“We might as well forget it, by the looks of it. We’re presently being buried by the ACTA process, and an NWO-installed agenda. Not only are we in danger of losing our right to make our own copyright law, but our Constitution and Charter will be nothing but toilet paper, by the time our government finishes selling us out.”
That’s Devil’s Advocate in a comment to yesterday’s Forget copyright. It’ll bury itself post.
And he’s correct.
Copyright-protected music
“If Hollywood could order intellectual property laws for Christmas, what would they look like?” – asked David Fewer, acting director of the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. “This is pretty close,” he said, referring to ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement agreement, a dirty secret until a version was posted by Wikileaks in May this year.
Now, “ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Internet, under an international agreement being promoted by the U.S.,” says the IDG News Service.
Promoted by America, Yes — but on behalf of the entertainment industry. Because as I’ve stressed repeatedly, the Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net ‘initiative’ touted around the world as individual government plans is nothing but a part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to turn governments into copyright agencies funded by local taxpayers, and ISPs into copyright police, acting against their own customs.
42 Washington ‘insiders’
In the middle of last month, “ACTA remains shrouded — at least as far as the people it will affect, are concerned,” said p2pnet, going on:
“But in the US, the Obama administration has shared it with 42 Washington ‘insiders,’ says Knowledge Ecology International (KEI). Among them are:
- Three people from Google
- Three eBay reps
- An Intel lawyer
- The entertainment cartel’s International Intellectual Property Alliance
- Sony Pictures
- Rupert Murdoch’s News Corpse, and
- Two Business Software Alliance staffers.
Says IDG:
“Countries including Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as the European Union and U.S. have been negotiating an anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) over the past two years to combat the growing problem of counterfeit products ranging from designer clothes to downloadable music.”
That’s the window dressing, anyway.
‘Under enormous secrecy’
“The governments have posted the meeting agenda, which unsurprisingly focuses on the issue of Internet enforcement,” Ottawa law professor and internet expert Michael Geist.
The Obama administration drafted the chapter “under enormous secrecy, with selected groups granted access under strict non-disclosure agreements and other countries (including Canada) given physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks,” he says.
‘Selected groups’ including, of course, eBay, Sony Pictures, the RIAA and Google, among other deeply vested interests.
“Despite the efforts to combat leaks, information on the Internet chapter has begun to emerge (just as they did with the other elements of the treaty),” says Geist, continung >>>
Despite the efforts to combat leaks, information on the Internet chapter has begun to emerge (just as they did with the other elements of the treaty).
Sources say that the draft text, modeled on the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, focuses on following five issues:
1. Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.
2. A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.
3. Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs). For example, in order for ISPs to qualify for a safe harbour, they would be required establish policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content. Provisions are modeled under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, namely Article 18.10.30. They include policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances. Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.
4. Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements. For example, the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement specifies the permitted exceptions to anti-circumvention rules. These follow the DMCA model (reverse engineering, computer testing, privacy, etc.) and do not include a fair use/fair dealing exception. Moreover, the free trade agreement clauses also include a requirement to ban the distribution of circumvention devices. The current draft does not include any obligation to ensure interoperability of DRM.
5. Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language.
If accurate (and these provisions are consistent with the U.S. approach for the past few years in bilateral trade negotations) the combined effect of these provisions would to be to dramatically reshape Canadian copyright law and to eliminate sovereign choice on domestic copyright policy. Having just concluded a national copyright consultation, these issues were at the heart of thousands of submissions. If Canada agrees to these ACTA terms, flexibility in WIPO implementation (as envisioned by the treaty) would be lost and Canada would be forced to implement a host of new reforms (this is precisely what U.S. lobbyists have said they would like to see happen). In other words, the very notion of a made-in-Canada approach to copyright would be gone.
The Internet chapter raises two additional issues. On the international front, it provides firm confirmation that the treaty is not a counterfeiting trade, but a copyright treaty. These provisions involve copyright policy as no reasonable definition of counterfeiting would include these kinds of provisions. On the domestic front, it raises serious questions about the Canadian negotiation mandate. Negotations from Foreign Affairs are typically constrained by either domestic law, a bill before the House of Commons, or the negotiation mandate letter. Since these provisions dramatically exceed current Canadian law and are not found in any bill presently before the House, Canadians should be asking whether the negotiation mandate letter has envisioned such dramatic changes to domestic copyright law. When combined with the other chapters that include statutory damages, search and seizure powers for border guards, anti-camcording rules, and mandatory disclosure of personal information requirements, it is clear that there is no bigger IP issue today than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated behind closed doors this week in Korea.
Geist notes New Zealand has issued a press release “expressing alarm,” the EFF says the leaks “confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations” and, “Electronic Frontiers Australia provides an Australian perspective on the ACTA dangers.”
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton
November 4th, 2009 at 9:28 am
There was never a “right to make our own copyright law” that the government/people had to use or lose.
An egalitarian and libertarian democracy cannot enact a law to take liberty away from some people order to reserve it as a gift for others.
If you read the US Constitution carefully (especially with respect to the 18th century language of the Framers) you’ll find it doesn’t conflict with this principle. There are plenty who do mis-read it, as empowering government to grant monopolies and other privileges, but it doesn’t actually do so.
Given the US Constitution is concerned with the liberty of human beings rather than legal entities such as corporations, the government does have the power to regulate those, and if it considers it socially beneficial, to subject them to monopolies (that constrain them alone). I doubt such monopolies would be sensible except possibly for transitional purposes.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
“There was never a “right to make our own copyright law” that the government/people had to use or lose.”
Yes, this is the technicality they’re exploiting.
But surely a sovereign country has the “right” to form its own law book, rather than be “obligated” by a body that answers only to shareholders to install whatever they wish.
If that’s the case, then the whole NWO “threat” is more real than people care to believe.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
And some people wonder why copyright leaves such a sour taste in the p2p community’s mouth.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
#1 on the list of thank yous to contributors on the ACTA document leaked by Wikileaks was Mary Bono. For more on Mary Bono see http://www.counterpunch.org/glahn07012003.html
November 4th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
“#1 on the list of thank yous to contributors on the ACTA document leaked by Wikileaks was Mary Bono.”
…And-the-beat-goes-on!
November 4th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
DevilsAdvocate, what do you mean by ‘right’?
It is only human beings that have rights. Each individual in a society, with their aggregated individual power, collectively empowers a government to protect their rights (as recognised in a constitution). The government has no right. You can invoke a divine right if you’re superstitious, or a sovereign right if you’re also a royalist. The law establishes how rights are to be protected. Unfortunately, those in control of the law can sometimes take it upon themselves to create privileges (artificial rights that derogate from natural rights), that they will predictably excuse to be in the public’s interest (rather than in the interest of those granting or receiving the privilege).
So, the people don’t have a right to make their own law. The people have rights, that the law protects, and the people having empowered the government have the power to guide that law. However, that doesn’t mean that either the government or the people can create law that suspends the people’s rights, say to reward a favoured class. Just as a referendum cannot legalise slavery, or reclassify Jews as pariahs, so publishers cannot lobby for and be granted the suspension of the public’s cultural liberty, their right to copy. Well, it can happen, but it shouldn’t…
November 4th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Why is this secret? From what I have read, nothing in this involves any kind of national security, it’s a copyright agreement for Christ sake. Regarding international agreements and law any discussion should be in the open, subject to public scrutiny from the start. This is just sleaze on an international level.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
@Crosbie:
In the above case, put the quotes around the word “right” because, as I interpret things, it would represent a privilege, given to government by its people, to write the very laws that should protect them. I would think the quotes wouldn’t be necessary or desired, should I be speaking of any bona fide natural right, as you are well-versed in.
The difficulty in phrasing the thought lies in the fact that “law” is also part of the sentence. (What a dilemma!)
I appreciate the need to insist on the true meaning of such a word, but I think I did the right thing, and I’m sure anyone could easily know what I meant in this case, without needing to dissect the legalese. The fact of the matter is, a sovereign country, by its very definition, is supposed to be able to write its own laws (including copyright) and govern itself, and no authority is supposed to be exist, inside or outside its borders, that can take that away.
A sovereign government is supposed to serve its people, and no one else, period. “Trade groups” and the like were only invented to circumvent sovereignties, in order to serve the interests of Big Money, which has no borders of its own.
I can see where the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds might get off thinking they have some sense of “ownership” on countries like the US, thanks to things like the Federal Reserve Act. But Canada still prints its own money, and, unless there’s something we haven’t already discovered yet, isn’t “owned” by the World Bank!
I dunno, sometimes I think we just all fell asleep one day and haven’t really woken up, judging by how much progress has been made by these psychopaths (of which I include those in Parliament who have cooperated with the NWO in forming the building blocks of our eventual “takeover”).
November 4th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
“Why is this secret? …it’s a copyright agreement…”
That’s just it.
It NOT just about “copyright”.
If it were, they wouldn’t feel the need to meet by invitation only, include only corporates, behind closed doors, behind a media blackout, and ban all publication of what they’re doing.
These people only answer to their shareholders, which, for most of them, really amounts to only themselves and each other! They’ve been doing this kind of thing for years now, and every time they meet, a piece of world democracy disappears with a few strokes of a pen.
November 4th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
DA, yup, just trying to clarify. But, some people get the idea that a democratically elected government can make any law it wants, and its implicit mandate is all the legitimacy it needs. Any law that derogates from the people’s liberty is then termed a social contract – a voluntary sacrifice by the people for the greater good. Yeah, right…
November 4th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
@Crosbie:
You’ve got it!
(That’s not to imply that you’ve “just” got it.)
An interesting point in this is, if people don’t grasp the basic principle we’ve just discussed in a smaller “swatch” such as “copyright”, what’s going to happen when the shit hits the fan on the entire ecology woven from the same cloth?
November 4th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Bush was so secretive if he farted it was classified. Obama promised a more open administration yet now we have this ACTA cloak and dagger bullshit. I really would like to compromise with Billy Bragg and other musicians over copyright but the ongoing RIAA lawsuits and now shit like this is really hardening my position against it.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
” I really would like to compromise with Billy Bragg and other musicians over copyright but the ongoing RIAA lawsuits and now shit like this is really hardening my position against it. ”
That’s the point I have been trying to get across to Billy, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it. We’ve got this secret squirrel bullshit with ACTA, and on top of that the FAC pushes for ‘Three Strikes’ and a petition for a levy.
While most of US are pretty aware of the fine points, the only thing the average fan will see is artists supporting throwing fans to the lions, the SAME way that the artists assume all file sharers are thieves. How can they reasonably expexct the average fan to be sympathetic, when the only thing they can see is the artists throwing them to the wolves ?
November 5th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Dreed,
You wouldn’t recognise a fine point if it blocked out the sun. Take your blinkers off for a minute. And you seem to have lost the ablility to make this box thing happen too.
So let me get this right, Monkey, you’d like to form an alliance with the artists and take on the people who have trying to force ACTA on us all, but now you’ve found out that people are trying to force ACTA on us all, you no longer want to?
November 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@Billy,
No, I would like to see ACTA go down, and individuals be exempted from RIAA lawsuits first before supporting any extension of copyright, or even copyright the way it is currently. I tend to be very cynical regarding corporations and politicians. I think what we are really arguing about is order of precedence.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Monkey,
It is more than just a matter of precedence. If artists and fans do not work together to oppose ACTA and the RIAA lawsuits, they will continue to happen. What we are arguing about is how much do you want to stop ACTA and the RIAA?
One minute you’re saying you’d like to support Billy and other musicians. Then you’re saying that you want ACTA and the RIAA to be stopped. I’m offering you a chance to do both.
What’s your problem?
November 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
The more I read about ACTA the more I got pissed off. It’s not just the substance, but the whole veil of secrecy around it. I didn’t mean to say I was against the artists, or against working with them, just that ACTA gave me a really negative vibe regarding copyright. If artists and musicians can work together to squash ACTA and stop the RIAA from suing individuals by exempting them(but not corporations) from copyright all is well and good. I guess what I’m not expressing very well, and apologies for that, is that if we extend copyright now, without exempting individuals the RIAA lawsuits will continue, ACTA will pass and then they’ll start cutting off net connections and it will progressively get worse from there. My previous rant wasn’t meant against you, but was rather an expression of frustration of things getting more draconian when it comes to copyright law. Some compromise IS necessary, but it can’t happen when one side is getting clubbed over the head.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
FAC wants to work to stop you getting clubbed over the head by lifting individual file-sharers out of copyright law.
The thing to remember about what has been leaked is that it is just the first draft of the ACTA agreement. Someone has to put forward something and, as often, it is a lobbyist inspired wish list. As has already been noted, countries like Canada have laws which make these proposals unworkable. They will want to water these proposals down.
The RIAA are rushing to get laws passed because they don’t have the upper hand. If they did they would be so panicky. In order to exploit their disarray, we need to work together, consumer and creator, supporting one another against the corporations. If we can do that, then the legislators – and the press – will sit up and take notice.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
“In order to exploit their disarray, we need to work together, consumer and creator, supporting one another against the corporations.”
Okay, so let’s get it straight on what’s being proposed, then…
Are you going in with the intention of saying, “the FAC and the P2P community both support 3 Strikes”, and expecting to get “rights returned to the artist after 35 years” in return??
It might be time to answer that question.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:02 am
In accord with the two missions going on here that I identified earlier, here are the mission options:
Option 1: Beg the labels’ to surrender their weapons – “Ok, we’ll return them after 35 years- they get a bit blood stained by then anyway”.
Option 2: Forget the labels and their weapons. Start relating and dealing with your fans directly.
Here’s a second opinion Stop punishing fans and start selling to them.
Even so the first option is attractive, because hey, weapons are cool! But then, perhaps there should be a muggers’ code eh? Stop beating up tramps and schoolkids with no money, only mug folk trying to make a living. Maybe we can persuade the labels to adopt that code too?
November 6th, 2009 at 5:48 am
No, I am not. I am not asking anyone here to support 3 strikes.
I am asking you to help lift file-sharers out of the scope of copyright law – and so beyond any kind of three strikes legislation – by supporting artists in our campaign to make copyrght apply only to commercial use.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Yes please.
We can go on talking about whether copyright should exist, and if so what durations are appropriate. That is an important and useful conversation.
As is, the question of exactly what would be considered commercial use, it seems clear private copying/sharing between individuals with no other intermediary would certainly be “non-commercial” in this sense, when you go past that there may be grey areas that are less clear. And again that is an important and useful conversation.
However, this one principle, even without any other change to copyright law, would be a huge step forward and I would wholeheartedly support it and an FAC campaign for it.private
Moreover, if we adopted this as consensus here:
I am willing to take that proposal to the Pirate Party UK member discussions, and advocate that we should support it, and adopt support for that principle as policy. I cannot promise in advance that I would be successful, I can promise to try my best to explain/advocate why I believe it would make sense for PPUK to do that.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Billy, your line ‘lift file-sharers out of the scope of copyright law’ is another way of saying “3 strikes to apply only to artists who infringe whilst receiving payment from their fans”.
And ’supporting artists’ is another way of saying “Enabling labels and other copyright holders to prosecute those unsigned artists sharing and building upon published works who have fans that pay them, and consequently keep labels in such profits that they can continue to support their contracted artists”.
This is still a copyright and therefore label oriented proposition.
I think you’re making a grievous error in the eyes of independent artists if you expect them to be happy when you come back and say “I’ve got file-sharers off the hook, but any independent artist who even thinks of trying to sell their work directly to their fans, is going to be forced into signing up to a label before they realise what’s hit them. As the labels explained to me, this will be really great for the label because they no longer need any evidence of infringement. They simply accuse the indie artist of infringing copyright, and if they don’t sign with a label or shut up shop after three accusations, they’re disconnected. If they can afford to persist, and even win their appeal (unlikely), the label’s legal budget blows that of the artist out of the water.”
This is a cunning strategy that Machiavelli would be proud of. The labels win the support of 90% of file-sharers and format shifters, who are very happy if copyright doesn’t apply to them (who have always done it for convenience or as a favour), and are still indoctrinated to believe that anyone who does it commercially must be a scummy pirate who deserves everything they get.
The other 10% of copyright infringers (independent artists trying to make a living) now have the labels, the signed artists, AND the file-sharers all supporting draconian and inhumane penalties if they try and remain independent.
But, you say (if you still think copyright’s right and proper), “That’s fine. All that independent artists have to do is remain 100% original, and not even think of being influenced by any work covered by a copyright belonging to a publishing corporation.”
You don’t understand. The cartel wish to retain control of all cultural delivery channels by whatever unscrupulous means possible. They will send ’strike notices’ to any indie artist the moment they get a significant fanbase. Remember, they don’t need any evidence. They just need to accuse. The file-sharers now operating scott free don’t have any sympathy. They’re all right Jack. Those independent artists trying to go it alone are classed as scummy ‘commercial pirates’.
So, if you would like to see labels continue in their business of creaming off 99% of all fan revenue, and you think indie artists should only be tolerated if they have no revenue from their fans, then support this mission.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Crosbie:
I don’t follow the argument in your previous post at all… Usually I can at least see where you’re coming from, even when I don’t agree…
But on this one, are you sure you’re not being blinded by your own rhetoric? What on earth could you mean by saying:
“Scummy commercial pirates”, to me, really is just the counterfeiters and organised groups who duplicate and sell for profit, without the slightest hint of a connection to the artist (and a label contract, however much you disapprove of it, is such a connection entered into by the artist).
However, if it was once necessary to sign with a major to “make it big”, that surely is less necessary than ever, and getting easier and easier all the time for independent artists to not sign? So I just don’t get your point, I’m afraid.
In the longer term, I do agree with you that the freedom to reuse and develop previously created work, including the ability to earn a profit from that effort, is important. So that’s a reason why I differ from Billy (and I suppose the FAC), on for example the length of copyright or the reversion of rights, and instead think copyright (if we have it) must be as short as possible/no longer than necessary, and I also accept that it may not be necessary to have any copyright at all, as you advocate.
However… I also totally agree with Billy that private use by individuals, not for commercial gain, should be unrestricted, and that this would be a huge improvement on the current situation and a possible early step forward, even without any other change to the law.
To quote the proverb “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
To me this proposal is a first step, that I hope we can all get behind, and I also very much hope that it could be the first plank in building a common understanding between the Featured Artist Coalition and the Pirate Party.
It is something that we already agree with/have as a core policy, so it should be easy to get agreement there, although it may be that Pirates will be nervous of supporting a campaign run by the FAC, even though we agree with this principle, because of other fundamental issues we have with other FAC policy (e.g. length of copyright, restricting search engines such as torrent sites…).
It may also be that FAC members will be equally nervous of having a campaign of theirs officially supported by the Pirate Party (if I can persuade PPUK!), because of disagreements with other policies we have. However… I’d like to believe agreement on this could be a first step to working with each other, and not against each other, and I believe that would also be a big achievement.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
John, counterfeiters are fraudsters, not artists putting backing music on their documentary.
And ‘organised groups’ duplicating for profit? You’d better tell the world these groups have discovered how to make money selling copies – no-one else has figured it out. This is the ludicrous thing – they are bogeymen.
“People are selling copies of my work for a fortune and they aren’t giving me a cut!”
Eh? If someone can sell copies of your work for tons of money, why the heck aren’t you?
Frankly, the market for copies has ended, and that means for people who do it illicitly too. What would you do if you caught someone selling home made Linux CDs in a back alley? I’d ask ‘em what their secret was.
Don’t forget, in your world, copies can be given away, but not charged for. Why would anyone pay for a copy instead of simply being given it?
You’re being blinded by the bogeymen and missing the fundamentally innocent and honest artists who manage to get paid by their fans, e.g. for publishing an MP3 podcast that reviews new label releases (and sent a ’strike notice’ the moment the label can ACCUSE them of receiving even a tiny donation).
Independent artists no matter what they sing or what music they compose or perform will be strike noticed the moment they get a significant audience. Irrespective of whether they are paid. Irrespective of whether they infringe. The label strikes them because: 1) they don’t need any evidence of commercial infringement, 2) they want them signed to them because they’re evidently popular (they fancy 99% of the revenue they could bring in), and 3) if they won’t sign, they can get the fuck off the label’s Internet.
And on your other point, you’d better be bloody careful what you deal you make with the devil, because he’s far cleverer than you or I in foreseeing its potential for his exploitation.
It only takes one step to fall off a cliff in a fog of confusion and distraction. It’s certainly in the right direction if you want to get off the mountain in a hurry, but you ain’t in THAT much of a hurry to get down.
Copyright is a priori corrupt. There is no deal you can make that somehow ends up with its unscrupulous and immortal wielders being reformed into saints. The closest you can get without abolition is a neutralising license like the GPL, but even that is frail against the onslaught of patent (operating by similarity rather than provenance). Don’t be fooled by Lessig, there is no mapping of non-commercial/commercial to good/bad or advantageous/disadvantageous. ALL cultural exchange is commercial. The oldest profession existed without coins. The idea that commerce is bad is another bogeyman, i.e. the insinuation that because corporations are highly commercial, it is their commerce that taints them rather than their lack of scruples in pursuing it.
The PPUK better start grokking why non-commercial=good/commercial=bad is a bogeyman (spurious dichotomy) pretty soon, or its roots will run too deeply in its manifesto.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Crosbie:
I’ll engage with your response, I found it easier to follow than the preceding posts I answered, while still disagreeing with it.
Really? I don’t think so. Maybe not so much here in this country, where enforcement is fairly strong.although it does happen. In some countries (including major European cities) it is a way of life that street vendors are wandering round selling unauthorised knock-off copies, the police do not necessarily bother the individual low-level vendors, When I saw this, I was informed that being also human the police realise those guys are just trying to scrape by one way or another, and prefer to go after the guys who are doing the copying and organising the footsoldier illegal vendors.
It isn’t that difficult to make money from copies, directly or indirectly, and if you’re following the debate in various forums you should know this. The marginal cost of copying/distribution may be effectively zero, however in any healthy free market the price that the market will bear will naturally drop close to the marginal cost. But not actually quite to the marginal cost.
So, yes, it will be quite impossible to charge present monopoly rents on copies in future. But it will be possible to charge something, for some copies, and it is possible to “compete with free”. Why would anyone pay? I can provide examples, maybe I need to submit a blog post for that however rather than try and put that sort of thing into a comment, if you don’t already know some of them.
Tons of money? I call strawman to that. People and corporations do sell copies of Linux, and that goes all the way from home-made copies through to professionally produced discs. More than likely that the eventual “media industry” will be very different from the “heyday” of making and selling copies (and I’ve seen reports that filesharing has also an effect at making counterfeiting uneconomic… maybe even more so than quality media endorsed by the artist as the “official” version, that by itself has some commercial value). But it isn’t a given that even legalising non-commercial sharing will eliminate the market for purchased copies entirely.
This is just disingenuous, isn’t it? Independent artists are increasingly finding direct routes to fans, and there’s nothing the “labels” can do about it. This claim of yours is simply surreal, even the enforcement that’s being proposed is hitting huge opposition, and any attempts to make it as extreme as you say will only inflame that (and, incidentally, bring in new pirates to support us…).
There is a very good reason, however, why allowing non-commercial sharing is a big priority, and would be a big step forward even without anything else. One side of the coin is that it takes away the reason to monitor private individuals, and limit private rights to free speech and communication (ECHR territory), and the other side of the coin is that decentralised/non-commercial peer-to-peer distribution is quite simply the most efficient and effective way to get the widest distribution of information, knowledge, art, and culture to the most people. Taking non-commercial use out of the remit of the law is sufficient to deliver all of that.
It may well be that this will, in time, knock the bottom out of any market for charging for copies directly, but it isn’t an instant thing, and the intermediate period can allow for a transition. For example, for books there is still a window where print copies are valuable in ways that digital copies aren’t, and distribution of the digital can be used to drive sales of print copies. In the longer term that will go away – although as indicated, it’s not necessarily the case that it will never be possible to charge anything for any copy.
I do agree that dividing the world into non-commercial=good, commercial=bad, is a potential trap, almost in a “four legs good, two legs bad” sense, that PPUK does face, and it comes up in our discussions.
My own view is that the freedom to reuse commercially is important, I do not however rule out the possibility that a limited period of commercial copyright might provide enough of an incentive to be worth the trade-off of permitting it. Academic studies exist which talk about where the right point might be, and while it’s not all that long, it’s not zero. That’s the sort of evidence-based policy I’d be interested in support.
The position that copyright has to be totally abolished, as a moral absolute, to my mind is simply extreme and a very very small minority view. Maybe it’s right, and will be seen to be right in time; right now, I cannot imagine how it could be considered realistic that we would enact that as a democratic society, it would be a very extreme experiment, and a very dramatic change from what we have now – the disruption of that alone frightens me, I’m looking for a transition path, and trying not to prejudge the destination, calling for copyright abolition now seems to me like that’s jumping off the side of the mountain, rather than trying to find a navigable path down.
So… at least for now, I confess that I do regard you as really a quite lonely extreme voice, however impassioned and true your belief in abolition may be. You have a long way to go for achieving that, and I believe that we can and will take smaller practical steps a lot sooner than that will happen – and I’m slightly afraid there’s a risk you might actually not be quite as right as you hope, and going for that outright would therefore be quite a risky experiment.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
John, I understand your points, but things will evolve far more rapidly than you appear to be imagining.
Non-commerciality is a blind alley. Richard Stalman realised it yonks ago. Wikipedia eventually realised it too. Either you’re into suspending the public’s liberty in order to exploit it or you’re not. The ‘not’ bit means you don’t say “You’re free unless we see you getting paid”.
PPUK is compromising on principle with a view to more support. Bad move.
FAC hasn’t got a clue about principle. It’s just realised that it needs to stop suing its fans (except those fans getting paid – the scum).
Don’t get the idea my ambition is to abolish copyright. You’re not the first to think that. I’m simply trying to enable commerce in digital productions. Abolishing copyright is just so fricking obvious I can’t help suggesting it. And that’s not just from an ethical perspective but from a pragmatic one. Copyright is ineffective. People who still think it will make them money are clutching at tradition. The market for copies has ended. People like Billy don’t like hearing that.
I think the PPUK should focus on exempting individuals from copyright – entirely, not just those individuals who can prove they didn’t receive anything of value in exchange. The cartels really will laugh their heads off if they are told they can only accuse people of commercial infringement, not non-commercial infringement. “Ok. We accuse X of COMMERCIAL infringement. What fricking difference does it make? We don’t need no evidence either way.” The only entities the PPUK should tolerate on the receiving end of copyright litigation should be corporations (not people).
You’ve seen the RIAA prosecute fundamentally innocent people (sharing is not a crime). What makes you think they wouldn’t dare send strike notices to independent artists?