Re: copyright under stress

On Sat, Jun 17, 2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 15, 2000, Edward Barrow <edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> > Let us assume that there were no copyright law. It is unlikely that
> > innovation or creativity would stop altogether, for humanity was
> > innovative and creative long before copyright law surfaced. But
> > the market for works of the intellect would be profoundly different.
> > Much more work would be commissioned exclusively. The costs -- of
> > the writer's time and any subsequent production investment -- would
> > have to be borne by the first purchaser, who would be likely to
> > require exclusive access enforced with confidentiality agreements.
> > (Why should I pay a lot for something if my neighbour can then get
> > it for free?). The consequence would be that access to information
> > would be much more restricted.
> >
> > Copyright allied with easy reproduction means that many people can
> > each pay a little towards the costs of producing creative works;
> > without copyright -- and despite easy reproduction -- the trend would
> > be towards a few people having to pay a great deal.
>
> Would this situation still obtain in a world where the production
> costs were vanishingly small -- as for example the Internet is
> claimed to present?

The Internet makes _re_production costs vanishly small; the costs of producing good electronic material which takes advantage of the medium will always be considerable. By reducing the costs of reproduction, digital technology is simply continuing the process started by the printing press, the technology which created the need for copyright in the first place.

> And what about copyright on information or material which is not
> a commodity but subject to "mass customization"? (Would a business
> that needed a particular software program, for example, refrain from
> buying it because others could obtain it for free? -- is that a
> sound business decision? -- and why wouldn't the author be able to
> charge other businesses anyway, even if others could get some of
> the software for free -- the author might know how to work it
> better.)

This prompts me to ask a further hypothetical: how could you enforce the terms of an instrument having similar effect to the GPL in the absence of copyright?

> The same argument is being made today about music on the Internet.
> My friend John Perry Barlow believes that musicians should give it
> away on the Internet but charge for performances.

This could be a viable business model for those acts worth seeing live; not all music is so suited.

> Please note that I only raise these issues for discussion. I am
> not completely clear myself on what the right answers are. But
> I am beginning to feel that technology such as the Internet might
> cause us to think differently about both the problems and the
> solutions.

I agree. I think that one of the most difficult problems is however raised by the power of digital technology to modify works: cut-and-paste, search-and-replace, morphing, and more. Copyright law in the traditional media has established the distinction between being inspired by another work, and copying it. Is that distinction sustainable in the new media?

> I am confident that the copyright term should not have been
> increased. I am not willing to give up on copyright entirely.
> But we ought to be ready to experiment a bit more -- we seem to
> be looking for nails just because we have a hammer in our hand.

To continue with your metaphor, if we are not to use the hammer, we will have to design and make another tool from scratch, which would probably end up looking much like our hammer. We need, I think, a new sort of nail for the new medium.

Edward Barrow
edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk Received on Mon Jun 19 2000 - 19:59:30 GMT