The Internet and Copyright

Most of you are probably wondering why I have joined with the Libertarian Cause to get rid of Copyright or to reduce it's power.  Why I think the OGL was a good idea, and why I find Wizards of the Coast's handling of 4e so perplexing that I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.  So I just laugh, since crying can invite sadness and depression.

To understand where I am coming from I have to address two issues: Free Content vs. Copyright, and the Cult of Originality, Crappy Products, and Good Products.

The simple answer is: We live in an era of near instantaneous communication which works by way of the Internet.  The Internet is a copy machine.  It's THE perfect copy machine.  You either have to take our Free Speech and Free Press Rights away -- which was granted by the Divine, or you have to learn to live with the fact that this machine exists and use it purely for your benefit without infringing on the Rights to Free Speech and Free Press on others.

The simple answer to the second issue is this: You can't curb Crappy derivative and transformative products.  It's impossible.  Some fan who excercises his creativity in exactly the wrong field will always produce CRAPPY derivatives.

I will deal with part of the Second and the First in this blog post.  And I'll largely deal with the second in a future Blog Post.

To first understand why Libertarians want to abolish copyrights is to understand the History of Copyright in the first place and the Internet's purpose in the second.  Lets start with the internet.
The Internet is the result of Man's advances in the art of Printing for the last 500 to 600 years.  It is the source we go to get our news, to communicate with people over vast distances, and rely on for commerce.  The internet is a communication device because it can copy and transmit vast amounts of data to many different people.  It's a printing device because it can copy and transmit vast amounts of data perfectly to many different people.

The Internet is the culmination of the moveable type printing press technology. Invented by  Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg in and around 1439 A.D.; he first printed the Bible.  It was a best seller.

The Printing Press moved to England, and soon William Tyndale printed the bible in English.  The Catholic Church got in an uproar over his printing of the Bible in English, and burned him to the stake.  That was the first time a Copyright was applied.  Despite this, Tyndale's Bible was copied and progulmated across England.  The Bible was read in the Southern English Dialect and standardized English pronounciation.


Later, the Government of England got nervous about the Printing Press.  Not as nervous as the Catholic Church, but nervous enough.  If someone can print a bible, a human anatomy pop-up book, and a scientific treatise of the Solar System; they can print Seditious and Libelous Tracts against the State.

Parliament and the Crown sought to control such seditious and libelous tracts against the state by creating a guild of private sector censors called the London Company of Stationers.  The London Company of Stationers weren't the first thought police, China has that dubious honor of creating the first recorded instance of a thought police.

Because of the Law, the Stationers were granted a monopoly over all printing in England.  Yes, the Stationers were granted a monopoly over printing in England. Every work, old and new, could be theirs to print as long as they kept a strict eye on what was printed.  As a result, their Charter not only gave them the exclusive right to print but also the right to search out and destroy unauthorized presses and books, and even had the right to burn illegal books.  As a result, the Company of Stationers had effectively become the English Government's private, for profit thought police force.


It gets better.  This system was openly designed to serve the book seller and the English Government, not the author or the reader.  New books were entered in by a company member's name, not the author's. By convention, the member who registered the entry held the "copyright", the exclusive right to publish that book, over other members of the Company, and the Company's Court of Assistants resolved infringement disputes.

This was not simply the latest manifestation of some pre-existing form of copyright. It's not as though authors had formerly had copyrights, which were now to be taken away and given to the Stationers. The Stationers' right was a new right, though one based on a long tradition of granting monopolies to guilds as a means of control. Before this moment, copyright — that is, a privately held, generic right to prevent others from copying — did not exist. People routinely printed works they admired when they had the chance, an activity which is responsible for the survival of many of those works to the present day. One could, of course, be enjoined from distributing a specific document because of its potentially libelous effect, or because it was a private communication, or because the government considered it dangerous and seditious. But these reasons are about public safety or damage to reputation, not about property ownership. There had also been, in some cases, special privileges (then called "patents") allowing exclusive printing of certain types of books. But until the Company of Stationers, there had not been a blanket injunction against printing in general, nor a conception of copyright as a legal property that could be owned by a private party.

This won't Change until the Statute of Anne, and the U.S. Constitution.  The copyright clause: "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." -- was greatly debated by Madison and Jefferson and this was the result.

Notice it says Authors and Inventors not companies.  However, a Copyright Law was enacted with Hamilton suggesting that the Copyright Term lasts to 14 years.  However, Copyright always serves the middle man.  The Printing Company -- the Walt Disney Company, Wizards of the Coast, Harper and Collins, Houston Mifflin, etc -- is benefited the most when it comes to Printing.

This is was the status quo, with Copyright terms being increased in the 20th Century by authors and artists who were brainwashed that Copyright served them.  Then came the invention of the Computer.  The first computers were impossibly huge electronic calculators.   Although Babbage was working on a cipher machine back in the late 19th Century, the first real computer was a monstrosity of vaccuum tubes and wired circuits.

micro-computers were invented, thanks to the Transistor and the integrated circuit.  Then an experiment was conducted by the U.S. Military and a few U.S. Universities taking advantage of XEROX PARC's invention of the ethernet.  This experiment, called ArcNet, was the next stage of evolution in printing and communications technology.  Something that won't take off until Compuserve, America On-line, and eventually ---- the World Wide Web.

The Internet was invented, and the Internet is composed of interlocking, interlinking microcomputers across the Planet.  And the Internet, for the first time, is a cheep, near instantaneous way of sharing information. It was a revolution!  And for the first time, Copyright Law, has been made obsolete by this technology.

Years ago, the Company of Stationers made the argument that if Printing was left in the hands of everyone, printing would be impossible.  Now, Printing is left in the hands of everyone thanks to the Internet.  Now the Company of Stationers argument can be testable.  So, would authors still create without a centralized distribution system to publish their works?  The answer is an emphatic YES!  They already are.  It's as simple as that. :)

Copyright has been borked by the Internet.  Copyright has been destroyed by the Internet.  Copyright allows for a centralized distribution system to publish works.  The Internet has made competition with the middle men possible and profitable.  It also made copying of works possible and profitable.  Therefore, with this reality, it's become a different world.  The Author must work hard to get his thoughts down on paper and to advertise his work.

Now that the internet has been invented, do you think God thinks highly of a centralized distribution system of print?  Of course not.  One time, he commanded Joseph Smith to sell the copyright of his precious Book of Mormon (God owns the copyright on the Book of Mormon).  If God was willing to give it up, don't you think that an author or musician should rethink their position on Copyright?

Shouldn't we all?

Understanding Free Content

Someone asked that I should come up with a logical reason to create derivative and transformative works based on someone else's work.   He said that my reasons of using neuroscience and quantum mechanics (i.e. the nature of Energy) are stupid and he labeled them as pseudoscience.  They are just an original way of addressing the problem.

Lets do something unoriginal and use Nina Paley's little explanation of how Free Content Works.  How Copyright is actually causing trouble, and what we can do to stand to profit in world where one uses the non-rivalrous goods (i.e. information in Races of Eberron or Serpent Kingdoms) to sell the rivalrous goods (actual physical copies of Races of Eberron or Serpent Kingdoms).

-----

Content is an unlimited resource. People can now make perfect copies of digital content for free. That's why they expect content to be free — because it is in fact free. That is GOOD.
Think of "content" — culture — as water. Where water flows, life flourishes.
Containers — objects like books, DVDs, hard drives, apparel, action figures, and prints — are not free. They are a limited resource. No one expects these objects to be free, and people voluntarily pay good money for them.
Think of "containers" — books, discs, hard drives — as jugs and vessels. These containers add utility to and increase the value of the water. If you can get water for free in the public river, great — that doesn't reduce the value of vessels. Quite the contrary: when rivers flow, the utility and value of water vessels increases.
Continuing this metaphor: copyright monopolies are an attempt to dam up and control all the rivers, reducing them to a trickle. When Big Media succeeds locking up culture, it's like in closing off water: they get a stagnant pool that turns to poison. Fish die and mosquitoes swarm, because the water has no source to flow from nor destination to flow to.

(That's how we get things like this.) Artists don't "own" culture, but we do own our names (attribution). Any artist who has enjoyed a community of fans knows how the power in their name is generously granted by audiences. Our audiences want us to thrive. They want their money and support to reach us.
Therefore an artist's cooperation with a merchandiser is valuable. A signed book is worth more than an unsigned one. Merchandisers who cooperate with artists — share revenue with them — get the blessing of both artist and audience and can sell more objects for more money.
Under the Creative Commons Share Alike license, Sita Sings the Blues-containing objects can be manufactured and sold by anyone without my permission. But whoever shares revenue with me gets my "creator endorsed mark" or signature, and gets my fans sent to the product (via community word-of-mouth and my web site).
Competing products can nonetheless be sold without my endorsement. If they're cheaper, of better quality, or more accessible, they might sell better than my endorsed products. Why shouldn't they? Competition can be good. All the more incentive for any business I partner with to make their products high quality, reasonably priced and easily available. There's no incentive to compete with a good product; if there's a good affordable Sita Sings the Blues coffee table book or graphic novel, why should anyone bother publishing another? If they do, the competing book must have some important quality lacking in the first. If that competitor's quality differential is so high it's worth more than my endorsement, then good for them for doing something right.
Remember:
Free Enterprise is Free Culture too.
Common Questions about Free Content:
Q. Why make a book when you can get the content free on the Internet?
A. Because there are limits to the Internet. You can't touch it or smell it. Images are restricted to screen quality and may cause eyestrain.
Books have value as objects beyond the intellectual wealth they embody. They are portable, tactile, and invulnerable to power outages. Art books can have even more valuable attributes: glossy coatings, embossing, reflective and matte inks, paper textures, super-high resolutions. Books can be beautiful objects in their own right. Signed books are works of art. Books can have value as collector's items, because they are LIMITED.
Audiences seek a connection with creators. Even if the content is free, many fans desire a physical token of the work. They also want to support the artist. Merchandise — objects, like books, DVDs, apparel — acts as a medium to conduct these artist-audience transactions.
Q. Why make it free on the internet if it's available as a book (or DVD, CD, etc.)?
A. Because if it's free, it can spread. If it's good, the audience will quote it, cite it, share it, review it, and promote it. Free accomplishes everything advertising does, except it's good not evil, free not controlled, voluntarily shared not forced down throats. Instead of spending vast sums on crappy advertising to sell "content" you've locked up, just free the content and let it advertise itself. Use the unlimited resource to sell the limited resource.
Q. But even with the internet, I still have to advertise!
A. Maybe. Depends on what your content and how much time you have. If what you have is good, just give it time. "Viral" growth is exponential, but it can take a while. Or you can use advertising to artificially direct audience attention to something they wouldn't care about otherwise. If the work is not good, interest will drop off when advertising does.
That's our vision of Free. It's not communism. It's not capitalism as we know it. It's definitely not monopolies. It is Free Culture, and Free Enterprise.

When Copyright Goes Bad

Here's a new video that should scare you.



Copyright Law has been expanding.

The Industry that killed the Internet

Seriously, do you want your Computer to work for you, or Disney?  Wierdos like Disney want to put survelliance on the Internet, including 3 strikes law that England has become famous for.  Although B.S. in the White House (Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. Barrack Obama) wants to shut down the Internet.  Which is just as bad, if not worse.

Here is Nina Paley's newest Minute Mime, celebrating the Electronic Frontier Foundation; which explains what happens if you support DRM from a company like Sony.  Here is a link, instead of putting up on my blog.  One of the best things about Copyright is that it's government sponsored.  But the bad thing about Copyright is that people think they own our culture.  Our culture is owned by a few instead by all.

Happy birthday, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Intellectual Property Myths

The people at deoxy.org said this is public domain and can be distributed freely.

Intellectual property is an ancient principle.

Not true. Intellectual property is an explicitly modern notion, having made its debut quite recently. The first patent law was enacted in 1623, and the precursor of modern copyright—the Statute of Anne—came into being in 1710. These early laws were limited in scope and restricted to only a few types of information; the broader interperatation of these principles used today in the western world is quite modern, certain elements having been added only within the last few years.

Intellectual property is recognized worldwide.

As the US's recent standoff with China demonstrates, intellectual property is not a concept which has worldwide acceptance. Indeed, a major foreign policy objective of the United States has been to force other nations to comply with its own intellectual property agenda—an unwelcome form of intellectual imperialism which is all too frequently ignored by watchdog groups.

Without intellectual property, no one will produce original work.

Given that intellectual property law made its debut in 1623, we may correctly consider any work produced before this time to dispell the myth. Man created for millenia before the advent of intellectual property; he will create for many more millenia after it is abandoned.

Intellectual property is necessary to create incentives for the production of original works.

This intellectual property myth has become the mantra of IP supporters. Often repeated, never questioned, the idea that creativity depends on a government granted monopoly needs no justification in the minds of most IP boosters. Sadly, however, they are mistaken: intellectual property "rights" are not essential to creation, and in some circumstances even deter it. Consider, for instance, the software industry. Free for years from the limitations of intellectual property, the industry flourished, becoming by all accounts one of the most creative of environments in the modern world. With the recent introduction of patent law into computing, however, many individual programmers live in fear of lawsuits from large corporations who claim "ownership" of techniques such as the scroll-buffer. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the creator! Intellectual property law, from its inception, has been about publishers and other powerful firms as much as it has been about creative individuals; the latter often find their interests poorly defended by IP.

Even if people did create works without intellectual property protections, the quality of these works would be substandard.

Only if "Julius Caesar", Plutarch's "Lives", "The Last Supper", and Handel's "Messiah" are "substandard"! All of these, including such pivotal creations as the Bible, the Koran, and the hundreds of Sutras were created in a world without intellectual property. IP boosters claim that weakening intellectual property law means giving up great literature, music, and art; in fact, history shows us that this is not the case.

The "best" creators won't work without intellectual property protections.

Once again, history proves this to be false. Shakespeare, Plato, Confucius, Hero, Chaucer, Handel, and many others of the finest names in world literature, music, art, and invention worked in an environment free of intellectual property restrictions. Clearly, genius does not require copyright to produce!

To take away intellectual property rights is to deny creators the right to profit from their labors.

This myth is based on the idea that the only way to make money off of creation is to "sell" the ideas which are produced. In fact, this is not true. Consulting, support, performance, service: these are all ways in which creators can make money off of their abilities without appealing to intellectual property rights. Even if there were no copyright, a band could still make money by charging for live performances, for instance; an even better example is found in academia, where a great deal of idea production takes place without the ideas being "sold" to the universities which sponsor their creators. Removing intellectual property rights would not deny creators the right to profit from their labors; it would, however, allow all of society to share in the benefits of their work.

Intellectual property follows directly from the notion of physical property.

Physical property rights are derived from the basic fact that a physical object can't be in two places at once. In order to keep people from squabbling over material objects, we use a system of rights to say "who gets what". Information, however, differs from physical property in a number of ways, one of which being that it can be in many places at the same time. Let's say that Fred gives Barney an apple; after this, Fred no longer has the apple. If, on the other hand, Fred tells Barney about the apple, Fred still knows about the apple. Fred gave the information to Barney, but Fred still has it! Clearly, then, there is no need for Fred and Barney to squabble over who "owns" the information about the apple: to do such would be to try to treat information like an object, an idea which is clearly flawed.

As the debate over the future of intellectual property unfolds, it will be more important than ever for participants, and bystanders, to have good information concerning the nature of IP. By removing the myths and misconceptions which surround intellectual property, we can make better decisions as to its proper status in our society.