Who decides what is and what is not “natural behavior”? If there were no laws and enforcement against stealing cars, lots of people would steal cars. Would you then characterize that as “natural behavior”?

Just because people ignore the law, doesn’t make it okay. When people work hard to create content, they should decide whether to make it free or whether to charge. When you steal content, it’s exactly the same as stealing a car. You’re transferring wealth from the content creator to yourself. You just have a lower likelihood of getting caught, so lots of people engage in stealing.

Even though I’m rooting for something like the model you are describing to win the coming copyright wars, I do not agree that it’s viable for Viacom or other big players. Legacy media probably must die for new media to reorganize the world in better ways. Why? They are based on high cap, high profile models that are not suitable to online content production nad distribution.

Aren’t you begging the key upcoming copyright question which is how far should media go in letting others monetize their content. e.g. how much attribution do others owe TC if I they use your stuff? How much revenue if they monetize it in alternative ways?

I’m glad to see that everytime we get one of these “all content should be free” rants, we start to get a few more rational posts from people who realize where this philosophy leads. Clearly Mike didn’t learn the lesson from the Shyftr debacle which was that blind adherence to the fallacy of “natural behavior” means that any content creator at any time deserves to be disintermediated from their revenue source, but, hey, maybe he could make money from TechCrunch T-Shirt sales. In any case, I expect a Democratic win in November will ensure that the entertainment industry gets the legal support it needs to push through a DMCA 2.0 that strips out the safe harbour provisions.

@ geomark: Like it or not, it’s a simple reality that people need monetary incentive for work (since we’re not all hunter/gatherer/farmers any more). If caveman Bob is going to spend his day creating really great spears for others to use, then someone’s going to have to give Bob some food for his efforts … since he’s not out hunting/gathering/farming but is, instead, making spears. This is simple economics and distribution of labor.

If creators are going to create, and do it well, it will take substantial amounts of time. Time that isn’t being spent doing other stuff. And we all have to eat.

Arguing that creators should have (protected) economic incentives is not arguing for greed. That many corporations have manipulated this to their greedy advantage does not nullify the argument.

The original idea behind copyright (i.e., limited monopolies) comes from Thomas Jefferson and the founders based on this same argument. A society should provide economic incentives for creators/thinkers/etc. to share their work and provide a limited opportunity for them to profit from their work. Such a system benefits both the creator and the public. Again, that this has been twisted and manipulated to serve corporate greed does not nullify the argument.

Great point, but won’t happen until all the dinosaurs die out.

Michael,

I don’t buy the “natural behavior” argument at all. It’s natural behavior to grab a sandwich when you’re hungry, but that doesn’t mean you go into a Burger King, grab a sandwich, and then walk out without paying for it.

The real issue here is creating a balance of fairness to content creators and artists and the “natural behavior” of what consumers want, which is everything, all the time, when they want it, where they want it.

Youtube is a good chunk of the latter with a complete disregard for the former.

I believe it is time for leadership to come from the Congress and to take a stand that the Internet by its nature and purpose is a part of the 21st Century Public Domain and is a medium of Free Speech and Fair Use for the indvidual citizen regardless of the commerical consequences that individual bears no responsibility for the safeguarding of the material by its coyright holder except in gross material violations including public displays or reproduction of wholesale proportions (which YouTube may come under but someone’s MySpace wouldn’t).

Rgardless of the the RCIA or MPAA think they are mearly professional groups protecting their own monetary interests. They are not the governement which is elected by the people nor are they a government agency and they should step back realize that they are in America and their Gestapo tactics to intimidate the public are a disgrace.

How exactly can anyone be against a copyright holder.. they paid to create the content, and then someone goes and copies it, and puts it on display somewhere where you will not benefit in any way for the hard work and money that was put into your product. Why in the world should youtube be able to pull in ad dollars, and users, with content they paid $0 to create. I understand WANTING to watch the office on youtube, but atleast acknowledge to yourself that youre watching a stolen video that the creator didnt intend to be out there. And like others, Id like to point out I saw this article on Digg, linked not to techcrunch but to some other website, where they barely mentioned who wrote it, and didnt even give a link, just text. But then again, as people say with stolen content, its exposure!

Welcome to the entitlement generation - NBC should produce The Office for the heck of it, or maybe to sell T-Shirts, yeah that’ll work. Lulz. Give it up, freetards aren’t stealing bread, and the content producers aren’t the bad guys. No matter how many times you’ve wept at Les Miserables, Mikey, the filethieves aren’t Jean Valjean and the MPAA isn’t Javert.

Dear Micheal,

Please excuse me, but you are an idi*t. Or with all this said, you give me permission to copy-paste all the techcrunch content to my own website and make profit out of it without paying you a penny?

Use your brain man, before writing such posts. Millions of people read your blog frequently.

Respect,
Oliver

I don’t really see it as being against copyright holders or, having a copyrighted part time job, I might take serious issue with the post.

It’s really about the inability to control where the content gets distributed.

Take Hollywood blockbusters, for instance. Some five years ago, if you lived outside the U.S., your options would be to a) wait for months for a movie to be released and b) snag a copy online with a few clicks. Then studios realized that there may be a lot of cash to be earned if they allowed movies to premiere domestically and internationally at the same time.

Since North America is still very much lagging behind Asia and Europe in terms of Internet usage, it really does make sense to speed up whatever needs to be done to make streaming content available worldwide.

Or - hey - they can try to take on the Chinese, one by one, for all those cyber legends called “Backstroke of the Sith” etc.

I’m with Viacom on this one. They will and are able to create a YouTube alternative for their own products in streaming video. They have every right to protect their products and Google should not profit from that. But I don’t know why the lawsuit is going forward if the videos have been taken down.

Natural’s not in it.

The only way that proprietary material will keep its copyrights is to “out-open” the pirates.

With pirating being the only option for many people, the only way that copyright owners will get paid is by eliminating the need to pirate material. If something is free in a way that people will use it, it gives the content owners the possibility of finding new business models that fit the market.

It’s unbelievably crazy to think that a market will adapt itself around a business model, when it obviously should be the other way around.

It’s Darwin theory coming to play here. Adapt or be adapted… or something like that.

@64: “With pirating being the only option for many people…”

What?! We’re not talking about the need to eat or drink or have shelter … we’re talking about pirated music, video, etc. This is privileged material to start with, so this statement makes no sense.

As others have pointed out, it’s funny you have a copyright notification at the bottom of your site. You could start rethinking copyright by removing that and giving the go ahead for people to take and reuse stuff as they see fit.

Somehow, I doubt you will.

Also, recently I have noticed several posts on TC accompanied by photos that are clearly pro stock (such as the tank man shot), but there are no photo credits anywhere on the page. Are you paying to license this work?

There are really two issues here:

1) Business models need to adapt to consumer behavior. iTunes is a great example where originally many believed that the problem with the music industry was theft, when it turned out that the industry simply hadn’t created a buisness model consumers wanted. iTunes arrived and proved that consumers would pay for songs delivered online. The video industry is now at the same inflection point. They must find a business model that make consumer more willing to pay than to steal. In many cases, its far easier to locate professional content on YouTube than it is on the publishers own website. So far YouTube has delivered the kind of user experience that drives consumption.

2) The argument that says there is a “natural” behavior where eyeballs justifies content theft is ridiculous. That’s akin to saying because I stole your car and have possession of it I should now be allowed to sell it back to you. YouTube is the best example of this. There’s a relatively easy solve here, which is to give the content publishers brands much more prominence and to allow the content publishers to monetize their own content with their own advertisers. YouTube has also been disingenuous about dealing with infringement, using DMCA as a shield.

Tom Wilde
CEO EveryZing.com

Google is not going to win this war. It might win a battle or two, but overall they will not win this war.

Youtube is not only hurting record companies and networks. They are also directly hurting writers, artists, etc…

An artist should have the right to charge the amount of money at his own discretion. If an artist wants to charge a dollar each time his song is played that should be totally respected. That is his song and he has every right to put a price tag on it.

Adsense brings in the completely opposite model. It lets the market decide the price of the songs/videos with the mediation of google algorithms. This is ridiculous. A hard drive manufacturer can put a price tag on its product but an artist cannot?

Unacceptable.

great conversation here… did anyone read “code v2.0″ by Larry Lessig ? these questions are quite well covered there.

In fact, he argues, and I think it’s a quite clever approach, it’s all about choices :

“… wheter to allow intellectual property in effect to become completely propertized (for that is what a perfect code regime for protecting intellectual property would do); wheter to allow this regime to erase anonimity latent in less efficient architectures of control; and wheter to allow the expansion of intellectual property to drive out amateur culture.”

Just see that not less great content is created either in music or media industries since the web and pirates are here.

The ones being the more hurt by P2P and other copyright infrigement services are the intermediaries in their actual form, not the artists, neither the overall quality and quantity of content produced…

Not to mention what the “remix” culture (one of the seven pillars of web2.0 and web itself) has allowed to appear, and more and more often beat professionnal produced content…

So let’s regulate, but differently. There’s going to be big debates in the times coming in France about a new law precisely about how to enforce copyright infringment, and the way things started clearly is not thought to be on the consumer-citizen-amateur’s side.

After having to enforce the DMCA on a college level, I can honestly say it’s mostly a piece of crap legislation. I think what we’re seeing here is a system that built itself up on a distribution and quality model, but then started to belive it’s own hype and has since overbuilt itself into the massive behemoth that is the media industry.

Truth is that if you don’t have anything quality to sell (and the bar is constantly being raised), then it’s going to be harder to sell. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty basic business concept that organizations like the RIAA and MPAA need to be reminded of.

And yes, there is human nature to take into account, but seriously guys, how many artists have been exploited over the period of history? Yes, the media industry is going to take a hit, welcome to internet age, you guys need to catch up as alomst every other industry has been for the past 10-15 years.

If that means doing something radical and testing the waters, go for it. But the golden age of distribution is over and new formats will begin to emerge. You can try and fight all of them, but in the end, you’ll lose.

I could see it as one thing if the companies were going after the big underground distributors and operations, but when you hand out a lawsuit for almost every customer you have, well, that should set some bells or something off. Whent he court system told you that it would no longer do your paperwork, that should have been the line.

Don’t drag the industry into the grave with you, start adapting your businesses.

It’s a guerilla market out there. Stop fighting like this is conventional warfare, you won’t win. Adapt tactics, create businesses, build brands, do what you have to get customers, not wring as much money out of them as possible as punishment for being or not being your customers.

I like your train of thought Michael.

* I want a Ferrari. I should be able to go to the Ferrari dealership and take one.
* I hate paying for gas. I should be able to fill up my tank for free in exchange for watching the little TV at the pump.
* I prefer my boss’ 7,500 sq. ft. McMansion to my own 3,500 sq. ft. home. If I am capable of physically forcing him out of his home, I should be able to take posession of it.
* I’m very attracted to my best friend’s girlfriend. I should be able to “have her” whenever I want.

When do we begin removing the friction in our lives Michael? Say the word and I’m ready to rape, loot and pillage with you.

a key point though, is that copyright is intelectual property… not “hard” property : when I download illegaly your album, I’m not depriving you of its property or dimnishing its value, but when I steal your Ferrari… I do in fact deprive you of value and you loose its property.

This little detail makes a huge difference…

@Vladimir No, sorry, it does not back a difference at all. if it did, then by logical extension, stealing money electronically (since it’s just binary data) would be acceptable as well. After all, the deposit is backed by the FDIC so they can just push a button and replace it *and* since we no longer back the US dollar with gold, it has no intrinsic value. Welcome to socialism 2.0. Whee!

Jimmy Dell:

If I “copied” money from your account into mine, and you still had exactly as much money as before, it’d be counterfeiting, but not stealing; if I stole your money, it’d be stealing.

If you refuse to grok the distinction I find it unlikely you can fog a mirror, let alone have produced something worth “stealing”.

Lessig has the best historical analogy, to my mind.

One of the defining characteristics of land ownership is excludability: if I own a piece of land, then I have the “right” to tell you to get off it, which really means “if you fail to obey my request to leave my property, the police and broader justice apparatus will take my side of the issue.”

When the airplane was invented, all of a sudden the early aviators were flying around willy-nilly, not always remaining exactly within the bounds of real estate they happened to own. An “enterprising” fellow took some pilots to court, essentially suing them for “trespassing” on his property for their flyovers.

If one were to get down to brass tacks and argue from first-principles-as-then-understood, he probably had something of a case: the pilots were “trespassing” within his borders, so to speak, and there was as-yet no statute establishing that above such-and-such an altitude real estate boundaries could be crossed at will while flying.

…thankfully for history the suit was lost, and so today airplanes can fly across the country without the crippling transaction cost of negotiating thousands-upon-thousands of overflight permits.

We’re in a pretty similar situation today: enforcing the kind of “rights” creative types would like to see “enforced” is somewhere between “impossible”, “stifling to communication”, “prohibitively expensive”, and “requiring technical measures that out-do China and Iran for intrusiveness”. It’s not like Viacom cares about that: it’ll be you and me and all the other little guys paying taxes to cover the salaries for all the IP cops, court officials, and so on, paying for all the buggy, tacked-on anti-copying technology legislated into computers and other “media devices” as the costs get shifted to the consumer, and lamenting the opportunity cost of all that talent that got burned up attempting to limit the spread of unauthorized copies of Batman: The Dark Knight, and all the other earth-shatteringly important “products” the culture industry emits.

It seems to come down to “you can have free and open communication on the internet, much like now” or “you can keep hollywood in cocaine and marble counters”, but keeping both is a bit of a stretch; lord knows which I’d save.

“If I “copied” money from your account into mine, and you still had exactly as much money as before, it’d be counterfeiting, but not stealing; if I stole your money, it’d be stealing. If you refuse to grok the distinction I find it unlikely you can fog a mirror, let alone have produced something worth “stealing”.”

Grasping Hands, you don’t get it. If you “copy” my money, your fake money makes my real money worth less. That’s the whole reason why it’s illegal to “copy” money.

Can you grok that distinction?

@73 : no it’s not similar at all… I don’t display my banking account publicly (either free or paying), while by releasing a cd and selling it, you make it public.
and of course, if you steal my digital money, you ruin my ability to buy real things, and to distribute it as I want, which is not the case if I copy your music : you’re still able to sell, give or keep it.

@75

Totally agree on that one… brings us to the points where they’re choices to be made

Serial Commenter: of course I grok the distinction; what you have described is the crime of “counterfeiting”, and I believe you will find that word, used correctly, in the block you quoted, so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

@77,78 Your inability to understand the connection between counterfeiting and piracy shows the intellectual bankruptcy of your position. There is no difference, and in fact, before the freetards took over the net, the predominant form of piracy was counterfeiting of movies and albums in China. It’s amazing that thieves (that’s you, btw) are trying to rationalize this and building corrupt, logically inconsistent belief systems that justify you taking what you want. Thankfully, the outcome of these debates will never be decided in these forums.

Look at what’s going to happen in France.

A law called “HADOPI” is going to be discussed in the parliement.

The concept is quite simple : graduated response.

First time you’re caught downloading copyrighted material, you get a letter.

Second time, too.

And then things become interesting : you can get your internet connection simply cut down. Boum, you’re blacklisted.

And this is going to be done by a new administration that will be created especially to enforce copyright policy on behalf of content producers.

But,

- what if you don’t use your internet connection ONLY to download illegaly ?
- what if you have TV, phone and internet on the same line (tripleplay offers, most of the french internet connections) ? Will they cut your phone and TV too ? Only for copyright infrigement ?
- how exactly are they going to find the pirates ? What about privacy ?

And these are only few of the questions raised by this subject.

So can you rationally answer this ? And do you like what you see ?

You cannot use a legislative act to force copyright holders to act reasonably. If the owners of copyrighted materials are snow to embrace a new business model, it is there choice to make or not make money using other mediums like YouTube. If Viacom doesn’t want its material shownon YouTube without compensation, that is their choice. I don’t know if Google has made any money yet from YouTube, but they are selling avertisments and part of that money is made based on searches for copyrighted material. Viacom has every right to demand its piece of the pie.

thought:

why don’t the music companies or some industry entity, partner up with the ISP’s? This way, they could charge a premium on top of the monthly ISP charge that would include downloads of that music company’s catalogue? This could be tracked by the subscriber’s IP - like the BBC iPlayer for example?

Piracy is rife in the UK where downloads are unmetered, but in metered traffic countries - well, it’s a simple way of controlling how much data they download and hence, limiting the illegal downloads because you’re gonna pay another dollar for every Mb or whatever. I would think twice, and did when I lived in Oz recently.

Just a thought.

Nathan Hague
http://www.australiawow.com.au

I have studied this issue for years, both as an artist and advocate of the freedoms of speech and digital distribution. My perspective pertains mostly to the entertainment industry, and is limited to intellectual property on the internet.

Nothing is free. Especially in today’s consumer driven societies. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And artists do require food. Understanding the need to insulate artists against ‘idea theft’ and predatory practices by private business, is integral to ensuring that our culture thrives and continues to grow.

Having said this, we are constantly undergoing a paradigm shift in the way we approach intellectual property as it relates to technology. And if precedence in the Supreme Court is any indication, the law will not be altered to stifle innovation in any way, even to protect the artists.

I believe that in order for innovation and intellectual property law to coexist, we must enter a new age of accountability on the Internet, where everyone who wants to be in the game gets counted, and paid, and everyone is responsible for their own personal ‘body of work’.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this. New standards such as OpenID (http://openid.net/) are making this type of thinking a reality. By taking control of your profile, it can travel with you from site to site, making it easier to log in…and truly own your personal profile on the web.

Of course there is also the issue of payment.

Micropayments can work in the same way Coca-Cola allows Japanese schoolgirls to purchase drinks from their cellphones. Istockphoto.com also has a unique micropayment system that works and that now includes music (http://mashable.com/2008/05/14/istockphoto-royalty-free-musi/).

There are also private companies such as ASCAP that serve as collections agencies and arbiters of royalty payments. Is a system that monitors and collects residual income for content creators from all industries really that far fetched?

Of course the ISPs have already fought for their right to be royalty free in court. But that’s not to say that they shouldn’t foot any part of the bill for taking people’s money in exchange for access to free content.

Imagine a world where every person owns their own piece of virtual real estate that gains value over time, as their body of work grows and gets distributed to others. How would you like to get paid for your comment on this page 10 years from now…even if it was only a penny?

It is obviously better on the whole if information is shared. There are still ways of compensating people for their work, such as paying them for their reputation and proposals, without creating monopolies. People in favor of keeping copyrights and patents are greedy.

OK, so put your money where your mouth is Michael. Let’s see you post a notice giving permission for anyone to copy and host the full text of all your articles.

Let’s see you give away your copyrights that you say are outmoded and the basis of broken business models.

Or maybe you’re very comfortable by taking advantage of all the copyright laws that you decry others for taking advantage of? That’s what I thought…

Hey guys,

It is pretty disingenious to hide behind a “free market” attitude when large companies (who happen to be copyright holders) are able to “donate” thousands? (tens of thousands? +++? ) in “campaing contributions” to individual lawmakers, PAC’s, local state and federal political parties who regularly pass laws that shape the market (no longer free) to the benefit of the large corporate donors.

This is not a case of right and wrong and crime and punishment. American industry is loosing it’s edge. When the Neo-Liberals took charge in the the ’80’s American Auto manufacturerers refused to develop fuel efficient technologies and relied on their political influece to stay in business. They are no longer at the top of their industry.

As far as the music industry goes:

“people are losing jobs in the music industry. Illegal downloading is not a victimless crime: thousands of record label employees have been laid off, hundreds of artists have been cut from label rosters, numerous record stores are closing throughout the country, and due to declining sales, record companies are finding their ability to invest in new artists at risk.”

The people that are loosing jobs are mangers, middle managers and producers. Artists like Primus, Radio Head and Trent Reznor are capitalizing on new technologies that makes the old business model obsolete. Tower Records shut down because they had ZERO web presence. That, quite frankly is their fault. The musical artists themselves now have much more controle over their careers and do not become trapped in an industry that requires them to reach “Stardom” to break even on their investments.

The copyright system as it works today is a wracket. The kind that mobsters would be arrested for in the ’30’s. You can either try to force people to deal with an archaic business model (other countries are way ahead of us in alternative power generation, i’m sure a few individuals will make out very well, but in about 20 years american power companies are going to be in worse shape than the Auto manufactures are now)

Technology is part of the environment that you are operating in, and you must adapt to the changing environment or become obsolete.

Here’s how you fix IP law…

Article 1, Section 8, clause 81 of the US Constitution says,
“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.”

Believe it or not, but this doesn’t actually sanction copyright or patent. However, those who enact and support copyright and patent may argue that it permits such unethical privileges.

But, more importantly, the US constitution doesn’t prevent the abolition of copyright or patent.

Let’s see how, whilst still tightly adhering to the US constitution, the people’s liberty need not be unethically suspended, as it is by copyright and patent, when securing their natural intellectual property rights:

1. Authors and inventors, being human beings have a natural, exclusive right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
2. This natural right should be secured by the state – to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.
3. The natural right can last no longer than the lifetime of the author or inventor.
4. The natural right should be secured for a limited time equal to the limited lifetime of the author or inventor, except in the event of unnatural death, when this limited time should be extended to secure a now unnatural exclusive right by a further quarter of the normal lifespan.
5. The natural right ceases to be exclusive when the author or inventor voluntarily communicates (or permits the communication of) their writings and discoveries to other parties, whether by gift or exchange.
6. An author’s or inventor’s writings and discoveries naturally remain exclusive to all natural parties to whom they have been voluntarily communicated (by any such party).
7. All such communicated parties may, as a collective, be treated as if a single author or inventor and should have secured (by the state) their natural, exclusive right for as long as they each shall live.
8. No communicated party may as a consequence submit to the abridgement of their freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to further communicate (the writings and discoveries voluntarily communicated to them) to whomsoever they choose. NB This doesn’t preclude a communicant’s commercial exchange of their continued silence (confidentiality).
9. Those who are not voluntarily communicated parties, who view, remove, copy, or otherwise communicate a party’s writings or discoveries to themselves (or any other) without that party’s permission shall be penalised statutorily (for the violation of privacy) and additionally in proportion to the market value of the publication of those writings or discoveries (where publication is their exchange for money with members of the public at large), and further required to restore any removal and destroy any copies manufactured. All who have been further illegitimately communicated may also be similarly liable in so far as they are complicit, but must at least also cease and reverse any communication in so far as it is practicable.

This would seem to be in greater accord with the natural rights philosophy of Thomas Paine than the current copyright and patent legislation (that unethically suspends the public’s liberty in order to create mercantile privilege, so subjecting the people to the tyranny and oppression of immortal and sociopathic corporations who’ve adopted the privilege as their own).

From ‘Constitutional Sanction’ http://www.digitalproductions......php?id=119

@87: All you’ve done is created a long-winded version of saying: once a creator/writer shares anything with anyone, it’s free game for all. That’s no different from the “it’s in digital form, so it should be free” argument … so it doesn’t really add to the debate here.

@88:

Ahem, I’ve fixed IP law so it accords with natural law, the US constitution, citizens of the US and the rest of the world, and the laws of information technology.

That’s gottta tick quite a few boxes.

If your complaint is that it doesn’t reiterate copyright, and achieve by some mystical power of invocation the ability for law to prevent people enjoying their cultural freedom, then you’re absolutely right. But, then I have a hunch no-one is going to come up with the law you seek.

You may as well debate how to create a time machine or otherwise put the Internet back into Pandora’s box. That debate is not one I’ll be adding to.

@89: You didn’t address my claim, you just said “I did, too … so there.” (As for the claim to have “fixed” IP law, that’s a pretty bold claim for one comment to bear.)

How is what you said earlier any different from the claim that: once it’s in digital form, so it should be free? And on what grounds do you defend such a claim?

@90: I do not believe that once art is in digital form it should be free. Far from it. I’m strongly in favour of strictly enforced intellectual property rights. If such rights are not protected, then as you say, artists will find it extremely difficult to sell their art in a free market.

All I’m in opposition to are the unethical commercial privileges that suspend certain intellectual property rights - on the pretext that the commercial exploitation of such suspension is ultimately beneficial to the public.

How is Copyright Fundamentally Unethical?

@91: I read your link. Slavery and copyright have nothing to do with one another, as the author admits early on … but then goes on to continue the analogy. And the fact that both existed at the same time does not equal causality. Ridiculous. If we can agree to throw out this insulting analogy, we can address the argument of the post.

The thrust of the argument in that post is this (as I understand it): currently, violators of copyright law can be imprisoned; if I create art, I am a copyright holder; therefore, by holding my copyright, I potentially , though indirectly, contribute to someone going to jail; therefore, I will no longer hold my copyright because I don’t want my art to become “an imposition on his liberty.”

If this logic were valid, then this would be true as well: currently, violators of tresspass laws can be imprisoned; if I own land, I attain the right for that land to be free from tresspassers; therefore, by holding that right, I potentially, though indirectly, contribute to someone going to jail; therefore, I will no longer hold my right to keep my land free from tresspassers because I don’t want my land to become “an imposition on his liberty.” So here: everyone do whatever you’d like with my land! I’ll work hard to maintain it, improve its aesthetic appeal, and add to its utility by maintaining a garden, etc. Come freely onto my land at any time and take what you like, without asking and without payment.

That’s called a public park. And if someone intends to do that, then that’s great. Things should be done simply for the common good. But you wouldn’t ORDER BY LAW that all citizens must do this, would you? Because that’s the analogy for the argument to abolish copyright law.

Also, all of this puts the ethical burden on the one who is upholding the law. The copyright holder isn’t forcing anyone to go to jail (and certainly not enslaving anyone). The violator of the copyright brings that consequence upon himself when he violates it.

I understand that the argument is that the law is unjust, but this argument doesn’t prove that. Instead, it’s circular. It says: “Because people can go to jail if they violate this law, this law is unjust.” What?!

If you want to get at whether or not copyright law is ethical, you’ll have to attack it from a different angle.

@92: You still seem to believe I am against the natural right to privacy and the securing by the state of a man’s private property from theft or trespass. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

I am often the first to challenge nihilists who believe intellectual property is fair game and not to be protected.

I concern myself only with everyone’s right to liberty, cultural liberty, to free speech and the sharing and building upon our cultural commonwealth.

This threatens no-one’s privacy.

It is copyright that threatens our privacy by seeking to control our use of the art we buy, and copyright that constrains our cultural liberty to share and build upon it.

@93: I truly apologize if I’m misunderstanding you, and don’t mean to ascribe positions to you that you don’t support.

I *think* that you support the end of all copyright law, not just its reform. Is this correct? I strongly support reform (the current versions extend the monopoly far too long, allow corporations to concentrate far too much power, and don’t go far enough in supporting the original creators from corporate manipulation). However, I still don’t see how ending copyright in total would be beneficial to creators.

Am I still misunderstanding your position? Thanks for your continued conversation.

@94: Yes, I support the abolition of copyright and patent law, and a reversion to the natural law concerning intellectual property that these unethical mercantile privileges so unnaturally extend.

See Natural Law Protects Natural Rights.

You may misunderstand my motive though, for such abolition. It is not to benefit creators, for they no longer get benefit from such privileges in any case, but to benefit those now prosecuted by the cartel of corporate publishers who believe that random persecution can educate the public into obedient surrender of their liberty.

The natural law now applies, irrespective of legislation. There’s no need to change the law in order to make natural law apply, only to change the law to protect innocent cultural exchange from unethical litigation.

Though few recognise it, there is a massive section of society who in understanding the nature of the digital domain have already changed their business practices, and have modulated copyright law to neutralise its unnatural constraint and interference. This is the Free Software movement, and their General Public License is a most effective neutralisation of copyright.

“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my art”

@95: How does your idea of “natural law” fit with my example of cave men (comment #54)? As should be obvious, I used that extreme example in an attempt to argue basic principles (i.e., natural laws) that aren’t dependent on whatever is currently upheld in the legal system.

It seems you and I are the only ones still pounding away on the comments here. I’d be willing to keep at this on your own blog, but also don’t want to be a pest. This issue matters deeply to me, but I want to learn, understand, and find a method that works best for all people more than I want to be right.

@96: I think natural law fits very well with your comment #54.

However, bear in mind that labour does not entitle reward (unless reward was promised), merely entitlement to possession or free exchange, whether of itself or its fruits, whether of a material or intellectual nature.

So, if you can find few who want your book of poems that took you ten years to write, you aren’t going to be able to exchange them for very much money. However, simply because they are of an intellectual nature doesn’t render them fair game for thieves.

Even so, if you chose to publish one or two poems free of charge as loss leaders to promote the book to a larger audience, those promotional poems become the property of those you give them to (notwithstanding the truth of their authorship), and their legitimate recipients are at liberty to copy and sell them if they choose (though they are unlikely to, except in those few corners of the world that the Internet doesn’t yet reach, where wealthy poetry lovers live).

Essentially, the economic incentive for a poet is their audience for their poetry. This comprises the amount of money the audience is collectively willing to offer to the poet as incentive to publish their work.

Such collective payments are greatly facilitated by the Internet.

As for Jefferson, I don’t think he was particularly happy with copyright, nor that desperate to create it.

Thomas Jefferson, The DMCA, Copyright, Fair Use, et al.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/23/23214/3438

(Hat tip http://news.slashdot.org/comme.....d=23598667 ).

It’s Time To Rethink Copyright Law - NOT

There may be some truth somewhere in Mr. Arrlingon’s statement ” … it’s time for copyright holders to rethink their business models. The winners won’t be the companies that win or lose billion dollar lawsuits. It’ll be the companies that throw out everything that’s come before, and build new businesses around the natural behavior of people. Remove friction and win.” However, there is no truth in the sentence that preceded it … “It’s time to rethink copyright laws.” Attempting to create a nexus between the two statements is a blatant - and probably consciously devised - non sequitur.

When you cut through all of the flawed rhetoric - such as that which Mr. Arrlingon, Larry Lessig, the EFF, Richard Stallman and the other Marxist digatopeans are famous for - copyright law has one and only one purpose and that is to grant creators rights to the works they create to give them the option to get paid for the distribution of their works if they so chose thereby enhancing their motivation to keep creating.

Tearing chunks of the copyright law away to enable those who wish to use other peoples work without paying for it - and possibly, though I doubt it, suffering moral concern about what they are doing by doing so - rapes the very people that offer the creations consumers covet and technologists need to give the sterile, inanimate objects they produce - life.

History has already provided us with a look at what happens when copyright is eviscerated the way Mr. Arrlingon, the other anti creator crusaders and the greedy public suggest: “The breakdown of the copyright system in post-Soviet Russia, a nation with a rich history of creative accomplishment, can teach us all a lesson. Just as the strictures of totalitarianism were being removed from the lives of Russian creators, the traditions of copyright protection and enforcement were abandoned. The result has been the utter dissipation of Russia’s creative community. Some creators have fled to the West. Others have been forced to abandon their craft. Either way, the output of creative works has nearly ceased, a sad result for a great culture.” From: The Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet.

In a global digital environment where the rights of creators can easily be stripped away by those who wish to freely devour the fruits of their labor without attempting to understand - or give a single care about - what is takes to create something that can effect millions of people the minute they hear it and stay with them for the rest of their lives, there is no ‘West’ to which today’s persecuted creators can flee.

You can take their product. You can destroy their lives. And, sadly, when all is said and done, the losers are those who love music but can’t create it, our culture and our humanity.

Copyright is not the culprit. Copyright is an incentive. Working to destroy is a senseless attack on the very fiber of out being. “Can there ever (be) a more empty and worthless cause than fighting for the right for artists not to be paid?” — Andrew Orlowski

I, as many others that have already commented, disagree on what Mr. Arrington is saying. Just because people do it doesn’t mean it’s right - it’s just not being tackled properly. Or are we, as a society, heading the wrong way?

Here is an article in InternetEvolution.com by Andrew Keen about why ‘Rethinking’ copyright law is wrong. Andrew Keen: “Arrington’s position certainly threatens our culture”.

I, along with many others, think this argument is insane.