Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Wed, 17 May 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> wrote:
>
> And no, I do not believe that the "right to copy" is an inherent,
> natural right of the people, which is what I initially responded to.

It is not clear to me how you arrive at your position stating that there is no right to copy. The nature has a lot to say about the action of copying.

Take the life of the human being as an example. In order for sperms and eggs to be made, their parents' bodies have to copy their DNA to the sperms and eggs. After the conception happens, many billion copies of the DNA are produced during the formation of the fetus. After a baby is born, he becomes a good copier, copying anything interesting from the surrounding environment. He listens to the sounds and try to copy them by repeating the same sounds. He sees people doing different things and try to copy them by doing the same things. His brain keeps many million images of many things that he receives through his senses. When he learns to write, he copies the letters by drawing the same shapes of what he see in the books or on the blackboards. When he learns to sing, he copies the words of the song by repeating the words. When he learns to paint, he copies anything by making the same images. When he wants to be better in a sport or game, he studies other people playing the sport or game and copies some of their skills, techniques, and strategies. When he wants to do better in farm or craft business, he goes to conference to copy any new skill or process and put it in practice. When he is young, he listens to his grandfather's old stories and remember them by copying the stories to his mind so that during his later times, he will be able to retall the same stories to his grandchildren maintaining the continuity of culture.

What is true for an individual is also true for a community or society. History has demonstrated numerous times that societies copied (not "borrow", to borrow an idea from another society implies that the idea has to be returned back to the society after the term is up) many things from each other for their developments. Without the action of copying, a society would not become civilized.

It is the nature's choice that every living thing must copy to continue living. No one can learn, grow, and live without copying. Because every living thing depends on copying, the nature decreed that every living thing has the freedom to copy or has the natural right to copy. To say that there is no natural right to copy is to disregard the nature's design and to disrespect the action of copying that every living thing, community, society, culture, and civilization depends on.

If the wisdom of the nature is not enough, we should take a look at the meaning of "communicate". The root word of communicate is the Latin word meaning common. When you communicate anything to other people in any form or medium, what you has communicated becomes common to all people to whom it is communicated. Becoming common to all people is essential for communication to happen. Else, there is no communication. How is it possible for a communicated thing to become common to other people? By letting them copy what you have to communicate or by letting them have the copies of what you want to communicate. Copying is the cornerstone of communication.

This is supported by the "Fair Use Doctrine". In a subtle way, it recognizes our natural right to copy which is important for communication although the strong proponents of copyright do not want to admit it. In fact, they want to eliminate the whole fair use which is no surprise. Because of the fair use, people are able to communicate a bit more freely.

It should be noted that only one section of the U.S. copyright law allows some people with disabilities copy some of the copyrighted works without any infringement. This is another way of saying that they have a bit more freedom to copy than other people because they need to copy in order to communicate, learn, or whatever they want to do.

(Parenthetically, the relationship between liberty and the Latin word liber for book may be a pure coincidence but I think that it should be mentioned here to suggest that liberty requires the freedom to produce, which is to say make copies, abundantly. The word "library" has the root word "liber" which is the Latin word for book. Liber also means bark which implies that writing was first done on bark. Liber is also the name of a Roman idol for fertility and grapevines. Liberty also comes from the Latin word liber. How does liberty relate to fertility? As anyone who has raised any child can testify, in order for a child to grow, you will have to give him (or her) the room to explore. If you try to restrain him to a crib, he will not be able to develop intellectually and physically. Giving him a lot of room to explore means that he has more freedom than before in exploring the surrounding environment. This freedom enables him to grow. This is also true for any potted plant. If there is no more room in a pot for the plant to spread out its roots, the plant will stop growing and eventually die. In order for the plant to grow, you have to buy a bigger pot and move it to the new pot. When the plant reaches the maturity, it is able to produce seeds or food or flowers abundantly. Therefore, there is a strong link between the liberty and freedom and the ability to grow and become fertile, which is to say to make many copies. Since liber (book) embodies the knowledge, the knowledge has to spread freely in the same way as the roots that have to spread freely to support their plant. As the result, the tree of knowledge is formed. It could not have existed without the liberty -- the freedom to copy.)

People will say that copyright is for the fixed things and my arguments above are off the mark. Is there any difference between unfixed and fixed things in respect to copying? No. The line between unfixed and fixed things is created only to satisfy these strong proponents of copyright. What is the real difference between the person A who learns how to fish from a teacher and the person B who learns the same from a book? None. Both persons copy the same techniques.

People also will say that copyright covers only the expressions. Again, is there any difference between the expressions and the ideas that are responsible for these expressions? No. The dichotomy between them is arbitrary. What is an idea to some people or in a different time may be an expression to other people or in other time and vice versa. Long time ago, it is not a copyright infringement to do a translation. Now, it is. Not long time ago, it is not a copyright infringement to copy an architectural work. Now, it is. The difference between the copyrightable and uncopyrightable works does not affect the nature of the action of copying. This is best shown by the "Merger Doctrine" which states that there is no difference between an idea and an expression for they are the same.

The strong proponents of copyright have confused the consequences of copying with the means of copying. While the nature has given each of us the natural right to copy, it does not give us the natural right to exploit each other exceedingly in commercial way. It is a mistake not to limit the copyright and patent rights to commerce in the U.S. Constitution. Like Mafia which is very obsessive with controlling the means, the strong proponents of copyright no doubt are very addicted to controlling the means of copying that they have no qualm in suppressing the natural right to copy and in refusing to recognize the natural right to copy.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 6,793 Received on Sat May 27 2000 - 01:02:26 GMT