Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

Linda Gruber <linda[_at_]novelart.com> wrote:

>to answer your questions by showing what the result could be if
>you strip a selected group of their rights and don't allow them to
>retain an asset to pass on to their offspring.

The crux of your argument is borderline circular reasoning. You are assuming that copyright is a "perpetual right", and build your argument upon that, even trying in a couple places to prove that copyrights should be a "perpetual right" by assuming this in the first place -- like trying to prove God exists by presupposing he exists.

Fine. But many of us do not believe this to be the case, and thus come to a different conclusion vis-a-vis copyright.

>deny copyright holders the right to regain some of their rights

Again, you are making this out to be a rights issue, and presupposing what the rights should be.

>through term extension, it becomes a no win situation for the
>copyright holders. They are being ripped off right and left. There
>is no protection from the thieves. Then, in the end, they are still
>deprived of the right to keep and pass along their assets. How
>creative can one be while being treated with such disrespect?
>Better to quit and go flip burgers. There's more money in it.

Assuming that copyright infringement is terribly rampant as you claim, then what good does perpetual copyrights give you? The "assets" you wish to give your heirs won't generate anything anyway!

Maybe you ought to be advocating the criminalization of all copyright infringement, with prison terms of 10+ years in jail. And having the Federal Government set up a "Copyright Czar", with a $20 billion budget, to fight copyright infringement. And having special crime SWAT teams to break down doors and confiscate all the belongings (including the homes since they were used for copyright infringement) of the infringers. Where the whole Internet is monitored by a huge government bureaucracy to search out infringement and other illegal acts. Gee, a "War on Piracy", just like our $200 billion/year "War on Drugs". Just what we need.

And of course, all paid for by the taxpayers, without you nor your heirs having to pay a dime of any special fees or taxes to maintain your "natural right".

>That's exactly why I was drawing an analogy to something that most
>people commonly own and would not expect to give over to the public
>domain. The only reason anyone got the idea that they could take
>the labor of authors and artists is because the government decided
>to call it something other than private property.

Because copyright is a monopoly, to prevent others from *copying* your personal property. You will still own the original text. If somebody stole the text, you can call the local police who will try to nab the suspect, and if caught/convicted can be thrown in local jail (it's not even a Federal matter).

Notice that the theft of an original art work is treated as theft, but selling copies of it is treated as copyright infringement.

>Your side complains that WE stole from the public domain by fighting
>to get a longer term. That seems ridiculous to me. Having a term
>at all is ridiculous to me. It would seem ridiculous to you too, if
>you were the one singled out to give up your private property. My
>fable was about an automobile because I thought maybe non creators
>could relate to the way they would feel if they had to give up
>something they believed they had every right to own.

Pay your property tax for special Federal protection, and maybe I'll accept indefinite copyright monopoly terms. And when you quit paying the tax, the work reverts to the Public Domain.

>I have seen very little proactive help from the government in
>supporting copyrights. It's an expensive proposition to protect
>one's own rights. I have 19 infringers to email and bill for
>infringed usage right now and that is just from last week. You
>can bet that each of those emails will generate about 5 more as
>they will most certainly argue with me. I don't see how policing
>my rights myself is a protection which allows me to produce more
>work.

My published Kama Sutra, in which I added a lot of original material, was cracked (it is SoftLock-protected) and the crack posted on the Internet. I saw sales actually increase during this period in time. As a publisher (and author since I wrote the added material) I was angry, but I accepted this as the cost of doing business -- I didn't bother to send out letters. The idea is to work around it, even take advantage of it. Bill Gates was quoted once as saying that software piracy is bad, and he will fight it, but if anybody is to pirate anything it should be his stuff!

I'm reminded of the little prayer, of which I can't remember, but which goes something like "May God grant me the peace to accept those things I cannot change..."

>Does the copyright law give creators special additional rights
>and protections other than recognizing the authors right to own
>and control his own property and rent it out if he likes? It DOES
>specify the rights.

U.S. Copyright law grants you a MONOPOLY, not enforce a *right*. So your use of the word "right" is itself called into question by many of us.

> It DOES take rights from us through fair use.
>It DOES limit the term of our rights, and it ultimately DOES give
>our rights to the public. The government didn't negotiate a contract
>with creators to do this. There was no meeting of the minds. They
>just did it the same way they took the land from Native Americans.

Well, then, are you willing to pay the special copyright "property" tax so the Federal Government will have the billions to wage the "War on Piracy" for you?

Just imagine the outcome of this "war". The citizenry will just love those who create copyrightable works.

>No, in my fable, the government takes cars just as it takes creators'
>rights to keep the assets they create and ought to be allowed to pass
>on to their heirs.

What incentive will your heirs have to create new works to benefit the public when they are earning their keep from your labor?

>I am a strong supporter of copyrights since that is the law, but I
>believe that we should be able to change the law to react to the
>times and protect creators against infringement as the Constitution
>gave Congress the power to do. However, I am a free thinker. I
>don't know if my views are easily pigeonholed. My views are
>logical from the perspective of an original creator, but that
>usually means that those who don't stand in my shoes can't see the
>logic. That's why I have learned to tell fables.

Well, as a publisher of Aesop's Fables (hmmm, I wonder how I track the heirs of that work to pay them -- better not to publish it since I can't adequately compensate the heirs!), I do see the power of Fables. I'm sure I can come up with my own Fables to give the flip side of copyright enforcement, since no matter what copyright philosophy one believes in, enforcement is needed.

But as I illustrate above, the level of enforcement of copyright you wish for comes at a *huge* monetary cost, and eventually will lead to an infringement of other civil liberties, and a further erosion of the public's good will towards voluntarily adhering to copyright.

The Napster case shows how a large share of the public has gotten angry at the business model currently used to distribute music (expensive CD's distributed through stores). Maybe we need to sit back and rethink the whole issue of copyright and associated revenue-generating (business) models.

We are no longer in the era of the Statute of Ann.

>I was talking about the government action of limiting the term of
>copyrights. So it IS through government action that my property is
>taken without compensation for fair market value as it would be had
>they taken it under eminent domain. The licensing fees are an asset
>that will always be exploitable by someone. Why should my heirs not
>be the ones to benefit?

Well, if they are willing to pay their fair share for special Federal protection of their "assets", then why not?

Of course, you again are assuming a certain view of the property nature of copyright. I still believe it to be a contractual monopoly.

>Original works do not originate in the public domain. While a
>non original creator could think that copyrighted works are only
>derivatives of the public domain, most of my inspiration and the
>inspiration of most professional creators is original. As I have
>said before, my main source of inspiration comes from staring at
>the light and shadows in my bathroom carpet. That's definitely not
>in the public domain.

Nope, it is your value added. Nevertheless, no doubt that what you create is influenced by what you've seen since you were born, as well as techniques you learned along the way. Had you lived in another time and another culture, when you looked at the light and shadows of your bathroom carpet, the art you created will be quite different. If you grew up in Medieval Japan, your art will look like other art from the period.

>The problem is that if the government is charged with protecting our
>copyrights, the government needs to proactively support copyright
>holders and back up the copyright law with an educational ad campaign
>and actions like requiring the browser makers to provide a process
>that recognizes a mark encrypted in copyrighted digital work.

Who's going to pay for this? How much will it cost? When that doesn't work, then what's next, the SWAT teams and Big Brother monitoring the Internet?

>It's easy for you to feel that way. It is not easy to listen to your
>perspective when one creates original work, spends years and thousands
>of dollars trying to get a freelance career going, then fights an
>uphill battle against rampant infringement, rights grabbing publishers,
>clip art, and stock houses. On top of all that struggle, you think we
>creators should not lobby to change the terms of a so called contract
>we never agreed to in the first place.

Nobody said that business is easy. I'm in the process of forming my third company in a year and a half. Life is tough -- the rewards go to those who tough it out, and who are *creative* in overcoming the obstacles. Notice I said *creative*. There are business models for deriving revenue from created works that minimize the impact of copyright infringement. In fact, for certain works one may use copyright infringement as a benefit, sort of like some martial arts philosophies that teach on how to take advantage of the strength of one's opponent -- to turn the strength of the opponent on themselves. I don't think we've even scratched the surface for how creators can self-protect their works outside of extended copyright laws. In fact, copyright as a "natural right" may blind us to the many potentials that exist.

Jon Noring
Windspun Received on Mon Aug 07 2000 - 14:47:18 GMT