This book presents ideas that you may find counter-intuitive at first, and therefore the most important thing I can ask of you is to please read it with an open mind.
For most people, the word copyright comes with a certain set of associations — ones so familiar that they seem to have been with us our whole lives. We think of a writer struggling to get her novel finished, and finally enjoying a well-deserved success when it is sold to a publisher and makes the best-seller lists, or of a band playing bars and small theaters for years, before finally getting a break and being signed by a major record label. Some people will also think of corporations taking advantage of artists, or of copyright law being over-extended to the point where it prevents even everyday, non-commercial sharing of music.
If these are the associations that spring to your mind, you're not alone. Over the years, I've asked a lot of people what they think of copyright, and the answers nearly always fall into these categories:
Attribution, control, money, balance. As you read this book, you will probably feel those associations coming repeatedly to the front of your mind too. In fact, you may right now hear an inner voice whispering "Wait — if he's claiming that copyright itself is a bad idea, then how does he expect artists to make a living? This is just naive!"
That would be a perfectly understandable reaction, and of course I can't promise that by the end of this book you will feel any differently. But what I can promise is that those objections will all be addressed. You may or may not find every point convincing, but I hope you will at least come out believing that copyright deserves deeper and more skeptical consideration than it usually gets. What conclusions you finally draw I cannot control; I can only make sure that this book speaks directly to the questions you are most likely to have. All I ask is your patience — not because the topic is complicated, but because it requires unlearning, or at least holding to one side, assumptions that we've inherited almost unconsciously.
As you'll see, the process by which we acquired those assumptions was not accidental, though neither was it the result of some nefarious conspiracy. It was essentially a stabilizing response to technological change — the invention of the printing press, centuries ago — and those assumptions are starting to look shaky now because of another technological change: the Internet. But this is not a book about technology. There are fundamental reasons, independent of any particular technological development, to question whether copyright is consistent with values that most of us profess.
And there is an alternative. On first encountering copyright skepticism people often ask "Then what should replace it? Have you got a better system?" The answer is "Yes", and the rest of this book goes into detail, but the question itself starts from the assumption that copyright performs some vital function that would otherwise go unperformed, and that is precisely one of the assumptions this book challenges. Copyright as we know it today first appeared in the early eighteenth century, as a kind of state-sanctioned truce among competing publishers, but the systems of distribution and funding that existed before copyright continued to exist afterwards, right down to the present day, and they are still how most creativity is supported (insofar as that can be measured at all, of course — but then that caution goes both ways: if copyright is to be justified on the grounds that it is necessary to fund cultural activity, then we should look to see if there's evidence to support that, and not just assume it is the case). Throughout this book, questions like "What should replace copyright?", "But what about plagiarism?", etc, will feel natural to ask. Because everyone asks them, we'll offer answers, but our goal is also to show how those questions become less compelling once one is looking at the issue in a new light.
todo: working here. First, a few short articles that highlight problems with copyright (for example translations_a_tale_of_two_authors and teaching_music_under_copyright and maybe we_have_his_dream ).
If you make art, music, writings, or other works that could be subject to copyright, this book also offers concrete advice regarding copyright and distribution.
how_to_free_your_work, the_cobbler, understanding_free_contentEven if you currently make money from royalties and are accustomed to having an exclusive arrangement with a publisher, you may wish to evaluate the advice and see if you like some of it. You can try the parts you like; it's not an all-or-nothing proposition.
The same goes for publishers and distributors. Publishing exist without the exclusivity conferred by copyright — indeed, some of publishing's functions get easier without copyright than with it.
problem_is_monopolies_not_middlemen, creator_endorsedaddress the "corporations have just taken it too far" interpretation
address the IP / trademarks confusion in a section right here!
the historical argument: mainly just refer to Promise article (and see the comment to incorporate in the TOC -- perhaps here is the place to point out that, had authors' livelihoods been the goal, a mandatory statutory rate would have been the obvious solution).
watch for the descent into ever-more-complex legal thickets. "fair use", mechanical rights, synchronization rights, performance rights, ownership, statutory rates,
the internet-makes-the-costs-higher argument
the "it's the artist's choice" argument
the no extra work argument
how do artists actually make a living
the unreliable copy problem: used to be real, but doesn't exist anymore
the supply-side argument: we are not and never have been suffering from a supply of creativity, and as the absolute human population grows this only becomes more true
the invisible-effects argument: some of the worst harms are not immediately visible -- you don't see when a movie doesn't get shown, or a translation is suppressed, unless you're looking for it.
the constitutional detour: legalism is quicksand to real philosophical thinking
address the subsidy question: the idea that the small number of financial winners enables publishers to subsidize all the non-moneymaking stuff
address the carrot-and-stick notion: the idea that even if copyright doesn't support art, if enough artists believe it does, and act based on that belief, then it becomes an effective illusion and still serves its purpose, even if (like purchasers of lottery tickets) people are fooling themselves.
the habitually poor language (see glossary). explore "protection", "monopoly"
that conservatism and extremism are not what they seem argument
There needs to be a chapter on incremental approaches: time-bound exclusivity, freeing up just a few works, partial
And there need to be Mimi and Eunice cartoons everywhere!)