Misinterpreting Copyright

I do take slight issue with articles on copyright theory that go back into the history of copyright but make little or no note of the atoms to bits transition. It's possible, of course, that the author doesn't feel that anything has changed and that he's preaching fundamentals. But when one looks at how easily an author's work, in digital form, can proliferate beyond the remotest semblance of control, through social networks that have absolutely no semblance to the small-world form they used to have - lending a book to my physical neighbour, vs. upping an mp3 to an international, ananymous filesharing community. The copy you lend never comes back, and it's easier than ever before to record - you're not manually copying (or even photocopying) the book or sheet music

Frankly the way media is handled, produced, distributed, consumed is totally different. There's no question that old systems that used to regulate that flow are totally inappropriate. But this is still far too new for anyone to legitimately claim to know what the solution is. The scientist in me calls for some experimentation.

Nobody in the debate denies the existence of some sort of equilibrium between protection of an author's interests and levels/quality of production (this is different to the balance which Stallman firmly denies the conceptualvalidity/constitutionality of). Let's tweak and test protective measures and see where the new equilibrium falls. It may be that there's a vast amount of elasticity in this new world and that the creator segment can tolerate vast reductions in the protections society offers them and their publishers. Or we might see them scale back creation immensely.

I go so far as to propose two possible ways to perceive the piracy 'pandemic' which the creative segment has been subject to for the past few decades.

The first is as society's response to the shifted equilibrium - the release of tensions built up by wildly inappropriate and restrictive copyright practices that have taken away too much of people's freedom;It might thus be a sign that copyright practices have to be relaxed for equilibrium to be restored.

The second is that it could be viewed by policymakers as precisely the sort of experiment that I ealier advocated we try. What happens when we weaken the copyright protections surrounding the output of publishers - does society suffer? This is precisely what has happened (without any relaxation from the lawmakers). Does it perhaps point to a sustainable future with reduced copyright protection?

I realise that experimentating in law is difficult - law is a signal as much as a framework and tweaking/screwing with it on a regular basis will in itself be a destabilising influence to a system that we'd like to see come to a new, stable equilibrium so that we can observe the effect. Ideally we'd use different parameters in parallel universes; an approximate might be different countries with different systems but the globalisation of distribution networks means that these are no longer isolated systems, so that's out of the window too. The experiment has to be conducted worldwide, simultaneously; WIPO perhaps needs more power to override sovereignty.

So what about different parameters for different media forms, as Stallman suggests (though perhaps not with the same intent as mine - I want to do it for experimentation, he suggests it might be necessary to tailor protection parameters for different media forms - as if a media form has an inherent level of protection demand).

Stallman says that the inherent tension in copyrights is between the consumer and publisher, and that the consumer clearly takes precedence. You could just as easily, however, say it's a tension between the short and long-term benefits for the consumer; on the one hand, copyright weakens the rights of the consumer, but on the other hand it guarantees they will continue to have quality media to consume.

I don't claim to know where the balance lies between these two considerations, but I do know that there has to be a balance, even if we are solely concerned for the consumer's well-being.

Should be required reading for all our representatives. Or, maybe even for all our citizens :)

good thing copyright was invented. human beings made little to no progress before it. without the incentive to copyright no one ever invented anything.