Re: "Hollywood hacking bill" / RFF Reply & Links

On Sat, 2002-11-02 at 00:57, Graham Bassett wrote:
> Some time ago, David Turner wrote:
>
> > But this is off-topic for CNI-copyright.
>
> I have given a lot of consideration to the view that content issues
> are off-topic for copyright lawyers. While lying in bed yesterday
> with both hamstrings torn from an over-zealous stretch for the try
> line while playing touch Rugby (why do men about to enter their
> sixth decade try to recreate glory days?), I did something I rarely
> do. I watched TV news. And what was on? Another funeral for one
> of our Bali dead - and how keen the mainstream TV channel was to
> zoom in to the face of a boy, probably no older that 10 or 11, as he
> mourned the loss of his mother, the wife of a former footballing
> international. The cameraman dutifully captured each tear as it
> fell down the boy's puzzled face. I am sure those of you in NY and
> the wider US have had many such tele opportunities since 10/11 due
> to the distribution rights that relate to them.
>
> It is copyright law that allows this TV station extensive commerical
> rights that result in its exploitation of this boy's pain.
> Furthermore, our privacy laws would not allow this boy or his family
> any redress for this violation of their remembrance as journalism is
> exempt from such controls. No doubt such a show would claim freedom
> of speech.
>
> Now what was this televsdiual product? It is a property right we
> create and promote. If copyright is a property value that allows a
> licensee or owner by assignment of material, I don't see how one can
> isolate copyright from content. The law protects the content and
> gives it a set of proprietorial rights to be exploited for
> commercial gain. (International rights backed by TRIPS and the
> WTO). If our aim is to make students respect copyright (as Nancy
> Willard aspires) then perhaps one of the problems young people have
> is that when they see dubious content they are able to ascertain
> that respect for the laws that maintain rights in such content is a
> difficult concept to take on board. Thus the puzzled look on the
> grieivng boy's face as he looked straight into the cameraperson.

In other words, you propose to deny copyright only for people and ideas that you do not like? While I'm not a supporter of strong copyright [1], this view seems rather inequitable [2]. Wouldn't a better solution (from the perspective of your interest in the non-"exploitation" of children) be to improve privacy (and perhaps property) laws? Alternately, just censor the news. If you want censorship, you know where to find it.

Indeed, TV networks rely much less on copyright in news items than most other copyright holders. Imagine that there were no copyright laws for things that Graham Bassett doesn't like. If that footage which you decry were on ABC, and NBC chose to copy it, most people would still watch ABC -- it would be slightly more timely, higher fidelity (in the case of analog signals), and original. Most viewers would choose to support the station producing original material. It's true that a "best of news" station might spring up mining material from all news channels, but this would be even less timely (and therefore no substitute for the live news). And in the real world, the scarcity of spectrum would tend to prevent this anyway.

I am not saying that I believe that the news is any less worthy of copyright than anything else -- merely that your method won't meet your ends.

Finally, would the exploitation be any better if it were by a non-profit documentary maker, who works only for fame, not money?

> > I know this is probably hard to understand for someone from a
> > country with a "Office of Film & Literature Classification", but
> > freedom, too, is a possible societal value. And it's one that the
> > American legal culture values highly.

I actually wish I could take that statement back -- it was overbroad (since it is certain that many Australians would not choose censorship, if given that choice), and poor logic (since it's possible that the set of Australians who support OFLC understand that freedom could be valued, but simply value other things more highlu). Also, it was un-necessarily snarky.

> While our country may decide that in certain circumstances the use
> of copyright to promote certain damaging materials to minors is not
> a good thing (a quite different matter to that I mention above which
> is about exploitaition of a minor to create a product), this does
> not reduce our cognitive capacity to evaluate the assertion that
> freedom is an absolute value. This assertion is incorrect.

I don't know what you mean by an "absolute value." Certianly freedom can be valued for its own sake. It is further possible that some people could take some idea of freedom to an extreme -- that is, holding that the only thing that they (as individuals or as a society) value is this idea of freedom. I do not feel that many people alive do this, although as I understand the Objectivism of Ayn Rand, property rights are viewed as an aspect of freedom, and this total concept of freedom is the only proper thing for a society to value. I don't agree with Rand, but some do.

A more limited valuation of freedom -- that is, that freedom is one of many important factors, is the idea that America was founded on:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Now, you're free to disagree with this -- many do. But we're still at the metalevel of you not accepting that someone could believe this. I refuse to argue the main point (that is, whether violent video games are free speech, and whether freedom of speech is a worthwhile value) head-to-head with you. But I think once you accept the metapoint, we can agree to disagree on the actual point.

> Some years ago I read through coronial records of as siege here
> called the 'Cangai Seige'. During that siege journalists from a
> major current affairs show flew a chopper to the scene and,
> according to the Coroner, put the lives of the children being held
> hostage and the police at risk in order to get an "exclusive", an
> exclusive over which I am sure they would wish to maintain
> copyright.

.... but if they didn't want to maintain copyright, this risky behavior would have been fine?  

Anyway, isn't that a bit outside the range of the Coroner's job?

> The Coroner found:
>
> All sorts of assertions can be made in the name of freedom of the
> press. Freedom, if one reflects for a moment, cannot be exalted to
> such an extent that it becomes an absolute which would then become
> the source of values. (P. D. Gould, NSW Deputy State Coroner)

This is sloppy thinking. Firstly, a certain concept of freedom certainly could be so exalted (see above on Rand) -- it simply would be unlikely to lead to a society you or I would like to live in. Second, while it's true that one could "assert" that freedom of the press requires one to allow falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater, one could also assert the oppposite. And there can be reasoned debate on this. One could also not choose to take freedom (any view of freedom) into account at all in the debate over whether X or Y ought to be allowed -- but I don't think this would lead to a society any better than Rand's.

> Nor should freedom be exalted when it is used to support the
> intellectual property of free marketeers who wish to exploit
> children and teenagers by exposing them to ultra-violence and
> sexualization at an all-too-early age.

Again: No copyright for things Graham Bassett doesn't like.  

> > (And, of course, at least 33 media scholars disagree that violent
> > media cause violence -- see
> > http://www.fepproject.org/courtbriefs/stlouis.html)
>
> This is impressive evidence. Yet one does wonder. Given the
> efforts of tobacco companies in hiding evidence that was contrary to
> their point of view behind legal professional privilege, one wonders
> if similar contrary evidence in the case of prolonged exposure to
> ultra violence and other unsuitable material is now subjected to
> legal privilege in offices of the producers and creators of this
> material.

So, your case is based on the possibility that secret evidence might exist to support your view?

> I repeat my point that the impact that viewing (or playing in games)
> ultra violence is a matter of 'common sense' - there is little need
> for a court to consider expert evidence.

Oh, just like the reliability of eyewitness testimony -- common sense says that if someone saw something, and says they remember it, that they do. But research says otherwise.

Anyway, my common sense tells me that make-believe is make-believe, and that Quake (not that many kids play Quake) is not much different than cops and robbers.

> But even if a did consider expert evidence was necessary, consider
> this - the creators of the material themselves question prolonged
> exposure to it - there are news reports showing that Spielberg and
> Tom Cruise go to considerable lengths to control the viewing of
> their own children.

>From the reports I read about this, they were more concerned about
duration than content (especially Cruise).

I would hardly consider Tom Cruise an expert in child psychology -- or psychology of any kind. He's a Scientologist (want to talk about abuse of copyright?). See www.xenu.net for details.

And Spielberg isn't a psychologist either. I'm actually rather surprised that you think highly of him, given that his copyrighted film Schindler's List profits from depicting the suffering of Jews. No doubt watching it has upset many people, while Spielberg lines his pockets...

> Here also is an abstract from Australian
> Psychologist Volume 36 Number 3 2001: Video Games and Aggressive
> Behaviour by Gabrielle Unsworth and Tony Ward' University of
> Melbourne:

Unfortunately, AP holds copyright on that article, and has chosen not to make the full article available for download. So, I cannot evaluate the quality of the research. But, since it is a survey study (er, is this the right term? I mean, a metastudy, a study of studies), I hold it fairly suspect. Survey studies are extremely vulnerable to selection bias. See Freedman's paper (below) for comments on that.

> I also point you to this research by Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D.,
> Professor & Chair, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University
> at
> http://www.youngmedia.org.au/mediachildren/05_07_violence_anderson.htm
> - Young Media is an Australian organsation that examines such issues
> as we speak of here.

That's not research. It's advocacy. Anderson does have research, but that's not it.

Of course, if I had the time and inclination, I could find you a dozen studies that say the opposite of Anderson, such as:

"There is not the slightest evidence that playing violent video games causes any long-term or lasting increase in aggressiveness or violence."
(http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/freedman.html)

Anderson also has found that hot weather causes aggression. Will you mandate air conditioners, too? Maybe just deny copyright for companies who don't provide air conditioners for their employees?

<SNIP drug-addled ramblings not even remotely related to the media-violence-copyright already-off-topic discussion>

Footnotes:

[1]: Indeed, I work for the Free Software Foundation -- this should probably give you a hint that my views are closer to JP Riolo's, although I don't think that he has entirely the right views or entirely the right reasoning behind those views. Of course, the views I present on CNI aren't necessarily the Foundation's views -- they're not even necessarily my views. A mailing list is a great place to argue for sport.

[2] I believe that consistency is a form of correctness.

-- 
-Dave Turner                        Stalk Me: 617 441 0668
"Your subsequent comparison of Cornell University with the 
Ku Klux Klan is probably, umm, a slight exaggeration, but 
never mind." -John Baez (sci.physics.research)