On 05/26/2000, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
>
> My own view of copyright is not that it is per se antiquated or
> wrong, but that the movement of it in the last 30 years has been
> the opposite of what technological change should have led to. For
> instance, terms should have become shorter, copyright should have
> covered less material, and notice of what is copyrighted and whom
> to contact for permission more obvious.
>
> I see a tactical dilemma, however.
>
> One tactic would be to point out to the community what is wrong
> with copyright and, through various means, try to put pressure on
> Congress to reform. This daunts, because copyright presents one
> of democracy's weaknesses -- a strong private interest group
> against a diffuse public interest.
>
> The other is the Gotterdammerung approach. Copyright is becoming
> increasingly dysfunctional and the conflict with the First Amendment
> more and more stark. Reason appears to have less importance and the
> dialogue moves towards polemics. The reactions to copyright problems
> have generally been to propose increasingly draconian copyright
> measures supported by emotion laden terms like "steal", "piracy",
> and handsome PAC contributions. I suspect that such an approach
> will eventually lead to a radical restructuring of copyright by the
> courts, or to it being hacked apart by the mob (at least the Geek
> part of the mob).
>
> So which is the better tactical approach? To fight, or to encourage
> outrageous excess, confident that after the Revolution the Hollywood
> moguls will be sweeping the streets?
I'm not sure I agree with either option. Even if you dramatically shorten the copyright period -- to, say,10 years -- that's still forever in internet time and not likely to address the problem of copyrights online.
On the other hand, if you dismember copyright entirely for some subject areas, I don't think the result will be as intended. Let's say, for example, that you do away with copyright for recorded musical works, since gnutella if not napster makes it so easy to copy such works with impunity. Do you honestly believe that the music industry will simply give up and allow unlimited, high-quality copies of recorded works to be freely circulated? Not on your life. If they can't rely on copyright, they'll rely on more restrictive means of making the music available. Sure, you'll be able to download tons of garage-band quality music for free, some of which may be pretty good, but the stuff you were willing to pay for before gnutella and napster, you'll still have to pay for -- probably more, and you'll probably get the music in a format that will severely limit what you can play it on. Bottom line, if the recording companies can't make money on their output, they're not going to spend money making it.
If copyright is inherently flawed, it is only because the law lacks an enforcement mechanism to stop those who are tempted by the idea of stealing with impunity. There is an old saying -- "The thief who has no opportunity to steal thinks himself an honest man." Gnutella and Napster are giving us all the opportunity to steal, and I guess we're finding out now how few honest men there really are in our society today.
Kevin Grierson
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:39 GMT