Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Wed, May 03, 2000, James Rogers <jetan[_at_]ionet.net> wrote:
>
> If you guys can forgive me for asking sort of an airy-fairy
> philosophical question, I'm a bit curious as to how you guys feel
> about the Napster and MP3 suits in the most _general_ sense. Clearly
> these are just the beginnings of an all out assault on copyright on
> the most basic, conceptual level. It also seems clear that none of
> us can readily conceive of all the tech fronts on which copyright
> will have to be defended.

     Napster and MP3 do not represent an assault on copyright in any way shape or form. Napster may or may not have a violation of copyright as part of its basic business model -- but violating copyright is not an assault on copyright. What Napster definitely does do is demonstrate that major impediments to committing significant violations of copyright no longer exists.

     It used to be that someone who wanted to make music available to lots and lots of people without involving the record companies had to essentially become a record company with all of the fixed costs and distribution expenses that the record companies have. It took a lot of money to be able to be a significant infringer -- people who were living from paycheck to paycheck could only make a few tapes for their friends, and those tapes were poorer quality than the record company product. The record companies didn't like people taping albums they had purchased, but it was not a big threat to their constitutionally (and treaty) approved monopoly.

     MP3 and Napster are only the beginning of a technological "leveling of the playing field" that is rendering the impediments to violating copyright, impediments that record companies have depended on, irrelevant. Increasingly we have to come to grips with whether an action is good for society ("promote the useful arts") and whether it is legal -- we can't depend on the costs of manufacturing and distribution to support societal good or legality any more. In short we need to do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because it is our only practical option. Of course that does raise questions as to what the right thing is...  

> I am of the opinion that Napster represents a very clear violation
> of the copyright statute.

     A reasonable description, after all the people who are receiving digital copies of CDs they have purchased have not made those digital copies themselves.

> My position is (I think) that the court, soon or late, is going
> to have to adopt a new model for copyright, by which I mean a
> new economic model.

     Oh yes. I firmly believe that humans are capable of using our tools with wisdom and restraint -- but we are also inveterate gossips, we love to share information. If most of us have the ability to copy and share any information we have access to most of us are going to copy and share the information we have access to. Trying to stop that is like trying to stop the tide.

> Assuming that I am correct, what form can you conceive of this taking?

     Getting approval for those uses where approval is needed has to be as easy as copying and distributing is. Paying for those uses where payment is reasonable also needs to be easy -- and the prices have to reflect the actual costs. The barriers to publishing a work need to be low so that anyone can attempt to be an author, musician, etc. -- it is a lot easier to "do the right thing" if it really is possible for anyone to benefit from an ethos of respecting copyright.

     It also needs to be possible to make an "unapproved but compensated" use of a work so that people whose use would not be approved of have only the option of an uncompensated infringement left to them. And someone who acquires a derivative work made from a copy of a copy of a copy needs to be as able to properly compensate the author(s) of the work as the person who originally purchased a copy from the author(s) is.

> I realize that in a way I am asking you folks to be science
> fiction writers and extrapolate larger effects from a technological
> development.

     That is what Science Fiction is for. It would be good if more people read it. (and wrote it -- even with Sturgeon's Law. Which is why a good editor will always be second only to the author in justifiably receiving a cut of the compensation given for using intellectual property.)

     Sincerely,
     Christopher

Christopher Gwyn
<christopher[_at_]icopyright.com> Received on Thu May 04 2000 - 16:57:45 GMT