So a lot of the Debate Hall threads have been very esoteric lately. So let's get one that's more down-to-Earth, as it were. Something that directly affects you today. There was an older thread on this subject in the DH, but it wasn't as informative, comprehensive, nor as divisive as this will likely be. My views tend to be on the extreme side, I feel, so hopefully we can gather debate even from the moderate crowd.
"Intellectual Property" Law. I will spend a little time defining what it is, what it is not, and how it contains issues both legally, practically, and morally. You will find that my stated position is the abolishing of most forms of "intellectual property", and I will go at great length to dispel many common misconceptions and myths in regards to this. (And also describe why I always put quotes around "Intellectual Property")
It should also be noted that in all cases not specifically declared otherwise, that when I talk about law, I'm referring to US law only.
What is "Intellectual Property"?: It is a catch-all phrase that refers to three very different sets of laws with three separate sets of qualifications, distinctions, purposes, enforcement, and penalties. These areas are Trademark Law, Copyright Law, and Patent Law. These three subjects are entirely different, and deserve to be handled and debated separately as they each have their own set of circumstances, merits, and flaws.
The term "Intellectual Property" was concocted by big businesses to confuse the matter and take advantage of the Common Law System that the US adopts. A "Common Law" system is a way of handling new ideas. Essentially it says: 'If something new comes up, try to use previous findings and cases to base your judgments on". This is why "precedent" is so important in court cases. Usually this is a good system, except in cases such as this.
Organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA have been successful in convincing the courts to recognize Copyright Law, Patent Law, and Trademark Law in a manner similar to how people own physical objects. This is both wrong and illegal, as will be elaborated on further.
What "Intellectual Property" is NOT: There is no law which allows a person to "own an idea". This is both impossible from a practical sense, and in a legal sense. A piece of intellect cannot be a person or entity's property. Thus the term "Intellectual Property" is nothing more than a poor lie to try and extend powers to the holders of copyrights and patents where this power does not exist.
It is also not an open-ended "I can tell you what you are and aren't allowed to do with this information" policy. This would be the case if you could own an idea like property, but you can't. Instead, patents and copyrights confer very specific and limited rights to their holders. But this will also be elaborated further on soon.
Ownership: A lot of this debate boils down to a concept of ownership. Some people intuitively “feel” that when they come up with an idea (both good and bad!) they they “own” that idea. However, as you shall see, this belief makes little sense in the world of Ideas.
Ownership requires control. Indeed, ownership is
defined by control. For example, I “own” a pen that happens to be next to me right now. I control this pen, it is in my grasp. Other people are not physically capable of using this pen without my permission. It transfers ink onto paper at my whim, and only my whim. I own this pen. It would be wrong of someone to steal this pen from me, because it would deprive my of my ability to make use of the pen.
But contrast this, now, with “owning” a star. There are, in fact, organizations that let you “purchase” a star! And they are mostly laughed at, because one cannot in any way control a star. You cannot prevent others from viewing it, you cannot prevent comets from ramming into it, you cannot prevent black holes from sucking it up. You have just as much “ownership” over any particular star than a goldfish does. The fact that you got scammed into paying $40 for a certificate which says otherwise is irrelevant. In what sense can someone “steal” your star from you? The word is meaningless in this context.
The same is true for ideas. Information cannot be owned, because it cannot be controlled. “Information wants to be Free” is a recurring theme you will hear from proponents of digital civil liberties. It is a phrase to remind you that information cannot be owned, that it cannot be controlled. If information cannot be owned, it can also not be stolen. It can only be copied, which is inherent to the very nature of information.
Copyright Law: Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
• To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or
other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
• To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual
works;
• To display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural
works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual
work; and
• In the case of sound recordings,* to perform the work publicly by means of
a digital audio transmission.
In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution
and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act. [2]
The stated purpose of Copyright (and Patent Law) as described by the US Constitution is:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by US Constitution
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
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Thus the purpose of copyright law is
NOT to ensure that creators of literary works are compensated monetarily, but rather to promote science and useful arts. The phrase "useful arts" has been interpreted very loosely by the courts, however, and essentially is made to mean "any kind of art". Even though this clearly is not the intended purpose.
I think that it is perfectly clear that the Constitution itself intended Patents and Copyrights only to extend to scientific works, and not purely literary works, as is enforced and interpreted today. But I digress...
What is wrong with Copyright Law:
*1) Copyrights of Infinite Duration. It is written into the US Constitution itself that copyrights MUST be of finite duration. That is, after all, the entire purpose behind a copyright. We allow the holder of the copyright to have a government sponsored monopoly on their idea for a short amount of time. During this time, the author will be allowed to profit from their idea exclusively. Then the idea becomes part of the public domain, and anyone can use it.
But obviously holders of copyrights don't want them to expire! They have a government sponsored monopoly. Why would they let it expire?
Well, they're in a bit of a hard spot. That line about copyrights being of finite duration is written into the actual constitution itself. That would mean it would take a constitutional amendment to get rid of the line! So that's out of the question.
So instead, all they do is extend the duration of copyrights by 20 years... every 20 years.
Look at the time time of copyright duration in the US. It's absurd. Authors do not require 95 years to profit from an idea!
Take a look at the latest copyright extension act:
The Mickey Mouse Protection Act., and you'll see exactly what's going on. Big corporations like Disney were about to lose their copyrights on characters created eons ago, and thus about to lose money. So they paid off washington to allow them to keep it.
What do you think they're going to do in 2018? Sit and watch the copyright expire? No sir! They'll extend it yet again, infinitely.
2) The Evils of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). You know when you download a song to your iPod and the song deletes itself after listening to it three times? That's DRM. You know how the game Spore would only let you install three times, after which you're SOL? That's DRM.
DRM are digital restrictions on how you're allowed to use your product. You may, for instance, want to take a movie you just bought, and use a small clip out of it for a review of the movie that you're making. But you can't! Because the movie has restrictions built into it that make it impossible to do so. (Without cracking the encryption on the DVD)
That's what DRM is. Now why does it exist? To what nefarious purpose does it serve?
Let's first examine
your Fair Use rights, as described by the Fair Use Doctrine of the United States. Fair Use rights are a set of rights that you are able to exercise even if the copyright holder does not want to you. For example, using excerpts of copyrighted material for the purpose of making a review is considered "fair".
This means that even if Paramount specifically told you "We forbid you from using any clips of our latest movie for any purpose!", you can tell them to take a hike! You are allowed to use clips from their movie and post it all over the internet for the purpose of reviewing the movie. The holder of the copyright has no say in this.
But of course the copyright holders (aka: The MPAA and RIAA) don't like this! They want full control over their copyrighted material. They don't like people using their works for ANY purpose without them getting money. So they came up with an ingenious plan!
Enter the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (aka: The DMCA):
Quote:
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Originally Posted by US Law, The DMCA
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
The Act defines what it means in Section 1201(a)(3):
(3) As used in this subsection—
(A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
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What does this mean?
It means that it's illegal to circumvent DRM
even if you never make copies of copyrighted work!!! All the copyright holder has to do is make some pushover, easily breakable DRM scheme, and now they have total control over how the user is allowed to use their product. Complete legal control.
This effectively makes it illegal to exercise your Fair Use rights! Say you want to take some clips from a DVD to make a review of it. The law says that you should be able to do this. It is considered "Fair". But in order to actually GET the clips, you will have to break the encryption on your DVD to play it on your computer. Thus the copyright owner can sue you for making your review under the DMCA.
FURTHERMORE. It has been deemed illegal not only just to do the circumvention, but also
to tell others how to. This is an outrage! You should be furious right about now! How can we let this happen?
So let's review:
1) You buy an album online with a song on it that is in the public domain. Just say that it is a Mozart piece or something.
2) You would like to take this song, and put it on your MP3 player.
3) Mozart is not copyrighted. You should have every right to be able to do this.
4) However, in order move the song to your MP3 player, you will have to bypass the (easily bypassed) DRM scheme.
5) You are then sued for several Million Dollars by the RIAA for "Willfully violating copyright"(Not kidding.)
Whatever you do. Do not support DRM, nor the companies that produce it. Protect your rights. Visit the defective by design link at the bottom of this post for more information.
3) The Myth of Originality. One of the most common arguments you will see (in court) in regards to copyright law is an appeal to "originality". That holders of copyrights have something that they invented all of their own, that it is original, unique, and special. Therefore they deserve "protection" of this idea.
This is of course absurd. And not at all representative of the actual creative process.
Creativity is derivative. Everything anyone does is not completely original, but rather builds upon the works of others. Sometimes these works are downplayed and called "influences" so as to not seem like they are merely "copying" them. But this is of course the case.
Just look at the Disney Corporation. Disney is one of the largest Copyright abusers around. They guard their copyrights with such an iron grip that they sue anyone for even hinting at using what they consider "theirs". They even went so far as to bribe congress into extending copyright law just so they wouldn't lose Mickey Mouse.
But where did they get all of these copyrights? Are they "original", and special? Of course not! Look at just about every Disney work there is. Pocahontas, Hercules, Snow White, etc... Almost all of Disney's works are
derivatives of either historical events or The Brothers Grimm.
The Lord of the Rings is a rip off of Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle". The list goes on and on.
But you see, my point is not to smear artists and claim they are just ripping each other off. My point is to clarify that
this IS the creative process. Creativity is taking that which existed before you and improving it, making it your own. Walt Disney was so successful because he added something to those tales he borrowed. Something uniquely his.
But what about today? Today the table has turned. Now the older generation does not want to share. They do not want to allow others to create derivative works based on their ideas. Copyright law specifically prevents the use of copyrighted work for derivative works!
They are destroying the creative process.
Do not allow this. You must fight for the right to allow derivative works. This is not "copying" this is not "stealing". This is being an artist.
4) Piracy / File Sharing
I am a Pirate, and so are many of you reading this. The following discussion will describe in detail exactly what that means, what the history of Piracy is, why I am proud to be a Pirate, and what needs to be done.
History
Every story has a beginning. The story of Piracy does not begin with Napster, and it does not end with the Pirate Bay. In order to fully understand the arguments that will follow (and the arguments of my opponents), you must see in in the light of proper context. These stories will help you understand exactly what it means to be a Pirate.
Throughout the following stories, I want you to recognize and pay attention to the following patterns:
- An established group has a working model for business
- Disruptive Invention and Innovation Occurs
- The establishment resists the innovation
- The establishment either adapts to the innovation and profits, or does not adapt and is replaced
One: The Phonograph
At the birth of the 20th Century, one of the biggest forms of entertainment in America was
Vaudeville. It was an interesting mix of song, dance, animal acts, etc... You might consider it a cross between a concert and a circus.
Vaudeville had a very workable business model. They charged admission. Obviously, in order to enjoy a Vaudeville show, one must be sitting in the stands! And for a very long time this system worked. Many very popular, very creative, and very influential acts came out of Vaudeville.
The a man by the name of Thomas Edison came about and invented a little machine called the Phonograph. It was a machine that allowed the operator to record sound and then later play it back again.
The establishment was now shaken to its core. If you recall, the Vaudeville model revolves around being able to charge admission. With the invention of the Phonograph, people could listen to entertainment in their own homes and never pay the Vaudeville entertainers a dime! Naturally, the entertainment industry fought back against this new disruptive technology and cried out saying that these phonographs would destroy creativity.
One man, John Phillip Souza even made this testimony to Congress in 1906:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by John Phillip Souza
These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.
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This is an important quote, and we will return to it again later.
Of course the phonograph did not kill creativity, but rather gave birth the the Record Industry. Of course what else should we expect? That Vaudeville remain the predominant form of entertainment for the rest of human history? Of course not, at some point it must come to and end. And so it did.
Two: Hollywood
This story doesn't fit exactly in with the rest in terms of theme, but it's worth telling.
Thomas Edison later went on to creating lots of other important inventions than the phonograph. One of the other things that he did was make patents of lots of new innovative ways to record video. Technically he didn't invent it himself, but it was manufactured in his factories, and marketed in his name: The Vitascope. This was technology that allowed the user to make a movie. They could record video, and then later play sound on top of it.
But one thing that Edison did was keep a very close eye on his patents. Nobody was allowed to use Thomas Edison's patents without his expressed consent, and after giving him a hefty sum of money.
So a group of film Pirates did not like this and thought that they could do much better with Edison's technology but couldn't afford to pay him. So instead they fled to the west coast of the United States and began to make movies illegally using Edison's patents. But America was a very big place in the early 1900's and Edison didn't have much of a way to enforce his legal rights.
These film Pirates went on to settle an entire city based on ripping off Edison's patents and others' ideas to make a profit out of it. The city was named Hollywood. The leader of the film Pirates was named William Fox, who would later found the Fox Film Corporation. (And later, 20th Century Fox)
Three: Pirate Radio
It is now the mid to mid-late 1900's. The established entertainment industry is the Record Industry. They have a workable business model selling plastic disks called Records. They record music and other forms of entertainment onto these disks, an then they sell them out to others.
But then a new technology came along: Radio. Now, technically radio communication was not invented in the mid 1900's, but that's when it became largely commercially viable. Before that time, radios were enormous bulky things that a normal consumer couldn't possibly afford.
At this time, radio stations started popping up. They took music from the record industry and played it over the airwaves.
The Record Industry thought this was just terrible, and that it must be stopped! They called these radio stations "Pirates". And in fact, the term "
Pirate Radio" still exists today.
After all, they were "stealing" music created by the Record Industry, playing it over the airwaves, making a profit, and not giving a dime back to the Record Industry. Naturally this disruptive new innovation must be stopped!
But it was not to be that way. Legally speaking, the record industry had every right to shut down these Pirate Radio Stations. But common sense prevailed. A world in which there are radio stations is far preferable to a world in which there is not. The law was amended to allow these stations to exist, and a whole new form of entertainment arose from it.
Four: Cable Television
Music was not the only thing that wound up getting broadcast over the airwaves, but video too. The television was a very popular form of entertainment and of course is still today. But there was a time when in order to watch TV, you had to tune it into a radio signal being broadcast. An entire industry was built around this.
Then a new technology came about
: Cable Television. This story is remarkably similar to that of radio stations. People began getting their TV signals not over airwaves, but rather through a wire to their house.
The operators of Cable Television would literally take the signals from radio TV and put it out over the wire (and add their own content, too).
The entertainment industry was furious! Again called these stations "Pirates", and again the term "
Pirate Television" remains. The current industry tried desperately to shut down these clearly illegal operators.
But it was not to be. The law was again amended to allow cable television operators to exist. Because a world where cable TV exists is preferable to one where it does not. Even if it means the loss of profits by the establishment. As we all know, cable TV would wind up replacing radio broadcast TV
Five: The VCR
It is now (appropriately) the year 1984, and video entertainment was a boom. The majority of households owned a television and the entertainment industry profited greatly by being able to serve content to these boxes.
But then a new invention came around. Sony Corporation had just spent a lot of money developing the Betamax. For those of not alive in 1984 (I wasn't!) the Betamax was the first form of the VHS tape. It's essentially the same thing, but VHS would later take over, and then be subsequently replaced by DVDs.
What the VCR allowed someone to do was to record video off of a television and later watch it at their own discretion whenever they wanted. Why, this was heresy to the entertainment industry! Someone is trying to sell a device whose sole purpose is to make copies of copyrighted content?!
The then Chairman of the MPAA, Jack Valenti (The Motion Picture Association of America) even made this statement to congress in 1982:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jack Valenti
I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.
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And this went to court in the very famous
"Sony Betamax" supreme court decision. Universal Studios and Walt Disney Corporation sued the Sony Corporation for selling the Betamax.
But yet again, common sense prevailed. Not only did the VCR not destroy the American film industry, but it sparked an entirely new industry. Billions of dollars were later made by buying and selling VHS tapes. Creativity flourished, and the "rights" of the copyright holders were correctly and justly ignored.
Six: The United States of America
I saved the best for last. Chronologically, this should go first. But it's most important.
The United States of America was founded as a Pirate nation. During the Industrial revolution, America was able to maintain its progress as much as it did by completely and blatantly ignoring the copyrights and patents of other countries. It was official US policy just to take and "rip off" any patents being used in Europe at the time. That way America could freely industrialize.
This, of course, upset Europe very much. Britain tried in vain to prevent the US from continuing this practice, by passing legislature such as the
Iron Act of 1750.
Failing to further prevent America from infringing on their patents and copyrights, European began to call Americans "
Jankes", a Dutch phrase meaning "Pirate". Americans would later take this name and mispronounce it into "
Yankee".
That's right, the word
"Yankee" itself means "Pirate".
Today
So today history again repeats itself. A new technology has risen which completely disrupts the current establishment. This technology is Bit Torrent over the Internet. It has revolutionized the way distribution is done. It is democratized, decentralized, and efficient. But the most important aspect of Bit Torrent is the mechanics of distribution.
Bit Torrent is unique in the respect that it reverses the dynamics of scarcity. Typically, the more demand there is for something, the harder it is to get. Even pure information can be scarce in this respect. For example, if 10 million people all tried to log into the Smashboards at once, the servers would crash. The words on this very page right now are distributed from a single source, and that source can only handle so much weight.
What Bit Torrent does is reverse this. The more demand there is for something, the
easier it is to get it. Scarcity for bits has thusly been eliminated. The only reason one cannot obtain a piece of data on the Internet over Bit Torrent is because it is so unpopular as to not have anyone sharing it.
But this disrupts the current entertainment industry. They cry foul and label us as "Pirates"! They say that this new Piracy is killing creativity, and that if left unchecked will destroy entertainment completely!
Opportunity and Innovation
But what they don't see is opportunity. It is true that the era of the DVD and the CD is over. What we are seeing is transition into a completely new form of business. It may very well be the case that we see a return to Vaudeville, in a way. We are seeing not just passive media, but
Social Media.
You see, one of the important differences between the Vaudeville star and the recording industry star was personal interaction with the fan. In order to be successful on stage, one must be charismatic. In order to be successful on records, you need to sound very well.
Interaction and charisma is already starting to see a rebirth in music and film through places like MySpace.com. Say what you will about the musicians present there, but there is a renaissance of artists popping up through the website. They accomplish this not purely by "sounding good" but by being friends with their fans. Connecting with them through more than just the music.
We see this with artists like Radiohead, Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails), and a whole host of others. What they do is accumulate fans who love
them first, and their music second. I personally donate to both of those artists in the form of purchases and other means.
Just as some Vaudeville stars were not able to make the transition to records, some current artists will not be able to transition to the new form of media. This is not, however, the same thing as saying that creativity itself suffers. Not unless you think creativity also suffered from the invention of the phonograph, or the radio, or cable TV, or the VCR.
A Market Signal
One of the biggest things that Piracy is, is a market signal. Piracy is the consumers telling the industry that they need to do better. That the way they have been doing business for the last several decades is no longer sufficient.
For example, there is a clear demand for what many call "The Celestial Jukebox". This mythical device would be as small, trendy, available, and as accessible as an iPod. It would allow the owner to listen to any recorded audio work in history at the touch of a button. And it would allow the owner to donate a small sum of money at their discretion to the artist of the works they just listened to.
This device needn't be a myth, however. It is perfectly possible to make one! What is preventing the Celestial Jukebox from existing is not a problem of engineering, but rather a legal one. Copyright law simply does not allow such a thing to exist.
But a fruitful and workable economy can clearly be seen to be available from the Celestial Jukebox. Artists (especially of the type described above) will easily be able to make lots of money by accumulating fans over the device.
The problem is not that artists won't get paid, no. The problem is that the current established record industry plays no part in that future. The multi-billion dollar industry would be made almost completely obsolete by such a device. And so they fight to ensure that it never exists. Piracy is the fight to ensure that it does.
What Piracy is not
What Piracy is NOT is stealing. This claim that Piracy equates to theft is nothing more than a petty attempt to push aside everything above and simplify this entire topic to a single word.
Stealing is wrong. That much is obvious. Stealing is wrong because it deprives the original owner of something which they would have otherwise possessed. If you went onto my driveway and stole my car, that would be wrong. I would no longer have a car because of it! And that would be harmful to me.
But copying is not stealing. If you went into my driveway and made a copy of my car, I would be in no way damaged. In fact, if such a device existed that would allow copies of cars to be made, I would proudly place my car in my driveway for all to see and copy it! To deny someone something of value when it costs nothing to you is just plain rude. I think we all learned that lesson in Kindergarten, that it is a good thing to share.
Pirates are loyal paying customers. The myth of people downloading mounds of works and never paying a dime for anything is flatly false at worst, and hyperbolic at best. I personally own a huge collection of DVDs, purchased from a brick-and-mortar store. This is not a contradiction, this is the nature of Piracy. We do not want "everything for free". What we want is something better than what we have right now.
How you can get involved
The fight for Piracy has many battlefields. There are matters of law, social opinion, creativity, and technological works.
You can get involved politically by joining your local Pirate Party. Such as the
United States Pirate Party, or several
in Europe.
There are organizations involved with case law (as opposed to legislation) such a The
Electronic Frontier Foundation and the good old
ACLU that you can get involved with.
You can get involved socially by being open about who you are as a Pirate. (Such as by making convincing forum posts such as this one!) The media industry itself is the opponent here, so no mainstream media outlet will ever allow our side of the story to be told. Which is why this is all over the Internet, but nowhere on TV! People's opinions matter, and we want every one of them.
Piracy is a technological innovation. If you work in technology, it is important for you to make sure that what you do improves society. Technology is power in the information age. Concentrate your efforts on things that make us as a society more Free, as opposed to less Free.
And if you are an artist, make sure that you embrace and flourish in the information age. This can mean trivial things like interacting with fans on Myspace, it can mean doing drastic things like dropping a label and distributing your music yourself, and it can mean encouraging your fans to become literally involved with your work through remixing and hyperdistribution. Visit places like
Creative Commons and let it be known that you are not like the RIAA and MPAA.
5) Scarcity The Incredible Copy Machine: A Hypothetical Situation concerning Scarcity
Here I will use a hypothetical situation to illustrate a point. I will say the point succinctly here, and then elaborate on why it is true:
The reduction of scarcity in a good is
never a bad thing. To the contrary, it is always a positive thing.
Let's examine this not in terms of information, for a moment, but rather speak of physical objects...
Physical objects are scarce. Part of what makes our entire economy function is that fact that physical objects are scarce. Car manufacturers make and sell cars. They are able to charge a lot of money for cars because they are scarce. You cannot find unused, perfectly functioning cars lying around on the side of the road. Hence, you must go to a car dealer to buy a car.
But now let's imagine a new invention: "The Incredible Copy Machine!". It is a wonder of modern science. All you do is point it at something, and it makes you a perfect copy of it. 100% perfect, in every way indistinguishable from the original. (Let's ignore problems about conservation of mass and energy
)
What this copy machine has done is removed the scarcity from physical objects such as cars! Anyone can have a car now! And not just any car, but the best car they can find to copy. What would be the reaction this invention would receive?
We could then imagine the car manufacturers revolting! "These copy machines are putting us out of business! They are
stealing our cars, and not paying us anything! We must make laws to ban these copying machines!"And they are right in one respect: It would in fact put them out of business.
What good is being a manufacturer of cars in a world with a car-copying device? It would be like being an air-manufacturer. Where you take the raw elements of air and manufacture air yourself, and then try to sell it to people. Nobody would buy your manufactured air, because it is not a scarce good.
You would have to be
crazy to be a manufacturer of air, and you would have to be
crazy to be a manufacturer of cars in world with car copiers.
So should the copying machines be made illegal, so that car manufacturers can keep their jobs?
NO. What the copy machines have done is made the car manufacturers obsolete. They are no longer needed. They have been replaced. And while this might be sad to a car manufacturer, it is a very good thing to everyone else.
What happened to manufacturers of slide rules when the calculator came out? They got put out of business. Should we have banned calculators just so that the slide rule manufacturers could keep their jobs? No.
When a group of people become obsolete, it is because
something better has come along to replace them. We should not impede this growth. Indeed, it would be a step backward to do so.
So let's go back to our real-world again. We do have a copy machine! It copies information, and it is called
your computer. People have died over access to scarce information. Books used to be incredibly valuable objects, as they possessed information, and books were scarce. But this is no longer true. Information needs not be scarce. We can make perfect copies of information freely.
And then, the manufacturers of this information (Book publishers, the RIAA, the MPAA) cry out "These copy machines are putting us out of business! They are
stealing our information, and not paying us anything! We must make laws to ban these copying machines!"
Should we? Of course not. But that is exactly what is happening today.
You would have to be
crazy to be a manufacturer of air. And you would have to be
crazy to be a manufacturer of information today.
Instead, don't be a
manufacturer who sells information like it were a physical object that were scarce. Information is not scarce. You have to fundamentally change the way you do business. (In ways that have been outlined in this post too numerous to mention individually again here.)
6) Case study: Dōjinshi This section is a case study of the Japanese art of
Dōjinshi. For those who do not know what it is, Dōjinshi is a genre of Japanese Manga. It can best be described in English as "fan fiction". But there are some very interesting aspects to this community.
What they do is take existing Manga, and remix it. For example, someone might take a popular series and think "I didn't really like the way this ended. I'm going to make my own ending for it." And then they do.
Dōjinshi is creativity in its most pure form. The Japanese artists make no false pretenses about originality like we try to do in America. (see Originality section above) People read other works, they are influenced by them, and they improve them. This system of constant change and improvement is at the heart of creativity.
But what is so notable about Dōjinshi is that is is so wide spread! This is not some small sub-culture with only a few amateurs, no. Dōjinshi artists and fans like to attend conventions, the largest of which is
Comiket. Comiket is the largest convention in Japan! It brings over a half a million people over the course of three days. Over
half a million. All to share, remix, buy, sell, and improve Manga.
Even more incredible yet, is the fact that Dōjinshi itself is, according to Japanese law, illegal! Yet Japanese officials intentionally turn a blind eye to this, as it is such an ingrained part of the Japanese culture.
Now imagine trying to do this in America! If you tried selling a copy of "The Lion King" with a different ending, you'd get sued by Disney faster than a speeding bullet train.
This is clearly impeding the creative process. Copyright law must be made to include remixing and improving of others' works as part of Fair Use.
Solution? Unlike Patents (which are covered later) I don't believe copyrights to be fundamentally broken. Just the implementation, more than anything, is corrupted. The following is a kind of compromise that I would be quite happy with:
You will find this solution rather *surprise surprise* similar to how copyrights were envisioned by the founding fathers when writing the constitution. We should make clear that we are accepting that giving a copyright is an
acceptable evil used for the purpose of encouraging knowledge being put into the public domain.
This evil should be made to be as temporary as possible. I cannot imagine a literary work that cannot be profited on in 5 years time. So that seems like a good benchmark.
Also, the
Fair Use doctrine should be made to extend much further than it does now. Fair Use should be extended to all non-commercial applications. Essentially, if a person or entity is not trying to profit off of another person's idea, it should count as fair use.
In this manner, copyright should be made to only to prevent plagiarism. Nothing more. All else is Fair Use.
Patent Law: A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention. [3]
Patents are meant to be a form of protection for inventors. It essentially says "If you come up with an invention, you can exclude others from using and/or selling this invention". It comes from the line of reasoning that "Well, if anyone could take someone else's invention, and use it as their own, then nobody would bother inventing anything, and we don't want that."
I will describe at length why the patent system is irreparably broken, and how it is extraordinarily counter-productive.
1) Registering Patents. Unlike copyrights and trademarks, patents MUST be registered with the US Patent Office in order to be valid. However, this is not a straightforward process (and like all things) has been corrupted by the lawyers who use it.
The language used to describe a patent is absurdly complicated. It is so complicated and lengthy that neither the patent office nor anyone using the patent system can effectively read and understand them. Seriously. Really.
Go through and read some patents from here. Read one page of a single patent and you'll see what I mean.
Patents are worded with such confusing legalize,
that even absurd items like The Wheel have been successfully patented!
And also keep in mind that if you DO create an invention, and want to see if it is already patented (or if you are just doing business as usual) and want to see if you are currently stepping on someone else's patent, it is virtually impossible. It is hard enough to fully understand ONE patent, let alone having to search through all registered patents. Keep in mind here also that there is no system to search through patents. (other than broad generalizations) It is in practice quite common to be infringing on someone else's (usually IBM's) patents and never even know it, even while actively looking.
2) The Patent system breeds entire leeching corporations. You see, patents need to be registered. If you do not register your invention, then anyone else can! This naturally leads to a system where a company can take someone's invention and patent it as their own. They then hold the invention hostage to the real inventor until they settle it out of court for a sum of money.
Microsoft and IBM are both notorious for doing this. [5]
Furthermore, since patents are exceedingly difficult to understand (which is intentional) it is commonplace for corporations to sue others for patent infringement where none exists. And the sheer court costs and size of the opposition (and ambiguous nature of patents themselves) forces the defendant into settling out of court. In this way, holders of lots of patents (IBM and Microsoft, namely) are able to blackmail others into paying them money arbitrarily.
3) Software Patents. Extremely loose interpretation of the law has lead to allowing patents of software as an "invention". This is incredibly bad, however. Software is an entirely different beast than with physical inventions.
Unlike physical inventions, software systems are inherently built on top of one another. And despite regulations saying that it is not supposed to be allowed, basic algorithms and equations are commonly patented. This creates a nightmare of a situation for software developers. No matter what you do, chances are that IBM has a patent on some subsystem of yours. (If you haven't gathered yet, IBM is the world's largest patent *****)
A good example of this is LZW Compression. [4] LZW Compression is an algorithm for compressing data down smaller (like when you zip a file). Lots of stuff used this algorithm, including GIF files (which is pronounced with a soft G, btw. Like "Jif Peanut Butter").
It only later came out that this algorithm was patented, and thus the very use of GIF files were restricted. The holder of the patent could arbitrarily restrict anyone's use of GIF files!
This obvious, flagrant, and excessive case of patent abuse lead to a widespread shun of the GIF filetype, and the creation of the PNG type. (Pronounced "Ping". PNG also stands for "PNG, Not GIF", and is thus an infinitely recursive acronym, just like GNU [see my sig])
For more detailed information on the GIF case,
read here.
4) The myth of the 'lone inventor' and how patents are good for the little guy. You will very commonly see arguments like this in courts as well, and it does a good job at tugging at the heart strings of judges.
They paint a hypothetical situation where a lowly, poor, but intelligent man is working in his basement. He then has a wonderful idea for an invention and creates it. This invention is of great utility. It is then argued that this inventor needs to be protected from large corporations trying to use his idea without permission! So he is issued a patent, which saves the day, everyone is happy, and birds sing.
This is quite separate from reality. In reality
patents benefit only the large corporations. IBM holds more patents than anyone on the planet. [6] They have so many patents in so many fields that are so vague that no matter what you create, they can sue you for patent infringement.
When a small inventor (especially software developers) comes up with a great new idea, IBM sees it. They then inform you that you are infringing on several of their patents and that they intend to prosecute the offense... unless you sell your patent to them. Faced with a court case that will cost you tens of thousands of dollars just in court costs, you will give up and sell your patent to them.
Thus IBM is able to accumulate more patents and continue this cycle even more effectively.
Other large companies like Microsoft who also have large numbers of patents get around this by cross-licensing with each other. It essentially says: "I can use your patents if you can use mine." IBM will, of course, only let you cross license if you have a large number of patents. But you don't, so you can't.
So you can see that patents do quite the opposite of "helping out the little guy". The first tip off should be that the patent laws are sponsored (aka: paid for) by IBM, HP, and other big name patent holders. Now why on earth would IBM and Microsoft want a system that is good for the little guy?
They don't. Don't be fooled.
5) Secret Patents In theory, Patents are supposed to be registered. Registration is necessary because not everything is Patentable. You cannot, after all, get Patents on things which are so obvious they don't constitute as an invention. The registration process is absolutely essential to how Patents are supposed to work.
A new inventor has to be able to know whether their creation has any Patent conflicts after making it.
But this is not the case in reality. When two people have a dispute over the ownership of a Patent, it is awarded to whoever can prove that they made the invention first. This makes some intuitive sense.
However, this leads to the practice of “Secret Patents”. A Secret Patent is when a person or corporation makes an invention (or claims to) and keeps proof of its creation, but never registers it. This way, when someone else comes along and infringes on this Patent, they can swoop in and claim prior ownership. Thus snatching the invention away from its rightful creator... unless they pay a licensing fee.
So suppose you are an inventor, for a moment. In today's Patent system, even if you DID search exhaustively through every single registered Patent (which itself is impossible, see above), and even if you COULD determine effectively if any one of those were in conflict with your invention (which is also impossible, see above), you can STILL be sued for Patent infringement. IBM can come out and claim that they proof that they have prior creation of a component to your invention, and that they'll sue you if you don't pay up a couple thousand dollars.
And remember, that as a lone inventor (or even a small company) you cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars in court costs to defend a Patent. This is how large corporations exploit Patent law to blackmail smaller organizations into paying sums of money.
No due process, no judge, no jury. You are guilty by mere accusation., and must pay up or be sued out of business.
Trademark Law: A trademark or trade mark, identified by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization or other legal entity to identify that the products and/or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source of origin, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities. [1]
A Trademark is intended to prevent confusion amongst consumers when purchasing goods and services. It would be bad for producers and consumers alike if there were two different Gatorades right next to each other in the supermarket.
Trademarks do not need to be registered. A trademark is implicitly assigned to the creator when the item is created. Using the label ™ and ® are also not required when using the name of the item, however failing to do so may reduce significantly any winnings in court. It should also be noted that trademarks do not expire, and last indefinitely. (As long as the holder chooses to re-register)
In general, I do not have a problem with Trademark Law. The purpose is well stated and just, and most of the time the law serves this purpose. We give up a certain amount of freedom in the case of trademark law (IE: The freedom to name your organization anything you like) but this is in my opinion an acceptable loss, and not one that in good faith in always necessary. There is but one main issue I have with the enforcement of Trademark Law:
Overly Aggressive Enforcement. Trademark infringement is only supposed to be enforceable if there is a legitimate conflict between the names such that it would cause customer confusion. You are, in fact, allowed to use another person's trademark as long as this conflict does not exist.
For example, if there is a small family owned bakery named "The Top Crust" in Florida, it would be trademark infringement to set up a competing bakery right next door with the same name. But it would not be trademark infringement to set up a bakery of the same name in California. This is because the geographic distance is great enough where no real conflict exists. IE: No customers would be confusing the two bakeries for one another due to their distance.
Similarly, you may have geographically close organizations sharing a name (or symbol, etc..) if they are in different enough businesses. For example, you may have a shooting range named "Target" and the well known chain store "Target" close to each other.
In reality, however, organizations attempt to stretch this law as far as possible, trying to shut down or harm other organizations where no legitimate conflict exists. A good example of this is the well known case of the WWF. The World Wildlife Foundation held this name first, and later, the World Wrestling Federation used the name.
Clearly there was no real conflict, or confusion between the two entirely separate groups. Yet the World Wresting Federation were forced to change their names. This kind of abuse of the system is not acceptable.
*much much more to come soon*
But this will suffice for now. I would love to hear any opposing opinions and arguments. Thanks for reading!
-AltF4
* - Means first edit
* - Means second edit
Suggested Videos, Links, and sources of Inspiration:
1)
Steal This Film 2 (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) - An extraordinary take on file sharing and how bit torrenting over the internet is the printing press of our age. It interviews professors from well known and respected universities and leaders from well known and respected organizations. An absolute must watch for everyone.
2)
Richard Stallman: No Software Patents - Richard Stallman is a legend in the computer world in general. He is one of the original MIT hackers that worked in MIT's AI lab. Richard Stallman is also known for his work in creating the GNU/Linux operating system (aka: Linux) and for founding the Free Software Movement and the Free Software Foundation.
This video is Mr. Stallman giving a guest lecture to a university hall of software developers, warning them of the dangers of software patents, and why they need to be eradicated. An excellent watch.
(Note: There are 11 parts to this video, so I won't link to each explicitly)
3)
Piracy Is Good? (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) - A presentation to a hall of TV executives and producers, describing to them what bit torrenting is and why they're dumb for not using it to their advantage. He goes in great detail as to exactly
how one can monetize a system where content is "hyper-distributed" through bit torrenting, and how the system is indeed helping them already anyway.
This is an excellent watch, as it is being made from a business/marketing standpoint, and not a technological or moral one. The speaker makes no statements or claims about the morality issues behind file sharing, but rather spends time going in depth as to how to make money from a free information system.
4)
The Free Software Foundation - The official movement toward a society with free software. You will find this organization most helpful, and informative. Also, it you will find that it is a portal to many other organizations that involve the fight for free software (or information, more generally)
5)
GNU.org -
(Specifically this essay) This is a free software project started by Richard Stallman. You may know this project better known as "Linux", essentially. (Though going down the road of defining what is and isn't "Linux" is difficult) Contained within the website, however, are many aspects of the Free Software Movement. I would highly recommend poking around this website. In particular, try going to
their "Philosophy" section, where you can find many articles about Free Software, including the one lined above.
6)
EFF.org - A non-profit organization dedicated to protecting your rights in the digital world. They fight in court against big businesses to ensure that our rights are not taken away. You can go on here and subscribe to their email newsletter, or just take a look at their recent court victories!
7)
DefectiveByDesign.org - An organization rallying against the creation and use of DRM (digital restrictions management). You know when your song magically deletes itself from your iPod after listening to it 5 times? That's DRM. But other more insidious versions of DRM include the famous Sony Rootkit. (A rootkit is a kind of computer virus that cannot ever be deleted)
This website serves as a watchdog for products that contain DRM, and contains instructions, boycotts, and lots of other information revolving around stopping DRM. You can go to this website to get a list of PC games that are infected with Sony's rootkit, so that you make sure you don't get their virus.
8)
"Free Culture" - A book written by Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law professor and creator of the Creative Commons organization (and license). This explores copyright law and the philosophy of a Free Culture in great detail. I for one, have not yet read this book, but am right now. (and I mean that)
*entry submitted by Lavos*
9)
Cory Doctorow. "Giving it Away" This is a first hand account of why copyrights as we see them today are not necessary for books. Also, a first hand account of how making your books available freely online helps spur physical book sales, and other revenue sources.
Cory can also be seen in
such cameo's as in xkcd. (He's actually mentioned quite a bit in XKCD)
10) BREAKING: The Pirate Bay Trial! The Pirate Bay is currently under trial (again) in Sweden. They were able to get a landmark ruling that allowed audio and some video recordings of the trial published freely online. However, it will do you little good unless you can speak Swedish!
Luckily our friends at TorrentFreak have some good translations. I will keep this updated as more information comes daily!
Pre-Trial Press Conference
Trial: Day 1
Trial: Day 2 (Major victory!)
Trial: Day 3 (The dreaded King Kong defense)
Trial: Day 4 (Interrogation)
Trial: Day 5 (Brokep's defense)
Trial: Day 6 (the party)
Trial: Day 7 (Evidence: FAIL)
Trial: Day 8
Trial: Day 9 (The defense begins)
Trial: Day 10 (The prosecution rests)
Pirate Bay Trial Verdict: Guilty
Plus,
Wikipedia appears to have a decent page on the subject. That will also likely be very up-to-date.
Long Live The Pirate Bay! Show your support!
11)
RiP! A Remix Manifesto. A stunning documentary on the importance of Freeing Culture. This video perfectly encapsulates the spirit of this thread and movement at large. The video includes interviews and clips from many of the most important people in the Free Culture movement today.
12)
Tim O'Rielly on Piracy: Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution. This is a very good read from the very well known creator of O'Reilly publishing. O'Reilly is a major book publisher, and more than a credible source of insight.
In this article, he describes how piracy is no threat to him as a book publisher. And even goes to describe how publishing may look in the 21st century. He (as we all do) makes a clear distinction between people who redistribute his works for a profit, and those who merely exchange digital copies of his books. The former, he claims is not a significant threat to him as a book publisher, and the latter is indeed a benefit. Great read.
*if you have any videos online (preferably youtube or similar streaming site) post it, or PM me!*
Sources:
[1]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
[2]:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf
[3]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
[4]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZW
[5]:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...echnology.html
[6]:
http://windowsitpro.com/article/arti...tent-race.html
[7]
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/...nsed-musi.html
[8]
http://www.riaa.com/faq.php
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