recording technology. Suddenly, a musician could be in a 1000 places at once, performing live! Wunderbar, isn't technology great? This also gave birth the recording companies.
Then came the digital music. It allowed the recording companies to make millions of identical copies of a piece of music. The industry was happier than ever, with record revenues(no pun intended).
Now, suddenly this digital revolution has turned around and bit them on the ass, with P2P, DiVX, etc. Suddenly, the recording industry wants to control the technology now.
The fact of the matter is, you don't see anybody else complaining that their livelihood is being hurt by technology! Why should there be an exception for the RIAA?
Review of Copyrights and Copywrongs (Score:1)
The short version: I found it rather dry.
Jai Siva (Score:2)
Rap music, sampling, and Biz Markie (Score:3, Informative)
The injunction [detritus.net] handed down on December 17, 1991 forced Biz Markie's hit album, "I Need a Haircut," off the shelves for including a sample of Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)." This case marked the end of sound collage in popular music, since it firmly established that the number of notes that may be sampled without permission is zero.
The US Supreme Court was a little bit looser in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc [benedict.com] (the 2 Live Crew / Roy Orbison "Pretty Woman" case), and allowed 2 Live Crew the affirmative defense of fair use, overturning past decisions that had held commercial appropriation to be presumptively infringing.
These are probably the cases of the early '90s to which Mr. Vaidhyanathan is referring.
-Isaac
You don't have to be a critic of I.P. to diss this (Score:2)
Technology regulation is an abomination to the careful balance of intellectual property rights, and affirmatively stunts economic and technological growth. Giving patent-like protections to copyright holders on unpatentable technologies for indefinite terms would be an anathema if proposed as an amendment to the patent system -- why does doing it in defense of the copyright laws make it less awful?
IP works if, and only if, the careful foundations on which it is predicated are followed. Technology regulation is a blight on the face of the IP universe, and is bad on balance for our nation and all of its authors and inventors, whether or not you are a critic of the Copyright Act in the first place.
This is the third War (Score:1, Insightful)
We are not cows. To spend our lives pent up waiting for death. We are wolves. And wolves, unlike cows, roam freely. The spirit of our country has always been thus. Our forefathers gave their lives to ensure this. But now, like Judas, those we have entrusted to protect our freedom have betrayed us. How many indignities must there be before we say enough? I say - enough.
Write, call, speak. Let your voice be heard. Before it is too late.
Legal Sampling? (Score:2)
I was under the impression that this was how MC Hammer's "You Can't Touch This" was not only possible but inpsired (it's ripped from that "Superfreak" song, the name of the artist escapes me at the moment), as well as many works by Weird Al Yankovic. Does this apply to only parodies? I'm pretty sure if the song is a remix of the sampled song you need permission no matter what, but for simply taking a small clip for yor own purposes is legal.
I know for a fact in techno/house/other electronic music many producers rip drums and hi hats from existing records because it saves production time, especially if you find the sound you where trying for already created. Of course, most of these producers probably don't give a sh*t because they realize it's no biggie...
I hope someone can answer this because it may mean I need to strip a phatty lil Biz Markie sample from my latest
You Americans think this is bad.... (Score:2, Insightful)
US passes law.
Aust citizens protest and are ignored because "the US did it" so:
Aust passes same law drafted even worse.
I never thought I'd say this, but at least for Australia, US citizens really can "save the world".
*sigh*
InfoAnarchy review of Copyrights and Copywrongs (Score:2)
Which is a better read: Code or CR/CW? (Score:2)
A friendly debate: Which book is a better read: Lessig's Code or Vaidhyanathan's Copyrights and Copywrongs? We're not looking at the specifics of the content -- Code being about the regulation of cyberspace -- but their readability. I will take no offense at those who give Code the nod.
New Loophole? (Score:1)
So what if we took this idea a bit further. What if I took every CD I have and burned each individual song onto its own CD. Then if one of my friends wanted to listen to one song, he could. This should be OK becuase while he is listening to that one song, I am not.
Now, lets take that idea one step further, and introduce an application that runs on a server. It holds mp3s/oggs of every song I have ever bought, and of every song all my friends that I let into this deal have bought. It also has a database so that if multile copies of any song exist, that is noted. When you want to listen to a song, you can browse/search for songs that aren't currently being used, and you can listen to them. The server only lets x streams of any given song go out, where x is the number of times the song has been purchased by those who join this co-op. We could even do this for DVDs.
The one big problem with all this is making sure that the CD that someone enters as having been bought can't be used as a CD anymore. So if you buy a CD and want to get it into this co-op you have to stick it in the co-op vault or something, to be sure it isn't being accessed by you at your house while someone else streams it.
Some would probably think this system is stealing, but it is not as far as I can tell. It is merely making VERY efficient use of resources. Instead of having to go over to your friend house to borrow the CD all you have to do is type in your username and password, and stream it.
I know bandwidth limitations make this hard to do. What about incorporating a P2P client to assist in content delivery, like the spyware in kazaa or freenet does.
Does anyone see any legal flaws with this system? I'd like to know what the slashdot community thinks of this idea.
NPR show online at last (Score:2)
Re:Random thought (Score:2)
Gross Oversimplification (Score:5, Interesting)
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody...
(letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813 as cited in Kock & Peden, 1972).
Jefferson believed that ideas, once released into the minds of others can no longer be considered the property of one person like land can be. But he also believed that the individual responsible for conceiving the idea should have some sort of just compensation for their ingenuity. It is the balance between these two concepts that forms the basis for fair intellectual property rights.
Re:Random thought (Score:2)
The reason MP doesn't threaten mobility is because of Right of Way. You can't enter my home without my permission, but you can use the road which I own in front of my house without consulting with anyone. A history of right of ways is instructive. They have been abused in the past in much the same way that IP rights are being abused today. But we got over them.
Re:Random thought (Score:1)
Also, historically, real estate was a much greater obstacle to mobility than today. In eighteenth-century London, many of the roads were privately owned, and there were toll tages all over the place. Public ownership of city streets, and easements for roads on rural land, are relatively recent inventions.
Re:Random thought (Score:2, Insightful)
If you and I each have an idea, and we share ideas, after sharing we each have two ideas.
Ideas
sometimes it does... (Score:1)
Re:Random thought (Score:2)
That's correct. More correct than you seem to realize.
Which is why land ownership is also a balance of rights. As it should be.
The difference, economically speaking, between Land and IP is that Land--by definition--exists independently of human effort. (If someone made it, economists don't consider it Land.)
The moral and Constitutional justification for copyright law and other forms of IP is the public interest in promoting the arts and useful sciences; in other words, we need some laws protecting intellectual property to encourage people to keep making it. But no such justification exists for laws protecting Land rights. It's not as though people will stop manufacturing Land.
This is classical economics, going back to the eighteenth-century writings of David Ricardo and Adam Smith and carried forward through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Henry George [henrygeorge.org]. Private property in Land is an artificial legal construct that in many cases interferes with the free market. Just like overbroad intellectual property protection, Land monopoly causes hoarding, speculation, and underuse.
Most people take Land monopoly for granted, because it's as old as monarchy. But it's just as overreaching and unnecessary as the most draconian intellectual property law, and it's just as much of a taking from the commons--but literally, not metaphorically.