The Minute Memes project: reframing copyright restrictions one idea at a time, through a series of short, captivating, classroom-ready videos by award-winning artist and animator Nina Paley.
QuestionCopyright.org -- Introduction and FAQ
Welcome to QuestionCopyright.org. Our mission is to educate the public about the history of copyright, and to promote methods of distribution that do not depend on restricting people from making copies.
Copyright was originally designed to regulate and subsidize distribution, not creation. It was never designed to provide an economic basis for creativity, and largely doesn't even now. Today, the Internet has fundamentally changed the economics of distribution; copyright is now far more of a hindrance than a help at connecting creators with their audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Was copyright invented by writers and artists, to protect themselves?
No. Actually, it was invented by publishers, to preserve an information ownership monopoly based on a government censorship policy.
The first copyright law was a 1556 censorship statute in England. It granted the Company of Stationers, a London guild, exclusive rights to own and run printing presses. Company members registered books under their own name, not the author's name, and these registrations could be transferred or sold only to other Company members. In exchange for their government-granted monopoly on the book trade, the Stationers aided the government's censors, by controlling what was printed, and by searching out illegal presses and books — they even had the right to burn unauthorized books and destroy presses. They were, in effect, a private, for-profit information police force.
After the Revolution of 1688, the government loosened its control over the press. No longer desiring strong censorship, Parliament decided to allow the Stationers' monopoly to expire. This was a direct economic threat to the Stationers' monopoly-based livelihood, and they responded by proposing a compromise: they argued that authors have a "natural right" of ownership in their works, and that furthermore this right could be transferred to others by contract. The placement of original ownership with the author was a smart political ploy, by which the Stationers avoided charges that they were attempting to resurrect the old (and unpopular) monopoly mechanisms. But the stipulation that these new copyrights were a form of property, and therefore transferrable, showed the real motive behind their proposal. The Stationers correctly foresaw that authors would need to transfer copyright to a publisher as an inducement to print, and that therefore the publishers' position would about the same as it had been before. Indeed, their hand would be strengthened, because now the exclusive "ownership" of a work would now be based on well-established property law, instead of the temporary whim of the government.
The Stationers persuaded Parliament, and the result was the Statute of Anne: a copyright law created by the publishing industry, designed around the interests of the publishing industry, and modeled on a defunct censorship system. The Stationers' argument was essentially economic: they claimed that they could not afford to print books (and thus encourage authors to write books) without protection against competition. There were some technological and economic reasons why the Stationers' argument was plausible; remember too that they were monopoly-softened trade group worried about suddenly being asked to survive without special protections.
But there was no uprising of writers, clamoring counterintuitively for the right to prevent people from copying their works. The writers themselves didn't participate much in the debate around the creation of copyright. The argument was crafted and presented by publishers.
Thus copyright is not really about subsidizing creation; it is about subsidizing replication, and it was designed around the dominant replication technology of its time: the printing press.
For more detailed information about the history of copyright, see our bibliography page.
Do musicians, writers, and artists depend on copyright to earn a living?
The vast majority of musicians, writers, and artists will never see a dime of copyright royalties in their lives. For the small percentage who do, it will mostly amount to beer money — a nice consolation prize, but hardly enough to make a real difference in their lives, let alone to provide an economic incentive to create.
The copyright lobby rarely talks about the majority of artists. It prefers to talk about the superstars: the tiny, tiny minority of famous artists whose works are backed by the marketing power of the publishing and record industries. There's nothing objectionable about these superstars, some of whom are quite talented, but to treat them as representative of artists in general would be to confuse marketing with reality. Most artists' lives look nothing like theirs, and never will, under the current spoils system.
But without copyright, how will artists get credit for their work?
This is one of the favorite ploys of the copyright industry: to pretend that people sharing your work is somehow related to people claiming that they wrote your work. For example, here's Hilary Rosen, the former head of the RIAA, describing the speeches she gave at schools and colleges, in which she urged students to adopt the industry's views about information ownership:
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Analogies are what really work best. I ask them, "What have you done last week?" They may say they wrote a paper on this or that. So I tell them, "Oh, you wrote a paper, and you got an A? Would it bother you if somebody could just take that paper and get an A too? Would that bug you?" So this sense of personal investment does ring true with people.
Of course, people who swap music files do not replace the artist's name with their own. If Hilary Rosen had asked instead: "Would it bother you if somebody could just show a copy of your paper around, so other people could benefit from what you wrote, and see that you got an A?" the students would have answered "No, we aren't bothered by that at all," which isn't what Rosen wanted to hear.
Copyright does not prevent plagiarism, it prevents copying — that's why it's called "copyright". They're two unrelated things, and it's a pity the copyright lobby tries to make people think that permitting copying would somehow encourage plagiarism. (If anything, the free flow of copies in electronic form encourages accurate attribution, because when there are many copies available, a quick Internet search easily reveals the original author.)
Is copying a copyrighted work the same as stealing it?
If I steal your bicycle, now you have no bicycle. If I copy your song, now we both have it.
When the industry uses loaded words like "stealing", "theft", and "piracy", they are using linguistic tricks, trying to equate copying with deprivation of property. Increasing the number of copies somehow results in a decrease in... what, exactly? Certainly not in the amount of money available to creators, which is precious little to begin with.
Sharing isn't stealing, it's the opposite of stealing. And sharing certainly isn't like boarding ships on the high seas, holding the crew at gunpoint, and stealing their cargo!
Would creativity dry up without copyright?
If there had been no worthwhile or enduring artistic work produced before copyright, this would be a more plausible argument. But the world before modern copyright was hardly a barren cultural desert: Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, J.S. Bach, Li Bo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo... The history of human cultural production shows no evidence that sustaining creativity somehow depends on restricting its fruits. And no one can look at the wellspring of artistic activity that has emerged on the Internet in the last few years and come to the conclusion that allowing people to copy is somehow an obstacle to artistic progress.
Copyright does not support creativity, it supports distribution. As distribution costs drop slowly to zero, copyright becomes more of a hindrance than a help to creators.
So are you advocating the abolition of copyright?
We're trying to make it possible for people to consider what abolition would actually mean, by changing the way copyright is thought about and debated. Real understanding will lead to better policy; if abolition is that better policy, then so be it.
We do advocate, at the very least, a drastic reduction in the scope and duration of copyright terms; we've found it hard to avoid that conclusion after looking closely at the effects of copyright in the Internet Age. But whether outright abolition is preferable to simply taming copyright is a more complex question, and one we don't pretend to be able to answer with certainty.
It's also not a question that can be answered in the current rhetorical climate around copyright, which is too often still concerned with mostly unrelated issues like attribution, plagiarism, and the economic basis of creativity. Many people think those are what copyright is about, and are unaware that copyright was actually designed around the limitations of the printing press, not around the needs of creators, and that even today, copyright is far more valuable to publishers than it is to artists. In a world where distribution costs are quickly dropping to zero, and ambient findability is making successful plagiarism a thing of the past, it is important that we skeptically examine any policy that interferes with the free flow of information.
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A Freelance Illustrator's Perspective
The vast majority of musicians, writers, and artists will never see a dime of copyright royalties in their lives. For the small percentage who do, it will mostly amount to beer money — a nice consolation prize, but hardly enough to make a real difference in their lives, let alone to provide an economic incentive to create.>>
Unfortunately artists rely on big publishers to purchase and distribute their work. One major drawback to this model is that only a small handful of "in vogue" artists can make a living, it's all up to the whim of the publishers. There is indeed little room for innovation (that is, if you want to make a living from your art). But the issue is not in copyright law, it's in this top-down business model. To abolish copyright and maintain this monopolistic business model would achieve little for artists that want to make money from art.
This is one of the favorite ploys of the copyright industry: to pretend that people sharing your work is somehow related to people claiming that they wrote your work. ....
Copyright does not prevent plagiarism, it prevents copying — that's why it's called "copyright". They're two unrelated things, and it's a pity the copyright lobby tries to make people think that permitting copying would somehow encourage plagiarism. (If anything, the free flow of copies in electronic form encourages accurate attribution, because when there are many copies available, a quick Internet search easily reveals the original author.)>>
Well I can only speak from personal experience, but I don't seek CREDIT for my art--I need MONEY for my art! It seems like many anticopyrighters think that giving credit is enough. As if promoting the work somehow translates into money. Free promotion in the form of "sharing" is a nice concept, but it doesn't pay the bills. I may make very, very little money from the big publishing companies, its true; but I would be making exactly NADA if I relied on filesharing of non-copyrighted property. Simple exposure just doesn't translate into income. The current big business model of the publishing industry has so many drawbacks, and I think it needs to be addressed alongside the issues of abolishing or reforming copyright.
An independent artist's perpective
I am an independent artist. I produce, promote and distribute my art without the help of any corporation. I have spent my whole life developing the skills needed to create quality art. I have also spent literally enough to buy a house making my own art, and live in poverty. The majority of my audience usually loves my art, and some of them buy a "container" that my art is in to take home with them. These meager sales, and sometimes food are the only compensations I get for my art. For this compensation, I don't brake even.
I enjoy the novelty of your arguments, although I see some flaws in them.
Flaw #1: "Copying is not stealing". If a person copies my art to get it instead of buying a "container" that I made to sell, I don't get any income from that. That is like stealing. Maybe you should say "copying is not stealing if you send the artist at least $10".
Flaw #2: "Our audiences wants the their money to reach us (the artists)".
I would love to believe that, and that is true of many fans, however, just as many don't have any problem with getting the benefit of artist's creations for free, or for the lowest possible price, and these people are often the ones with the most money. I know this because I have seen people behave that way over many years. It's not just corporations who are greedy, it is human nature to be greedy. To think that people will support artists on an honor system is to ignore human nature.
Conclusion: You are encouraging people to copy. There still lacks a way for artists to be compensated, and you are making it worse. Hopefully this will all work its way out. In the mean time, making art is a luxury for most people and must be supported by a generous patron to do it. Many people can and will just stop making art because they can't afford to eat or pay rent doing it. It would be better in my opinion if every person gives something back to the artist every time they make a copy.
I would like to hear what your reply to me would be.
Disney and Their copyright
Disney felt free to use the characters of European fables and folk tales (Snowhite, Cinderella etc.), because there was no copyright on them, it didn't exist back then, and even if it had existed, it would have expired by the 1930's. Because copyright is to expire sooner or later, like patents are. Stories must enter the public domain and become an universal treasure, accessible and modifiable by all humankind. Now they don't want us to do with Mickey Mouse what they did to Cinderella.
from Bad Taste Bears
I can't link internally to this document.
It would be very helpful if this page (like many FAQ pages) had internal anchors (HTML <a id="blahblah" />, or you can even change the <strong> tags to <strong id="blahblah">). Then others could link from my web page to a specific question in the FAQ, rather than to the FAQ itself. In particular, I'd like to link to the question on plagiarism; a link to the entire FAQ (with text referring to the difference between copyright and plagiarism) would just be confusing.
PS: It was very difficult to post this comment, because the system kept thinking that I couldn't do the math problem. It turned out that I needed both Javascript and cookies turned on to do this, yet there was no indication of this in the error message! Fortunately, I really wanted to make the comment, else I'd have given up long ago.
Re: I can't link internally to this document.
You can link internally to the document now. I've given each section a named anchor: hold the mouse still over the text and after a moment the anchor name for that section should pop up. For example, if you hover over any part of the section entitled "Does copyright protect artists from plagiarism?", you should see the word "plagiarism" pop up. Then you know that the internal link to that section is:
The error message for the math question now says that you must have Javascript and cookies enabled (apparently, it has for a while, I don't remember when we made that change).
Thanks for the suggestions!
Re: I can't link internally to this document.
Great, thanks! Now I have a better link in Plagiarism section of the copyright statement for my own work.
The captcha prerequisites are also clear now too.
Re: I can't link internally to this document.
That's a great statement, thanks for pointing it out!
You're missing something
While I agree with the thrust of your argument, I think you've created a false dichotomy that leaves out an important dimension of artistic production: the cost.
You mention a spectrum of creative artists, ranging from the unknown talent who spends his (spare) time creating works that, whatever their merits, will never earn their creator more than "beer money" at best, to the ludicrously hyped superstar who, whatever her merits, is so wealthy that her children's children will never have to do an honest day's work in their lives. And yes, there are the publishers, who rely on the latter to make their revenue, and who abuse their position to keep the former firmly subservient. So far, agreed.
But there's another class of "creative artists" in our world, and that's those who have to invest truly colossal sums of money, not just in their marketing, but in the creation itself. Many Hollywood films fall into this category. Whatever the merits of those films, they are undeniably expensive to make, requiring the services of thousands of people who all want to be paid. Making a *copy* of their finished product, however, is virtually free.
Now: I personally agree with the philosophy that "most people want to be honest", and are willing to pay a reasonable price to the creators. But as things stand, that's not good enough for movie producers. They raise money from investors, investors demand a return on that money, and the producer who can promise a bigger return than their rival - by relying on a tried and trusted distribution mechanism, promising a return on *every single disc sold* - will impress more investors than the one who can't.
If you really believe in a society based on trust, where copyright is redundant, it's going to take more than argument. It's going to take money, and lots of it. Would you be willing to put your own cash into a foundation to support the production of expensive creative works, to be distributed on the low-price model you suggest? More importantly, do you think you could raise a couple of *billion* dollars on that basis? Until the answer to this question is "yes", you're really just spitting in the wind.
Re: You're missing something
There is a fundamental misundertstanding with using the concept of "COST" as an exuse for the necessity of copyright. Theoretically, we live in a free-market (capitalistic) system. If a creative endevour does not economically pan-out when doing "due dilligence" based on "cost" then it shouldn't be produced. Period.
If someone wants to go ahead an produce a Mega$$$ Hollywood movie and the movie doesn't earn enough to repay the investors, too bad. They made a bad economic decision.
You bring up and excellent
You bring up and excellent point about the cost. I think that technology has changed the cost structure of media fundamentally and copyright is a tool used by many to combat that change. "Cost" has always been used to explain high prices and unfair contract terms. Technology has slashed the cost of production, promotion, and distribution for a great many works to the point that it is entirely possible to self-produce, self-promote, and self-distribute. Isn't it time that the unit price of these works changed to reflect that?
If you took the big greedy corporations out of the equation, how much would it cost a writer to write? How much would it cost a musician to make music if he didn't have to pay back his label for their "services"? Sure, you still have to produce the work, and sure you have to promote the work, but how much would all of that cost if you didn't have to rely on monopoly softened publishers, producers, and promoters? Thanks to computers and the internet it is cheap and easy to create, collaborate, and communicate. You may not have what it takes to promote or distribute, but it is cheap and easy to work with those who do thanks to the internet. That's how the open source software community has been able to accomplish all that it has. Are the movie studios, record labels, and publishers using these technologies effectively to reduce their costs? If they are, why don't their prices reflect that? If they're not, then they owe it to their investors and the consumer to start doing so.
Speaking of prices and costs, if you were guaranteed to only make lower middle class wages for your creative work, would you still create it? How many great talents get passed over by producers and publishers because their work may not have the kind of critical mass necessary to produce easy profits for a label, studio, or publisher?
Re: You're missing something
Thanks for the comments, vetinarii. I think you're right: this is a point that has to be addressed
We're adding more material to the site about the idea of drastically shortening copyright terms, as opposed to outright abolition. While I think that abolition would have many more good effects than bad, there's something to be said for taking smaller steps too. Eben Moglen has pointed out (regarding software patents) that the difference between the current term lengths and reasonable term lengths is not just a quantitative difference, but a qualitative one. In most scientific and technical fields today, seventeen years is an eternity. If patent terms were shortened to, say, three years, then even without improving the patent examination system a whit, the problem would be hugely alleviated.
I think the same is true in copyright. The difference between a century (which is a rough approximation of "life of author plus 70 years", the current term) and, say, 5 years, would be huge, in terms of the sharing and the derivative works that would become possible earlier. We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: there are many people whose conservative instincts lead them, understandably, to shy away from complete abolition, yet who would readily consider drastic shortening of term lengths.
That's where your point comes in. Let's take Hollywood blockbuster movies. Even the biggest of these, the hundred-million dollar special effects flicks, are expected to make the majority of their profits within the first six months after release. Note that's not just make back their investment, but actually make most of their profits in that short time window. Why, then, is it necessary for the studio to maintain an exclusive distribution and derivative work right for the next 95 years? If the standard copyright term were even 1 year, it would be enough for most movies; by making it 3 or 5, we would bring in even the stragglers.
There are some mildly complex economic arguments that remain to be dealt with here. It would, of course, be ridiculous for a content company to claim that they can reliably predict a revenue stream for a given work beyond 5 years, so at first glance it seems obvious that those long-term, low-level revenues couldn't be a factor in whether that work got created in the first place.
However, the studios will make the argument that, although they cannot predict with certainty whether any particular work will bring in significant revenue over the long haul, they can predict average revenues statistically — in other words, they might say they know that out of a hundred movies, on average five will still be bringing in significant income twenty years down the road.
Now, I think this is bunk for a lot of reasons :-), and I don't think in practice that movie studios make decisions in this way, but it's an argument that will need to be answered in detail.
Anyway, thanks again for your comment. We're slowly adjusting the site to focus more on improving the quality of the debate, and less on any one particular recommendation. Our main goal is to open people's minds to the possibility that other systems might be both more artist-friendly and more audience-friendly.
Re: You're missing something
Couple of observations...
Patents... Good luck bringing a product to market in three years or less. Apple has one of the fastest concept-to-market cycles and guess what, it's three years. In your proposal their patents would expire when their products hit the market. Everyone else who doesn't have $30 billion in cash would be screwed.
Motion pictures... While we can debate about 95 years, the fundamental question I never get an answer to is ... why, other than intellectual greed (i.e. wanting access to something you didn't create) should the duration of copyright be shortened? Yes, it's true that a fraction of one percent of the total films produced in Hollywood, nevermind the rest of the U.S., or the world, make their production costs back in one month... but if people choose of their own will to keep seeing the movie, why should the creators of that film not enjoy the fruits of that for months, years to come? Is there any other reason than intellectual greed driving this argument? i.e. standing on the shoulders of what work others have put into it.
To wit, the value (not price) of a creative work goes beyond cost. If the market deems James Cameron's film worth the $400 million it reportedly cost to produce, if it deems it worth $1.5 billion... why should we put a gun to the heads of everyone involved, including the audience, and insist they accept another definition of value than the one they've willingly put their money toward? If they don't value it, they won't go, and the project will flop, and studios will go back to the drawing board. If they do value it, James Cameron makes some money. So? is it just jealousy? If we can't be rich like James Cameron then why should he be? That's not a good enough argument.
Does it benefit society for "Avatar" to fall into the public domain? Well, no. Storywise it's a mediocre film. It doesn't benefit our culture one bit. But the thing is, the generic concept behind it is already a mythology that existed for ages and exists in our culture in many forms. So, on the obverse, we haven't been detrimented by the copyright on "Avatar" at all.
Consider that before CD sales started tanking, even, more than 85% of recording artists did not sell enough albums to break even on their advances. The contention that because fewer than 1/10th of 1% of singers or moviemakers make huge money there should be a very short duration of copyright is therefore proposing a convenience to the plagiarist at the expense of thousands if not millions of creative individuals who have a hard enough time as it is protecting their right to profit from their works.
The digital age has only reduced distribution costs, but it has not reduced production, marketing, promotion costs significantly BECAUSE of the change in signal-to-noise ratio. The internet, has, in fact, made it harder to last more than a day as a recording artist. More information means more bad information, and more difficulty sifting through the glut of mediocrity to find good, useful information. Same with entertainment. There are n times more artists out there... how much harder do you think it is for any single artist to grab the spotlight and make back their money? It's a wash. The more channels of distribution there are, the more money it's going to take to stand out amongst them even if all you want to do is just break even.
Re: You're missing something
I'm not qualified to speak on the movie industry, but I disagree with you in regards to your points on the music industry.
Small point: the digital age has reduced distribution costs AND production costs (pro-tools/logic/reason). An artist can produce and distribute music at near zero cost outside of opportunity costs.
Larger point: You rightly point out that the signal to noise ratio leads to increased marketing and promotion costs, but you don't see how this might actually disprove your point to some extent.
One reason that marketing and promotion costs are high because major labels have become fat on artificial distribution monopolies and are able to price small competitors out of the market. I'm a believer that monopolies can not exist without unfair advantages, and that unfair advantage is copyright.
Another reason is that copyright has stunted the growth of the market to provide innovations to bring down the costs of marketing and promotions. You say that there is too much information and that it is difficult to sift through it. But that's exactly what free markets do best -- sift through huge amounts of information. In a free market, techonologies arise that allow conusmers to better sift through large quantities of information so that the cream will be able to rise to the top (radio was such a technology back in the day).
The problem however, is that restrictive copyrights are a brick wall preventing those innovations. Napster was a beautiful thing, and it was brought down by restrictive copyright enforcement. Look how far Facebook and Wikipedia have come in 4 short years. Imagine if Napster had been able to evolve and flourish since 1999, instead of having to go underground -- what a beautiful thing that could have been.
Here's the thing.
Copyright is not about getting rich, nor is it even about putting food on the table. Society has made it that way, and you're only serving to reinforce it.
The stated purpose of copyright--well, US copyright anyway--is to give artists an incentive to create. Since people create things anyway (it's human nature), there's really no need for a reward system, let alone one that rewards people decades after they've died, so that their grandchildren's grandchildren, who've never done a thing to deserve the money, benefit from it.
Besides, I don't see how copyright leads to very many unique creations. Instead, it gives authors the opportunity to create something intersting once, and then profit off of that same creation tens or even hundreds of times over (movies, sequels, licensing, etc.). That's not what copyright is supposed to be about, but here's the paradox: copyright's very nature inexorably leads to just such a situation. Despite its stated purpose, it only encourages authors to milk their creations for all they're worth. This is never a good thing.
More Devil's Advocate
I would also like to see a couple of points tightened up here; I am also convinced that modern copyright does far more harm than good, and if any headway is to be made against it, the arguments against it have to be very solid.
The Hillary Rosen example says that her question should have been "Would it bother you if somebody could just show a copy of your paper around, so other people could benefit from what you wrote, and see that you got an A?" and uses a term paper as an example, but corporate copyright proponemts would say that this is an invalid example since the student isn't *selling* the term paper and deriving economic benefit from it. While not all copyright involves commerce, of course, copyright-protected commercial works are the target of most copyright defenders, and you're going to have to address that - unless you want to see copyright changed only for works not for sale. I'd suggest changing this example.
Then:
"When the industry uses loaded words like "stealing", "theft", and "piracy", they are using linguistic tricks, trying to equate copying with deprivation of property. Increasing the number of copies somehow results in a decrease in... what, exactly? Certainly not in the amount of money available to creators, which is precious little to begin with."
While I agree with the thrust of your point, the last sentence is a problem. It *does* result in less money available to creators. If I copy a CD instead of buying it, or download a scan of a comic book instead of buying a paper copy, that's one less copy sold and whatever percentage of sales goes to the creator(s) *is* diminished. You may (correctly) argue that the amount lost per non-sale is very small, because of de rigeur creator-hostile publishing deals, but you can't argue that it's zero. It's also not the target of the aims of copyright reform, because if publishers suddenly started giving creators direct percentages and much better deals, would you be OK with copyright as it stands today? I wouldn't, myself.
Ultimately I think the argument for copyright reform can't, and mustn't, revolve around the core idea that copying doesn't deprive creators of income. It does. Although it's not a physical-theft model, that's not the incentive for creators anyway. They WANT lots of people to have copies of their work, they just want them to pay for them. I think the ultimate argument has to be that the ability to have their work copied is a net positive for them, as it will spread their work to people who otherwise would never have seen it, and it will result in more paying customers than if their work had been restricted. I do believe that if consumers are given the opportunity to be honest at prices they can afford, they will. $20 DRM-infected CDs (with $19.95 going to the publisher) are a complete scam, but $3-$5 DRM-free CDs with (50% going to the artist) would sell like hotcakes.
As far as the physical-scarcity model goes, there's also the argument to be made that the lack of a gain is NOT the same thing as a loss, and that's one of the RI/MPAA's core arguments. They get their piracy figures by pretending that every joe sixpack who downloads a CD would have gone to the record store and bought that CD if the download had been prevented. This is plainly ludicrous and needs to be hit hard. The vast majority (although no, not the totality) of illegal copies are made or acquired, I believe, by people who absolutely would NOT have gone to the store with cash in hand otherwise. They're browsing. I myself have bought many, many CDs by artists I would never have heard of in a million years had I not been exposed to them by filesharing. There's also the argument that humanity benefits far more through the dissemination of art and research and scholarship than through the existence of rich publishers restricting the aforementioned, and that a system based on mutual respect between creators and consumers is far, far better than one based on mistsrust and coercion. I think those have to be points we lead with in our arguments.
Just want to anticipate what hecklers and shills might be pointing out in this FAQ. Keep up the good work.
Re: More Devil's Advocate
Thanks, TomatoMan. I basically agree with you: the rhetorical strategy here needs a bit of improvement. I've already described elsewhere what sorts of improvements are in the works; I hope you'll have a chance to review them and probe for weak spots, over the coming weeks.
Devil's advocate...
While I agree wholeheartedly with the mission of QuestionCopyright.org, I'm interested in seeing the response to the following...
Granted, there was a lot of intellectual creation going on long before copyright existed, but it was also nearly impossible to make copies of anything back then. While it's not a clear-cut case of apples & oranges, there is quite a bit of difference. Before inventions like the printing press came along, it required nearly as much effort to copy something as it did for the original act of creation. The printing press changed that, and the Internet dropped the costs of copying to practically zero.
Of course, I'm only playing devil's advocate; I don't actually agree with the view above. Copyright is indeed artificial. Some have said that "real" property is also artificial in that it's only upheld by the laws/government, just like copyright. However, there's a key difference: real property is rivalrous, so laws are needed to control such limited resources. It's the classic "steal your bicycle/copy your song" distinction. If, in the future, real property could be replicated just as easily as a song can be copied, then property laws would also become obsolete.
Re: Devil's advocate...
Actually, I think your point should be taken seriously (even if you only meant it as a "devil's advocate" argument). In fact, I've started addressing it at some length when I give talks on copyright now (see this video, for example).
The Internet is in a sense the opposite of the printing press, rather than an augmentation or extension of it. On the Internet, making a perfect copy from an existing copy is the natural thing to do — it's the path of least resistance. You'd have to put in extra effort to make an imperfect copy.
But the printing press is completely different. If all you have is an existing copy (not the original printing plates), you have to work very, very hard to make another copy from it, and mistakes will inevitably creep in. The printer's monopoly — on which modern copyright is based — made some sense, given these technological constraints. In order to have reliable, repeatable distribution of the same work, you need to work from the same set of plates, and this falls naturally in line with the possessor of those plates having a monopoly on the right to print the work. Otherwise, rival printers would have an economic incentive to distribute degraded copies.
So copyright, while clearly artificial, did have a credible case in the past, both artistically and economically. Of course, it was a case based on the technology of printing and the needs of distributors, rather than on the needs of authors (or rather, it was a compromise, though still one fundamentally structured around the printers' situation).
As you point out, however, these dynamics have been upended by the Internet. We shouldn't be using conventions descended from a censorship regime and designed around an obsolete technology to dictate our information control laws today!
Re: I Respectfully Disagree
I've been perusing the site a bit more, and there are some matters which intrigue me. I very often see references to the changes the Internet and other modern technologies have wrought, however, no offense, but in my humble opinion these suggestions seem to miss their own point in what I've read so far. Perhaps this is the very reason I see people prospering more from their artistic endeavors than is mentioned; technology and its decreasing expense have created the capability to publish one's own work, or more commonly among those I am familiar with, to pool their resources into very small companies with their own best interests in mind rather than the gluttonous corporate profit margins which I notice are mentioned so frequently, and offer their works at very low costs through this method. There's a great likelihood that in time the traditional business model will wither on the vine in favor of a leaner and more innovative one, but in order for this to occur people need to respect the need of the artists to earn a return on their investment, and from what I've witnessed personally the overwhelming majority do not, and operate under the misconceptions that a work being available online automatically makes it public domain, and that Fair Use covers just about any use, and so on. Therefore, I vehemently disagree that any radical shift over to a voluntary system of "donation" will be sufficient given what appears in my eyes to be the prevailing attitude of the digital age. My thought is that no drastic change in the current treaties and laws has any chance of coming to fruition without widespread support from those people whose interests they claim to be protecting, and as such the best chance of dramatically reducing the term of copyright will likely rest in making the protection during that shortened period stronger, stricter, far less ambiguous (specifically in the US), and more consistent. Once again, nothing more than my own thoughts, for what little they're worth.
I Respectfully Disagree...
I'm still in favor of the opinion that reasonable, justified copyright enforcement has increased in importance as reproduction has become effortless and nearly instantaneous. As was already mentioned, the efforts involved in reproducing creative work prior to relatively recent times served as a natural restriction, whereas today there is very little time to receive financial compensation before the content is so widely available at no charge that there would be no sense in purchasing it, aside from fear of breaking the law.
I can certainly agree the current standard of, most commonly, 50-70 years after death depending on the country does seem a bit absurd, since there's obviously no threat to the creator's livelihood. However, I don't think five years after creation would be reasonable for most media; while Hollywood blockbusters may make returns quickly due to extensive promotion and a limited opportunity to view them in the iconic venue, graphic artists, musicians, and authors are usually fortunate to have any success by that point. Even the original Star Trek television series didn't experience its full popularity during such a brief period of time.
While expressing opinions and fighting for things you believe in are noble goals which I admire even if I don't share those views, there is one statement in the main article that I confidently believe could use some credible support to make the argument more valid:
"The vast majority of musicians, writers, and artists will never see a dime of copyright royalties..."
I've encountered several people each in two of those fields, and they all seem to benefit quite well from royalties with respect to their market, despite not being famous. Perhaps they all happen to fall into some unusually fortunate minority, but I'd prefer to see some well-researched evidence regarding that claim.
And because I can't resist, I'll jump on my soapbox, though I apologize in advance for being so long-winded. Bear in mind it's just a point of view and not intended to be a statement of accurate facts, nor do I think it's any more valid than anyone else's...
I don't agree that historical periods can be so easily compared to current conditions. The Renaissance, for example, was funded by papal and courtly patronage, not exactly commonplace for works of art in our times. In a modern, capitalist, industrialized society, income from creative works is usually entirely dependent on consumer purchases of mass reproductions, a commercial market which significantly decreases when the same exact work is almost immediately available for free, or even sometimes for the profit of someone else, due to modern technology. Furthermore, I personally believe this is theft, however what is referred to as being stolen is indeed not an object, but instead, time and effort. It is dangerous ground not to respect a monetary value for that unless there is first a fundamental change in society. For example, an automobile factory worker does not contribute any of their physical possessions into the product, and yet, I'm sure most people would consider the company refusing to pay wages to employees for their labor to be committing a form of theft. As far as I'm aware, falsely taking credit for work, though quite upsetting, is relatively rare, so not as common a concern to copyright owners as not being compensated for their work. Is spending twelve hours a day fashioning a product out of words or paint less deserving of financial benefit than the same amount of time creating with wood or plastic, and is this due to the fact that the former are less physically strenuous tasks, or simply because their results are easily slapped onto the bed of a scanner? Should the mere convenience with which one can violate someone's rights mean those rights are inherently obsolete, and if so, what of privacy and identity, both of which can be easily compromised through electronic means?
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
"Should the mere convenience with which one can violate someone's rights mean those rights are inherently obsolete, and if so, what of privacy and identity, both of which can be easily compromised through electronic means?"
Very, very well said. The mere convenience is what it comes down to.. and this side of the argument for "free culture" has always bothered me. It always seems to be a proposal of convenience in favor of the intellectually bankrupt, at the expense of the intellectual. Were it not so self-serving to those who routinely propose this line of argument, it might be worth examining further... but I find it reprehensible that not one single individual has ever been able to present to me a cogent reasoning beyond mere intellectual greed/selfishness as their desire to access/distribute specific works that are not of their own creation.
Every tangible product also begins with an idea. The Honda Civic I drive began with an idea. Is it okay for Ford to copy every last specific detail of that design and give no remuneration to Honda and its designers?
It seems like on the whole, the argument to abolish copyright originates not from some moral sense of equity, but from personal convenience. But lets imagine it was about "fairness"... fairness is such a nebulous concept because throughout the 4.6 billion years of Earth's history, organisms have existed at the expense of other organisms and/or natural resources. Fairness is entirely subjective. What is deemed fair by one is at the expense of another. So to me it is not about what is merely "fair". It is about what is sensible, and what is right. It may be "fair" to compensate every artist equally but that would be ridiculous to suggest that the works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone are on equal footing with the works of Shakespeare... and god help anyone who believes that.
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
You chose an unintentionally revealing example: Shakespeare died before copyright was invented.
Reconsider your argument?
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
"Shakespeare died before copyright was invented."
Shakespeare, like most playwrites today, made money by having his plays performed. Your attempt to avoid his central point has failed.
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
Hmmm, the point was that different artists have varying levels of capability - not anything to do with copyrights in this context. Even after you abolish copyrights writers will still have different levels of ability. I doubt you'll be able to fix that problem.
You've still not answered the fundamental question, why do you have any right to another's work? Is there an argument which will logically reason why you have a *right* to something which I have created - or is this merely greed (I want my music for free) coupled with a technology that allows you to easily take the rights of others (I can easily break the law, therefore the law is invalid).
The other argument seems to be "this is for the greater public good" - well, stripping Bill Gates of his fortune and distributing it to the poor would be for the greater good - but this does not make it right.
These seem profoundly weak arguments to me.
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
Reverse the question:
Why should anyone else be able to tell you what you can and can't share with others? Especially when the sharing results in no reduction in the availability of the "original"?
No one is asking for the right to take your copy of your song. What we're proposing is that no one -- not me, not the songwriter, not the publisher, not the government -- have the right to prevent you from sharing copies of a song you already have.
Re: I Respectfully Disagree...
The short answer is that we have freedom - freedom in the commerce that we conduct.
You are actually proposing taking a right away from both me, the seller, and the buyer. If I am a willing seller and I find a willing buyer and we come to an agreement (*any* agreement - what it is is none of your business) why are we not free to engage in such commerce? If you look at sales, they are simply contracts, agreements between a willing buyer and a willing seller. What is in the contract is completely up to the buyer and the seller involved - and should not be interfered with in any way by the government, or by you, or by me.
So, let's say I put together an arrangement of bits, and someone likes it and wants to have a copy of it. I may say "I spent $30,000 putting together that arrangement". The buyer says, "that's too much - I'll give you $30". I agree, but only with the condition that the buyer use it for personal enjoyment and that the buyer not give away or resell any copies. If the buyer agrees, we have a sale. If not, we don't. Very simple.
Why do you wish to take away our freedom to conduct commerce in any way we see fit? Of course, you will argue that the buyer does not have the freedom to share - this is correct, but this is a condition which he agreed to when acquiring the arrangement of bits that he wanted. For a higher price I would have willingly, glady, sold him those rights, too. He chose not to buy them, so it would be silly for him to complain he does not have them.
If you do not want to sell arrangements of bits under these same conditions, more power to you. You (like me) are free to come to any agreement with your buyer that you see fit. I support, applaud, and *respect* your freedom, I wish you would do the same for me.
I disrespectfully agree!
So many things being said here are nonsense that I just have to pipe in...
The people who make films are mostly paid salary, not scale. That means that once a movie makes a profit in the theatres, all those people have earned their pay. And film is quite hard to copy... that's why online copies (cams and telesyncs) are pretty bad until a DVD or BluRay version becomes available. On the other hand, if studios (and producers, who do earn a cut of the profits) had to worry about making profits in domestic theatres, rather than with DVD sales and International releases at various timed intervals, then I bet the amount of crap films being produced would drop.
There is no greed in wanting something of which there is an unlimited supply. Ideas don't run out, and sharing good ideas makes everyone richer. Furthermore, no one is entitled to compensation for work they undertook on their own. Look at all the great artists who died poor. Fair? no. Life isn't fair. Yet people will continue to create great art. If it requires great effort to copy, and you request a copy, you should pay for it. If it requires a single click to copy, and you make that copy yourself, then no one need be paid. Interstingly, I agree with your premise... Copyright shouldn't be shortened... It should be abolished entirely. Unfortunately, this scares most people (who don't realize that there was a time before copyright, and art still existed), so in the meantime a compromise (working towards abolishment) seems reasonable.
Granted this is true, but it's a red herring. A company that employs someone to make something is asking them to do something they would not otherwise have done. If they then refuse to pay, they are backing out of an agreement which involved the employee excerting some amount of effort. If, on the other hand, someone started performing theatre in the street in front of my house and I sat and watched it, I would not be obligated to pay. Assuming someone didn't commission the work, it is up to that someone to determine the value they ascribe to it.
Ownership rights and value were based on a system of limited supply. Ideas are not a part of this system, and should not be artificially squeezed into it. Just as one student doesn't fail because another gets an A, everyone can copy an idea without depriving it to anyone else. In this landscape, the lesson should be that those who don't like the situation should leave. Consumers aren't to blame is corporations can't find a workable business model. Creating artificial monopolies over an unlimited resource is no way to encourage progress.
Sheer nonsense. If Ford and Honda made cars using the exact same designs, I'd buy from the company that offered better build-quality. Let the companies work at controling their build process better, and consumers will win, as will the better company. Every company would still design cars so as to be first to market with a particular model, and every company would benefit from every other company's designs. All that would happen would be that consumers would have to choose according to quality, rather than looks. Lets review: Companies would still design new models, build quality from all makers would constantly increase, prices would drop from increased competition, and consumers would have more choice... Sounds pretty good.
That is simple. And if I don't agree to pay you, then find that your idea is easy to copy thanks to my shiny new computer and your chosen medium, then we have no agreement and you don't get paid. What's the issue? Choose a medium that gives your work some value (value is derived from supply and demand, so I'd say don't make software for profit unless you are commissioned to do so) and offer it to me at a price I agree to. Failing that, don't cry when you get nothing.
Please, anyone, feel free to disagree :)
Re: I disrespectfully agree!
So let me see if I have this right, it's unfair that anyone would tell you that you can't do what you want with your own bits - so the world needs to change. You propose the abolition of the copyright. But when someone points out that this would be unfair to the producers of music, art, software, etc. your response is:
"Fair? no. Life isn't fair. Yet people will continue..."
Seems to me a rather hypocritical position to take. Maybe you need to come up with something that is fair to both producers *and* consumers.
Re: I disrespectfully agree!
"The people who make films are mostly paid salary, not scale. That means that once a movie makes a profit in the theatres, all those people have earned their pay"
While I agree with your basic premise, this particular fact is actually an argument for your opposition.
In as much as creation of works incurs fixed costs (like the salaries you mention), the barrier for creation goes up in terms of money that must be raised. Such money typically has to be equity-financed from investors who expect a return on investment. This makes it that much more important to turn a profit so that investors will make a profit. "Money now costs more money later."
In fact, you have to not only know for yourself that you can turn that profit, but you also have to convince the investors that you can do it, or they won't give you the money in the first place. One of the strongest arguments for intellectual property (both copyright and patent) rights has always been "you need IP to prove to investors that their investment is protected."
The need for this kind of up-front investment is one of the biggest reasons for preserving the "gambling oriented" copyright system that we have. "Cobblers" need to have a lower barrier to entry and more of a "barn-raising" style of financing and start-up.
That's why for free culture productions, it's going to be a priority to try to move more and more of the cast and crew "above the line", meaning that their income comes primarily from the profits, rather than from a fixed pot that must be accumulated before production can begin. But that means they are also assuming risk, which many will be loathe to do.
And/or, we need to convince investors that free culture productions are a good investment by demonstrating that the business models work to produce profit.
These are challenges to overcome, which I don't think are insurmountable, but we shouldn't underestimate them, and it's naive to ignore the realities of financing large projects.
Re: I disrespectfully agree!
Thanks for replying to my post, but I can't agree. What you are saying is that investors need to be ensured long-lasting rights in order to feel safe investing... That only applies in a situation like the movie business if you have no faith in the product's ability to earn a profit in a film-based theatrical run... In other words, you aren't sure the film is going to be good enough to make people want to see it upon its release.
Granted every movie-making experience is a gamble, but essentially (to put it in this summer's context) the scenario above means the there will be fewer A-Teams and more Toy Story 3's. Why? Because Toy Stoy 3 is a great film standing on the shoulders of two great prequels. The A Team, meanwhile is an old (mediocre) television property with a little-known director and only one big-name star (Liam Neeson). I don't know if you've seen both movies, but it doesn't seem that bad to me. I'd rather live in a world where investors had to rely on the quality of the initial offering than on the amount of years during which they can sell their crap.
On another semi-related topic, movie makers cook their books to show losses when they've actually earned profits, in order to save taxes and sneak their way out of pre-agreed payments. Here's a link to an article discussing it: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122.shtml Given this reality, I don't think we should trust anything studios have to say about their losses to piracy. Seems to me they are loosing more money to themselves!
DregonX
Re: I disrespectfully agree!
Anonymous, I don't know who you are, but you can write for us anytime! Great response.
Thanks for the offer :)
I usually post under the screen name DregonX. Let me know if there's anything specific you'd like me to write about and I'd be glad to do it. I have lots of personal experience with copyright issues: I'm an avid user of and contributer to open-source software, I've recorded music with a band, and my full-time job is as a lecturer, which means that I have to concern myself with fair-use quite often... And I'm rabidly against copyrights and patents. I support trademarks, though, as I consider them a form of attribution, and I agree with the principle of giving credit where it is due.
School's out for the next couple of months, so I'm on holiday. I have plenty of free time to contribute something or other. You can contact me at: dregonx at yahoo . com (remove the spaces and use the @ symbol).
DregonX
Re: Thanks for the offer :)
I'll send you an email, but just to give a brief idea of what we're about:
The purpose of QuestionCopyright.org is to provide tools by which people can reframe public debate about copying and sharing. The monopoly-based industries have for a long time now managed to portray it as being about "artists' right to get paid", "artists should get credit for their work", etc. Through things like the Sita Distribution Project and the Minute Memes, we're trying to change that conversation -- in the belief that changing the frame will slowly start to change public attitudes, and legislatures will (in the long run) follow the public.
In other words, when we see someone post (for example) the video "Copying Is Not Theft" as a response in a public discussion about copyright, we're not particularly concerned with which way the ensuing argument goes. For us the important thing is that the conversation is now about whether copying is or is not theft. Once that's the conversation, the conclusion can only go one direction. We don't try to stick around to "win" each individual argument. We try to inject a frame-changer -- and provide others with the tools to do the same -- and then move on.
Of course, we do direct advocacy too, especially through articles here on the site. The main purpose of those is to have "ready-to-wear" ideas available for those who come looking for them (people who became interested through one of the videos, DVDs, etc).
By the way, we feel the same about trademarks. Whatever problems of implementation there may be in current trademark law, the idea is a sound one: impersonation and fraud are bad for everyone, and accurate identification is crucial in both art and commerce. One of the memes we want to promulgate is that "copying is not counterfeiting" -- that copyright and patents really have nothing to do with trademarks and should not be lumped together with them in the useless category of "intellectual property".