1 # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 # This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
9 "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
10 "POT-Creation-Date: 2012-08-27 19:40+0300\n"
11 "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
12 "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
13 "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
16 "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n"
17 "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
19 #. type: Content of the copy entity
24 #. type: Attribute 'lang' of: <book>
29 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><title>
34 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
36 msgid "<abbrev>\"freeculture\"</abbrev>"
39 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subtitle>
42 "HOW BIG MEDIA USES TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW TO LOCK DOWN CULTURE AND CONTROL "
46 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
48 msgid "<pubdate>2004-03-25</pubdate>"
51 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><releaseinfo>
53 msgid "Version 2004-02-10"
56 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><firstname>
61 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><surname>
66 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
68 msgid "Intellectual property—United States."
71 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
73 msgid "Mass media—United States."
76 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
78 msgid "Technological innovations—United States."
81 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
83 msgid "Art—United States."
86 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><publisher><address>
89 msgid "<city>New York</city>"
92 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
95 "<publisher> <publishername>The Penguin Press</publishername> <placeholder "
96 "type=\"address\" id=\"0\"/> </publisher> <copyright> <year>2004</year> "
97 "<holder>Lawrence Lessig</holder> </copyright>"
100 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject>
101 #: freeculture.xml:66
103 "<imageobject> <imagedata fileref=\"images/cc.png\" contentdepth=\"3em\" "
104 "width=\"100%\" align=\"center\"/> </imageobject> <imageobject> <imagedata "
105 "fileref=\"images/cc.svg\" contentdepth=\"3em\" width=\"100%\" "
106 "align=\"center\"/> </imageobject>"
109 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject><textobject><phrase>
110 #: freeculture.xml:73
111 msgid "Creative Commons, Some rights reserved"
114 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
115 #: freeculture.xml:65
116 msgid "<placeholder type=\"inlinemediaobject\" id=\"0\"/>"
119 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para>
120 #: freeculture.xml:79
122 "This version of <citetitle>Free Culture</citetitle> is licensed under a "
123 "Creative Commons license. This license permits non-commercial use of this "
124 "work, so long as attribution is given. For more information about the "
125 "license, click the icon above, or visit <ulink "
126 "url=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/\">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/</ulink>"
129 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><abstract><title>
130 #: freeculture.xml:88
131 msgid "ABOUT THE AUTHOR"
134 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><abstract><para>
135 #: freeculture.xml:90
137 "LAWRENCE LESSIG (<ulink "
138 "url=\"http://www.lessig.org\">http://www.lessig.org</ulink>), professor of "
139 "law and a John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law "
140 "School, is founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and is "
141 "chairman of the Creative Commons (<ulink "
142 "url=\"http://creativecommons.org\">http://creativecommons.org</ulink>). The "
143 "author of The Future of Ideas (Random House, 2001) and Code: And Other Laws "
144 "of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999), Lessig is a member of the boards of the "
145 "Public Library of Science, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public "
146 "Knowledge. He was the winner of the Free Software Foundation's Award for the "
147 "Advancement of Free Software, twice listed in BusinessWeek's <quote>e.biz "
148 "25,</quote> and named one of Scientific American's <quote>50 "
149 "visionaries.</quote> A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge "
150 "University, and Yale Law School, Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner of "
151 "the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals."
154 #. testing different ways to tag the cover page
156 #. <imageobject remap="s" role="front">
158 #. <imagedata fileref="images/cover_thumbnail.png" format="PNG" width="444" />
160 #. <imageobject remap="xs" role="front-small">
161 #. <imagedata fileref="images/cover_thumbnail.png" format="PNG" width="444" />
163 #. <imageobject remap="cs" role="thumbnail">
164 #. <imagedata fileref="images/cover_thumbnail.png" format="PNG" width="444" />
167 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><mediaobject>
168 #: freeculture.xml:111
170 "<imageobject remap=\"lrg\" role=\"front-large\"> <imagedata "
171 "fileref=\"images/cover.png\" format=\"PNG\" width=\"444\" /> </imageobject>"
175 #. http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+2003063276&CNT=10+records+per+page
177 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
178 #: freeculture.xml:109
180 " <placeholder type=\"mediaobject\" id=\"0\"/> <biblioid "
181 "class=\"isbn\">1-59420-006-8</biblioid> <biblioid "
182 "class=\"libraryofcongress\">2003063276</biblioid>"
185 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
186 #: freeculture.xml:139
187 msgid "You can buy a copy of this book by clicking on one of the links below:"
190 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
191 #: freeculture.xml:142
192 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.amazon.com/\">Amazon</ulink>"
195 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
196 #: freeculture.xml:143
197 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/\">B&N</ulink>"
200 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
201 #: freeculture.xml:144
202 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.penguin.com/\">Penguin</ulink>"
205 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
206 #: freeculture.xml:153
207 msgid "ALSO BY LAWRENCE LESSIG"
210 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
211 #: freeculture.xml:156
212 msgid "The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World"
215 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
216 #: freeculture.xml:159
217 msgid "Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace"
220 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
221 #: freeculture.xml:167
223 "THE PENGUIN PRESS, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street "
227 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
228 #: freeculture.xml:171
229 msgid "Copyright © Lawrence Lessig. All rights reserved."
232 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
233 #: freeculture.xml:174
235 "Excerpt from an editorial titled <quote>The Coming of Copyright "
236 "Perpetuity,</quote> <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, January 16, "
237 "2003. Copyright © 2003 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with "
241 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
242 #: freeculture.xml:179
244 "Cartoon in <xref linkend=\"fig-1711-vcr-handgun-cartoonfig\"/> by Paul "
245 "Conrad, copyright Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights "
246 "reserved. Reprinted with permission."
249 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
250 #: freeculture.xml:183
252 "Diagram in <xref linkend=\"fig-1761-pattern-modern-media-ownership\"/> "
253 "courtesy of the office of FCC Commissioner, Michael J. Copps."
256 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
257 #: freeculture.xml:187
258 msgid "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data"
261 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
262 #: freeculture.xml:190
264 "Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture : how big media uses technology and the law "
265 "to lock down culture and control creativity / Lawrence Lessig."
268 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
269 #: freeculture.xml:195
273 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
274 #: freeculture.xml:198
275 msgid "Includes index."
278 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
279 #: freeculture.xml:201
280 msgid "ISBN 1-59420-006-8 (hardcover)"
283 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
284 #: freeculture.xml:205
286 "1. Intellectual property—United States. 2. Mass media—United "
290 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
291 #: freeculture.xml:208
293 "3. Technological innovations—United States. 4. Art—United "
297 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
298 #: freeculture.xml:211
302 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
303 #: freeculture.xml:214
304 msgid "343.7309'9—dc22"
307 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
308 #: freeculture.xml:217
309 msgid "This book is printed on acid-free paper."
312 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
313 #: freeculture.xml:220
314 msgid "Printed in the United States of America"
317 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
318 #: freeculture.xml:223
319 msgid "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4"
322 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
323 #: freeculture.xml:226
324 msgid "Designed by Marysarah Quinn"
327 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
328 #: freeculture.xml:230
329 msgid "&translationblock;"
332 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
333 #: freeculture.xml:234
335 "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this "
336 "publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval "
337 "system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, "
338 "photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission "
339 "of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book."
342 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
343 #: freeculture.xml:242
345 "The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or "
346 "via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and "
347 "punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and "
348 "do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted "
349 "materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."
352 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
353 #: freeculture.xml:254
355 "To Eric Eldred—whose work first drew me to this cause, and for whom it "
359 #. type: Content of: <book><lot><title>
360 #: freeculture.xml:262
361 msgid "List of figures"
364 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><title>
365 #: freeculture.xml:324
369 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
370 #: freeculture.xml:325
374 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
375 #: freeculture.xml:327
377 "<emphasis role=\"bold\">At the end</emphasis> of his review of my first "
378 "book, <citetitle>Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle>, David "
379 "Pogue, a brilliant writer and author of countless technical and "
380 "computer-related texts, wrote this:"
383 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
384 #: freeculture.xml:338
386 "David Pogue, <quote>Don't Just Chat, Do Something,</quote> <citetitle>New "
387 "York Times</citetitle>, 30 January 2000."
390 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
391 #: freeculture.xml:334
393 "Unlike actual law, Internet software has no capacity to punish. It doesn't "
394 "affect people who aren't online (and only a tiny minority of the world "
395 "population is). And if you don't like the Internet's system, you can always "
396 "flip off the modem.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
399 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
400 #: freeculture.xml:343
402 "Pogue was skeptical of the core argument of the book—that software, or "
403 "<quote>code,</quote> functioned as a kind of law—and his review "
404 "suggested the happy thought that if life in cyberspace got bad, we could "
405 "always <quote>drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome</quote>-like simply flip a "
406 "switch and be back home. Turn off the modem, unplug the computer, and any "
407 "troubles that exist in <emphasis>that</emphasis> space wouldn't "
408 "<quote>affect</quote> us anymore."
412 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
413 #: freeculture.xml:352
415 "Pogue might have been right in 1999—I'm skeptical, but maybe. But "
416 "even if he was right then, the point is not right now: <citetitle>Free "
417 "Culture</citetitle> is about the troubles the Internet causes even after the "
418 "modem is turned off. It is an argument about how the battles that now rage "
419 "regarding life on-line have fundamentally affected <quote>people who aren't "
420 "online.</quote> There is no switch that will insulate us from the Internet's "
424 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
425 #: freeculture.xml:363
427 "But unlike <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, the argument here is not much about "
428 "the Internet itself. It is instead about the consequence of the Internet to "
429 "a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this "
430 "is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important."
433 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para><footnote><para>
434 #: freeculture.xml:375
436 "Richard M. Stallman, <citetitle>Free Software, Free Societies</citetitle> 57 "
437 "(Joshua Gay, ed. 2002)."
440 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
441 #: freeculture.xml:370
443 "That tradition is the way our culture gets made. As I explain in the pages "
444 "that follow, we come from a tradition of <quote>free "
445 "culture</quote>—not <quote>free</quote> as in <quote>free beer</quote> "
446 "(to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free software "
447 "movement<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), but <quote>free</quote> "
448 "as in <quote>free speech,</quote> <quote>free markets,</quote> <quote>free "
449 "trade,</quote> <quote>free enterprise,</quote> <quote>free will,</quote> and "
450 "<quote>free elections.</quote> A free culture supports and protects creators "
451 "and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property "
452 "rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to "
453 "guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain <emphasis>as free as "
454 "possible</emphasis> from the control of the past. A free culture is not a "
455 "culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which "
456 "everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a <quote>permission "
457 "culture</quote>—a culture in which creators get to create only with "
458 "the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past."
461 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
462 #: freeculture.xml:390
464 "If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not "
465 "<quote>we</quote> on the Left or <quote>you</quote> on the Right, but we who "
466 "have no stake in the particular industries of culture that defined the "
467 "twentieth century. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, if you are in "
468 "this sense disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For "
469 "the changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political "
470 "culture deem fundamental."
473 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
474 #: freeculture.xml:398 freeculture.xml:1048
475 msgid "power, concentration of"
478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
479 #: freeculture.xml:399 freeculture.xml:13244
480 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
483 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
484 #: freeculture.xml:400 freeculture.xml:421 freeculture.xml:13245
485 msgid "Safire, William"
488 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
489 #: freeculture.xml:401
493 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
494 #: freeculture.xml:403
496 "We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of 2003. As "
497 "the FCC considered changes in media ownership rules that would relax limits "
498 "on media concentration, an extraordinary coalition generated more than "
499 "700,000 letters to the FCC opposing the change. As William Safire described "
500 "marching <quote>uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the "
501 "National Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative "
502 "Ted Stevens,</quote> he formulated perhaps most simply just what was at "
503 "stake: the concentration of power. And as he asked,"
506 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
507 #: freeculture.xml:419
509 "William Safire, <quote>The Great Media Gulp,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
510 "Times</citetitle>, 22 May 2003. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
513 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
514 #: freeculture.xml:415
516 "Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of "
517 "power—political, corporate, media, cultural—should be anathema "
518 "to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby "
519 "encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the "
520 "greatest expression of democracy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
523 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
524 #: freeculture.xml:426
526 "This idea is an element of the argument of <citetitle>Free "
527 "Culture</citetitle>, though my focus is not just on the concentration of "
528 "power produced by concentrations in ownership, but more importantly, if "
529 "because less visibly, on the concentration of power produced by a radical "
530 "change in the effective scope of the law. The law is changing; that change "
531 "is altering the way our culture gets made; that change should worry "
532 "you—whether or not you care about the Internet, and whether you're on "
533 "Safire's left or on his right."
536 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
537 #: freeculture.xml:437
539 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The inspiration</emphasis> for the title and for "
540 "much of the argument of this book comes from the work of Richard Stallman "
541 "and the Free Software Foundation. Indeed, as I reread Stallman's own work, "
542 "especially the essays in <citetitle>Free Software, Free Society</citetitle>, "
543 "I realize that all of the theoretical insights I develop here are insights "
544 "Stallman described decades ago. One could thus well argue that this work is "
545 "<quote>merely</quote> derivative."
549 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
550 #: freeculture.xml:446
552 "I accept that criticism, if indeed it is a criticism. The work of a lawyer "
553 "is always derivative, and I mean to do nothing more in this book than to "
554 "remind a culture about a tradition that has always been its own. Like "
555 "Stallman, I defend that tradition on the basis of values. Like Stallman, I "
556 "believe those are the values of freedom. And like Stallman, I believe those "
557 "are values of our past that will need to be defended in our future. A free "
558 "culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the "
559 "path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an "
560 "argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and "
561 "even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; "
562 "it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without "
563 "property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not "
564 "freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here."
567 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
568 #: freeculture.xml:464
570 "Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between "
571 "anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with "
572 "property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced "
573 "by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes "
574 "feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property "
575 "rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is "
576 "against that extremism that this book is written."
579 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
580 #: freeculture.xml:479
584 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
585 #: freeculture.xml:480 freeculture.xml:583 freeculture.xml:1037
586 msgid "Wright brothers"
589 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
590 #: freeculture.xml:482
592 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">On December 17</emphasis>, 1903, on a windy North "
593 "Carolina beach for just shy of one hundred seconds, the Wright brothers "
594 "demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, self-propelled vehicle could fly. The "
595 "moment was electric and its importance widely understood. Almost "
596 "immediately, there was an explosion of interest in this newfound technology "
597 "of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began to build upon it."
600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
601 #: freeculture.xml:489
602 msgid "air traffic, land ownership vs."
605 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
606 #: freeculture.xml:490 freeculture.xml:14238
607 msgid "land ownership, air traffic and"
610 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
611 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14239
612 msgid "property rights"
615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
616 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14239
617 msgid "air traffic vs."
620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
621 #: freeculture.xml:497
623 "St. George Tucker, <citetitle>Blackstone's Commentaries</citetitle> 3 (South "
624 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1969), 18."
627 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
628 #: freeculture.xml:493
630 "At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American law held "
631 "that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface of his land, "
632 "but all the land below, down to the center of the earth, and all the space "
633 "above, to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards.</quote><placeholder "
634 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> For many years, scholars had puzzled about how "
635 "best to interpret the idea that rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that "
636 "mean that you owned the stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful "
637 "and regular trespass?"
640 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
641 #: freeculture.xml:507
643 "Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American "
644 "law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged by "
645 "the most important legal thinkers of our past—mattered. If my land "
646 "reaches to the heavens, what happens when United flies over my field? Do I "
647 "have the right to banish it from my property? Am I allowed to enter into an "
648 "exclusive license with Delta Airlines? Could we set up an auction to decide "
649 "how much these rights are worth?"
652 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
653 #: freeculture.xml:515 freeculture.xml:528 freeculture.xml:561 freeculture.xml:581 freeculture.xml:1017 freeculture.xml:1035 freeculture.xml:1083 freeculture.xml:9150 freeculture.xml:12613 freeculture.xml:13348
654 msgid "Causby, Thomas Lee"
657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
658 #: freeculture.xml:516 freeculture.xml:529 freeculture.xml:562 freeculture.xml:582 freeculture.xml:1018 freeculture.xml:1036 freeculture.xml:1084 freeculture.xml:9151 freeculture.xml:12614 freeculture.xml:13349
659 msgid "Causby, Tinie"
662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
663 #: freeculture.xml:518
665 "In 1945, these questions became a federal case. When North Carolina farmers "
666 "Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby started losing chickens because of low-flying "
667 "military aircraft (the terrified chickens apparently flew into the barn "
668 "walls and died), the Causbys filed a lawsuit saying that the government was "
669 "trespassing on their land. The airplanes, of course, never touched the "
670 "surface of the Causbys' land. But if, as Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had "
671 "said, their land reached to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards,</quote> "
672 "then the government was trespassing on their property, and the Causbys "
676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
677 #: freeculture.xml:530
678 msgid "Douglas, William O."
681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
682 #: freeculture.xml:531
683 msgid "Supreme Court, U.S."
686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
687 #: freeculture.xml:531
688 msgid "on airspace vs. land rights"
691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
692 #: freeculture.xml:533
694 "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had declared "
695 "the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the heavens, "
696 "then Congress's declaration could well have been an unconstitutional "
697 "<quote>taking</quote> of property without compensation. The Court "
698 "acknowledged that <quote>it is ancient doctrine that common law ownership of "
699 "the land extended to the periphery of the universe.</quote> But Justice "
700 "Douglas had no patience for ancient doctrine. In a single paragraph, "
701 "hundreds of years of property law were erased. As he wrote for the Court,"
704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
705 #: freeculture.xml:553
707 "United States v. Causby, U.S. 328 (1946): 256, 261. The Court did find that "
708 "there could be a <quote>taking</quote> if the government's use of its land "
709 "effectively destroyed the value of the Causbys' land. This example was "
710 "suggested to me by Keith Aoki's wonderful piece, <quote>(Intellectual) "
711 "Property and Sovereignty: Notes Toward a Cultural Geography of "
712 "Authorship,</quote> <citetitle>Stanford Law Review</citetitle> 48 (1996): "
713 "1293, 1333. See also Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Real Property</citetitle> "
714 "(Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1984), 1112–13. <placeholder "
715 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
718 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
719 #: freeculture.xml:544
721 "[The] doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public "
722 "highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every "
723 "transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass "
724 "suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to "
725 "the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their "
726 "control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private "
727 "ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.<placeholder "
728 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
732 #: freeculture.xml:567
733 msgid "<quote>Common sense revolts at the idea.</quote>"
737 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
738 #: freeculture.xml:571
740 "This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, "
741 "but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to "
742 "dither. Other justices would have blathered on for pages to reach the "
743 "conclusion that Douglas holds in a single line: <quote>Common sense revolts "
744 "at the idea.</quote> But whether it takes pages or a few words, it is the "
745 "special genius of a common law system, as ours is, that the law adjusts to "
746 "the technologies of the time. And as it adjusts, it changes. Ideas that were "
747 "as solid as rock in one age crumble in another."
750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
751 #: freeculture.xml:585
753 "Or at least, this is how things happen when there's no one powerful on the "
754 "other side of the change. The Causbys were just farmers. And though there "
755 "were no doubt many like them who were upset by the growing traffic in the "
756 "air (though one hopes not many chickens flew themselves into walls), the "
757 "Causbys of the world would find it very hard to unite and stop the idea, and "
758 "the technology, that the Wright brothers had birthed. The Wright brothers "
759 "spat airplanes into the technological meme pool; the idea then spread like a "
760 "virus in a chicken coop; farmers like the Causbys found themselves "
761 "surrounded by <quote>what seemed reasonable</quote> given the technology "
762 "that the Wrights had produced. They could stand on their farms, dead "
763 "chickens in hand, and shake their fists at these newfangled technologies all "
764 "they wanted. They could call their representatives or even file a "
765 "lawsuit. But in the end, the force of what seems <quote>obvious</quote> to "
766 "everyone else—the power of <quote>common sense</quote>—would "
767 "prevail. Their <quote>private interest</quote> would not be allowed to "
768 "defeat an obvious public gain."
771 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
772 #: freeculture.xml:606 freeculture.xml:9158 freeculture.xml:9813
773 msgid "Armstrong, Edwin Howard"
776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
777 #: freeculture.xml:607
778 msgid "Bell, Alexander Graham"
781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
782 #: freeculture.xml:608
783 msgid "Edison, Thomas"
786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
787 #: freeculture.xml:609
788 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
792 #: freeculture.xml:610
796 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
797 #: freeculture.xml:610
798 msgid "FM spectrum of"
802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
803 #: freeculture.xml:612
805 "<emphasis role='strong'>Edwin Howard Armstrong</emphasis> is one of "
806 "America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American "
807 "inventor scene just after the titans Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham "
808 "Bell. But his work in the area of radio technology was perhaps the most "
809 "important of any single inventor in the first fifty years of radio. He was "
810 "better educated than Michael Faraday, who as a bookbinder's apprentice had "
811 "discovered electric induction in 1831. But he had the same intuition about "
812 "how the world of radio worked, and on at least three occasions, Armstrong "
813 "invented profoundly important technologies that advanced our understanding "
817 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
818 #: freeculture.xml:625
820 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
821 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
822 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
823 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
824 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
825 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
826 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
830 #: freeculture.xml:635
832 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
833 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
834 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
835 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
836 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
837 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
838 "of an announcer's voice: <quote>This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
839 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.</quote>"
842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
843 #: freeculture.xml:646
844 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
848 #: freeculture.xml:657
850 "Lawrence Lessing, <citetitle>Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard "
851 "Armstrong</citetitle> (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
855 #: freeculture.xml:650
857 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
858 "like a glass of water being poured. … A paper was crumpled and torn; "
859 "it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. … Sousa "
860 "marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
861 "performed. … The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
862 "heard before from a radio <quote>music box.</quote><placeholder "
863 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
867 #: freeculture.xml:662
871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
872 #: freeculture.xml:663
876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
877 #: freeculture.xml:663
878 msgid "ownership concentration in"
882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
883 #: freeculture.xml:665
885 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
886 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
887 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
888 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
889 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
894 #: freeculture.xml:673 freeculture.xml:695
895 msgid "Sarnoff, David"
898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
899 #: freeculture.xml:675
901 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
902 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
903 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
904 "from <quote>radio.</quote> But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, "
905 "Sarnoff was not pleased."
908 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
909 #: freeculture.xml:686
911 "See <quote>Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,</quote> "
912 "First Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, "
913 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
916 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
917 #: freeculture.xml:683
919 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
920 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
921 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
926 #: freeculture.xml:694
930 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
931 #: freeculture.xml:697
933 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
934 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
935 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described,"
938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
939 #: freeculture.xml:702
940 msgid "Lessing, Lawrence"
943 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
944 #: freeculture.xml:710
945 msgid "Lessing, 226."
948 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
949 #: freeculture.xml:705
951 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
952 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
953 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
954 "posed … a complete reordering of radio power … and the "
955 "eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had "
956 "grown to power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
959 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
960 #: freeculture.xml:714
964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
965 #: freeculture.xml:714
969 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
970 #: freeculture.xml:716
972 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
973 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
974 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
975 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
976 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
977 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
978 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
979 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
980 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
981 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
982 "Lessing described it,"
985 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
986 #: freeculture.xml:735
987 msgid "Lessing, 256."
990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
991 #: freeculture.xml:731
993 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
994 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
995 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
996 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1000 #: freeculture.xml:740
1004 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1005 #: freeculture.xml:742
1007 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
1008 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
1009 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
1010 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
1011 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
1012 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
1013 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
1016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1017 #: freeculture.xml:754
1019 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
1020 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
1021 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
1022 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
1023 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
1024 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
1025 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
1026 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
1027 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
1031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1032 #: freeculture.xml:768
1034 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
1035 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
1036 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
1037 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
1038 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
1039 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
1040 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
1041 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
1042 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
1043 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
1044 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
1047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1048 #: freeculture.xml:785 freeculture.xml:1156
1052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1053 #: freeculture.xml:785
1054 msgid "development of"
1057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1058 #: freeculture.xml:793
1060 "Amanda Lenhart, <quote>The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
1061 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,</quote> Pew Internet and American "
1062 "Life Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
1063 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:787
1069 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">There's no</emphasis> single inventor of the "
1070 "Internet. Nor is there any good date upon which to mark its birth. Yet in a "
1071 "very short time, the Internet has become part of ordinary American "
1072 "life. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 58 percent of "
1073 "Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up from 49 percent two years "
1074 "before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That number could well "
1075 "exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
1078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1079 #: freeculture.xml:802
1081 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
1082 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
1083 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
1084 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
1085 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
1086 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
1087 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
1088 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
1089 "is not a book about the Internet."
1092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1093 #: freeculture.xml:813
1095 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
1096 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
1097 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
1098 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
1099 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
1100 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
1103 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1104 #: freeculture.xml:822
1105 msgid "Barlow, Joel"
1108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1109 #: freeculture.xml:823
1113 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1114 #: freeculture.xml:823
1115 msgid "commercial vs. noncommercial"
1118 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1119 #: freeculture.xml:824
1120 msgid "Webster, Noah"
1124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1125 #: freeculture.xml:826
1127 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
1128 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
1129 "<quote>commercial culture</quote> I mean that part of our culture that is "
1130 "produced and sold or produced to be sold. By <quote>noncommercial "
1131 "culture</quote> I mean all the rest. When old men sat around parks or on "
1132 "street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was "
1133 "noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his "
1134 "<quote>Reader,</quote> or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial "
1138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1139 #: freeculture.xml:838
1141 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
1142 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
1143 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
1144 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
1145 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture "
1146 "<quote>free.</quote> The ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared "
1147 "and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from "
1148 "plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making "
1149 "tapes—were left alone by the law."
1152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1153 #: freeculture.xml:848
1154 msgid "Copyright infringement lawsuits"
1157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1158 #: freeculture.xml:848
1159 msgid "commercial creativity as primary purpose of"
1162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1163 #: freeculture.xml:864 freeculture.xml:1997 freeculture.xml:2009
1164 msgid "Brandeis, Louis D."
1167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1168 #: freeculture.xml:856
1170 "This is not the only purpose of copyright, though it is the overwhelmingly "
1171 "primary purpose of the copyright established in the federal constitution. "
1172 "State copyright law historically protected not just the commercial interest "
1173 "in publication, but also a privacy interest. By granting authors the "
1174 "exclusive right to first publication, state copyright law gave authors the "
1175 "power to control the spread of facts about them. See Samuel D. Warren and "
1176 "Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> Harvard Law Review 4 "
1177 "(1890): 193, 198–200. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1181 #: freeculture.xml:850
1183 "The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly, then "
1184 "quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by granting "
1185 "them exclusive rights to their creative work, so that they could sell those "
1186 "exclusive rights in a commercial marketplace.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
1187 "id=\"0\"/> This is also, of course, an important part of creativity and "
1188 "culture, and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in "
1189 "no sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one part, "
1190 "a controlled part, balanced with the free."
1193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1194 #: freeculture.xml:871 freeculture.xml:1757
1195 msgid "free culture"
1198 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1199 #: freeculture.xml:871
1200 msgid "permission culture vs."
1203 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1204 #: freeculture.xml:872
1205 msgid "permission culture"
1208 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1209 #: freeculture.xml:872
1210 msgid "free culture vs."
1213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1214 #: freeculture.xml:878 freeculture.xml:9706
1215 msgid "Litman, Jessica"
1218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1219 #: freeculture.xml:876
1221 "See Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (New York: "
1222 "Prometheus Books, 2001), ch. 13. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1226 #: freeculture.xml:874
1228 "This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been "
1229 "erased.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Internet has set the "
1230 "stage for this erasure and, pushed by big media, the law has now affected "
1231 "it. For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which "
1232 "individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation "
1233 "of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of "
1234 "culture and creativity that it never reached before. The technology that "
1235 "preserved the balance of our history—between uses of our culture that "
1236 "were free and uses of our culture that were only upon permission—has "
1237 "been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free culture, "
1238 "more and more a permission culture."
1241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1242 #: freeculture.xml:892
1243 msgid "protection of artists vs. business interests"
1246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1247 #: freeculture.xml:894
1249 "This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial creativity. "
1250 "And indeed, protectionism is precisely its motivation. But the protectionism "
1251 "that justifies the changes that I will describe below is not the limited and "
1252 "balanced sort that has defined the law in the past. This is not a "
1253 "protectionism to protect artists. It is instead a protectionism to protect "
1254 "certain forms of business. Corporations threatened by the potential of the "
1255 "Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are "
1256 "made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect "
1257 "them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the Causbys."
1260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1261 #: freeculture.xml:908
1263 "For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to "
1264 "participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that "
1265 "reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace "
1266 "for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn "
1267 "threatens established content industries. The Internet is thus to the "
1268 "industries that built and distributed content in the twentieth century what "
1269 "FM radio was to AM radio, or what the truck was to the railroad industry of "
1270 "the nineteenth century: the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial "
1271 "transformation. Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a "
1272 "vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating "
1273 "culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of "
1274 "creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant "
1275 "range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those "
1276 "creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do "
1277 "today—all so long as the RCAs of our day don't use the law to protect "
1278 "themselves against this competition."
1281 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1282 #: freeculture.xml:927
1284 "Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is "
1285 "happening in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early "
1286 "twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their "
1287 "power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient, more "
1288 "vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in their plan "
1289 "to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."
1292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1293 #: freeculture.xml:936
1294 msgid "Valenti, Jack"
1297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1298 #: freeculture.xml:936
1299 msgid "on creative property rights"
1302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1303 #: freeculture.xml:946
1305 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Black Hawk Download: Moving Beyond Music, Pirates Use New "
1306 "Tools to Turn the Net into an Illicit Video Club,</quote> <citetitle>New "
1307 "York Times</citetitle>, 17 January 2002."
1310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1311 #: freeculture.xml:938
1313 "It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the "
1314 "Internet seem remote to most. To the few who follow them, they seem mainly "
1315 "about a much simpler brace of questions—whether <quote>piracy</quote> "
1316 "will be permitted, and whether <quote>property</quote> will be "
1317 "protected. The <quote>war</quote> that has been waged against the "
1318 "technologies of the Internet—what Motion Picture Association of "
1319 "America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti calls his <quote>own terrorist "
1320 "war</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—has been framed "
1321 "as a battle about the rule of law and respect for property. To know which "
1322 "side to take in this war, most think that we need only decide whether we're "
1323 "for property or against it."
1326 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1327 #: freeculture.xml:955
1329 "If those really were the choices, then I would be with Jack Valenti and the "
1330 "content industry. I, too, am a believer in property, and especially in the "
1331 "importance of what Mr. Valenti nicely calls <quote>creative "
1332 "property.</quote> I believe that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that "
1333 "the law, properly tuned, should punish <quote>piracy,</quote> whether on or "
1337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1338 #: freeculture.xml:963
1340 "But those simple beliefs mask a much more fundamental question and a much "
1341 "more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see this change, the "
1342 "war to rid the world of Internet <quote>pirates</quote> will also rid our "
1343 "culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start."
1346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1347 #: freeculture.xml:968 freeculture.xml:10938
1348 msgid "Constitution, U.S."
1351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1352 #: freeculture.xml:968
1353 msgid "First Amendment to"
1356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1357 #: freeculture.xml:969 freeculture.xml:1134
1358 msgid "Copyright law"
1361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1362 #: freeculture.xml:969
1363 msgid "as protection of creators"
1366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1367 #: freeculture.xml:970
1368 msgid "First Amendment"
1371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1372 #: freeculture.xml:971 freeculture.xml:981 freeculture.xml:14637
1373 msgid "Netanel, Neil Weinstock"
1376 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1377 #: freeculture.xml:979
1379 "Neil W. Netanel, <quote>Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society,</quote> "
1380 "<citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 106 (1996): 283. <placeholder "
1381 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1384 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1385 #: freeculture.xml:973
1387 "These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of our "
1388 "Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their past, and "
1389 "protected creators and innovators from either state or private control. The "
1390 "First Amendment protected creators against state control. And as Professor "
1391 "Neil Netanel powerfully argues,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1392 "copyright law, properly balanced, protected creators against private "
1393 "control. Our tradition was thus neither Soviet nor the tradition of "
1394 "patrons. It instead carved out a wide berth within which creators could "
1395 "cultivate and extend our culture."
1398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1399 #: freeculture.xml:989
1401 "Yet the law's response to the Internet, when tied to changes in the "
1402 "technology of the Internet itself, has massively increased the effective "
1403 "regulation of creativity in America. To build upon or critique the culture "
1404 "around us one must ask, Oliver Twist–like, for permission first. "
1405 "Permission is, of course, often granted—but it is not often granted to "
1406 "the critical or the independent. We have built a kind of cultural nobility; "
1407 "those within the noble class live easily; those outside it don't. But it is "
1408 "nobility of any form that is alien to our tradition."
1411 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1412 #: freeculture.xml:1001
1414 "The story that follows is about this war. Is it not about the "
1415 "<quote>centrality of technology</quote> to ordinary life. I don't believe in "
1416 "gods, digital or otherwise. Nor is it an effort to demonize any individual "
1417 "or group, for neither do I believe in a devil, corporate or otherwise. It is "
1418 "not a morality tale. Nor is it a call to jihad against an industry."
1421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1422 #: freeculture.xml:1009
1424 "It is instead an effort to understand a hopelessly destructive war inspired "
1425 "by the technologies of the Internet but reaching far beyond its code. And by "
1426 "understanding this battle, it is an effort to map peace. There is no good "
1427 "reason for the current struggle around Internet technologies to "
1428 "continue. There will be great harm to our tradition and culture if it is "
1429 "allowed to continue unchecked. We must come to understand the source of this "
1430 "war. We must resolve it soon."
1433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1434 #: freeculture.xml:1019
1435 msgid "intellectual property rights"
1438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1439 #: freeculture.xml:1021
1441 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Like the Causbys'</emphasis> battle, this war is, "
1442 "in part, about <quote>property.</quote> The property of this war is not as "
1443 "tangible as the Causbys', and no innocent chicken has yet to lose its "
1444 "life. Yet the ideas surrounding this <quote>property</quote> are as obvious "
1445 "to most as the Causbys' claim about the sacredness of their farm was to "
1446 "them. We are the Causbys. Most of us take for granted the extraordinarily "
1447 "powerful claims that the owners of <quote>intellectual property</quote> now "
1448 "assert. Most of us, like the Causbys, treat these claims as obvious. And "
1449 "hence we, like the Causbys, object when a new technology interferes with "
1450 "this property. It is as plain to us as it was to them that the new "
1451 "technologies of the Internet are <quote>trespassing</quote> upon legitimate "
1452 "claims of <quote>property.</quote> It is as plain to us as it was to them "
1453 "that the law should intervene to stop this trespass."
1457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1458 #: freeculture.xml:1039
1460 "And thus, when geeks and technologists defend their Armstrong or Wright "
1461 "brothers technology, most of us are simply unsympathetic. Common sense does "
1462 "not revolt. Unlike in the case of the unlucky Causbys, common sense is on "
1463 "the side of the property owners in this war. Unlike the lucky Wright "
1464 "brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution on its side."
1467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1468 #: freeculture.xml:1050
1470 "My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly "
1471 "amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more "
1472 "importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and "
1473 "citizens. There has never been a time in our history when more of our "
1474 "<quote>culture</quote> was as <quote>owned</quote> as it is now. And yet "
1475 "there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the "
1476 "<emphasis>uses</emphasis> of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as "
1480 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1481 #: freeculture.xml:1060
1483 "The puzzle is, Why? Is it because we have come to understand a truth about "
1484 "the value and importance of absolute property over ideas and culture? Is it "
1485 "because we have discovered that our tradition of rejecting such an absolute "
1489 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1490 #: freeculture.xml:1066
1492 "Or is it because the idea of absolute property over ideas and culture "
1493 "benefits the RCAs of our time and fits our own unreflective intuitions?"
1496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1497 #: freeculture.xml:1070
1499 "Is the radical shift away from our tradition of free culture an instance of "
1500 "America correcting a mistake from its past, as we did after a bloody war "
1501 "with slavery, and as we are slowly doing with inequality? Or is the radical "
1502 "shift away from our tradition of free culture yet another example of a "
1503 "political system captured by a few powerful special interests?"
1506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1507 #: freeculture.xml:1077
1509 "Does common sense lead to the extremes on this question because common sense "
1510 "actually believes in these extremes? Or does common sense stand silent in "
1511 "the face of these extremes because, as with Armstrong versus RCA, the more "
1512 "powerful side has ensured that it has the more powerful view?"
1516 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1517 #: freeculture.xml:1086
1519 "I don't mean to be mysterious. My own views are resolved. I believe it was "
1520 "right for common sense to revolt against the extremism of the Causbys. I "
1521 "believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme "
1522 "claims made today on behalf of <quote>intellectual property.</quote> What "
1523 "the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an "
1524 "airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much "
1528 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1529 #: freeculture.xml:1097
1531 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The struggle</emphasis> that rages just now "
1532 "centers on two ideas: <quote>piracy</quote> and <quote>property.</quote> My "
1533 "aim in this book's next two parts is to explore these two ideas."
1536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1537 #: freeculture.xml:1102
1539 "My method is not the usual method of an academic. I don't want to plunge you "
1540 "into a complex argument, buttressed with references to obscure French "
1541 "theorists—however natural that is for the weird sort we academics have "
1542 "become. Instead I begin in each part with a collection of stories that set a "
1543 "context within which these apparently simple ideas can be more fully "
1547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1548 #: freeculture.xml:1110
1550 "The two sections set up the core claim of this book: that while the Internet "
1551 "has indeed produced something fantastic and new, our government, pushed by "
1552 "big media to respond to this <quote>something new,</quote> is destroying "
1553 "something very old. Rather than understanding the changes the Internet might "
1554 "permit, and rather than taking time to let <quote>common sense</quote> "
1555 "resolve how best to respond, we are allowing those most threatened by the "
1556 "changes to use their power to change the law—and more importantly, to "
1557 "use their power to change something fundamental about who we have always "
1561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1562 #: freeculture.xml:1121
1564 "We allow this, I believe, not because it is right, and not because most of "
1565 "us really believe in these changes. We allow it because the interests most "
1566 "threatened are among the most powerful players in our depressingly "
1567 "compromised process of making law. This book is the story of one more "
1568 "consequence of this form of corruption—a consequence to which most of "
1569 "us remain oblivious."
1572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
1573 #: freeculture.xml:1131
1574 msgid "<quote>PIRACY</quote>"
1577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1578 #: freeculture.xml:1134
1582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1583 #: freeculture.xml:1135 freeculture.xml:4961
1584 msgid "Mansfield, William Murray, Lord"
1587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1588 #: freeculture.xml:1136
1589 msgid "music publishing"
1592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1593 #: freeculture.xml:1137 freeculture.xml:3160
1597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1598 #: freeculture.xml:1139
1600 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Since the inception</emphasis> of the law "
1601 "regulating creative property, there has been a war against "
1602 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The precise contours of this concept, "
1603 "<quote>piracy,</quote> are hard to sketch, but the animating injustice is "
1604 "easy to capture. As Lord Mansfield wrote in a case that extended the reach "
1605 "of English copyright law to include sheet music,"
1609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1610 #: freeculture.xml:1151
1612 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
1613 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield)."
1616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1617 #: freeculture.xml:1147
1619 "A person may use the copy by playing it, but he has no right to rob the "
1620 "author of the profit, by multiplying copies and disposing of them for his "
1621 "own use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1625 #: freeculture.xml:1156
1626 msgid "efficient content distribution on"
1629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1630 #: freeculture.xml:1157
1631 msgid "peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing"
1634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1635 #: freeculture.xml:1157
1636 msgid "efficiency of"
1640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1641 #: freeculture.xml:1159
1643 "Today we are in the middle of another <quote>war</quote> against "
1644 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The Internet has provoked this war. The Internet "
1645 "makes possible the efficient spread of content. Peer-to-peer (p2p) file "
1646 "sharing is among the most efficient of the efficient technologies the "
1647 "Internet enables. Using distributed intelligence, p2p systems facilitate the "
1648 "easy spread of content in a way unimagined a generation ago."
1651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1652 #: freeculture.xml:1168
1654 "This efficiency does not respect the traditional lines of copyright. The "
1655 "network doesn't discriminate between the sharing of copyrighted and "
1656 "uncopyrighted content. Thus has there been a vast amount of sharing of "
1657 "copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the war, as copyright "
1658 "owners fear the sharing will <quote>rob the author of the profit.</quote>"
1661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1662 #: freeculture.xml:1177
1664 "The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and "
1665 "increasingly to technology to defend their <quote>property</quote> against "
1666 "this <quote>piracy.</quote> A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is "
1667 "being raised to believe that <quote>property</quote> should be "
1668 "<quote>free.</quote> Forget tattoos, never mind body piercing—our kids "
1669 "are becoming <emphasis>thieves</emphasis>!"
1672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1673 #: freeculture.xml:1185
1675 "There's no doubt that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that pirates "
1676 "should be punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put "
1677 "this notion of <quote>piracy</quote> in some context. For as the concept is "
1678 "increasingly used, at its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost "
1682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1683 #: freeculture.xml:1191
1684 msgid "The idea goes something like this:"
1687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1688 #: freeculture.xml:1195
1690 "Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative "
1691 "work of others, I am taking from them something of value. Whenever I take "
1692 "something of value from someone else, I should have their permission. The "
1693 "taking of something of value from someone else without permission is "
1694 "wrong. It is a form of piracy."
1697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1698 #: freeculture.xml:1203
1702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1703 #: freeculture.xml:1204
1704 msgid "Dreyfuss, Rochelle"
1707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1708 #: freeculture.xml:1205
1712 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1713 #: freeculture.xml:1206
1714 msgid "creative property"
1717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1718 #: freeculture.xml:1206
1719 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory of"
1722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1723 #: freeculture.xml:1207 freeculture.xml:2969
1724 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory"
1728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1729 #: freeculture.xml:1213
1731 "See Rochelle Dreyfuss, <quote>Expressive Genericity: Trademarks as Language "
1732 "in the Pepsi Generation,</quote> <citetitle>Notre Dame Law "
1733 "Review</citetitle> 65 (1990): 397."
1736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1737 #: freeculture.xml:1226 freeculture.xml:7117
1738 msgid "Zittrain, Jonathan"
1741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1742 #: freeculture.xml:1221
1744 "Lisa Bannon, <quote>The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay "
1745 "Up,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 21 August 1996, "
1746 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; "
1747 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of "
1748 "Property vs. Free Speech, No One Wins,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
1749 "Globe</citetitle>, 24 November 2002. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1754 #: freeculture.xml:1209
1756 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1757 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1758 "theory of creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1759 "—if there is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It "
1760 "is the perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue "
1761 "the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1762 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1763 "<quote>value</quote> (the songs) so there must have been a "
1764 "<quote>right</quote>—even against the Girl Scouts."
1768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1769 #: freeculture.xml:1233
1771 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1772 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1773 "protecting creative property. But the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1774 "theory of creative property has never been America's theory of creative "
1775 "property. It has never taken hold within our law."
1778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1779 #: freeculture.xml:1241 freeculture.xml:1266 freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768
1780 msgid "copyright law"
1783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1784 #: freeculture.xml:1241
1785 msgid "on republishing vs. transformation of original work"
1788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1789 #: freeculture.xml:1242 freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
1793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1794 #: freeculture.xml:1242
1795 msgid "legal restrictions on"
1798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1799 #: freeculture.xml:1244
1801 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1802 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1803 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1804 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1809 #: freeculture.xml:1251
1811 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1812 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1813 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1814 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1815 "copyright law today regulates both."
1818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1819 #: freeculture.xml:1259
1821 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1822 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1823 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1824 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1825 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1829 #: freeculture.xml:1266
1830 msgid "creativity impeded by"
1833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1834 #: freeculture.xml:1267 freeculture.xml:1298
1835 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1839 #: freeculture.xml:1268 freeculture.xml:1299
1840 msgid "Rise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)"
1843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1844 #: freeculture.xml:1290
1846 "In <citetitle>The Rise of the Creative Class</citetitle> (New York: Basic "
1847 "Books, 2002), Richard Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor "
1848 "toward a labor of creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address "
1849 "the legal conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I "
1850 "certainly agree with him about the importance and significance of this "
1851 "change, but I also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are "
1852 "much more tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1853 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1857 #: freeculture.xml:1270
1859 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1860 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1861 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1862 "matter much if copyright law regulated only <quote>copying,</quote> when the "
1863 "law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1864 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1865 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1866 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1867 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1868 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1869 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1870 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1871 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1872 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1873 "writes, the <quote>Rise of the Creative Class.</quote><placeholder "
1874 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an "
1875 "extraordinary rise of regulation of this creative class."
1878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1879 #: freeculture.xml:1306
1881 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1882 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1883 "context the current battles about behavior labeled <quote>piracy.</quote>"
1886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
1887 #: freeculture.xml:1314
1888 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1892 #: freeculture.xml:1315
1893 msgid "animated cartoons"
1896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1897 #: freeculture.xml:1316
1898 msgid "cartoon films"
1901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1902 #: freeculture.xml:1317 freeculture.xml:5834 freeculture.xml:5877
1906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1907 #: freeculture.xml:1317
1911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1912 #: freeculture.xml:1318
1913 msgid "Steamboat Willie"
1916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1917 #: freeculture.xml:1319 freeculture.xml:7141
1918 msgid "Mickey Mouse"
1921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1922 #: freeculture.xml:1321
1924 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">In 1928</emphasis>, a cartoon character was "
1925 "born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut in May of that year, in a silent "
1926 "flop called <citetitle>Plane Crazy</citetitle>. In November, in New York "
1927 "City's Colony Theater, in the first widely distributed cartoon synchronized "
1928 "with sound, <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle> brought to life the "
1929 "character that would become Mickey Mouse."
1932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1933 #: freeculture.xml:1327 freeculture.xml:1544 freeculture.xml:1598 freeculture.xml:1739 freeculture.xml:1985 freeculture.xml:4446 freeculture.xml:6009 freeculture.xml:7140 freeculture.xml:10560 freeculture.xml:10941
1934 msgid "Disney, Walt"
1937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1938 #: freeculture.xml:1329
1940 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1941 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle>. That success led Walt Disney to copy "
1942 "the technique and mix sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work "
1943 "or, if it did work, whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a "
1944 "test in the summer of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney "
1945 "describes that first experiment,"
1949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1950 #: freeculture.xml:1338
1952 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1953 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1954 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1955 "going to see the picture."
1958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1959 #: freeculture.xml:1345
1961 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1962 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1963 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1964 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1969 #: freeculture.xml:1358
1971 "Leonard Maltin, <citetitle>Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated "
1972 "Cartoons</citetitle> (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1976 #: freeculture.xml:1352
1978 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1979 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1980 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1981 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1982 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1986 #: freeculture.xml:1363
1990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1991 #: freeculture.xml:1365
1993 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1994 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: <quote>I have never been so thrilled in my "
1995 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.</quote>"
1998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1999 #: freeculture.xml:1370
2001 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
2002 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
2003 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
2004 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
2005 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
2006 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
2010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2011 #: freeculture.xml:1379 freeculture.xml:1741
2012 msgid "Keaton, Buster"
2015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2016 #: freeculture.xml:1380 freeculture.xml:1611 freeculture.xml:1998
2017 msgid "Steamboat Bill, Jr."
2020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2021 #: freeculture.xml:1382
2023 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
2024 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
2025 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
2026 "Buster Keaton. The film was <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>."
2029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2030 #: freeculture.xml:1388
2032 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
2033 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
2034 "laughter from his audience. <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. was a "
2035 "classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. "
2036 "The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its "
2040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2041 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552
2042 msgid "derivative works"
2045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2046 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552
2050 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
2051 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555 freeculture.xml:3648 freeculture.xml:14703
2055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2056 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555
2057 msgid "derivative work vs."
2061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2062 #: freeculture.xml:1404
2064 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
2065 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
2066 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
2067 "five songs in <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle>: <quote>Steamboat "
2068 "Bill,</quote> <quote>The Simpleton</quote> (Delille), <quote>Mischief "
2069 "Makers</quote> (Carbonara), <quote>Joyful Hurry No. 1</quote> (Baron), and "
2070 "<quote>Gawky Rube</quote> (Lakay). A sixth song, <quote>The Turkey in the "
2071 "Straw,</quote> was already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to "
2072 "Harry Surden, 10 July 2003, on file with author."
2075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2076 #: freeculture.xml:1398
2078 "<citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. appeared before Disney's cartoon "
2079 "Steamboat Willie. The coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat "
2080 "Willie is a direct cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder "
2081 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and both are built upon a common song as a "
2082 "source. It is not just from the invention of synchronized sound in "
2083 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle> that we get <citetitle>Steamboat "
2084 "Willie</citetitle>. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat "
2085 "Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song <quote>Steamboat Bill,</quote> that "
2086 "we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
2089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2090 #: freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
2091 msgid "by transforming previous works"
2094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2095 #: freeculture.xml:1425 freeculture.xml:6050
2096 msgid "Disney, Inc."
2100 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2101 #: freeculture.xml:1431
2103 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, <quote>The Mouse "
2104 "that Ate the Public Domain,</quote> Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
2105 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
2108 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2109 #: freeculture.xml:1427
2111 "This <quote>borrowing</quote> was nothing unique, either for Disney or for "
2112 "the industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream "
2113 "films of his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many "
2114 "others. Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on "
2115 "winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the "
2116 "brilliance of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his "
2117 "animation its spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the "
2118 "production-line cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were "
2119 "built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others "
2120 "before him, creating something new out of something just barely old."
2123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2124 #: freeculture.xml:1445 freeculture.xml:1740 freeculture.xml:10561
2125 msgid "Grimm fairy tales"
2128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2129 #: freeculture.xml:1447
2131 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
2132 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
2133 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
2134 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
2135 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
2136 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
2137 "bedtime or anytime."
2141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2142 #: freeculture.xml:1456
2144 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
2145 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
2146 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
2147 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
2148 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
2149 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
2150 "together: <citetitle>Snow White</citetitle> (1937), "
2151 "<citetitle>Fantasia</citetitle> (1940), <citetitle>Pinocchio</citetitle> "
2152 "(1940), <citetitle>Dumbo</citetitle> (1941), <citetitle>Bambi</citetitle> "
2153 "(1942), <citetitle>Song of the South</citetitle> (1946), "
2154 "<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle> (1950), <citetitle>Alice in "
2155 "Wonderland</citetitle> (1951), <citetitle>Robin Hood</citetitle> (1952), "
2156 "<citetitle>Peter Pan</citetitle> (1953), <citetitle>Lady and the "
2157 "Tramp</citetitle> (1955), <citetitle>Mulan</citetitle> (1998), "
2158 "<citetitle>Sleeping Beauty</citetitle> (1959), <citetitle>101 "
2159 "Dalmatians</citetitle> (1961), <citetitle>The Sword in the Stone</citetitle> "
2160 "(1963), and <citetitle>The Jungle Book</citetitle> (1967)—not to "
2161 "mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, "
2162 "<citetitle>Treasure Planet</citetitle> (2003). In all of these cases, Disney "
2163 "(or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that "
2164 "creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into "
2165 "the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
2168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2169 #: freeculture.xml:1479
2171 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
2172 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
2173 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
2174 "could call this <quote>Disney creativity,</quote> though that would be a bit "
2175 "misleading. It is, more precisely, <quote>Walt Disney "
2176 "creativity</quote>—a form of expression and genius that builds upon "
2177 "the culture around us and makes it something different."
2180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2181 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:10939 freeculture.xml:10940
2185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2186 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:10940
2190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2191 #: freeculture.xml:1491 freeculture.xml:1492 freeculture.xml:12905
2192 msgid "public domain"
2195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2196 #: freeculture.xml:1491
2200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2201 #: freeculture.xml:1492
2202 msgid "traditional term for conversion to"
2206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2207 #: freeculture.xml:1499
2209 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
2210 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the "
2211 "<quote>average</quote> term by determining the weighted average of total "
2212 "registrations for any particular year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if "
2213 "100 copyrights are registered in year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the "
2214 "renewal term is 28 years, then the average term is 32.2 years. For the "
2215 "renewal data and other relevant data, see the Web site associated with this "
2216 "book, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2221 #: freeculture.xml:1493
2223 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
2224 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
2225 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
2226 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
2227 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
2228 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
2229 "work had an <quote>exclusive right</quote> to control certain uses of the "
2230 "work. To use this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission "
2231 "of the copyright owner."
2234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2235 #: freeculture.xml:1516
2237 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
2238 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
2239 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a <quote>lawyer-free zone.</quote> "
2240 "Thus, most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to "
2241 "use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected "
2242 "or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build "
2247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2248 #: freeculture.xml:1527
2250 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
2251 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
2252 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
2253 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
2254 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
2255 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
2256 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
2257 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
2260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2261 #: freeculture.xml:1546
2263 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Of course</emphasis>, Walt Disney had no monopoly "
2264 "on <quote>Walt Disney creativity.</quote> Nor does America. The norm of free "
2265 "culture has, until recently, and except within totalitarian nations, been "
2266 "broadly exploited and quite universal."
2269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2270 #: freeculture.xml:1551 freeculture.xml:1655 freeculture.xml:1769
2271 msgid "comics, Japanese"
2274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2275 #: freeculture.xml:1553 freeculture.xml:1771
2276 msgid "Japanese comics"
2279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2280 #: freeculture.xml:1554 freeculture.xml:1772
2284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2285 #: freeculture.xml:1557
2287 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
2288 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: "
2289 "<citetitle>manga</citetitle>, or comics. The Japanese are fanatics about "
2290 "comics. Some 40 percent of publications are comics, and 30 percent of "
2291 "publication revenue derives from comics. They are everywhere in Japanese "
2292 "society, at every magazine stand, carried by a large proportion of commuters "
2293 "on Japan's extraordinary system of public transportation."
2296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2297 #: freeculture.xml:1566
2299 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
2300 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
2301 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
2302 "that these <quote>graphic novels</quote> tell. For the Japanese, manga cover "
2303 "every aspect of social life. For us, comics are <quote>men in "
2304 "tights.</quote> And anyway, it's not as if the New York subways are filled "
2305 "with readers of Joyce or even Hemingway. People of different cultures "
2306 "distract themselves in different ways, the Japanese in this interestingly "
2310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2311 #: freeculture.xml:1577
2313 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
2314 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
2315 "perspective is quite familiar."
2318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2319 #: freeculture.xml:1582 freeculture.xml:1770
2320 msgid "doujinshi comics"
2324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2325 #: freeculture.xml:1584
2327 "This is the phenomenon of <citetitle>doujinshi</citetitle>. Doujinshi are "
2328 "also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the "
2329 "creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is "
2330 "<emphasis>just</emphasis> a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the "
2331 "art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
2332 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
2333 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
2334 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
2335 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently <quote>different.</quote> But they "
2336 "must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there "
2337 "are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject "
2338 "any copycat comic that is merely a copy."
2341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2342 #: freeculture.xml:1600
2344 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
2345 "huge. More than 33,000 <quote>circles</quote> of creators from across Japan "
2346 "produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese "
2347 "come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, "
2348 "to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
2349 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
2350 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
2351 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
2352 "competition and despite the law."
2355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2356 #: freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768
2360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2361 #: freeculture.xml:1613
2363 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
2364 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
2365 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
2366 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
2367 "<quote>derivative works.</quote> There is no general practice by doujinshi "
2368 "artists of securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the "
2369 "practice is simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt "
2370 "Disney did with <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. Under both "
2371 "Japanese and American law, that <quote>taking</quote> without the permission "
2372 "of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an infringement of the "
2373 "original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work without the original "
2374 "copyright owner's permission."
2377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2378 #: freeculture.xml:1627
2379 msgid "Winick, Judd"
2383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2384 #: freeculture.xml:1639
2386 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, <citetitle>Reinventing "
2387 "Comics</citetitle> (New York: Perennial, 2000)."
2390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2391 #: freeculture.xml:1629
2393 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
2394 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
2395 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, <quote>The "
2396 "early days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
2397 "now. … American comics were born out of copying each other. … "
2398 "That's how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and "
2399 "not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them</quote> and building "
2400 "from them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2404 #: freeculture.xml:1644
2405 msgid "Superman comics"
2408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2409 #: freeculture.xml:1646
2411 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
2412 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
2413 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, <quote>there are these rules "
2414 "and you have to stick to them.</quote> There are things Superman "
2415 "<quote>cannot</quote> do. <quote>As a creator, it's frustrating having to "
2416 "stick to some parameters which are fifty years old.</quote>"
2419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2420 #: freeculture.xml:1656
2421 msgid "Mehra, Salil"
2425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2426 #: freeculture.xml:1666
2428 "See Salil K. Mehra, <quote>Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain "
2429 "Why All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?</quote> "
2430 "<citetitle>Rutgers Law Review</citetitle> 55 (2002): 155, "
2431 "182. <quote>[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that would "
2432 "lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
2433 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
2434 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
2435 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
2439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2440 #: freeculture.xml:1658
2442 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
2443 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
2444 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
2445 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
2446 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
2447 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
2448 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2452 #: freeculture.xml:1680
2454 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
2455 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
2456 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
2457 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
2458 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
2459 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
2460 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this "
2461 "<quote>free taking</quote> by the doujinshi culture?"
2464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2465 #: freeculture.xml:1693
2467 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
2468 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
2469 "a major Japanese law firm. <quote>We don't have enough lawyers,</quote> he "
2470 "told me one afternoon. There <quote>just aren't enough resources to "
2471 "prosecute cases like this.</quote>"
2475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2476 #: freeculture.xml:1700
2478 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
2479 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
2480 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
2481 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
2482 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
2483 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
2484 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
2485 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them?"
2488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2489 #: freeculture.xml:1713
2490 msgid "<emphasis role='strong'>Let's pause</emphasis> for a moment."
2493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2494 #: freeculture.xml:1716
2496 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
2497 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
2498 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
2501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2502 #: freeculture.xml:1726 freeculture.xml:2986 freeculture.xml:4662 freeculture.xml:4887 freeculture.xml:7503 freeculture.xml:8610
2503 msgid "Vaidhyanathan, Siva"
2506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2507 #: freeculture.xml:1726
2509 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The term <citetitle>intellectual "
2510 "property</citetitle> is of relatively recent origin. See Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
2511 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 11 (New York: New York "
2512 "University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>The Future of "
2513 "Ideas</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term "
2514 "accurately describes a set of <quote>property</quote> "
2515 "rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and trade-secret—but the "
2516 "nature of those rights is very different."
2519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2520 #: freeculture.xml:1721
2522 "We live in a world that celebrates <quote>property.</quote> I am one of "
2523 "those celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
2524 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
2525 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2526 "id=\"0\"/> A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a "
2527 "large, diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual "
2531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2532 #: freeculture.xml:1743
2534 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
2535 "value out there that <quote>property</quote> doesn't capture. I don't mean "
2536 "<quote>money can't buy you love,</quote> but rather, value that is plainly "
2537 "part of a process of production, including commercial as well as "
2538 "noncommercial production. If Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils "
2539 "to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd have no hesitation in condemning that taking "
2540 "as wrong— even though trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was "
2541 "nothing wrong, at least under the law of the day, with Disney's taking from "
2542 "Buster Keaton or from the Brothers Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the "
2543 "taking from Keaton because Disney's use would have been considered "
2544 "<quote>fair.</quote> There was nothing wrong with the taking from the Grimms "
2545 "because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
2548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2549 #: freeculture.xml:1757
2550 msgid "derivative works based on"
2554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2555 #: freeculture.xml:1759
2557 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
2558 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
2559 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
2560 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
2563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2564 #: freeculture.xml:1774
2566 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
2567 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
2568 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
2569 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
2570 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
2571 "whether large or small."
2574 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2575 #: freeculture.xml:1783
2577 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
2578 "the copycat comic artists are <quote>stealing.</quote> This form of Walt "
2579 "Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular "
2580 "find it hard to say why."
2583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2584 #: freeculture.xml:1794 freeculture.xml:5047
2585 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
2588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2589 #: freeculture.xml:1796
2591 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
2592 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
2593 "or paying for the privilege. (<quote>Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may "
2594 "I have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were "
2595 "wrong about quantum physics?</quote>) Acting companies perform adaptations "
2596 "of the works of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does "
2597 "<emphasis>anyone</emphasis> believe Shakespeare would be better spread "
2598 "within our culture if there were a central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse "
2599 "that all productions of Shakespeare must appeal to first?) And Hollywood "
2600 "goes through cycles with a certain kind of movie: five asteroid films in the "
2601 "late 1990s; two volcano disaster films in 1997."
2605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2606 #: freeculture.xml:1810
2608 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2609 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2610 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2611 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2612 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2613 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2614 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2615 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2619 #: freeculture.xml:1822
2621 "The hard question is therefore not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> a culture is "
2622 "free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is "
2623 "<quote><emphasis>How</emphasis> free is this culture?</quote> How much, and "
2624 "how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that "
2625 "freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top "
2626 "ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread "
2627 "broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To "
2628 "musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether "
2629 "affiliated with a studio or not?"
2632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2633 #: freeculture.xml:1834
2635 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2636 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2637 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
2641 #: freeculture.xml:1843
2642 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: <quote>Mere Copyists</quote>"
2645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2646 #: freeculture.xml:1844
2647 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2651 #: freeculture.xml:1845 freeculture.xml:6537
2652 msgid "camera technology"
2655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2656 #: freeculture.xml:1846
2660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2661 #: freeculture.xml:1848
2663 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1839</emphasis>, Louis Daguerre invented the "
2664 "first practical technology for producing what we would call "
2665 "<quote>photographs.</quote> Appropriately enough, they were called "
2666 "<quote>daguerreotypes.</quote> The process was complicated and expensive, "
2667 "and the field was thus limited to professionals and a few zealous and "
2668 "wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre Association that "
2669 "helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, by keeping "
2670 "competition down so as to keep prices up.)"
2673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2674 #: freeculture.xml:1857
2675 msgid "Talbot, William"
2678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2679 #: freeculture.xml:1859
2681 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2682 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make <quote>automatic "
2683 "pictures.</quote> William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2684 "<quote>negatives.</quote> But because the negatives were glass, and had to "
2685 "be kept wet, the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the "
2686 "1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of "
2687 "a picture from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it "
2688 "was still not a process within reach of most amateurs."
2691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2692 #: freeculture.xml:1869
2693 msgid "Eastman, George"
2697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2698 #: freeculture.xml:1871
2700 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2701 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2702 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2703 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2704 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2705 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2706 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2707 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2711 #: freeculture.xml:1882
2712 msgid "Kodak cameras"
2715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2716 #: freeculture.xml:1883
2717 msgid "Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)"
2721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2722 #: freeculture.xml:1890
2724 "Reese V. Jenkins, <citetitle>Images and Enterprise</citetitle> (Baltimore: "
2725 "Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 112."
2728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2729 #: freeculture.xml:1885
2731 "Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed rolls of "
2732 "it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was marketed on the basis "
2733 "of its simplicity. <quote>You press the button and we do the "
2734 "rest.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As he described in "
2735 "<citetitle>The Kodak Primer</citetitle>:"
2738 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2739 #: freeculture.xml:1906 freeculture.xml:1932
2743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2744 #: freeculture.xml:1906
2746 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Brian Coe, <citetitle>The Birth "
2747 "of Photography</citetitle> (New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1977), 53."
2750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2751 #: freeculture.xml:1895
2753 "The principle of the Kodak system is the separation of the work that any "
2754 "person whomsoever can do in making a photograph, from the work that only an "
2755 "expert can do. … We furnish anybody, man, woman or child, who has "
2756 "sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an "
2757 "instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the "
2758 "necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of "
2759 "the art. It can be employed without preliminary study, without a darkroom "
2760 "and without chemicals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2765 #: freeculture.xml:1925
2766 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2771 #: freeculture.xml:1929
2772 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2776 #: freeculture.xml:1914
2778 "For $25, anyone could make pictures. The camera came preloaded with film, "
2779 "and when it had been used, the camera was returned to an Eastman factory, "
2780 "where the film was developed. Over time, of course, the cost of the camera "
2781 "and the ease with which it could be used both improved. Roll film thus "
2782 "became the basis for the explosive growth of popular photography. Eastman's "
2783 "camera first went on sale in 1888; one year later, Kodak was printing more "
2784 "than six thousand negatives a day. From 1888 through 1909, while industrial "
2785 "production was rising by 4.7 percent, photographic equipment and material "
2786 "sales increased by 11 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
2787 "Eastman Kodak's sales during the same period experienced an average annual "
2788 "increase of over 17 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2793 #: freeculture.xml:1947
2797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2798 #: freeculture.xml:1936
2800 "The real significance of Eastman's invention, however, was not economic. It "
2801 "was social. Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places "
2802 "they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to "
2803 "record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before. As "
2804 "author Brian Coe notes, <quote>For the first time the snapshot album "
2805 "provided the man on the street with a permanent record of his family and its "
2806 "activities. … For the first time in history there exists an authentic "
2807 "visual record of the appearance and activities of the common man made "
2808 "without [literary] interpretation or bias.</quote><placeholder "
2809 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2813 #: freeculture.xml:1950 freeculture.xml:2052
2817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2818 #: freeculture.xml:1950 freeculture.xml:2052
2819 msgid "in technologies of expression"
2822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2823 #: freeculture.xml:1951 freeculture.xml:2053
2824 msgid "expression, technologies of"
2827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2828 #: freeculture.xml:1951 freeculture.xml:2053
2832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2833 #: freeculture.xml:1953
2835 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2836 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2837 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2838 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2839 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2840 "its <quote>quality</quote>; professionals would discount it as "
2841 "irrelevant. But watch a child study how best to frame a picture and you get "
2842 "a sense of the experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic "
2843 "tools gave ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any "
2844 "tools could have before."
2847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2848 #: freeculture.xml:1966
2852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2853 #: freeculture.xml:1966
2854 msgid "photography exempted from"
2858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2859 #: freeculture.xml:1977
2861 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, <citetitle>Pavesich</citetitle> "
2862 "v. <citetitle>N.E. Life Ins. Co</citetitle>., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); "
2863 "<citetitle>Foster-Milburn Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Chinn</citetitle>, "
2864 "123090 S.W. 364, 366 (Ky. 1909); <citetitle>Corliss</citetitle> "
2865 "v. <citetitle>Walker</citetitle>, 64 F. 280 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1894)."
2868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2869 #: freeculture.xml:1968
2871 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2872 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2873 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2874 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2875 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2876 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2877 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2878 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2883 #: freeculture.xml:1987
2885 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2886 "familiar. The photographer was <quote>taking</quote> something from the "
2887 "person or building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of "
2888 "value. Some even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was "
2889 "not free to take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, "
2890 "too, should these photographers not be free to take images that they thought "
2894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2895 #: freeculture.xml:2010
2896 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2900 #: freeculture.xml:2007
2902 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> "
2903 "<citetitle>Harvard Law Review</citetitle> 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder "
2904 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2908 #: freeculture.xml:2000
2910 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2911 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2912 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2913 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2914 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2915 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2916 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from <citetitle>Steamboat "
2917 "Bill, Jr</citetitle>. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free "
2918 "to capture an image without compensating the source."
2921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2922 #: freeculture.xml:2017 freeculture.xml:9300
2923 msgid "images, ownership of"
2927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2928 #: freeculture.xml:2029
2930 "See Melville B. Nimmer, <quote>The Right of Publicity,</quote> "
2931 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 19 (1954): 203; William "
2932 "L. Prosser, <quote>Privacy,</quote> <citetitle>California Law "
2933 "Review</citetitle> 48 (1960) 398–407; <citetitle>White</citetitle> "
2934 "v. <citetitle>Samsung Electronics America, Inc</citetitle>., 971 F. 2d 1395 "
2935 "(9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2939 #: freeculture.xml:2019
2941 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2942 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2943 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2944 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2945 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2946 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2947 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2948 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2949 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2953 #: freeculture.xml:2036
2957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2958 #: freeculture.xml:2038
2960 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2961 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2962 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2963 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2964 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2965 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2966 "<quote>theft</quote> committed by the photographer. Just as Napster "
2967 "benefited from the copyright infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak "
2968 "would be benefiting from the <quote>image-right</quote> infringement of its "
2969 "photographers. We could imagine the law then requiring that some form of "
2970 "permission be demonstrated before a company developed pictures. We could "
2971 "imagine a system developing to demonstrate that permission."
2975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2976 #: freeculture.xml:2057
2978 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2979 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2980 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2981 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2982 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2983 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2984 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2985 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2986 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2987 "of expression would have been realized."
2990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2991 #: freeculture.xml:2073
2993 "<emphasis role='strong'>If you drive</emphasis> through San Francisco's "
2994 "Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted over with "
2995 "colorful and striking images, and the logo <quote>Just Think!</quote> in "
2996 "place of the name of a school. But there's little that's <quote>just</quote> "
2997 "cerebral in the projects that these busses enable. These buses are filled "
2998 "with technologies that teach kids to tinker with film. Not the film of "
2999 "Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the <quote>film</quote> of "
3000 "digital cameras. Just Think! is a project that enables kids to make films, "
3001 "as a way to understand and critique the filmed culture that they find all "
3002 "around them. Each year, these busses travel to more than thirty schools and "
3003 "enable three hundred to five hundred children to learn something about media "
3004 "by doing something with media. By doing, they think. By tinkering, they "
3009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3010 #: freeculture.xml:2095
3012 "H. Edward Goldberg, <quote>Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and "
3013 "Software You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,</quote> "
3014 "cadalyst, February 2002, available at <ulink "
3015 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #7</ulink>."
3018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3019 #: freeculture.xml:2089
3021 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
3022 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
3023 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, <quote>Five years ago, a good "
3024 "real-time digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get "
3025 "professional quality for $595.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3026 "id=\"0\"/> These buses are filled with technology that would have cost "
3027 "hundreds of thousands just ten years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine "
3028 "not just buses like this, but classrooms across the country where kids are "
3029 "learning more and more of something teachers call <quote>media "
3033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3034 #: freeculture.xml:2105
3035 msgid "Yanofsky, Dave"
3039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3040 #: freeculture.xml:2108
3042 "<quote>Media literacy,</quote> as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of "
3043 "Just Think!, puts it, <quote>is the ability … to understand, analyze, "
3044 "and deconstruct media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the "
3045 "way media works, the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the "
3046 "way people access it.</quote>"
3049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3050 #: freeculture.xml:2115
3052 "This may seem like an odd way to think about <quote>literacy.</quote> For "
3053 "most people, literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway "
3054 "and noticing split infinitives are the things that <quote>literate</quote> "
3055 "people know about."
3058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3059 #: freeculture.xml:2120 freeculture.xml:2621 freeculture.xml:6536 freeculture.xml:7372 freeculture.xml:8444 freeculture.xml:8515
3064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3065 #: freeculture.xml:2126
3067 "Judith Van Evra, <citetitle>Television and Child Development</citetitle> "
3068 "(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990); <quote>Findings on "
3069 "Family and TV Study,</quote> <citetitle>Denver Post</citetitle>, 25 May "
3073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3074 #: freeculture.xml:2122
3076 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
3077 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
3078 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
3079 "important to understand the <quote>grammar</quote> of media. For just as "
3080 "there is a grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for "
3081 "media. And just as kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible "
3082 "prose, kids learn how to write media by constructing lots of (at least at "
3083 "first) terrible media."
3086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3087 #: freeculture.xml:2137
3089 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
3090 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
3091 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
3092 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
3093 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
3094 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
3095 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
3099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3100 #: freeculture.xml:2147
3102 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
3103 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
3104 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
3105 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
3106 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
3107 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
3110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3111 #: freeculture.xml:2154
3112 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
3115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3116 #: freeculture.xml:2168 freeculture.xml:2228 freeculture.xml:2235 freeculture.xml:2684
3117 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
3120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3121 #: freeculture.xml:2169
3122 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
3125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3126 #: freeculture.xml:2166
3128 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
3129 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3135 #: freeculture.xml:2180
3137 "See Scott Steinberg, <quote>Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,</quote> E!online, "
3138 "4 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3139 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #8</ulink>; "
3140 "<quote>Timeline,</quote> 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3141 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
3144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3145 #: freeculture.xml:2156
3147 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
3148 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
3149 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
3150 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about <quote>the "
3151 "placement of objects, color, … rhythm, pacing, and "
3152 "texture.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers "
3153 "open up an interactive space where a story is <quote>played</quote> as well "
3154 "as experienced, that grammar changes. The simple control of narrative is "
3155 "lost, and so other techniques are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had "
3156 "mastered the narrative of science fiction. But when he tried to design a "
3157 "computer game based on one of his works, it was a new craft he had to "
3158 "learn. How to lead people through a game without their feeling they have "
3159 "been led was not obvious, even to a wildly successful author.<placeholder "
3160 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3164 #: freeculture.xml:2187
3165 msgid "computer games"
3168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3169 #: freeculture.xml:2189
3171 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
3172 "<quote>people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t "
3173 "is perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If "
3174 "a filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.</quote> If you know "
3175 "you were led through a film, the film has failed."
3178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3179 #: freeculture.xml:2196
3181 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
3182 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
3183 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
3184 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
3187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3188 #: freeculture.xml:2203
3190 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
3191 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
3192 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
3193 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
3196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3197 #: freeculture.xml:2211
3199 "<quote>Read-only.</quote> Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. "
3200 "Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth "
3204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3205 #: freeculture.xml:2227
3206 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3211 #: freeculture.xml:2232 freeculture.xml:4012 freeculture.xml:5079 freeculture.xml:8333
3215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3216 #: freeculture.xml:2216
3218 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
3219 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
3220 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
3221 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
3222 "literacy in particular, is to <quote>empower people to choose the "
3223 "appropriate language for what they need to create or "
3224 "express.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable "
3225 "students <quote>to communicate in the language of the twenty-first "
3226 "century.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3230 #: freeculture.xml:2237
3232 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
3233 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
3234 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
3235 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
3236 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
3237 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
3238 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
3239 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
3240 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
3243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3244 #: freeculture.xml:2249
3246 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
3247 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
3248 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The "
3249 "<quote>kids were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,</quote> "
3250 "said Barish. They were working harder than in any other class to do what "
3251 "education should be about—learning how to express themselves."
3254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3255 #: freeculture.xml:2257
3257 "Using whatever <quote>free web stuff they could find,</quote> and relatively "
3258 "simple tools to enable the kids to mix <quote>image, sound, and "
3259 "text,</quote> Barish said this class produced a series of projects that "
3260 "showed something about gun violence that few would otherwise "
3261 "understand. This was an issue close to the lives of these students. The "
3262 "project <quote>gave them a tool and empowered them to be able to both "
3263 "understand it and talk about it,</quote> Barish explained. That tool "
3264 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
3265 "than could have been created using only text. <quote>If you had said to "
3266 "these students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their "
3267 "hands up and gone and done something else,</quote> Barish described, in "
3268 "part, no doubt, because expressing themselves in text is not something these "
3269 "students can do well. Yet neither is text a form in which "
3270 "<emphasis>these</emphasis> ideas can be expressed well. The power of this "
3271 "message depended upon its connection to this form of expression."
3275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3276 #: freeculture.xml:2276
3278 "<quote>But isn't education about teaching kids to write?</quote> I asked. In "
3279 "part, of course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, "
3280 "Daley explained, is about giving students a way of <quote>constructing "
3281 "meaning.</quote> To say that that means just writing is like saying teaching "
3282 "writing is only about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and "
3283 "increasingly, not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As "
3284 "Daley explained in the most moving part of our interview,"
3287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3288 #: freeculture.xml:2287
3290 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
3291 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
3292 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
3293 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
3294 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
3295 "comes to school and you say, <quote>Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you "
3296 "can do matters.</quote> Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss "
3297 "you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to "
3298 "dismiss you. [But i]nstead, if you say, <quote>Well, with all these things "
3299 "that you can do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you "
3300 "think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw "
3301 "for me something that reflects that.</quote> Not by giving a kid a video "
3302 "camera and … saying, <quote>Let's go have fun with the video camera "
3303 "and make a little movie.</quote> But instead, really help you take these "
3304 "elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning "
3305 "about the topic.…"
3308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3309 #: freeculture.xml:2306
3311 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
3312 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, "
3313 "<quote>I need to explain this and I really need to write something.</quote> "
3314 "And as one of the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, "
3315 "6, 7, 8 times, till they got it right."
3319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3320 #: freeculture.xml:2313
3322 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
3323 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
3324 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
3325 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language."
3328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3329 #: freeculture.xml:2323
3330 msgid "World Trade Center"
3333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3334 #: freeculture.xml:2325
3336 "<emphasis role='strong'>When two planes</emphasis> crashed into the World "
3337 "Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania "
3338 "field, all media around the world shifted to this news. Every moment of just "
3339 "about every day for that week, and for weeks after, television in "
3340 "particular, and media generally, retold the story of the events we had just "
3341 "witnessed. The telling was a retelling, because we had seen the events that "
3342 "were described. The genius of this awful act of terrorism was that the "
3343 "delayed second attack was perfectly timed to assure that the whole world "
3344 "would be watching."
3347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3348 #: freeculture.xml:2337
3350 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
3351 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
3352 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was <quote>balance,</quote> "
3353 "and seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
3354 "come to expect it, <quote>news as entertainment,</quote> even if the "
3355 "entertainment is tragedy."
3358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3359 #: freeculture.xml:2344 freeculture.xml:8272 freeculture.xml:8509
3363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3364 #: freeculture.xml:2345
3368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3369 #: freeculture.xml:2347
3371 "But in addition to this produced news about the <quote>tragedy of September "
3372 "11,</quote> those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different "
3373 "production as well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same "
3374 "events. Yet these Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people "
3375 "constructed photo pages that captured images from around the world and "
3376 "presented them as slide shows with text. Some offered open letters. There "
3377 "were sound recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts "
3378 "to provide context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn "
3379 "raising, in the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book <citetitle>Cyber "
3380 "Rights</citetitle>, around a news event that had captured the attention of "
3381 "the world. There was ABC and CBS, but there was also the Internet."
3385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3386 #: freeculture.xml:2361
3388 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
3389 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
3390 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
3391 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
3392 "on the <quote>Just Think!</quote> bus, the visual images could be mixed with "
3396 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3397 #: freeculture.xml:2371
3399 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
3400 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
3401 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
3402 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
3403 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
3404 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
3405 "practically instantaneously."
3408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3409 #: freeculture.xml:2380
3411 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
3412 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
3413 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
3414 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
3415 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
3416 "public way—it's a kind of electronic <citetitle>Jerry "
3417 "Springer</citetitle>, available anywhere in the world."
3420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3421 #: freeculture.xml:2388 freeculture.xml:2461 freeculture.xml:2584
3422 msgid "blogs (Web-logs)"
3425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3426 #: freeculture.xml:2390
3428 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
3429 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
3430 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
3431 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
3432 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
3433 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
3434 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
3435 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
3436 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
3437 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
3438 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
3442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3443 #: freeculture.xml:2404
3445 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
3446 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
3447 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
3448 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
3449 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
3450 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
3451 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
3454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3455 #: freeculture.xml:2414
3456 msgid "Tocqueville, Alexis de"
3459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3460 #: freeculture.xml:2415
3465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3466 #: freeculture.xml:2432
3468 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, <citetitle>Democracy in "
3469 "America</citetitle>, bk. 1, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, "
3473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3474 #: freeculture.xml:2417
3476 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
3477 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
3478 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
3479 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
3480 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
3481 "early <quote>Democracy in America.</quote> It wasn't popular elections that "
3482 "fascinated him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary "
3483 "people the right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most "
3484 "fascinating for him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome "
3485 "they would impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the "
3486 "<quote>right</quote> result; they tried to persuade each other of the "
3487 "<quote>right</quote> result, and in criminal cases at least, they had to "
3488 "agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come to an end.<placeholder "
3489 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3494 #: freeculture.xml:2441
3496 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, <quote>Deliberation Day,</quote> "
3497 "<citetitle>Journal of Political Philosophy</citetitle> 10 (2) (2002): 129."
3500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3501 #: freeculture.xml:2437
3503 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
3504 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
3505 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3506 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
3507 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
3508 "for <quote>democratic deliberation</quote> to occur."
3512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3513 #: freeculture.xml:2456
3515 "Cass Sunstein, <citetitle>Republic.com</citetitle> (Princeton: Princeton "
3516 "University Press, 2001), 65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
3519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3520 #: freeculture.xml:2449
3522 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
3523 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
3524 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
3525 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
3526 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
3527 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
3528 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
3531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3532 #: freeculture.xml:2462
3537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3538 #: freeculture.xml:2464
3540 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
3541 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
3542 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
3543 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
3544 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
3545 "needing to gather in a single public place."
3548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3549 #: freeculture.xml:2475
3551 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
3552 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
3553 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
3554 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
3555 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
3556 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
3559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3560 #: freeculture.xml:2482
3561 msgid "Dean, Howard"
3564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3565 #: freeculture.xml:2484
3567 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
3568 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
3569 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
3573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3574 #: freeculture.xml:2489
3578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3579 #: freeculture.xml:2490
3580 msgid "Thurmond, Strom"
3584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3585 #: freeculture.xml:2503
3587 "Noah Shachtman, <quote>With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the "
3588 "Pot,</quote> New York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
3591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3592 #: freeculture.xml:2492
3594 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
3595 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
3596 "<quote>misspoke</quote> at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially "
3597 "praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that "
3598 "this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight "
3599 "hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The "
3600 "bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of "
3601 "the same <quote>misspeaking</quote> emerged. Finally, the story broke back "
3602 "into the mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate "
3603 "majority leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3607 #: freeculture.xml:2508
3609 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
3610 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
3611 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
3612 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
3615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3616 #: freeculture.xml:2515
3618 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
3619 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
3620 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
3621 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
3622 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
3623 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
3626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3627 #: freeculture.xml:2523
3632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3633 #: freeculture.xml:2525
3635 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
3636 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
3637 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
3638 "absence of a financial <quote>conflict of interest.</quote> <quote>I think "
3639 "you have to take the conflict of interest</quote> out of journalism, Winer "
3640 "told me. <quote>An amateur journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of "
3641 "interest, or the conflict of interest is so easily disclosed that you know "
3642 "you can sort of get it out of the way.</quote>"
3645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3646 #: freeculture.xml:2535 freeculture.xml:2581
3650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3651 #: freeculture.xml:2536 freeculture.xml:2582 freeculture.xml:5728
3656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3657 #: freeculture.xml:2544
3658 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
3661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3662 #: freeculture.xml:2538
3664 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
3665 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
3666 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
3667 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
3668 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
3669 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
3670 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
3671 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
3672 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
3673 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
3674 "warranted, they told her that <emphasis>they</emphasis> were writing "
3675 "<quote>the story.</quote>)"
3679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3680 #: freeculture.xml:2562
3682 "John Schwartz, <quote>Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of "
3683 "Information Online,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 2 "
3684 "February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, <quote>Shuttle Disaster Coverage Mixed, "
3685 "but Strong Overall,</quote> Online Journalism Review, 2 February 2003, "
3686 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
3689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3690 #: freeculture.xml:2554
3692 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the "
3693 "debate—<quote>amateur</quote> not in the sense of inexperienced, but "
3694 "in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning not paid by anyone to give their "
3695 "reports. It allows for a much broader range of input into a story, as "
3696 "reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when hundreds from across the "
3697 "southwest United States turned to the Internet to retell what they had "
3698 "seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it drives readers to read "
3699 "across the range of accounts and <quote>triangulate,</quote> as Winer puts "
3700 "it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are <quote>communicating directly with our "
3701 "constituency, and the middle man is out of it</quote>—with all the "
3702 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
3705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3706 #: freeculture.xml:2583
3707 msgid "Olafson, Steve"
3710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3711 #: freeculture.xml:2581
3713 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3714 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
3715 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> See Michael Falcone, <quote>Does an Editor's "
3716 "Pencil Ruin a Web Log?</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 29 "
3717 "September 2003, C4. (<quote>Not all news organizations have been as "
3718 "accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq "
3719 "who started a blog about his reporting of the war on March 9, stopped "
3720 "posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year Steve Olafson, a "
3721 "<citetitle>Houston Chronicle</citetitle> reporter, was fired for keeping a "
3722 "personal Web log, published under a pseudonym, that dealt with some of the "
3723 "issues and people he was covering.</quote>)"
3727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3728 #: freeculture.xml:2574
3730 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
3731 "blogs. <quote>It's going to become an essential skill,</quote> Winer "
3732 "predicts, for public figures and increasingly for private figures as "
3733 "well. It's not clear that <quote>journalism</quote> is happy about "
3734 "this—some journalists have been told to curtail their "
3735 "blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is clear that we "
3736 "are still in transition. <quote>A lot of what we are doing now is warm-up "
3737 "exercises,</quote> Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature before "
3738 "this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in this "
3739 "space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing on "
3740 "copyright), Winer said, <quote>we will be the last thing that gets shut "
3744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3745 #: freeculture.xml:2604
3747 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because <quote>you "
3748 "don't have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.</quote> "
3749 "That is true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and "
3750 "more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will "
3751 "change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
3752 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
3753 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
3754 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
3755 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
3756 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
3757 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
3758 "something extraordinary to report."
3761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3762 #: freeculture.xml:2620
3763 msgid "Brown, John Seely"
3766 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3767 #: freeculture.xml:2623
3769 "<emphasis role='strong'>John Seely Brown</emphasis> is the chief scientist "
3770 "of the Xerox Corporation. His work, as his Web site describes it, is "
3771 "<quote>human learning and … the creation of knowledge ecologies for "
3772 "creating … innovation.</quote>"
3775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3776 #: freeculture.xml:2629
3778 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3779 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3780 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3781 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3786 #: freeculture.xml:2636
3788 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When <quote>a lot of us grew "
3789 "up,</quote> he explains, that tinkering was done <quote>on motorcycle "
3790 "engines, lawnmower engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.</quote> But "
3791 "digital technologies enable a different kind of tinkering—with "
3792 "abstract ideas though in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only "
3793 "think about how a commercial portrays a politician; using digital "
3794 "technology, they can take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker "
3795 "with it to see how it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind "
3796 "of bricolage, or <quote>free collage,</quote> as Brown calls it. Many get to "
3797 "add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3801 #: freeculture.xml:2649
3803 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3804 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3805 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3806 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3807 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3811 #: freeculture.xml:2656
3813 "This opportunity creates a <quote>completely new kind of learning "
3814 "platform,</quote> as Brown describes. <quote>As soon as you start doing "
3815 "that, you … unleash a free collage on the community, so that other "
3816 "people can start looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, "
3817 "seeing if they can improve it.</quote> Each effort is a kind of "
3818 "apprenticeship. <quote>Open source becomes a major apprenticeship "
3822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3823 #: freeculture.xml:2664
3825 "In this process, <quote>the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. "
3826 "They are code.</quote> Kids are <quote>shifting to the ability to tinker in "
3827 "the abstract, and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that "
3828 "you're doing in your garage. You are tinkering with a community "
3829 "platform. … You are tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you "
3830 "tinker the more you improve.</quote> The more you improve, the more you "
3834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3835 #: freeculture.xml:2673
3837 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3838 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3839 "<quote>the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3840 "intelligence.</quote> Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3841 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3842 "text. <quote>The Web … says if you are musical, if you are artistic, "
3843 "if you are visual, if you are interested in film … [then] there is a "
3844 "lot you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3845 "multiple forms of intelligence.</quote>"
3849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3850 #: freeculture.xml:2686
3852 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3853 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3854 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3859 #: freeculture.xml:2694
3861 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3862 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3863 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3864 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3865 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3866 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3867 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3871 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3872 #: freeculture.xml:2710
3874 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, <quote>Technological "
3875 "Access Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,</quote> "
3876 "<citetitle>Communications of the Association for Computer "
3877 "Machinery</citetitle> 43 (2000): 9."
3880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3881 #: freeculture.xml:2703
3883 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3884 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter <xref "
3885 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>) has developed a "
3886 "powerful argument in favor of the <quote>right to tinker</quote> as it "
3887 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3888 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3889 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3890 "because of the law."
3893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3894 #: freeculture.xml:2718
3896 "<quote>This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,</quote> "
3897 "Brown explains. We need to <quote>understand how kids who grow up digital "
3898 "think and want to learn.</quote>"
3901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3902 #: freeculture.xml:2723
3904 "<quote>Yet,</quote> as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will "
3905 "evince, <quote>we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the "
3906 "natural tendencies of today's digital kids. … We're building an "
3907 "architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system "
3908 "that closes down that part of the brain.</quote>"
3911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3912 #: freeculture.xml:2731
3914 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3915 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3916 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3921 #: freeculture.xml:2737
3923 "<quote>No way to run a culture,</quote> as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet "
3924 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>, "
3925 "quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3929 #: freeculture.xml:2744
3930 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3934 #: freeculture.xml:2745
3938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3939 #: freeculture.xml:2745 freeculture.xml:2746
3940 msgid "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)"
3943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3944 #: freeculture.xml:2748
3946 "<emphasis role='strong'>In the fall</emphasis> of 2002, Jesse Jordan of "
3947 "Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic "
3948 "Institute, in Troy, New York. His major at RPI was information "
3949 "technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October Jesse decided to begin "
3950 "to tinker with search engine technology that was available on the RPI "
3954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3955 #: freeculture.xml:2756
3957 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
3958 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
3959 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
3960 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
3961 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
3962 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
3965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3966 #: freeculture.xml:2764
3968 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
3969 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
3970 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
3971 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
3972 "access to other members of the RPI community."
3976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3977 #: freeculture.xml:2771
3979 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
3980 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
3981 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
3982 "idea of <quote>intranet</quote> search engines, search engines that search "
3983 "within the network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that "
3984 "institution with better access to material from that institution. "
3985 "Businesses do this all the time, enabling employees to have access to "
3986 "material that people outside the business can't get. Universities do it as "
3990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3991 #: freeculture.xml:2783
3993 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
3994 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
3995 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
3996 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
3997 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
3998 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
4001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4002 #: freeculture.xml:2792
4004 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
4005 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
4006 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
4007 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
4008 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
4009 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
4010 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
4011 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
4012 "file was still on-line."
4015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4016 #: freeculture.xml:2804
4018 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
4019 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
4020 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
4021 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
4026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4027 #: freeculture.xml:2811
4029 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
4030 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
4031 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
4032 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
4033 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
4036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4037 #: freeculture.xml:2820
4039 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
4040 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
4041 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
4042 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
4043 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
4044 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
4045 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
4046 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
4047 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
4048 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
4049 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
4053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4054 #: freeculture.xml:2835
4056 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
4057 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
4058 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
4059 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
4060 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
4061 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
4064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4065 #: freeculture.xml:2844
4067 "<quote>It was absurd,</quote> he told me. <quote>I don't think I did "
4068 "anything wrong. … I don't think there's anything wrong with the "
4069 "search engine that I ran or … what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't "
4070 "modified it in any way that promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just "
4071 "modified the search engine in a way that would make it easier to "
4072 "use</quote>—again, a <emphasis>search engine</emphasis>, which Jesse "
4073 "had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, which Jesse had "
4074 "not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to get access to "
4075 "content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and the vast "
4076 "majority of which had nothing to do with music."
4079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4080 #: freeculture.xml:2856
4081 msgid "statutory damages"
4085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4086 #: freeculture.xml:2858
4088 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
4089 "had therefore <quote>willfully</quote> violated copyright laws. They "
4090 "demanded that he pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of "
4091 "<quote>willful infringement,</quote> the Copyright Act specifies something "
4092 "lawyers call <quote>statutory damages.</quote> These damages permit a "
4093 "copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement. As the RIAA alleged more "
4094 "than one hundred specific copyright infringements, they therefore demanded "
4095 "that Jesse pay them at least $15,000,000."
4098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4099 #: freeculture.xml:2868
4100 msgid "Princeton University"
4103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4104 #: freeculture.xml:2869
4105 msgid "Michigan Technical University"
4109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4110 #: freeculture.xml:2883
4112 "Tim Goral, <quote>Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
4113 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,</quote> <citetitle>Professional Media "
4114 "Group LCC</citetitle> 6 (2003): 5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
4117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4118 #: freeculture.xml:2871
4120 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
4121 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
4122 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
4123 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
4124 "demands for <quote>damages</quote> that the RIAA claimed it was entitled "
4125 "to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in "
4126 "the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 "
4127 "<emphasis>billion</emphasis>—six times the <emphasis>total</emphasis> "
4128 "profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4133 #: freeculture.xml:2890
4135 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
4136 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
4137 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
4138 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
4141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4142 #: freeculture.xml:2896
4143 msgid "Oppenheimer, Matt"
4146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4147 #: freeculture.xml:2898
4149 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
4150 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
4151 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
4152 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
4153 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
4154 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, <quote>You don't want to "
4155 "pay another visit to a dentist like me.</quote>) And throughout, the RIAA "
4156 "insisted it would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had "
4161 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4162 #: freeculture.xml:2909
4164 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
4165 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
4166 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
4167 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
4168 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
4169 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
4173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4174 #: freeculture.xml:2919
4176 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
4177 "$12,000 and a settlement."
4180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4181 #: freeculture.xml:2922 freeculture.xml:3278 freeculture.xml:4213 freeculture.xml:5329 freeculture.xml:5378 freeculture.xml:9765 freeculture.xml:9863 freeculture.xml:10032 freeculture.xml:14602 freeculture.xml:14667
4185 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
4186 #: freeculture.xml:2922 freeculture.xml:3278 freeculture.xml:4213 freeculture.xml:9765 freeculture.xml:9863 freeculture.xml:10032 freeculture.xml:14602 freeculture.xml:14667
4187 msgid "recording industry payments to"
4191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4192 #: freeculture.xml:2932
4194 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
4195 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
4196 "the Arts, <citetitle>More Than One in a Blue Moon</citetitle> (2000)."
4200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4201 #: freeculture.xml:2940
4203 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in <quote>KaZaA and "
4204 "Punishment,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 10 September "
4208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4209 #: freeculture.xml:2924
4211 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
4212 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
4213 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
4214 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
4215 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
4216 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
4217 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
4218 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
4219 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4223 #: freeculture.xml:2945
4225 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
4226 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
4227 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
4230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
4231 #: freeculture.xml:2952
4233 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
4234 "activist. … [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
4235 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
4239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4240 #: freeculture.xml:2959
4242 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
4243 "father told me, Jesse <quote>considers himself very conservative, and so do "
4244 "I. … He's not a tree hugger. … I think it's bizarre that they "
4245 "would pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the "
4246 "wrong message. And he wants to correct the record.</quote>"
4249 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4250 #: freeculture.xml:2968
4251 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: <quote>Pirates</quote>"
4254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4255 #: freeculture.xml:2971
4257 "<emphasis role='strong'>If <quote>piracy</quote> means</emphasis> using the "
4258 "creative property of others without their permission—if <quote>if "
4259 "value, then right</quote> is true—then the history of the content "
4260 "industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of <quote>big "
4261 "media</quote> today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
4262 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
4263 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
4266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4267 #: freeculture.xml:2982
4271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4272 #: freeculture.xml:2986
4274 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> I am grateful to Peter DiMauro "
4275 "for pointing me to this extraordinary history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
4276 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 87–93, which details "
4277 "Edison's <quote>adventures</quote> with copyright and patent."
4281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4282 #: freeculture.xml:2984
4284 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
4285 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
4286 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
4287 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
4288 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "
4289 "<quote>trust,</quote> the Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on "
4290 "Thomas Edison's creative property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to "
4291 "exercise the rights this creative property gave him, and the MPPC was "
4292 "serious about the control it demanded."
4295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4296 #: freeculture.xml:3002
4297 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
4300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4301 #: freeculture.xml:3006
4303 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
4304 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
4305 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
4306 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
4307 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
4308 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
4311 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4312 #: freeculture.xml:3014
4313 msgid "Fox, William"
4316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4317 #: freeculture.xml:3015
4318 msgid "General Film Company"
4321 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4322 #: freeculture.xml:3016 freeculture.xml:3296 freeculture.xml:4428 freeculture.xml:9905
4323 msgid "Picker, Randal C."
4326 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4327 #: freeculture.xml:3040 freeculture.xml:4427 freeculture.xml:9639 freeculture.xml:9760
4328 msgid "broadcast flag"
4331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4332 #: freeculture.xml:3029
4334 "J. A. Aberdeen, <citetitle>Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent "
4335 "Motion Picture Producers</citetitle> (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and "
4336 "expanded texts posted at <quote>The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion "
4337 "Picture Patents Company vs. the Independent Outlaws,</quote> available at "
4338 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a "
4339 "discussion of the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits "
4340 "imposed by Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison "
4341 "to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the "
4342 "Propertization of Copyright</quote> (September 2002), University of Chicago "
4343 "Law School, James M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper "
4344 "No. 159. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4348 #: freeculture.xml:3018
4350 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
4351 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
4352 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
4353 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
4354 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
4355 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
4356 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
4357 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
4358 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
4359 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4364 #: freeculture.xml:3051
4366 "Marc Wanamaker, <quote>The First Studios,</quote> <citetitle>The Silents "
4367 "Majority</citetitle>, archived at <ulink "
4368 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
4371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4372 #: freeculture.xml:3045
4374 "The Napsters of those days, the <quote>independents,</quote> were companies "
4375 "like Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously "
4376 "resisted. <quote>Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and "
4377 "`accidents' resulting in loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and "
4378 "sometimes life and limb frequently occurred.</quote><placeholder "
4379 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the independents to flee the East "
4380 "Coast. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers "
4381 "there could pirate his inventions without fear of the law. And the leaders "
4382 "of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most prominently, did just that."
4386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4387 #: freeculture.xml:3061
4389 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
4390 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
4391 "truly <quote>limited</quote> monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), "
4392 "by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new "
4393 "industry had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative "
4397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4398 #: freeculture.xml:3072
4399 msgid "Recorded Music"
4402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4403 #: freeculture.xml:3074
4405 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
4406 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
4409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4410 #: freeculture.xml:3077
4411 msgid "Fourneaux, Henri"
4414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4415 #: freeculture.xml:3078
4416 msgid "Russel, Phil"
4419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4420 #: freeculture.xml:3080
4422 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
4423 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
4424 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
4425 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
4426 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit <quote>Happy "
4427 "Mose,</quote> the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy "
4428 "of the musical score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform "
4432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4433 #: freeculture.xml:3089 freeculture.xml:3240
4437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4438 #: freeculture.xml:3091
4440 "But what if I wanted to record <quote>Happy Mose,</quote> using Edison's "
4441 "phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear "
4442 "enough that I would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I "
4443 "performed in making this recording. And it was clear enough that I would "
4444 "have to pay for any public performance of the work I was recording. But it "
4445 "wasn't totally clear that I would have to pay for a <quote>public "
4446 "performance</quote> if I recorded the song in my own house (even today, you "
4447 "don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing their songs in the shower), or if "
4448 "I recorded the song from memory (copies in your brain are "
4449 "not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I simply sang the "
4450 "song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, it wasn't clear "
4451 "that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it wasn't clear "
4452 "whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those "
4453 "recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
4454 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
4457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4458 #: freeculture.xml:3114 freeculture.xml:3131
4459 msgid "Kittredge, Alfred"
4462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4463 #: freeculture.xml:3110
4465 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
4466 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it, <placeholder "
4467 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4471 #: freeculture.xml:3125
4473 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
4474 "and H.R. 19853 Before the ( Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
4475 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
4476 "chairman), reprinted in <citetitle>Legislative History of the Copyright "
4477 "Act</citetitle>, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South "
4478 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4483 #: freeculture.xml:3118
4485 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
4486 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
4487 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
4488 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
4489 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4494 #: freeculture.xml:3135
4495 msgid "Sousa, John Philip"
4499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4500 #: freeculture.xml:3141
4502 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
4503 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4508 #: freeculture.xml:3147
4510 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
4511 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4516 #: freeculture.xml:3154
4518 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
4519 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
4522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4523 #: freeculture.xml:3137
4525 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
4526 "were <quote>sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of "
4527 "American composers,</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the "
4528 "<quote>music publishing industry</quote> was thereby <quote>at the complete "
4529 "mercy of this one pirate.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4530 "As John Philip Sousa put it, in as direct a way as possible, <quote>When "
4531 "they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it.</quote><placeholder "
4532 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4536 #: freeculture.xml:3158
4537 msgid "American Graphophone Company"
4540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4541 #: freeculture.xml:3159
4542 msgid "player pianos"
4546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4547 #: freeculture.xml:3170
4549 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
4550 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
4551 "Company of New York)."
4555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4556 #: freeculture.xml:3181
4558 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
4559 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
4560 "Graphophone Company Association)."
4563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4564 #: freeculture.xml:3162
4566 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
4567 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
4568 "argued that <quote>it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
4569 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
4570 "before their introduction.</quote> Rather, the machines increased the sales "
4571 "of sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
4572 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was <quote>to consider first the "
4573 "interest of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they "
4574 "are.</quote> <quote>All talk about `theft,'</quote> the general counsel of "
4575 "the American Graphophone Company wrote, <quote>is the merest claptrap, for "
4576 "there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as "
4577 "defined by statute.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4582 #: freeculture.xml:3187
4584 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer "
4585 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> the recording artist. Congress amended the law to "
4586 "make sure that composers would be paid for the <quote>mechanical "
4587 "reproductions</quote> of their music. But rather than simply granting the "
4588 "composer complete control over the right to make mechanical reproductions, "
4589 "Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set "
4590 "by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the "
4591 "part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer "
4592 "authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, "
4593 "so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law."
4596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4597 #: freeculture.xml:3202
4599 "American law ordinarily calls this a <quote>compulsory license,</quote> but "
4600 "I will refer to it as a <quote>statutory license.</quote> A statutory "
4601 "license is a license whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's "
4602 "amendment of the Copyright Act in 1909, record companies were free to "
4603 "distribute copies of recordings so long as they paid the composer (or "
4604 "copyright holder) the fee set by the statute."
4607 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4608 #: freeculture.xml:3217 freeculture.xml:14298
4609 msgid "Grisham, John"
4612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4613 #: freeculture.xml:3210
4615 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
4616 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
4617 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
4618 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
4619 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
4620 "work except with permission of Grisham. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4626 #: freeculture.xml:3234
4628 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
4629 "H.R. 11794 Before the ( Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
4630 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
4631 "<citetitle>Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act</citetitle>, "
4632 "E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman "
4636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4637 #: freeculture.xml:3220
4639 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
4640 "effect, the law <emphasis>subsidizes</emphasis> the recording industry "
4641 "through a kind of piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right "
4642 "than it otherwise gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over "
4643 "their creative work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less "
4644 "control are the recording industry and the public. The recording industry "
4645 "gets something of value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public "
4646 "gets access to a much wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress "
4647 "was quite explicit about its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was "
4648 "the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle "
4649 "follow-on creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4650 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4654 #: freeculture.xml:3243
4656 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
4657 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
4658 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
4662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4663 #: freeculture.xml:3265
4665 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
4666 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
4667 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
4670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4671 #: freeculture.xml:3250
4673 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
4674 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
4675 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
4676 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
4677 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
4678 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
4679 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
4680 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
4681 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
4682 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
4683 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
4684 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4688 #: freeculture.xml:3272
4690 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
4691 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
4694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4695 #: freeculture.xml:3277 freeculture.xml:4392
4699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4700 #: freeculture.xml:3280
4701 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
4704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4705 #: freeculture.xml:3295
4706 msgid "Hand, Learned"
4709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4710 #: freeculture.xml:3286
4712 "See 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, sections 106 and 110. At "
4713 "the beginning, record companies printed <quote>Not Licensed for Radio "
4714 "Broadcast</quote> and other messages purporting to restrict the ability to "
4715 "play a record on a radio station. Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument "
4716 "that a warning attached to a record might restrict the rights of the radio "
4717 "station. See <citetitle>RCA Manufacturing "
4718 "Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Whiteman</citetitle>, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd "
4719 "Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison to the Broadcast "
4720 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
4721 "Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> "
4722 "70 (2003): 281. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4723 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4727 #: freeculture.xml:3283
4729 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a "
4730 "<quote>public performance</quote> of the composer's work.<placeholder "
4731 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the "
4732 "composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of "
4733 "his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money for that "
4737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4738 #: freeculture.xml:3313 freeculture.xml:8974 freeculture.xml:9433 freeculture.xml:12427
4739 msgid "Lovett, Lyle"
4743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4744 #: freeculture.xml:3303
4746 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
4747 "of the <emphasis>composer's</emphasis> work. The radio station is also "
4748 "performing a copy of the <emphasis>recording artist's</emphasis> work. It's "
4749 "one thing to have <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> sung on the radio by the "
4750 "local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung by the Rolling "
4751 "Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the "
4752 "composition performed on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly "
4753 "consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording artist for his "
4754 "work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work. <placeholder "
4755 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4759 #: freeculture.xml:3318
4761 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
4762 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
4763 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
4764 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
4765 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
4768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4769 #: freeculture.xml:3325 freeculture.xml:3830 freeculture.xml:6291
4773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4774 #: freeculture.xml:3327
4776 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
4777 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
4778 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
4779 "she has to get your permission."
4782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4783 #: freeculture.xml:3333
4785 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
4786 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
4787 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
4788 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
4789 "public performance of her recording is not a <quote>protected</quote> "
4790 "right. The radio station thus gets to <emphasis>pirate</emphasis> the value "
4791 "of Madonna's work without paying her anything."
4794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4795 #: freeculture.xml:3344
4797 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
4798 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
4799 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
4800 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
4801 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
4805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4806 #: freeculture.xml:3354 freeculture.xml:4398
4810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4811 #: freeculture.xml:3355 freeculture.xml:4226 freeculture.xml:8169 freeculture.xml:8208 freeculture.xml:14700
4812 msgid "cable television"
4815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4816 #: freeculture.xml:3357
4817 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
4821 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4822 #: freeculture.xml:3360
4824 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
4825 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
4826 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
4827 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
4828 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
4829 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
4830 "the content it enabled others to give away."
4833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4834 #: freeculture.xml:3370
4835 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
4838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4839 #: freeculture.xml:3371
4840 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
4843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4844 #: freeculture.xml:3372 freeculture.xml:3383
4845 msgid "Hyde, Rosel H."
4848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4849 #: freeculture.xml:3378
4851 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
4852 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
4853 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
4854 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission). <placeholder "
4855 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4860 #: freeculture.xml:3390
4862 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
4863 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
4866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4867 #: freeculture.xml:3374
4869 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
4870 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of <quote>unfair "
4871 "and potentially destructive competition.</quote><placeholder "
4872 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There may have been a <quote>public "
4873 "interest</quote> in spreading the reach of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, "
4874 "general counsel to the National Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator "
4875 "Quentin Burdick during testimony, <quote>Does public interest dictate that "
4876 "you use somebody else's property?</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4877 "id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster put it,"
4881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4882 #: freeculture.xml:3401
4884 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
4885 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
4888 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4889 #: freeculture.xml:3397
4891 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
4892 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
4893 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4897 #: freeculture.xml:3407
4898 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
4902 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4903 #: freeculture.xml:3416
4905 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
4906 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
4907 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
4910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4911 #: freeculture.xml:3411
4913 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
4914 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
4915 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
4916 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4920 #: freeculture.xml:3422 freeculture.xml:3430
4921 msgid "Heston, Charlton"
4924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4925 #: freeculture.xml:3428
4927 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
4928 "president of the Screen Actors Guild). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4933 #: freeculture.xml:3424
4935 "These were <quote>free-ride[rs],</quote> Screen Actor's Guild president "
4936 "Charlton Heston said, who were <quote>depriving actors of "
4937 "compensation.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4941 #: freeculture.xml:3435
4943 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
4944 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
4947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
4948 #: freeculture.xml:3451 freeculture.xml:3453
4949 msgid "Zimmerman, Edwin"
4952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4953 #: freeculture.xml:3449
4955 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
4956 "acting assistant attorney general). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4961 #: freeculture.xml:3440
4963 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
4964 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
4965 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
4966 "extend that monopoly. … The question here is how much compensation "
4967 "they should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
4968 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4969 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4973 #: freeculture.xml:3457
4975 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
4976 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
4979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4980 #: freeculture.xml:3461
4982 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
4983 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they "
4984 "<quote>pirated.</quote> In the end, Congress resolved this question in the "
4985 "same way that it resolved the question about record players and player "
4986 "pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they "
4987 "broadcast; but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright "
4988 "owner. The price was set by law, so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise "
4989 "veto power over the emerging technologies of cable. Cable companies thus "
4990 "built their empire in part upon a <quote>piracy</quote> of the value created "
4991 "by broadcasters' content."
4995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4996 #: freeculture.xml:3479
4998 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, <citetitle>The "
4999 "Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free "
5000 "Information</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5001 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #13</ulink>. <quote>The threat of "
5002 "piracy—the use of someone else's creative work without permission or "
5003 "compensation—has grown with the Internet.</quote>"
5006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5007 #: freeculture.xml:3474
5009 "<emphasis role='strong'>These separate stories</emphasis> sing a common "
5010 "theme. If <quote>piracy</quote> means using value from someone else's "
5011 "creative property without permission from that creator—as it is "
5012 "increasingly described today<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
5013 "— then <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry affected by copyright today "
5014 "is the product and beneficiary of a certain kind of piracy. Film, records, "
5015 "radio, cable TV. … The list is long and could well be expanded. Every "
5016 "generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Every generation—until "
5020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
5021 #: freeculture.xml:3496
5022 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: <quote>Piracy</quote>"
5025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5026 #: freeculture.xml:3498
5028 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is piracy</emphasis> of copyrighted "
5029 "material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in many forms. The most significant "
5030 "is commercial piracy, the unauthorized taking of other people's content "
5031 "within a commercial context. Despite the many justifications that are "
5032 "offered in its defense, this taking is wrong. No one should condone it, and "
5033 "the law should stop it."
5037 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5038 #: freeculture.xml:3506
5040 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of "
5041 "<quote>taking</quote> that is more directly related to the Internet. That "
5042 "taking, too, seems wrong to many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before "
5043 "we paint this taking <quote>piracy,</quote> however, we should understand "
5044 "its nature a bit more. For the harm of this taking is significantly more "
5045 "ambiguous than outright copying, and the law should account for that "
5046 "ambiguity, as it has so often done in the past."
5049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5050 #: freeculture.xml:3516
5054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5055 #: freeculture.xml:3517 freeculture.xml:3597 freeculture.xml:3647 freeculture.xml:14702
5056 msgid "Asia, commercial piracy in"
5059 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5060 #: freeculture.xml:3518 freeculture.xml:3965 freeculture.xml:9434 freeculture.xml:10241 freeculture.xml:14093 freeculture.xml:14684
5064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5065 #: freeculture.xml:3518
5066 msgid "foreign piracy of"
5070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5071 #: freeculture.xml:3526
5073 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), "
5074 "<citetitle>The Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003</citetitle>, "
5075 "July 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
5076 "#14</ulink>. See also Ben Hunt, <quote>Companies Warned on Music Piracy "
5077 "Risk,</quote> <citetitle>Financial Times</citetitle>, 14 February 2003, 11."
5080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5081 #: freeculture.xml:3520
5083 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
5084 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
5085 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
5086 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
5087 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
5088 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
5089 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
5092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5093 #: freeculture.xml:3536
5095 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
5096 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
5097 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
5100 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5101 #: freeculture.xml:3542
5103 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
5104 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
5105 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
5106 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
5107 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
5108 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
5112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5113 #: freeculture.xml:3551
5115 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
5116 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
5117 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
5118 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
5119 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
5120 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
5121 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
5122 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
5123 "legal wrong as well."
5127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5128 #: freeculture.xml:3562
5130 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
5131 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose not to "
5132 "protect copyright internationally. We may have been born a pirate nation, "
5133 "but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood."
5136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5137 #: freeculture.xml:3590
5138 msgid "agricultural patents"
5141 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5142 #: freeculture.xml:3591 freeculture.xml:12711 freeculture.xml:13164 freeculture.xml:13171
5143 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
5146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5147 #: freeculture.xml:3575
5149 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: "
5150 "<citetitle>Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New "
5151 "Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual "
5152 "Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement obligates member nations to create "
5153 "administrative and enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights, "
5154 "a costly proposition for developing countries. Additionally, patent rights "
5155 "may lead to higher prices for staple industries such as agriculture. Critics "
5156 "of TRIPS question the disparity between burdens imposed upon developing "
5157 "countries and benefits conferred to industrialized nations. TRIPS does "
5158 "permit governments to use patents for public, noncommercial uses without "
5159 "first obtaining the patent holder's permission. Developing nations may be "
5160 "able to use this to gain the benefits of foreign patents at lower "
5161 "prices. This is a promising strategy for developing nations within the TRIPS "
5162 "framework. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5163 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5167 #: freeculture.xml:3570
5169 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
5170 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
5171 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
5172 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
5173 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
5174 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
5175 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
5178 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5179 #: freeculture.xml:3612 freeculture.xml:3886 freeculture.xml:14850
5180 msgid "Liebowitz, Stan"
5183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5184 #: freeculture.xml:3605
5186 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
5187 "Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle> (New York: "
5188 "Amacom, 2002), 144–90. <quote>In some instances … the impact of "
5189 "piracy on the copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the "
5190 "work will be negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the "
5191 "individual engaging in pirating would not have purchased an original even if "
5192 "pirating were not an option.</quote> Ibid., 149. <placeholder "
5193 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5197 #: freeculture.xml:3599
5199 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
5200 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
5201 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
5202 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
5203 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5207 #: freeculture.xml:3616
5209 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
5210 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
5211 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
5212 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, <quote>You wouldn't go into "
5213 "Barnes & Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why "
5214 "should it be any different with on-line music?</quote> The difference is, of "
5215 "course, that when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less "
5216 "book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, "
5217 "there is not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the "
5218 "intangible are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
5222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5223 #: freeculture.xml:3630
5225 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
5226 "right of a very special sort, it <emphasis>is</emphasis> a property "
5227 "right. Like all property rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to "
5228 "decide the terms under which content is shared. If the copyright owner "
5229 "doesn't want to sell, she doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important "
5230 "statutory licenses that apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish "
5231 "of the copyright owner. Those licenses give people the right to "
5232 "<quote>take</quote> copyrighted content whether or not the copyright owner "
5233 "wants to sell. But where the law does not give people the right to take "
5234 "content, it is wrong to take that content even if the wrong does no harm. If "
5235 "we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the "
5236 "technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the "
5237 "permission of a property owner. That is exactly what <quote>property</quote> "
5241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5242 #: freeculture.xml:3648 freeculture.xml:14703
5246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5247 #: freeculture.xml:3649
5248 msgid "free software/open-source software (FS/OSS)"
5251 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5252 #: freeculture.xml:3650 freeculture.xml:3680 freeculture.xml:11515 freeculture.xml:13010 freeculture.xml:13608
5253 msgid "GNU/Linux operating system"
5256 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5257 #: freeculture.xml:3651 freeculture.xml:3681 freeculture.xml:11517 freeculture.xml:13011 freeculture.xml:13609
5258 msgid "Linux operating system"
5261 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
5262 #: freeculture.xml:3652 freeculture.xml:3654 freeculture.xml:3655 freeculture.xml:5320 freeculture.xml:7808 freeculture.xml:13063
5266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5267 #: freeculture.xml:3652
5268 msgid "competitive strategies of"
5271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5272 #: freeculture.xml:3653
5276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5277 #: freeculture.xml:3654
5278 msgid "international software piracy of"
5281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5282 #: freeculture.xml:3655
5283 msgid "Windows operating system of"
5286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5287 #: freeculture.xml:3657
5289 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
5290 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese "
5291 "<quote>steal</quote> Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on "
5292 "Microsoft. Microsoft loses the value of the software that was taken. But it "
5293 "gains users who are used to life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the "
5294 "nation grows more wealthy, more and more people will buy software rather "
5295 "than steal it. And hence over time, because that buying will benefit "
5296 "Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from the piracy. If instead of pirating "
5297 "Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system, "
5298 "then these Chinese users would not eventually be buying Microsoft. Without "
5299 "piracy, then, Microsoft would lose."
5302 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5303 #: freeculture.xml:3669
5307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5308 #: freeculture.xml:3669
5309 msgid "databases of case reports in"
5312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5313 #: freeculture.xml:3671
5315 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
5316 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
5317 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
5318 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
5319 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
5320 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
5323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5324 #: freeculture.xml:3678
5328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5329 #: freeculture.xml:3679
5330 msgid "Internet Explorer"
5333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5334 #: freeculture.xml:3683
5336 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
5337 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
5338 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
5339 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
5340 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
5341 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
5342 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
5343 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
5344 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
5345 "access, then violating the law is still wrong."
5349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5350 #: freeculture.xml:3697
5352 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
5353 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
5354 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
5355 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
5356 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
5357 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
5358 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
5361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5362 #: freeculture.xml:3707
5364 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
5365 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all <quote>piracy</quote> "
5366 "is. Or at least, not all <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong if that term is "
5367 "understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of "
5368 "<quote>piracy</quote> are useful and productive, to produce either new "
5369 "content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any "
5370 "tradition has ever banned all <quote>piracy</quote> in that sense of the "
5374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5375 #: freeculture.xml:3716
5377 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
5378 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
5379 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
5380 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
5383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5384 #: freeculture.xml:3722
5386 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
5387 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
5388 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
5389 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
5392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5393 #: freeculture.xml:3728
5395 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
5396 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
5399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5400 #: freeculture.xml:3734
5405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5406 #: freeculture.xml:3739
5408 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
5409 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
5413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5414 #: freeculture.xml:3736
5416 "The key to the <quote>piracy</quote> that the law aims to quash is a use "
5417 "that <quote>rob[s] the author of [his] profit.</quote><placeholder "
5418 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This means we must determine whether and how "
5419 "much p2p sharing harms before we know how strongly the law should seek to "
5420 "either prevent it or find an alternative to assure the author of his profit."
5423 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5424 #: freeculture.xml:3747 freeculture.xml:3755
5428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5429 #: freeculture.xml:3748
5430 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
5433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5434 #: freeculture.xml:3765 freeculture.xml:8402
5435 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
5438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5439 #: freeculture.xml:3755
5441 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Clayton M. Christensen, "
5442 "<citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller "
5443 "That Changed the Way We Do Business</citetitle> (New York: HarperBusiness, "
5444 "2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that give rise to and "
5445 "dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up with the most "
5446 "creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This job usually "
5447 "falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology in inventive "
5448 "ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence Lessig, "
5449 "<citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 89–92, 139. <placeholder "
5450 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5454 #: freeculture.xml:3750
5456 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
5457 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
5458 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
5459 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
5460 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
5465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5466 #: freeculture.xml:3775
5468 "See Carolyn Lochhead, <quote>Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood "
5469 "Nightmare,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 "
5470 "September 2002, A1; <quote>Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,</quote> <citetitle>New "
5471 "Scientist</citetitle>, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, <quote>Napster "
5472 "Names CEO, Secures New Financing,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
5473 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 23 May 2003, C1; <quote>Napster's Wake-Up "
5474 "Call,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 24 June 2000, 23; John "
5475 "Naughton, <quote>Hollywood at War with the Internet</quote> (London) "
5476 "<citetitle>Times</citetitle>, 26 July 2002, 18."
5479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5480 #: freeculture.xml:3770
5482 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
5483 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
5484 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
5485 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
5486 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
5487 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
5488 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
5489 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
5490 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
5491 "or your 20,000 best friends."
5495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5496 #: freeculture.xml:3797
5498 "See Ipsos-Insight, <citetitle>TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music "
5499 "Distribution</citetitle> (September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of "
5500 "Americans aged twelve and older have downloaded music off of the Internet "
5501 "and 30 percent have listened to digital music files stored on their "
5506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5507 #: freeculture.xml:3806
5509 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,</quote> "
5510 "<citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 6 June 2003, A1."
5513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5514 #: freeculture.xml:3791
5516 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
5517 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
5518 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
5519 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
5520 "by the NPD group quoted in <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> "
5521 "estimated that 43 million citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange "
5522 "content in May 2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast "
5523 "majority of these are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive "
5524 "quantity of content is being <quote>taken</quote> on these networks. The "
5525 "ease and inexpensiveness of file-sharing networks have inspired millions to "
5526 "enjoy music in a way that they hadn't before."
5529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5530 #: freeculture.xml:3815
5532 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
5533 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
5534 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
5535 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
5536 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
5537 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
5541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5542 #: freeculture.xml:3825
5544 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
5545 "kinds into four types."
5549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5550 #: freeculture.xml:3833
5552 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
5553 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
5554 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
5555 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
5556 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
5557 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
5562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5563 #: freeculture.xml:3843
5565 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
5566 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
5567 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
5568 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
5569 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
5570 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
5571 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
5575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5576 #: freeculture.xml:3854
5578 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
5579 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
5580 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
5581 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
5582 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
5583 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
5584 "solid weekend <quote>recalling</quote> old songs. She was astonished at the "
5585 "range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is "
5586 "still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright "
5587 "owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is "
5588 "zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s "
5589 "45-rpm records to a local collector."
5594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5595 #: freeculture.xml:3871
5597 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
5598 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
5601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5602 #: freeculture.xml:3877
5603 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
5606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5607 #: freeculture.xml:3885
5609 "See Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle>, "
5610 "148–49. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5614 #: freeculture.xml:3880
5616 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
5617 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
5618 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
5619 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
5620 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
5621 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is "
5622 "not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard "
5623 "question to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current "
5624 "rhetoric around the issue suggests."
5627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5628 #: freeculture.xml:3896
5630 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
5631 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
5632 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
5633 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
5634 "type A sharing is a kind of <quote>theft</quote> that is "
5635 "<quote>devastating</quote> the industry."
5638 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5639 #: freeculture.xml:3903 freeculture.xml:3912 freeculture.xml:4255 freeculture.xml:7968 freeculture.xml:7997 freeculture.xml:9695 freeculture.xml:14410
5640 msgid "cassette recording"
5643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5644 #: freeculture.xml:3903 freeculture.xml:4255 freeculture.xml:7968 freeculture.xml:7997 freeculture.xml:9695 freeculture.xml:9696 freeculture.xml:14410 freeculture.xml:14411
5648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5649 #: freeculture.xml:3912
5651 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, "
5652 "<citetitle>Technology Evolution and the Music Industry's Business Model "
5653 "Crisis</citetitle> (2003), 3. This report describes the music industry's "
5654 "effort to stigmatize the budding practice of cassette taping in the 1970s, "
5655 "including an advertising campaign featuring a cassette-shape skull and the "
5656 "caption <quote>Home taping is killing music.</quote> At the time digital "
5657 "audio tape became a threat, the Office of Technical Assessment conducted a "
5658 "survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 percent of consumers older than ten "
5659 "had taped music to a cassette format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology "
5660 "Assessment, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the "
5661 "Law</citetitle>, OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing "
5662 "Office, October 1989), 145–56."
5665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5666 #: freeculture.xml:3905
5668 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
5669 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
5670 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
5671 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "
5672 "<quote>Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels "
5673 "fought it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels "
5674 "claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales "
5675 "fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was "
5676 "proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was "
5680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5681 #: freeculture.xml:3930
5686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5687 #: freeculture.xml:3940
5688 msgid "U.S. Congress, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying</citetitle>, 4."
5691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5692 #: freeculture.xml:3932
5694 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
5695 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record "
5696 "turnaround. <quote>In the end,</quote> Cap Gemini concludes, <quote>the "
5697 "`crisis' … was not the fault of the tapers—who did not [stop "
5698 "after MTV came into being]—but had to a large extent resulted from "
5699 "stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels.</quote><placeholder "
5700 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5704 #: freeculture.xml:3945
5706 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
5707 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
5708 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
5709 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
5710 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
5711 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also "
5712 "<emphasis>how</emphasis> harmful type A sharing is, and how beneficial the "
5713 "other types of sharing are."
5716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5717 #: freeculture.xml:3955
5719 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
5720 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
5721 "<quote>net harm</quote> to the industry as a whole is the amount by which "
5722 "type A sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records "
5723 "through sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks "
5724 "would actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
5725 "little <emphasis>static</emphasis> reason to resist them."
5728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5729 #: freeculture.xml:3965
5730 msgid "sales levels of"
5733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5734 #: freeculture.xml:3967
5736 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
5737 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
5738 "it might be close."
5742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5743 #: freeculture.xml:3976
5745 "See Recording Industry Association of America, <citetitle>2002 Yearend "
5746 "Statistics</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5747 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #15</ulink>. A later report "
5748 "indicates even greater losses. See Recording Industry Association of "
5749 "America, <citetitle>Some Facts About Music Piracy</citetitle>, 25 June 2003, "
5750 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #16</ulink>: "
5751 "<quote>In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen "
5752 "by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 in the "
5753 "United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues are "
5754 "down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based on "
5755 "U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone from "
5756 "a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 (based "
5757 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments).</quote>"
5760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5761 #: freeculture.xml:4003
5765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5766 #: freeculture.xml:4000
5768 "Jane Black, <quote>Big Music's Broken Record,</quote> BusinessWeek online, "
5769 "13 February 2003, available at <ulink "
5770 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #17</ulink>. <placeholder "
5771 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5775 #: freeculture.xml:3972
5777 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
5778 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
5779 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
5780 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
5781 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
5782 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
5783 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
5784 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. <quote>From 1999 to "
5785 "2001, the average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to "
5786 "$14.19.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from "
5787 "other forms of media could also account for some of the decline. As Jane "
5788 "Black of <citetitle>BusinessWeek</citetitle> notes, <quote>The soundtrack to "
5789 "the film <citetitle>High Fidelity</citetitle> has a list price of "
5790 "$18.98. You could get the whole movie [on DVD] for "
5791 "$19.99.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
5795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5796 #: freeculture.xml:4018
5798 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
5799 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
5800 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
5801 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
5802 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
5806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5807 #: freeculture.xml:4026
5809 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
5810 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
5811 "industry constantly asks, <quote>What's the difference between downloading a "
5812 "song and stealing a CD?</quote>—but their own numbers reveal the "
5813 "difference. If I steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking "
5814 "is a lost sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is "
5815 "absolutely clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download "
5816 "were a lost sale—if every use of Kazaa <quote>rob[bed] the author of "
5817 "[his] profit</quote>—then the industry would have suffered a 100 "
5818 "percent drop in sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the "
5819 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped "
5820 "by just 6.7 percent, then there is a huge difference between "
5821 "<quote>downloading a song and stealing a CD.</quote>"
5824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5825 #: freeculture.xml:4042
5827 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
5828 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
5829 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
5833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5834 #: freeculture.xml:4054
5836 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
5837 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
5838 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
5839 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
5840 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
5841 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
5844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5845 #: freeculture.xml:4048
5847 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
5848 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
5849 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
5850 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5851 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
5852 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
5853 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
5854 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
5855 "<emphasis>to the company</emphasis> to make it available."
5858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5859 #: freeculture.xml:4067 freeculture.xml:4075 freeculture.xml:4097 freeculture.xml:4119 freeculture.xml:4608 freeculture.xml:5937 freeculture.xml:5942 freeculture.xml:5994 freeculture.xml:6870 freeculture.xml:6871 freeculture.xml:7213 freeculture.xml:7275 freeculture.xml:7309 freeculture.xml:7518 freeculture.xml:13796 freeculture.xml:14522 freeculture.xml:14523
5863 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5864 #: freeculture.xml:4067 freeculture.xml:4075 freeculture.xml:6871 freeculture.xml:14523
5868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5869 #: freeculture.xml:4075
5871 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> While there are not good "
5872 "estimates of the number of used record stores in existence, in 2002, there "
5873 "were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, an increase of 20 percent "
5874 "since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, <citetitle>The Quiet Revolution: The "
5875 "Expansion of the Used Book Market</citetitle> (2002), available at <ulink "
5876 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #19</ulink>. Used records "
5877 "accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See National Association of "
5878 "Recording Merchandisers, <quote>2002 Annual Survey Results,</quote> "
5879 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
5882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5883 #: freeculture.xml:4069
5885 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
5886 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
5887 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
5888 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
5889 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
5890 "sell this content, <emphasis>even if the content is still under "
5891 "copyright</emphasis>, the copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and "
5892 "record stores are commercial entities; their owners make money from the "
5893 "content they sell; but as with cable companies before statutory licensing, "
5894 "they don't have to pay the copyright owner for the content they sell."
5897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5898 #: freeculture.xml:4096
5899 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
5902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5903 #: freeculture.xml:4097 freeculture.xml:5937 freeculture.xml:5942 freeculture.xml:6870 freeculture.xml:14522
5904 msgid "out of print"
5907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5908 #: freeculture.xml:4099
5910 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
5911 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
5912 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
5913 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
5914 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
5915 "of Bernstein's <quote>Two Love Songs,</quote> I still have it. That "
5916 "difference would matter economically if the owner of the copyright were "
5917 "selling the record in competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the "
5918 "class of content that is not currently commercially available. The Internet "
5919 "is making it available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with "
5923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5924 #: freeculture.xml:4112
5926 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
5927 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
5928 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
5929 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
5930 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
5934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5935 #: freeculture.xml:4119 freeculture.xml:13796
5936 msgid "free on-line releases of"
5940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5941 #: freeculture.xml:4121
5943 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
5944 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
5945 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
5946 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
5947 "for example, released his first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
5948 "Kingdom</citetitle>, both free on-line and in bookstores on the same "
5949 "day. His (and his publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution "
5950 "would be a great advertisement for the <quote>real</quote> book. People "
5951 "would read part on-line, and then decide whether they liked the book or "
5952 "not. If they liked it, they would be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's "
5953 "content is type D content. If sharing networks enable his work to be spread, "
5954 "then both he and society are better off. (Actually, much better off: It is a "
5958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5959 #: freeculture.xml:4139
5961 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
5962 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
5963 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
5964 "important in order to protect type A content."
5967 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5968 #: freeculture.xml:4145
5970 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
5971 "says, <quote>This is how much we've lost,</quote> we must also ask, "
5972 "<quote>How much has society gained from p2p sharing? What are the "
5973 "efficiencies? What is the content that otherwise would be "
5974 "unavailable?</quote>"
5977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5978 #: freeculture.xml:4152
5980 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
5981 "of the <quote>piracy</quote> that file sharing enables is plainly legal and "
5982 "good. And like the piracy I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
5983 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"pirates\"/>, much of this piracy is motivated by a "
5984 "new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
5985 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
5986 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
5987 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
5988 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
5989 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
5990 "balance will be found only with time."
5993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5994 #: freeculture.xml:4166
5996 "<quote>But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the "
5997 "target just what you call type A sharing?</quote>"
6001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6002 #: freeculture.xml:4183
6004 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
6005 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
6006 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
6007 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, "
6008 "<citetitle>All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's "
6009 "Napster</citetitle> (New York: Crown Business, 2003), 269–82."
6012 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6013 #: freeculture.xml:4170
6015 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
6016 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
6017 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
6018 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
6019 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
6020 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
6021 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements <quote>down to "
6022 "zero.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6026 #: freeculture.xml:4194
6028 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
6029 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
6030 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
6031 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
6032 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
6033 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
6034 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
6035 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
6036 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
6039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6040 #: freeculture.xml:4205
6042 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
6043 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
6044 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
6045 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
6046 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
6047 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
6051 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6052 #: freeculture.xml:4215
6054 "So, as we've seen, when <quote>mechanical reproduction</quote> threatened "
6055 "the interests of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers "
6056 "against the interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to "
6057 "composers, but also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but "
6058 "at a price set by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the "
6059 "recordings made by these recording artists, and they complained to Congress "
6060 "that their <quote>creative property</quote> was not being respected (since "
6061 "the radio station did not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), "
6062 "Congress rejected their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
6065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6066 #: freeculture.xml:4228
6068 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
6069 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
6070 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
6071 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
6072 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
6076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6077 #: freeculture.xml:4238
6079 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
6080 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
6081 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
6082 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
6083 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
6084 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
6085 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
6086 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
6087 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
6088 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
6089 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure "
6090 "<emphasis>compensation</emphasis> without giving the past (broadcasters) "
6091 "control over the future (cable)."
6094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6095 #: freeculture.xml:4254
6099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6100 #: freeculture.xml:4257
6102 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
6103 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
6104 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
6105 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
6106 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
6107 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
6108 "device that Sony built had a <quote>record</quote> button, the device could "
6109 "be used to record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore "
6110 "benefiting from the copyright infringement of its customers. It should "
6111 "therefore, Disney and Universal claimed, be partially liable for that "
6116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6117 #: freeculture.xml:4270
6119 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
6120 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
6121 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
6122 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
6123 "only if there were a special <quote>copy me</quote> signal on the line. It "
6124 "was clear that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone "
6125 "permission to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of "
6126 "shows would not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious "
6127 "preference, Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity "
6128 "for copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
6129 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
6133 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6134 #: freeculture.xml:4292
6136 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
6137 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
6138 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
6139 "of America, Inc.)."
6143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6144 #: freeculture.xml:4304
6145 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
6149 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6150 #: freeculture.xml:4309
6152 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6153 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 480 F. Supp. 429, (C.D. Cal., 1979)."
6157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6158 #: freeculture.xml:4320
6160 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
6164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6165 #: freeculture.xml:4285
6167 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
6168 "called VCRs <quote>tapeworms.</quote> He warned, <quote>When there are 20, "
6169 "30, 40 million of these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of "
6170 "`tapeworms,' eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious "
6171 "asset the copyright owner has, his copyright.</quote><placeholder "
6172 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <quote>One does not have to be trained in "
6173 "sophisticated marketing and creative judgment,</quote> he told Congress, "
6174 "<quote>to understand the devastation on the after-theater marketplace caused "
6175 "by the hundreds of millions of tapings that will adversely impact on the "
6176 "future of the creative community in this country. It is simply a question of "
6177 "basic economics and plain common sense.</quote><placeholder "
6178 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would later show, percent of "
6179 "VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or more<placeholder "
6180 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would later hold was "
6181 "not <quote>fair.</quote> By <quote>allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
6182 "means of an exemption from copyright infringementwithout creating a "
6183 "mechanism to compensate copyrightowners,</quote> Valenti testified, Congress "
6184 "would <quote>take from the owners the very essence of their property: the "
6185 "exclusive right to control who may use their work, that is, who may copy it "
6186 "and thereby profit from its reproduction.</quote><placeholder "
6187 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"3\"/>"
6191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6192 #: freeculture.xml:4337
6194 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6195 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th Cir. 1981)."
6198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
6199 #: freeculture.xml:4340
6200 msgid "Kozinski, Alex"
6203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6204 #: freeculture.xml:4325
6206 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
6207 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
6208 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
6209 "refers to it as the <quote>Hollywood Circuit</quote>—held that Sony "
6210 "would be liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its "
6211 "machines. Under the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar "
6212 "technology—which Jack Valenti had called <quote>the Boston Strangler "
6213 "of the American film industry</quote> (worse yet, it was a "
6214 "<emphasis>Japanese</emphasis> Boston Strangler of the American film "
6215 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6216 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6221 #: freeculture.xml:4343
6223 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
6224 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
6225 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
6229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6230 #: freeculture.xml:4362
6232 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6233 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 431 (1984)."
6236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
6237 #: freeculture.xml:4352
6239 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
6240 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
6241 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
6242 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
6243 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
6244 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6248 #: freeculture.xml:4367
6250 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
6251 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
6252 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
6253 "<quote>taking</quote> notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a "
6257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6258 #: freeculture.xml:4378
6262 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6263 #: freeculture.xml:4379
6264 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS <quote>PIRATED</quote>"
6267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6268 #: freeculture.xml:4380
6269 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
6272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6273 #: freeculture.xml:4381
6274 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
6277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6278 #: freeculture.xml:4386
6282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6283 #: freeculture.xml:4387
6287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6288 #: freeculture.xml:4388 freeculture.xml:4400 freeculture.xml:4406
6289 msgid "No protection"
6292 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6293 #: freeculture.xml:4389 freeculture.xml:4401
6294 msgid "Statutory license"
6297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6298 #: freeculture.xml:4393
6299 msgid "Recording artists"
6302 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6303 #: freeculture.xml:4394
6307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6308 #: freeculture.xml:4395 freeculture.xml:4407
6312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6313 #: freeculture.xml:4399
6314 msgid "Broadcasters"
6317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6318 #: freeculture.xml:4404
6322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6323 #: freeculture.xml:4405
6324 msgid "Film creators"
6327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6328 #: freeculture.xml:4417
6330 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
6331 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
6332 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
6333 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
6334 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
6335 "<citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. "
6336 "4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not "
6337 "eliminate the opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See "
6338 "Lessig, <citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 71. See also Picker, <quote>From "
6339 "Edison to the Broadcast Flag,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law "
6340 "Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 293–96. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6341 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6345 #: freeculture.xml:4414
6347 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
6348 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
6349 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a "
6350 "<quote>free ride</quote> on someone else's work."
6354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6355 #: freeculture.xml:4435
6357 "In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these cases did either the courts or "
6358 "Congress eliminate all free riding. In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these "
6359 "cases did the courts or Congress insist that the law should assure that the "
6360 "copyright holder get all the value that his copyright created. In every "
6361 "case, the copyright owners complained of <quote>piracy.</quote> In every "
6362 "case, Congress acted to recognize some of the legitimacy in the behavior of "
6363 "the <quote>pirates.</quote> In each case, Congress allowed some new "
6364 "technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced the interests at "
6368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6369 #: freeculture.xml:4448
6371 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
6372 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
6373 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
6374 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
6375 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
6376 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
6377 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
6378 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
6382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6383 #: freeculture.xml:4465
6385 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6386 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
6389 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6390 #: freeculture.xml:4460
6392 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
6393 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
6394 "<quote>has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all "
6395 "possible uses of his work.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6396 "Instead, the particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by "
6397 "balancing the good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the "
6398 "burdens such an exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically "
6399 "been done <emphasis>after</emphasis> a technology has matured, or settled "
6400 "into the mix of technologies that facilitate the distribution of content."
6403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6404 #: freeculture.xml:4476
6406 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
6407 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
6408 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
6409 "become a tool for <quote>stealing</quote> from artists. But neither should "
6410 "the law become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or "
6411 "more accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the "
6412 "last chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we "
6413 "allow the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
6414 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
6415 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
6416 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
6420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6421 #: freeculture.xml:4500
6423 "John Schwartz, <quote>New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software "
6424 "Echoes Past Efforts,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 22 "
6425 "September 2003, C3."
6428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6429 #: freeculture.xml:4492
6431 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
6432 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
6433 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
6434 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
6435 "<quote>potential public benefits,</quote> as John Schwartz writes in "
6436 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, <quote>could be delayed in the "
6437 "P2P fight.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6441 #: freeculture.xml:4505
6443 "<emphasis role='strong'>Yet when anyone</emphasis> begins to talk about "
6444 "<quote>balance,</quote> the copyright warriors raise a different "
6445 "argument. <quote>All this hand waving about balance and incentives,</quote> "
6446 "they say, <quote>misses a fundamental point. Our content,</quote> the "
6447 "warriors insist, <quote>is our <emphasis>property</emphasis>. Why should we "
6448 "wait for Congress to `rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait "
6449 "before calling the police when your car has been stolen? And why should "
6450 "Congress deliberate at all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether "
6451 "the car thief had a good use for the car before we arrest him?</quote>"
6454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6455 #: freeculture.xml:4517
6457 "<quote>It is <emphasis>our property</emphasis>,</quote> the warriors "
6458 "insist. <quote>And it should be protected just as any other property is "
6459 "protected.</quote>"
6462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
6463 #: freeculture.xml:4526
6464 msgid "<quote>PROPERTY</quote>"
6468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6469 #: freeculture.xml:4531
6471 "<emphasis role='strong'>The copyright warriors</emphasis> are right: A "
6472 "copyright is a kind of property. It can be owned and sold, and the law "
6473 "protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the copyright owner gets to hold out "
6474 "for any price he wants. Markets reckon the supply and demand that partially "
6475 "determine the price she can get."
6478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6479 #: freeculture.xml:4538
6481 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a <quote>property</quote> "
6482 "right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of "
6483 "property. Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression "
6484 "is very odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you "
6485 "put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I "
6486 "take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good "
6487 "<emphasis>idea</emphasis> you had to put a picnic table in the "
6488 "backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting "
6489 "it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking then?"
6493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6494 #: freeculture.xml:4563
6496 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in "
6497 "<citetitle>The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</citetitle>, vol. 6 (Andrew "
6498 "A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
6501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6502 #: freeculture.xml:4550
6504 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
6505 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
6506 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
6507 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
6508 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
6509 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
6510 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
6511 "copy the way someone else dresses), <quote>He who receives an idea from me, "
6512 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
6513 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.</quote><placeholder "
6514 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6518 #: freeculture.xml:4569
6520 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
6521 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
6522 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
6523 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
6527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6528 #: freeculture.xml:4582
6530 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
6531 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
6532 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
6533 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
6534 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, "
6535 "<quote>What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,</quote> "
6536 "<citetitle>Arizona Law Review</citetitle> 45 (2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
6539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6540 #: freeculture.xml:4577
6542 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
6543 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
6544 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this "
6545 "<quote>property</quote> in its proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6550 #: freeculture.xml:4592
6552 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
6553 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of <quote>copyright material "
6554 "is property</quote> in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its "
6555 "limits? How does it function in practice? After these stories, the "
6556 "significance of this true statement—<quote>copyright material is "
6557 "property</quote>— will be a bit more clear, and its implications will "
6558 "be revealed as quite different from the implications that the copyright "
6559 "warriors would have us draw."
6562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6563 #: freeculture.xml:4605
6564 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
6567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6568 #: freeculture.xml:4606
6572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6573 #: freeculture.xml:4607 freeculture.xml:4752
6574 msgid "Branagh, Kenneth"
6577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6578 #: freeculture.xml:4608
6579 msgid "English copyright law developed for"
6582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6583 #: freeculture.xml:4610
6585 "<emphasis role='strong'>William Shakespeare</emphasis> wrote "
6586 "<citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> in 1595. The play was first "
6587 "published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play that Shakespeare had "
6588 "written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, and the plays that "
6589 "he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture ever since. So "
6590 "deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped into our culture "
6591 "that we often don't even recognize their source. I once overheard someone "
6592 "commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: <quote>I liked it, "
6593 "but Shakespeare is so full of clichés.</quote>"
6596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6597 #: freeculture.xml:4626
6601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6602 #: freeculture.xml:4627
6603 msgid "Dryden, John"
6606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6607 #: freeculture.xml:4626
6609 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6610 "id=\"1\"/> Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with "
6611 "prominent eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and "
6612 "for his handsome <quote>definitive editions</quote> of classic works. In "
6613 "addition to <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle>, he published an "
6614 "astonishing array of works that still remain at the heart of the English "
6615 "canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, "
6616 "and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, <quote>Jacob Tonson, Bookseller,</quote> "
6617 "<citetitle>American Scholar</citetitle> 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
6621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6622 #: freeculture.xml:4639
6624 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6625 "Perspective</citetitle> (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), "
6630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6631 #: freeculture.xml:4622
6633 "In 1774, almost 180 years after <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> was "
6634 "written, the <quote>copy-right</quote> for the work was still thought by "
6635 "many to be the exclusive right of a single London publisher, Jacob "
6636 "Tonson.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most "
6637 "prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<placeholder "
6638 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who controlled bookselling in England during "
6639 "the eighteenth century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "
6640 "<quote>copy</quote> of books that they had acquired from authors. That "
6641 "perpetual right meant that no one else could publish copies of a book to "
6642 "which they held the copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; "
6643 "competition to produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated."
6646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6647 #: freeculture.xml:4651
6648 msgid "British Parliament"
6651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6652 #: freeculture.xml:4662
6654 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely "
6655 "argues, it is erroneous to call this a <quote>copyright law.</quote> See "
6656 "Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 40."
6659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6660 #: freeculture.xml:4653
6662 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
6663 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
6664 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
6665 "<quote>copyright</quote> act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated "
6666 "that all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, "
6667 "renewable once if the author was alive, and that all works already published "
6668 "by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
6669 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, <citetitle>Romeo and "
6670 "Juliet</citetitle> should have been free in 1731. So why was there any issue "
6671 "about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?"
6674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6675 #: freeculture.xml:4669
6676 msgid "Licensing Act (1662)"
6679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6680 #: freeculture.xml:4671
6682 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "
6683 "<quote>copyright</quote> was—indeed, no one had. At the time the "
6684 "English passed the Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing "
6685 "copyrights. The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, "
6686 "had expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as "
6687 "a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published. But "
6688 "after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the publishers, "
6689 "or <quote>Stationers,</quote> had an exclusive right to print books."
6692 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6693 #: freeculture.xml:4682
6695 "There was no <emphasis>positive</emphasis> law, but that didn't mean that "
6696 "there was no law. The Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words "
6697 "of legislatures and the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern "
6698 "how people are to behave. We call the words from legislatures "
6699 "<quote>positive law.</quote> We call the words from judges <quote>common "
6700 "law.</quote> The common law sets the background against which legislatures "
6701 "legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that background only if it "
6702 "passes a law to displace it. And so the real question after the licensing "
6703 "statutes had expired was whether the common law protected a copyright, "
6704 "independent of any positive law."
6708 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6709 #: freeculture.xml:4694
6711 "This question was important to the publishers, or "
6712 "<quote>booksellers,</quote> as they were called, because there was growing "
6713 "competition from foreign publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were "
6714 "increasingly publishing and exporting books to England. That competition "
6715 "reduced the profits of the Conger, which reacted by demanding that "
6716 "Parliament pass a law to again give them exclusive control over "
6717 "publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in the Statute of Anne."
6720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6721 #: freeculture.xml:4706
6723 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or <quote>proprietor</quote> of a "
6724 "book an exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, "
6725 "however, and to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller "
6726 "that right for a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright "
6727 "<quote>expired,</quote> and the work would then be free and could be "
6728 "published by anyone. Or so the legislature is thought to have believed."
6731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6732 #: freeculture.xml:4715
6734 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
6735 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
6736 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right <emphasis>at "
6740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6741 #: freeculture.xml:4721
6743 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
6744 "strong claim. Take <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> as an example: "
6745 "That play was written by Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into "
6746 "the world. He didn't take anybody's property when he created this play "
6747 "(that's a controversial claim, but never mind), and by his creating this "
6748 "play, he didn't make it any harder for others to craft a play. So why is it "
6749 "that the law would ever allow someone else to come along and take "
6750 "Shakespeare's play without his, or his estate's, permission? What reason is "
6751 "there to allow someone else to <quote>steal</quote> Shakespeare's work?"
6754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6755 #: freeculture.xml:4732
6757 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
6758 "the notion of <quote>copyright</quote> that existed at the time of the "
6759 "Statute of Anne. Second, we have to see something important about "
6760 "<quote>booksellers.</quote>"
6764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6765 #: freeculture.xml:4738
6767 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
6768 "apply the concept of <quote>copyright</quote> ever more broadly. But in "
6769 "1710, it wasn't so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The "
6770 "copyright was born as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others "
6771 "from reprinting a book. In 1710, the <quote>copy-right</quote> was a right "
6772 "to use a particular machine to replicate a particular work. It did not go "
6773 "beyond that very narrow right. It did not control any more generally how a "
6774 "work could be <emphasis>used</emphasis>. Today the right includes a large "
6775 "collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It grants the author "
6776 "the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to distribute, the "
6777 "exclusive right to perform, and so on."
6780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6781 #: freeculture.xml:4754
6783 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
6784 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
6785 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
6786 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
6787 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
6788 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
6789 "<quote>copy-right</quote> was only an exclusive right to print—no "
6790 "less, of course, but also no more."
6793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6794 #: freeculture.xml:4763
6795 msgid "Henry VIII, King of England"
6798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6799 #: freeculture.xml:4764
6800 msgid "Statute of Monopolies (1656)"
6803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6804 #: freeculture.xml:4766
6806 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
6807 "had a long and ugly experience with <quote>exclusive rights,</quote> "
6808 "especially <quote>exclusive rights</quote> granted by the Crown. The English "
6809 "had fought a civil war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
6810 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
6811 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
6812 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
6813 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
6814 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
6815 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
6818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6819 #: freeculture.xml:4779
6821 "Thus the <quote>copy-right,</quote> when viewed as a monopoly right, was "
6822 "naturally viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the "
6823 "claim that <quote>it's my property, and I should have it forever,</quote> "
6824 "try sounding convincing when uttering, <quote>It's my monopoly, and I should "
6825 "have it forever.</quote>) The state would protect the exclusive right, but "
6826 "only so long as it benefited society. The British saw the harms from "
6827 "specialinterest favors; they passed a law to stop them."
6830 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6831 #: freeculture.xml:4787
6832 msgid "booksellers, English"
6836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6837 #: freeculture.xml:4804
6839 "Philip Wittenberg, <citetitle>The Protection and Marketing of Literary "
6840 "Property</citetitle> (New York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
6843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6844 #: freeculture.xml:4789
6846 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
6847 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
6848 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
6849 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
6850 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
6851 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
6852 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
6853 "described them as <quote>old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
6854 "book-selling</quote>; they were <quote>men who do not therefore labour in an "
6855 "honest profession to which learning is indetted.</quote><placeholder "
6856 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6860 #: freeculture.xml:4809
6862 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
6863 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
6864 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
6865 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
6866 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
6869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6870 #: freeculture.xml:4817
6872 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
6873 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
6874 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
6875 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
6876 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
6877 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
6878 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
6879 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
6883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6884 #: freeculture.xml:4829
6886 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
6887 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
6888 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
6889 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
6890 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
6891 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
6895 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6896 #: freeculture.xml:4838
6898 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
6903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6904 #: freeculture.xml:4853
6906 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
6907 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
6908 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
6909 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
6910 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
6911 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
6912 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618)."
6915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
6916 #: freeculture.xml:4843
6918 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
6919 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
6920 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
6921 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
6922 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
6923 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
6924 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6928 #: freeculture.xml:4864
6930 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
6931 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
6932 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
6933 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
6934 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
6935 "already wrong to take another person's creative <quote>property</quote> and "
6936 "use it without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, "
6937 "didn't change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute "
6938 "of Anne expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: "
6939 "Under the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, "
6940 "even if its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was "
6941 "the only way to protect authors."
6944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6945 #: freeculture.xml:4878 freeculture.xml:4886 freeculture.xml:4933
6946 msgid "Patterson, Raymond"
6949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6950 #: freeculture.xml:4886
6952 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6953 "id=\"1\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, <quote>Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair "
6954 "Use,</quote> <citetitle>Vanderbilt Law Review</citetitle> 40 (1987): 28. For "
6955 "a wonderfully compelling account, see Vaidhyanathan, 37–48."
6958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6959 #: freeculture.xml:4880
6961 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
6962 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
6963 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, <quote>The publishers "
6964 "… had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
6965 "cattle.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller "
6966 "didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the "
6967 "monopoly profit that the author's work gave."
6971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6972 #: freeculture.xml:4900
6974 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, <citetitle>Authorship and "
6975 "Copyright</citetitle> (London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
6978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6979 #: freeculture.xml:4896
6981 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
6982 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
6983 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6987 #: freeculture.xml:4904
6988 msgid "Boswell, James"
6991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6992 #: freeculture.xml:4905
6993 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
6996 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6997 #: freeculture.xml:4914 freeculture.xml:14946
7001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7002 #: freeculture.xml:4912
7004 "Mark Rose, <citetitle>Authors and Owners</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard "
7005 "University Press, 1993), 92. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7010 #: freeculture.xml:4923
7014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7015 #: freeculture.xml:4907
7017 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
7018 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints "
7019 "<quote>of standard works whose copyright term had expired,</quote> at least "
7020 "under the Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
7021 "Donaldson's publishing house prospered and became <quote>something of a "
7022 "center for literary Scotsmen.</quote> <quote>[A]mong them,</quote> Professor "
7023 "Mark Rose writes, was <quote>the young James Boswell who, together with his "
7024 "friend Andrew Erskine, published an anthology of contemporary Scottish poems "
7025 "with Donaldson.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
7028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7029 #: freeculture.xml:4933
7031 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, "
7032 "<citetitle>Copyright in Historical Perspective</citetitle>, 167 (quoting "
7036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7037 #: freeculture.xml:4927
7039 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
7040 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
7041 "editions <quote>of the most popular English books, in defiance of the "
7042 "supposed common law right of Literary Property.</quote><placeholder "
7043 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to "
7044 "50 percent, and he rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under "
7045 "the Statute of Anne, the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
7048 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7049 #: freeculture.xml:4942
7051 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block <quote>piracy</quote> "
7052 "like Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the "
7053 "<quote>pirates,</quote> the most important early victory being "
7054 "<citetitle>Millar</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Taylor</citetitle>."
7057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7058 #: freeculture.xml:4946
7059 msgid "Seasons, The (Thomson)"
7062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7063 #: freeculture.xml:4947
7064 msgid "Taylor, Robert"
7068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7069 #: freeculture.xml:4956
7071 "Howard B. Abrams, <quote>The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
7072 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Wayne Law "
7073 "Review</citetitle> 29 (1983): 1152."
7076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7077 #: freeculture.xml:4949
7079 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
7080 "Thomson's poem <quote>The Seasons.</quote> Millar complied with the "
7081 "requirements of the Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full "
7082 "protection of the statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor "
7083 "began printing a competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common "
7084 "law right, the Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder "
7085 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7089 #: freeculture.xml:4963
7091 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
7092 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
7093 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
7094 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
7095 "author against subsequent <quote>pirates.</quote> Mansfield's answer was "
7096 "yes: The common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without "
7097 "Millar's permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the "
7098 "booksellers a perpetual right to control the publication of any book "
7103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7104 #: freeculture.xml:4974
7106 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
7107 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
7108 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
7109 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
7110 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
7111 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
7112 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
7113 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
7114 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
7115 "the free culture that we inherited."
7118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7119 #: freeculture.xml:4989
7121 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
7122 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
7125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7126 #: freeculture.xml:4992
7127 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
7131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7132 #: freeculture.xml:4998
7133 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
7136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7137 #: freeculture.xml:4994
7139 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
7140 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
7141 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
7142 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
7143 "decision in <citetitle>Millar</citetitle>, got an injunction against "
7144 "Donaldson. Donaldson appealed the case to the House of Lords, which "
7145 "functioned much like our own Supreme Court. In February of 1774, that body "
7146 "had the chance to interpret the meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty "
7150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7151 #: freeculture.xml:5008
7153 "As few legal cases ever do, <citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> "
7154 "v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle> drew an enormous amount of attention "
7155 "throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever rights may have "
7156 "existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated those "
7157 "rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal protection for "
7158 "an exclusive right to control publication came from that statute. Thus, they "
7159 "argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne expired, works that "
7160 "had been protected by the statute were no longer protected."
7163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7164 #: freeculture.xml:5018
7166 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
7167 "the House and voted upon first by the <quote>law lords,</quote> members of "
7168 "special legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our "
7169 "Supreme Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally "
7174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7175 #: freeculture.xml:5025
7177 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
7178 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
7179 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
7180 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
7181 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
7182 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
7186 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7187 #: freeculture.xml:5043
7188 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
7191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7192 #: freeculture.xml:5044
7193 msgid "Bunyan, John"
7196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7197 #: freeculture.xml:5045
7198 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
7201 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7202 #: freeculture.xml:5046
7203 msgid "Milton, John"
7206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7207 #: freeculture.xml:5035
7209 "<quote>The public domain.</quote> Before the case of "
7210 "<citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle>, there "
7211 "was no clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a "
7212 "strong argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the "
7213 "public domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the "
7214 "legal control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
7215 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
7216 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7217 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
7218 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> "
7219 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/>"
7223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7224 #: freeculture.xml:5060
7228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7229 #: freeculture.xml:5050
7231 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
7232 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
7233 "of the <quote>pirate publishers</quote> did their work, people celebrated "
7234 "the decision in the streets. As the <citetitle>Edinburgh "
7235 "Advertiser</citetitle> reported, <quote>No private cause has so much "
7236 "engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried before the "
7237 "House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
7238 "interested.</quote> <quote>Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over "
7239 "literary property: bonfires and illuminations.</quote><placeholder "
7240 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7244 #: freeculture.xml:5064
7246 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
7247 "strong in the opposite direction. The <citetitle>Morning "
7248 "Chronicle</citetitle> reported:"
7251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7252 #: freeculture.xml:5070
7254 "By the above decision … near 200,000 pounds worth of what was "
7255 "honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property "
7256 "is now reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many "
7257 "of whom sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner "
7258 "ruined, and those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a "
7259 "competency to provide for their families now find themselves without a "
7260 "shilling to devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7266 #: freeculture.xml:5085
7268 "<quote>Ruined</quote> is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an "
7269 "exaggeration to say that the change was profound. The decision of the House "
7270 "of Lords meant that the booksellers could no longer control how culture in "
7271 "England would grow and develop. Culture in England was thereafter "
7272 "<emphasis>free</emphasis>. Not in the sense that copyrights would not be "
7273 "respected, for of course, for a limited time after a work was published, the "
7274 "bookseller had an exclusive right to control the publication of that "
7275 "book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, for even after a "
7276 "copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from someone. But "
7277 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> in the sense that the culture and its growth would "
7278 "no longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
7279 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
7280 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
7281 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
7282 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a "
7283 "<emphasis>competitive context</emphasis>, not a context in which the choices "
7284 "about what culture is available to people and how they get access to it are "
7285 "made by the few despite the wishes of the many."
7288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7289 #: freeculture.xml:5107
7291 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
7292 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
7293 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
7296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7297 #: freeculture.xml:5117
7298 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
7301 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7302 #: freeculture.xml:5119
7304 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jon Else</emphasis> is a filmmaker. He is best known "
7305 "for his documentaries and has been very successful in spreading his art. He "
7306 "is also a teacher, and as a teacher myself, I envy the loyalty and "
7307 "admiration that his students feel for him. (I met, by accident, two of his "
7308 "students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
7311 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7312 #: freeculture.xml:5126
7314 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
7315 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
7318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7319 #: freeculture.xml:5137 freeculture.xml:5200
7320 msgid "San Francisco Opera"
7323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7324 #: freeculture.xml:5131
7326 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
7327 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
7328 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
7329 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
7330 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage. <placeholder "
7331 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7336 #: freeculture.xml:5140
7338 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
7339 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
7340 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
7341 "played Wagner, was <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. As Else judged it, "
7342 "this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special about "
7346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7347 #: freeculture.xml:5149
7349 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
7350 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of <citetitle>The "
7351 "Simpsons</citetitle>. For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and "
7352 "of course, to use copyrighted material you need the permission of the "
7353 "copyright owner, unless <quote>fair use</quote> or some other privilege "
7357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7358 #: freeculture.xml:5155 freeculture.xml:5163
7359 msgid "Gracie Films"
7362 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7363 #: freeculture.xml:5157
7365 "Else called <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> creator Matt Groening's office "
7366 "to get permission. Groening approved the shot. The shot was a "
7367 "four-and-a-halfsecond image on a tiny television set in the corner of the "
7368 "room. How could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he "
7369 "told Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program."
7372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7373 #: freeculture.xml:5165
7375 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
7376 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
7377 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
7378 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
7379 "just confirming the permission with Fox."
7382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7383 #: freeculture.xml:5172
7385 "Then, as Else told me, <quote>two things happened. First we discovered "
7386 "… that Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least "
7387 "that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.</quote> And "
7388 "second, Fox <quote>wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to "
7389 "use this four-point-five seconds of … entirely unsolicited "
7390 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> which was in the corner of the shot.</quote>"
7393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7394 #: freeculture.xml:5179
7395 msgid "Herrera, Rebecca"
7398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7399 #: freeculture.xml:5181
7401 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
7402 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
7403 "to her, <quote>There must be some mistake here. … We're asking for "
7404 "your educational rate on this.</quote> That was the educational rate, "
7405 "Herrera told Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he "
7410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7411 #: freeculture.xml:5189
7413 "<quote>I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,</quote> he told "
7414 "me. <quote>Yes, you have your facts straight,</quote> she said. It would "
7415 "cost $10,000 to use the clip of <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle> in the "
7416 "corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's Ring Cycle. And then, "
7417 "astonishingly, Herrera told Else, <quote>And if you quote me, I'll turn you "
7418 "over to our attorneys.</quote> As an assistant to Herrera told Else later "
7419 "on, <quote>They don't give a shit. They just want the money.</quote>"
7422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7423 #: freeculture.xml:5201
7424 msgid "Day After Trinity, The"
7427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7428 #: freeculture.xml:5203
7430 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
7431 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
7432 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
7433 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
7434 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, <citetitle>The Day "
7435 "After Trinity</citetitle>, from ten years before."
7438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7439 #: freeculture.xml:5211
7441 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
7442 "copyright to <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. That copyright is their "
7443 "property. To use that copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the "
7444 "permission of the copyright owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of "
7445 "the <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> copyright were one of the uses "
7446 "restricted by the law, then he would need to get the permission of the "
7447 "copyright owner before he could use the work in that way. And in a free "
7448 "market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set the price for any "
7449 "use that the law says the owner gets to control."
7452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7453 #: freeculture.xml:5222
7455 "For example, <quote>public performance</quote> is a use of <citetitle>The "
7456 "Simpsons</citetitle> that the copyright owner gets to control. If you take a "
7457 "selection of favorite episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets "
7458 "to come see <quote>My Favorite <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>,</quote> then "
7459 "you need to get permission from the copyright owner. And the copyright owner "
7460 "(rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she wants—$10 or "
7461 "$1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
7465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7466 #: freeculture.xml:5234
7468 "For an excellent argument that such use is <quote>fair use,</quote> but that "
7469 "lawyers don't permit recognition that it is <quote>fair use,</quote> see "
7470 "Richard A. Posner with William F. Patry, <quote>Fair Use and Statutory "
7471 "Reform in the Wake of <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle></quote> (draft on file "
7472 "with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August 2003."
7475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7476 #: freeculture.xml:5231
7478 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
7479 "is <quote>fair use.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's "
7480 "use of just 4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a "
7481 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> episode is clearly a fair use of "
7482 "<citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>—and fair use does not require the "
7483 "permission of anyone."
7487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7488 #: freeculture.xml:5246
7490 "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon <quote>fair use.</quote> Here's "
7494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7495 #: freeculture.xml:5250
7497 "The <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> fiasco was for me a great lesson in the "
7498 "gulf between what lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what "
7499 "is crushingly relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make "
7500 "and broadcast documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was "
7501 "<quote>clearly fair use</quote> in an absolute legal sense. But I couldn't "
7502 "rely on the concept in any concrete way. Here's why:"
7506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7507 #: freeculture.xml:5260
7509 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
7510 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed <quote>visual cue "
7511 "sheet</quote> listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
7512 "film. They take a dim view of <quote>fair use,</quote> and a claim of "
7513 "<quote>fair use</quote> can grind the application process to a halt."
7516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7517 #: freeculture.xml:5267
7518 msgid "<citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle>"
7521 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7522 #: freeculture.xml:5268
7523 msgid "Lucas, George"
7527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7528 #: freeculture.xml:5271
7530 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
7531 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
7532 "stopping unlicensed <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> usage, just as George "
7533 "Lucas had a very high profile litigating <citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle> "
7534 "usage. So I decided to play by the book, thinking that we would be granted "
7535 "free or cheap license to four seconds of <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>. As "
7536 "a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, the last thing "
7537 "I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal trouble, and even to "
7538 "defend a principle."
7543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7544 #: freeculture.xml:5283
7546 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
7547 "… who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox "
7548 "would <quote>depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,</quote> "
7549 "regardless of the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down "
7550 "to who had the bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
7554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7555 #: freeculture.xml:5293
7557 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
7558 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
7561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7562 #: freeculture.xml:5300
7564 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
7565 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
7566 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
7567 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
7568 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
7569 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
7572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7573 #: freeculture.xml:5308
7575 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
7576 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
7577 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
7578 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
7581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7582 #: freeculture.xml:5317
7583 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
7586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7587 #: freeculture.xml:5318
7591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
7592 #: freeculture.xml:5319 freeculture.xml:5379 freeculture.xml:5564 freeculture.xml:10010 freeculture.xml:14313
7596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7597 #: freeculture.xml:5322
7599 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1993</emphasis>, Alex Alben was a lawyer working "
7600 "at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an innovative company founded by Microsoft "
7601 "cofounder Paul Allen to develop digital entertainment. Long before the "
7602 "Internet became popular, Starwave began investing in new technology for "
7603 "delivering entertainment in anticipation of the power of networks."
7606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7607 #: freeculture.xml:5329
7608 msgid "retrospective compilations on"
7611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7612 #: freeculture.xml:5330
7613 msgid "CD-ROMs, film clips used in"
7616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7617 #: freeculture.xml:5332
7619 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
7620 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
7621 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
7622 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
7623 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
7624 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
7625 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
7628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7629 #: freeculture.xml:5342
7631 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
7632 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
7633 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
7634 "include them on the CD."
7638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7639 #: freeculture.xml:5349
7641 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
7642 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
7643 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
7644 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
7645 "permission for that content."
7648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7649 #: freeculture.xml:5356
7651 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. <quote>Our "
7652 "goal was that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's "
7653 "films,</quote> Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. <quote>No "
7654 "one had ever really done this before,</quote> Alben explained. <quote>No one "
7655 "had ever tried to do this in the context of an artistic look at an actor's "
7659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7660 #: freeculture.xml:5364
7662 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
7663 "<quote>Well, what will it take?</quote>"
7666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
7667 #: freeculture.xml:5378
7668 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
7671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7672 #: freeculture.xml:5374
7674 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
7675 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
7676 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden <quote>Rip, Mix, Burn</quote> "
7677 "creativity, as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7678 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7682 #: freeculture.xml:5368
7684 "Alben replied, <quote>Well, we're going to have to clear rights from "
7685 "everyone who appears in these films, and the music and everything else that "
7686 "we want to use in these film clips.</quote> Slade said, <quote>Great! Go for "
7687 "it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7691 #: freeculture.xml:5383
7693 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
7694 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
7695 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
7696 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
7697 "Starwave was to do."
7700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7701 #: freeculture.xml:5390
7703 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
7704 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
7705 "recounted just what they did:"
7708 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7709 #: freeculture.xml:5396
7711 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
7712 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
7713 "going to use the <quote>Make my day</quote> clip from <citetitle>Dirty "
7714 "Harry</citetitle>. But you then need to get the guy on the ground who's "
7715 "wiggling under the gun and you need to get his permission. And then you "
7716 "have to decide what you are going to pay him."
7720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7721 #: freeculture.xml:5405
7723 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
7724 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
7725 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
7726 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
7727 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
7728 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
7729 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
7730 "just started calling people."
7733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7734 #: freeculture.xml:5416
7735 msgid "Sutherland, Donald"
7738 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7739 #: freeculture.xml:5418
7741 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
7742 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
7743 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, <quote>Hey, can I pay "
7744 "you $600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?</quote> And "
7745 "they would say, <quote>Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get "
7746 "$1,200.</quote> And some of course were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, "
7747 "in particular). But eventually, Alben and his team had cleared the rights to "
7748 "this retrospective CD-ROM on Clint Eastwood's career."
7751 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7752 #: freeculture.xml:5429
7754 "It was one <emphasis>year</emphasis> later—<quote>and even then we "
7755 "weren't sure whether we were totally in the clear.</quote>"
7758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7759 #: freeculture.xml:5433
7761 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
7762 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
7763 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
7766 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7767 #: freeculture.xml:5439
7769 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
7770 "and said, <quote>Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the "
7771 "music, there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the "
7772 "actors.</quote> But we just broke it down. We just put it into its "
7773 "constituent parts and said, <quote>Okay, there's this many actors, this many "
7774 "directors, … this many musicians,</quote> and we just went at it very "
7775 "systematically and cleared the rights."
7779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7780 #: freeculture.xml:5451
7782 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
7783 "and it sold very well."
7786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7787 #: freeculture.xml:5454
7788 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
7792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7793 #: freeculture.xml:5462
7795 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, "
7796 "<citetitle>Seven Steps to Performance-Based Services "
7797 "Acquisition</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
7798 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
7801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7802 #: freeculture.xml:5456
7804 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
7805 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
7806 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, <quote>There is "
7807 "nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
7808 "all.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I "
7809 "asked Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
7812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7813 #: freeculture.xml:5470
7815 "For, as he acknowledged, <quote>very few … have the time and "
7816 "resources, and the will to do this,</quote> and thus, very few such works "
7817 "would ever be made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of "
7818 "what anybody really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, "
7819 "that you would have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
7822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7823 #: freeculture.xml:5478
7825 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
7826 "gets paid very well. … And then when 30 seconds of that performance "
7827 "is used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I "
7828 "don't think that that person … should be compensated for that."
7831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7832 #: freeculture.xml:5486
7834 "Or at least, is this <emphasis>how</emphasis> the artist should be "
7835 "compensated? Would it make sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of "
7836 "statutory license that someone could pay and be free to make derivative use "
7837 "of clips like this? Did it really make sense that a follow-on creator would "
7838 "have to track down every artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit "
7839 "permission from each? Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of "
7840 "the creative process could be made to be more clean?"
7844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7845 #: freeculture.xml:5497
7847 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
7848 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
7849 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
7850 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
7851 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
7852 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
7853 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
7854 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
7855 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
7856 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
7857 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
7858 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, <quote>Oh, "
7859 "I want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
7860 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for "
7861 "money,</quote> then it becomes difficult to put one of these things "
7865 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7866 #: freeculture.xml:5517
7868 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
7869 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
7870 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
7871 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
7872 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high?"
7875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7876 #: freeculture.xml:5526
7878 "These costs are the burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat "
7879 "for a moment, and get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of "
7880 "these rights, and the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost "
7881 "to negotiate them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and "
7882 "imagine the pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from "
7883 "Los Angeles to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made "
7884 "sense; but as circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, "
7885 "a well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights "
7886 "and ask, <quote>Does this still make sense?</quote>"
7890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7891 #: freeculture.xml:5539
7893 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
7894 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
7895 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
7896 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
7897 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
7898 "Fairbank, had produced."
7901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7902 #: freeculture.xml:5549
7904 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
7905 "century, all framed around the idea of a <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> "
7906 "episode. The execution was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The "
7907 "judges loved every minute of it."
7910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7911 #: freeculture.xml:5554
7912 msgid "Nimmer, David"
7915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7916 #: freeculture.xml:5556
7918 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
7919 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
7920 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
7921 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
7922 "question: <quote>Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in "
7923 "this room?</quote>"
7926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7927 #: freeculture.xml:5563
7928 msgid "Boies, David"
7931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7932 #: freeculture.xml:5566
7934 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
7935 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
7936 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
7937 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
7938 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
7939 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
7940 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
7941 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
7942 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
7943 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
7944 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
7945 "couldn't easily do them legally."
7948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7949 #: freeculture.xml:5581
7951 "We live in a <quote>cut and paste</quote> culture enabled by "
7952 "technology. Anyone building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom "
7953 "that the cut and paste architecture of the Internet created—in a "
7954 "second you can find just about any image you want; in another second, you "
7955 "can have it planted in your presentation."
7958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7959 #: freeculture.xml:5587
7964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7965 #: freeculture.xml:5589
7967 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
7968 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
7969 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
7970 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
7971 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
7972 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
7973 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
7977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7978 #: freeculture.xml:5600
7980 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
7981 "to be <quote>legal,</quote> the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
7982 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
7983 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
7984 "rules, it doesn't get released."
7987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7988 #: freeculture.xml:5607
7990 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
7991 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
7992 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
7993 "the <quote>free</quote> use be free as in <quote>free beer.</quote> Instead, "
7994 "the system could simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate "
7995 "artists without requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for "
7996 "example, that says <quote>the royalty owed the copyright owner of an "
7997 "unregistered work for the derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 "
7998 "percent of net revenues, to be held in escrow for the copyright "
7999 "owner.</quote> Under this rule, the copyright owner could benefit from some "
8000 "royalty, but he would not have the benefit of a full property right (meaning "
8001 "the right to name his own price) unless he registers the work."
8004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8005 #: freeculture.xml:5622
8007 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
8008 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
8009 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
8010 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
8014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8015 #: freeculture.xml:5628
8017 "<emphasis role='strong'>In February 2003</emphasis>, DreamWorks studios "
8018 "announced an agreement with Mike Myers, the comic genius of "
8019 "<citetitle>Saturday Night Live</citetitle> and Austin Powers. According to "
8020 "the announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work together to form a "
8021 "<quote>unique filmmaking pact.</quote> Under the agreement, DreamWorks "
8022 "<quote>will acquire the rights to existing motion picture hits and classics, "
8023 "write new storylines and—with the use of stateof-the-art digital "
8024 "technology—insert Myers and other actors into the film, thereby "
8025 "creating an entirely new piece of entertainment.</quote>"
8028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8029 #: freeculture.xml:5641
8031 "The announcement called this <quote>film sampling.</quote> As Myers "
8032 "explained, <quote>Film Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin "
8033 "on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap "
8034 "artists have been doing this for years with music and now we are able to "
8035 "take that same concept and apply it to film.</quote> Steven Spielberg is "
8036 "quoted as saying, <quote>If anyone can create a way to bring old films to "
8037 "new audiences, it is Mike.</quote>"
8040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8041 #: freeculture.xml:5650
8043 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
8044 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
8045 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
8046 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
8047 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
8048 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
8049 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
8050 "famous—and presumably rich."
8053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8054 #: freeculture.xml:5660
8056 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
8057 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of <quote>fair "
8058 "use.</quote> Much of <quote>sampling</quote> should be considered "
8059 "<quote>fair use.</quote> But few would rely upon so weak a doctrine to "
8060 "create. That leads to the second reason that the privilege is reserved for "
8061 "the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights for the creative reuse of "
8062 "content are astronomically high. These costs mirror the costs with fair "
8063 "use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair use rights or pay a lawyer "
8064 "to track down permissions so you don't have to rely upon fair use "
8065 "rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of paying "
8066 "lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the few."
8069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8070 #: freeculture.xml:5675
8071 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
8074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8075 #: freeculture.xml:5676 freeculture.xml:8808 freeculture.xml:11028 freeculture.xml:11273
8076 msgid "archives, digital"
8079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8080 #: freeculture.xml:5677 freeculture.xml:8107
8084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8085 #: freeculture.xml:5679
8087 "<emphasis role='strong'>In April 1996</emphasis>, millions of "
8088 "<quote>bots</quote>—computer codes designed to <quote>spider,</quote> "
8089 "or automatically search the Internet and copy content—began running "
8090 "across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied Internet-based information "
8091 "onto a small set of computers located in a basement in San Francisco's "
8092 "Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of the Internet, they started "
8093 "again. Over and over again, once every two months, these bits of code took "
8094 "copies of the Internet and stored them."
8097 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8098 #: freeculture.xml:5689 freeculture.xml:5720 freeculture.xml:5782
8099 msgid "Way Back Machine"
8102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8103 #: freeculture.xml:5691
8105 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
8106 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
8107 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
8108 "technology called <quote>the Way Back Machine,</quote> you could enter a Web "
8109 "page, and see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those "
8113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8114 #: freeculture.xml:5698
8115 msgid "Orwell, George"
8118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8119 #: freeculture.xml:5700
8121 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
8122 "the dystopia described in <citetitle>1984</citetitle>, old newspapers were "
8123 "constantly updated to assure that the current view of the world, approved of "
8124 "by the government, was not contradicted by previous news reports."
8128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8129 #: freeculture.xml:5708
8131 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
8132 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
8133 "printed on the date published on the paper."
8136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8137 #: freeculture.xml:5713
8139 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
8140 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
8141 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
8142 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
8143 "updated, without any reliable memory."
8146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8147 #: freeculture.xml:5729
8148 msgid "White House press releases"
8151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8152 #: freeculture.xml:5728
8154 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8155 "id=\"1\"/> The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the "
8156 "White House changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, "
8157 "press release stated, <quote>Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.</quote> "
8158 "That was later changed, without notice, to <quote>Major Combat Operations in "
8159 "Iraq Have Ended.</quote> E-mail from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
8162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8163 #: freeculture.xml:5722
8165 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
8166 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
8167 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
8168 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
8169 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8172 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8173 #: freeculture.xml:5737
8174 msgid "history, records of"
8177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8178 #: freeculture.xml:5739
8180 "<emphasis role='strong'>We take it</emphasis> for granted that we can go "
8181 "back to see what we remember reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted "
8182 "to study the reaction of your hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts "
8183 "in 1965, or to Bull Connor's water cannon in 1963, you could go to your "
8184 "public library and look at the newspapers. Those papers probably exist on "
8185 "microfiche. If you're lucky, they exist in paper, too. Either way, you are "
8186 "free, using a library, to go back and remember—not just what it is "
8187 "convenient to remember, but remember something close to the truth."
8190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8191 #: freeculture.xml:5750
8193 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
8194 "it. That's not quite correct. We <emphasis>all</emphasis> forget "
8195 "history. The key is whether we have a way to go back to rediscover what we "
8196 "forget. More directly, the key is whether an objective past can keep us "
8197 "honest. Libraries help do that, by collecting content and keeping it, for "
8198 "schoolchildren, for researchers, for grandma. A free society presumes this "
8203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8204 #: freeculture.xml:5759
8206 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
8207 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
8208 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
8209 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
8210 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
8211 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
8212 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
8215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8216 #: freeculture.xml:5770
8218 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
8219 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
8220 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
8221 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
8222 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
8223 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
8224 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
8225 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
8228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8229 #: freeculture.xml:5779 freeculture.xml:5833
8230 msgid "Library of Congress"
8233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8234 #: freeculture.xml:5780
8235 msgid "Television Archive"
8238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8239 #: freeculture.xml:5781
8240 msgid "Vanderbilt University"
8243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8244 #: freeculture.xml:5783
8248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8249 #: freeculture.xml:5783
8250 msgid "archival function of"
8253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8254 #: freeculture.xml:5785
8256 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
8257 "history. At the end of 2002, it held <quote>two hundred and thirty terabytes "
8258 "of material</quote>—and was <quote>ten times larger than the Library "
8259 "of Congress.</quote> And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle "
8260 "set out to build. In addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been "
8261 "constructing the Television Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more "
8262 "ephemeral than the Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was "
8263 "constructed through television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is "
8264 "available for anyone to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each "
8265 "evening by Vanderbilt University—thanks to a specific exemption in the "
8266 "copyright law. That content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a "
8267 "very low fee. <quote>But other than that, [television] is almost "
8268 "unavailable,</quote> Kahle told me. <quote>If you were Barbara Walters you "
8269 "could get access to [the archives], but if you are just a graduate "
8270 "student?</quote> As Kahle put it,"
8273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8274 #: freeculture.xml:5802
8278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8279 #: freeculture.xml:5803
8284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8285 #: freeculture.xml:5805
8287 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
8288 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
8289 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
8290 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
8291 "between the two, the <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> episode that came out "
8292 "after it … it would be almost impossible. … Those materials "
8293 "are almost unfindable. …"
8296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8297 #: freeculture.xml:5816
8301 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8302 #: freeculture.xml:5816
8306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8307 #: freeculture.xml:5818
8309 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
8310 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
8311 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
8312 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
8313 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
8314 "media on twentieth-century America?"
8317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8318 #: freeculture.xml:5826
8320 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
8321 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
8322 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
8323 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
8324 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
8327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8328 #: freeculture.xml:5834 freeculture.xml:5877
8333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8334 #: freeculture.xml:5845
8336 "Doug Herrick, <quote>Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at "
8337 "the Library of Congress,</quote> <citetitle>Film Library "
8338 "Quarterly</citetitle> 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; Anthony Slide, "
8339 "<citetitle>Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United "
8340 "States</citetitle> ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
8343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8344 #: freeculture.xml:5836
8346 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
8347 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
8348 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
8349 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
8350 "more than 5,475 films deposited and <quote>borrowed back.</quote> Thus, when "
8351 "the copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The "
8352 "copy exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the "
8353 "film company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8357 #: freeculture.xml:5853
8359 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
8360 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
8361 "so there was no fear of <quote>theft.</quote> But as technology enabled "
8362 "capturing, broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required "
8363 "they make a copy of each broadcast for the work to be "
8364 "<quote>copyrighted.</quote> But those copies were simply kept by the "
8365 "broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't demand "
8366 "them. The content of this part of American culture is practically invisible "
8367 "to anyone who would look."
8370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8371 #: freeculture.xml:5863
8372 msgid "September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of"
8376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8377 #: freeculture.xml:5865
8379 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
8380 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
8381 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
8382 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
8383 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
8384 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
8385 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
8388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8389 #: freeculture.xml:5875
8390 msgid "Movie Archive"
8393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8394 #: freeculture.xml:5876
8398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8399 #: freeculture.xml:5876 freeculture.xml:5878
8400 msgid "Internet Archive"
8403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8404 #: freeculture.xml:5879
8405 msgid "Duck and Cover film"
8408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8409 #: freeculture.xml:5880
8410 msgid "ephemeral films"
8413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8414 #: freeculture.xml:5881
8415 msgid "Prelinger, Rick"
8418 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8419 #: freeculture.xml:5883
8421 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
8422 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 <quote>ephemeral films</quote> "
8423 "(meaning films other than Hollywood movies, films that were never "
8424 "copyrighted), Kahle established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle "
8425 "digitize 1,300 films in this archive and post those films on the Internet to "
8426 "be downloaded for free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies "
8427 "of these films as stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he "
8428 "made a significant chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
8429 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
8430 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
8431 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
8432 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
8433 "<quote>Duck and Cover</quote> film that instructed children how to save "
8434 "themselves in the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can "
8435 "download the film in a few minutes—for free."
8438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8439 #: freeculture.xml:5901
8441 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
8442 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
8443 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
8444 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
8445 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
8448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8449 #: freeculture.xml:5909
8451 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
8452 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
8453 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
8454 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
8455 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
8459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8460 #: freeculture.xml:5917
8462 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
8463 "creative property goes through different <quote>lives.</quote> In its first "
8464 "life, if the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the "
8465 "commercial market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of "
8466 "creative property doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For "
8467 "that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this "
8468 "commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
8471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8472 #: freeculture.xml:5929
8474 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
8475 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
8476 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
8477 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
8478 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
8479 "even if that information is no longer sold."
8482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8483 #: freeculture.xml:5942
8485 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Dave Barns, <quote>Fledgling "
8486 "Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter "
8487 "by Adopting Business,</quote> <citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 5 "
8488 "September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, "
8489 "only 2.2 percent were in print in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, <quote>The First "
8490 "Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
8491 "College Law Review</citetitle> 44 (2003): 593 n. 51."
8494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8495 #: freeculture.xml:5939
8497 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
8498 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
8499 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
8500 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
8501 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
8502 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
8503 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
8506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8507 #: freeculture.xml:5957
8509 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
8510 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
8511 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
8512 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
8513 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
8514 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
8515 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
8516 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
8520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8521 #: freeculture.xml:5968
8523 "<emphasis role='strong'>For most of</emphasis> the twentieth century, it was "
8524 "economics that made this so. It would have been insanely expensive to "
8525 "collect and make accessible all television and film and music: The cost of "
8526 "analog copies is extraordinarily high. So even though the law in principle "
8527 "would have restricted the ability of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture "
8528 "generally, the real restriction was economics. The market made it impossibly "
8529 "difficult to do anything about this ephemeral culture; the law had little "
8533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8534 #: freeculture.xml:5980
8536 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
8537 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
8538 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
8539 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
8540 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
8541 "moving images and sound."
8544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8545 #: freeculture.xml:5988
8547 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
8548 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
8549 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
8553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><secondary>
8554 #: freeculture.xml:5994
8555 msgid "total number of"
8558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8559 #: freeculture.xml:5996
8561 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
8562 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
8563 "… and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the "
8564 "twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of "
8565 "books. All of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and "
8566 "be able to be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in "
8567 "our history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
8568 "different life, based on this, is … thrilling. It could be one of the "
8569 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
8570 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
8575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8576 #: freeculture.xml:6011
8578 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
8579 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
8580 "libraries or archives could be. <emphasis>When</emphasis> the commercial "
8581 "life of creative property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it "
8582 "does, Kahle and his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and "
8583 "culture, remains perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand "
8584 "it; some to criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create "
8585 "the past for the future. These technologies promise something that had "
8586 "become unimaginable for much of our past—a future "
8587 "<emphasis>for</emphasis> our past. The technology of digital arts could make "
8588 "the dream of the Library of Alexandria real again."
8591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8592 #: freeculture.xml:6026
8594 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
8595 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
8596 "these <quote>archives,</quote> as warm as the idea of a "
8597 "<quote>library</quote> might seem, the <quote>content</quote> that is "
8598 "collected in these digital spaces is also someone's <quote>property.</quote> "
8599 "And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and others would "
8603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8604 #: freeculture.xml:6037
8605 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: <quote>Property</quote>"
8608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8609 #: freeculture.xml:6038
8610 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
8613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8614 #: freeculture.xml:6039 freeculture.xml:9766
8615 msgid "Kennedy, John F."
8618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8619 #: freeculture.xml:6041
8621 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jack Valenti</emphasis> has been the president of "
8622 "the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966. He first came to "
8623 "Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's administration—literally. The "
8624 "famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in on Air Force One after the "
8625 "assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in the background. In his "
8626 "almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has established himself as "
8627 "perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in Washington."
8630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8631 #: freeculture.xml:6051
8632 msgid "Sony Pictures Entertainment"
8635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8636 #: freeculture.xml:6052
8640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8641 #: freeculture.xml:6053
8642 msgid "Paramount Pictures"
8645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8646 #: freeculture.xml:6054
8647 msgid "Twentieth Century Fox"
8650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8651 #: freeculture.xml:6055
8652 msgid "Universal Pictures"
8655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8656 #: freeculture.xml:6056 freeculture.xml:7484
8657 msgid "Warner Brothers"
8660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8661 #: freeculture.xml:6058
8663 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
8664 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
8665 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
8666 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
8667 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
8668 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
8669 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
8670 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
8671 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers."
8675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8676 #: freeculture.xml:6071
8678 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
8679 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
8680 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
8681 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
8682 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
8683 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
8684 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
8685 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
8686 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
8689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8690 #: freeculture.xml:6083
8692 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
8693 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
8694 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
8695 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
8696 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
8697 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of "
8698 "<quote>creative property.</quote>"
8701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8702 #: freeculture.xml:6092
8703 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
8707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
8708 #: freeculture.xml:6106
8710 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
8711 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
8712 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
8713 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
8714 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
8717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8718 #: freeculture.xml:6097
8720 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
8721 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
8722 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
8723 "animates this entire debate: <emphasis>Creative property owners must be "
8724 "accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property "
8725 "owners in the nation</emphasis>. That is the issue. That is the "
8726 "question. And that is the rostrum on which this entire hearing and the "
8727 "debates to follow must rest.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8732 #: freeculture.xml:6116
8734 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
8735 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
8736 "<quote>central theme</quote> to which <quote>reasonable men and "
8737 "women</quote> will return is this: <quote>Creative property owners must be "
8738 "accorded the same rights and protections resident in all other property "
8739 "owners in the nation.</quote> There are no second-class citizens, Valenti "
8740 "might have continued. There should be no second-class property owners."
8743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8744 #: freeculture.xml:6127
8746 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
8747 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
8748 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
8749 "made by <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> who is serious in this debate than this "
8750 "claim of Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is "
8751 "perhaps the nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and "
8752 "scope of <quote>creative property.</quote> His views have "
8753 "<emphasis>no</emphasis> reasonable connection to our actual legal tradition, "
8754 "even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly redefined that "
8755 "tradition, at least in Washington."
8759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8760 #: freeculture.xml:6142
8762 "Lawyers speak of <quote>property</quote> not as an absolute thing, but as a "
8763 "bundle of rights that are sometimes associated with a particular "
8764 "object. Thus, my <quote>property right</quote> to my car gives me the right "
8765 "to exclusive use, but not the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the "
8766 "best effort to connect the ordinary meaning of <quote>property</quote> to "
8767 "<quote>lawyer talk,</quote> see Bruce Ackerman, <citetitle>Private Property "
8768 "and the Constitution</citetitle> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), "
8772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8773 #: freeculture.xml:6139
8775 "While <quote>creative property</quote> is certainly <quote>property</quote> "
8776 "in a nerdy and precise sense that lawyers are trained to "
8777 "understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it has never been the "
8778 "case, nor should it be, that <quote>creative property owners</quote> have "
8779 "been <quote>accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other "
8780 "property owners.</quote> Indeed, if creative property owners were given the "
8781 "same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a radical, and "
8782 "radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
8785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8786 #: freeculture.xml:6157
8788 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
8789 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
8790 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
8791 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
8792 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
8796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8797 #: freeculture.xml:6165
8799 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
8800 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
8801 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
8802 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
8803 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
8804 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
8805 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
8806 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
8807 "creativity having less than perfect control."
8810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8811 #: freeculture.xml:6180
8813 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
8814 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
8815 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
8816 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
8817 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
8818 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
8822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8823 #: freeculture.xml:6189
8825 "<emphasis role='strong'>To get</emphasis> just a hint that there is "
8826 "something fundamentally wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further "
8827 "than the United States Constitution itself."
8830 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8831 #: freeculture.xml:6194
8833 "The framers of our Constitution loved <quote>property.</quote> Indeed, so "
8834 "strongly did they love property that they built into the Constitution an "
8835 "important requirement. If the government takes your property—if it "
8836 "condemns your house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is "
8837 "required, under the Fifth Amendment's <quote>Takings Clause,</quote> to pay "
8838 "you <quote>just compensation</quote> for that taking. The Constitution thus "
8839 "guarantees that property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot "
8840 "<emphasis>ever</emphasis> be taken from the property owner unless the "
8841 "government pays for the privilege."
8845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8846 #: freeculture.xml:6205
8848 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
8849 "calls <quote>creative property.</quote> In the clause granting Congress the "
8850 "power to create <quote>creative property,</quote> the Constitution "
8851 "<emphasis>requires</emphasis> that after a <quote>limited time,</quote> "
8852 "Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set the "
8853 "<quote>creative property</quote> free to the public domain. Yet when "
8854 "Congress does this, when the expiration of a copyright term "
8855 "<quote>takes</quote> your copyright and turns it over to the public domain, "
8856 "Congress does not have any obligation to pay <quote>just "
8857 "compensation</quote> for this <quote>taking.</quote> Instead, the same "
8858 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
8859 "your <quote>creative property</quote> right without any compensation at all."
8862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8863 #: freeculture.xml:6220
8865 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
8866 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
8867 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
8868 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
8869 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
8870 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
8873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8874 #: freeculture.xml:6229
8876 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
8877 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
8878 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
8879 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
8880 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
8881 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
8882 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
8883 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
8884 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
8887 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8888 #: freeculture.xml:6241
8890 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
8891 "try to understand <emphasis>why</emphasis>. Why did the framers, fanatical "
8892 "property types that they were, reject the claim that creative property be "
8893 "given the same rights as all other property? Why did they require that for "
8894 "creative property there must be a public domain?"
8897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8898 #: freeculture.xml:6249
8900 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
8901 "these <quote>creative property</quote> rights, and the control that they "
8902 "enabled. Once we see clearly how differently these rights have been "
8903 "defined, we will be in a better position to ask the question that should be "
8904 "at the core of this war: Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> creative property "
8905 "should be protected, but how. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> we will "
8906 "enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but what the "
8907 "particular mix of rights ought to be. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> "
8908 "artists should be paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that "
8909 "artists get paid need also control how culture develops."
8913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8914 #: freeculture.xml:6264
8916 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
8917 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
8918 "narrow language of the law allows. In <citetitle>Code and Other Laws of "
8919 "Cyberspace</citetitle>, I used a simple model to capture this more general "
8920 "perspective. For any particular right or regulation, this model asks how "
8921 "four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the "
8922 "right or regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
8925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
8926 #: freeculture.xml:6273
8928 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
8929 "the right or regulation."
8932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
8933 #: freeculture.xml:6274 freeculture.xml:6458 freeculture.xml:6765
8934 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.png\"></graphic>"
8937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8938 #: freeculture.xml:6277
8940 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
8941 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
8942 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
8943 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
8944 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
8945 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
8946 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
8947 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
8948 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
8949 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
8950 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
8951 "by the state. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
8954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8955 #: freeculture.xml:6293 freeculture.xml:6352 freeculture.xml:6461
8956 msgid "norms, regulatory influence of"
8959 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8960 #: freeculture.xml:6295
8962 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
8963 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
8964 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
8965 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
8966 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
8967 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
8968 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
8969 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
8972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8973 #: freeculture.xml:6305 freeculture.xml:6351 freeculture.xml:6441 freeculture.xml:6460 freeculture.xml:9391 freeculture.xml:9590
8974 msgid "market constraints"
8977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8978 #: freeculture.xml:6307
8980 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
8981 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
8982 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
8983 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
8984 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
8985 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
8986 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
8989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8990 #: freeculture.xml:6316 freeculture.xml:6350 freeculture.xml:6399 freeculture.xml:6440
8991 msgid "architecture, constraint effected through"
8994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8995 #: freeculture.xml:6318
8997 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
8998 "<quote>architecture</quote>—the physical world as one finds "
8999 "it—is a constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your "
9000 "ability to get across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability "
9001 "of a community to integrate its social life. As with the market, "
9002 "architecture does not effect its constraint through ex post "
9003 "punishments. Instead, also as with the market, architecture effects its "
9004 "constraint through simultaneous conditions. These conditions are imposed not "
9005 "by courts enforcing contracts, or by police punishing theft, but by nature, "
9006 "by <quote>architecture.</quote> If a 500-pound boulder blocks your way, it "
9007 "is the law of gravity that enforces this constraint. If a $500 airplane "
9008 "ticket stands between you and a flight to New York, it is the market that "
9009 "enforces this constraint."
9013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9014 #: freeculture.xml:6335
9016 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
9017 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
9018 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
9021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9022 #: freeculture.xml:6341
9024 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
9025 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
9026 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
9027 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
9028 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
9029 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
9030 "particular interact."
9033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9034 #: freeculture.xml:6349
9035 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
9038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9039 #: freeculture.xml:6354
9041 "So, for example, consider the <quote>freedom</quote> to drive a car at a "
9042 "high speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that "
9043 "say how fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is "
9044 "in part restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most "
9045 "rational drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum "
9046 "rate at which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the "
9047 "market: Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
9048 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
9049 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
9050 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
9051 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
9055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9056 #: freeculture.xml:6372
9058 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
9059 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
9060 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
9061 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
9062 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>Code: And Other "
9063 "Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle> (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; "
9064 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>The New Chicago School,</quote> <citetitle>Journal "
9065 "of Legal Studies</citetitle>, June 1998."
9069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9070 #: freeculture.xml:6368
9072 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
9073 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
9074 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
9075 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
9076 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
9077 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
9078 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
9079 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
9080 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
9081 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
9082 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
9086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9087 #: freeculture.xml:6396
9088 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
9091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
9092 #: freeculture.xml:6397
9093 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.png\"></graphic>"
9096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9097 #: freeculture.xml:6438
9098 msgid "Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)"
9101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9102 #: freeculture.xml:6439
9103 msgid "Commons, John R."
9106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9107 #: freeculture.xml:6409
9109 "Some people object to this way of talking about <quote>liberty.</quote> They "
9110 "object because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at "
9111 "any particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the "
9112 "government. For instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think "
9113 "it is meaningless to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge "
9114 "has washed out, and it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk "
9115 "about this as a loss of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of "
9116 "politics with the vagaries of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value "
9117 "in this narrower view, which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, "
9118 "however, mean to argue against any insistence that this narrower view is the "
9119 "only proper view of liberty. As I argued in <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, we "
9120 "come from a long tradition of political thought with a broader focus than "
9121 "the narrow question of what the government did when. John Stuart Mill "
9122 "defended freedom of speech, for example, from the tyranny of narrow minds, "
9123 "not from the fear of government prosecution; John Stuart Mill, <citetitle>On "
9124 "Liberty</citetitle> (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. John "
9125 "R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from constraints "
9126 "imposed by the market; John R. Commons, <quote>The Right to Work,</quote> in "
9127 "Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., <citetitle>John R. Commons: "
9128 "Selected Essays</citetitle> (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans "
9129 "with Disabilities Act increases the liberty of people with physical "
9130 "disabilities by changing the architecture of certain public places, thereby "
9131 "making access to those places easier; 42 <citetitle>United States "
9132 "Code</citetitle>, section 12101 (2000). Each of these interventions to "
9133 "change existing conditions changes the liberty of a particular group. The "
9134 "effect of those interventions should be accounted for in order to understand "
9135 "the effective liberty that each of these groups might face. <placeholder "
9136 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
9137 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
9141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9142 #: freeculture.xml:6401
9144 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
9145 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
9146 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
9147 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
9148 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9153 #: freeculture.xml:6445
9154 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
9157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9158 #: freeculture.xml:6447
9160 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
9161 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
9162 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
9166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9167 #: freeculture.xml:6453
9168 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
9171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9172 #: freeculture.xml:6457 freeculture.xml:6764
9173 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
9177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9178 #: freeculture.xml:6464
9180 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
9181 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
9182 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
9183 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
9184 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
9185 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
9186 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
9187 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
9188 "this form of infringement."
9191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9192 #: freeculture.xml:6476
9194 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
9195 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
9196 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
9197 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
9198 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
9199 "of anarchy after the Internet."
9203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9204 #: freeculture.xml:6484
9206 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
9207 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
9208 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
9209 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
9210 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
9214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9215 #: freeculture.xml:6494
9216 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
9219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9220 #: freeculture.xml:6495
9221 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.png\"></graphic>"
9224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9225 #: freeculture.xml:6498
9227 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
9228 "warriors. Indeed, in a <quote>White Paper</quote> prepared by the Commerce "
9229 "Department (one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this "
9230 "mix of regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
9231 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
9232 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
9233 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
9234 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
9235 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
9238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9239 #: freeculture.xml:6509
9240 msgid "steel industry"
9244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9245 #: freeculture.xml:6511
9247 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
9248 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
9249 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
9250 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
9251 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
9252 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
9253 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
9254 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
9255 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
9256 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
9257 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
9258 "U.S. steel industry."
9261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9262 #: freeculture.xml:6528
9264 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
9265 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
9266 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
9267 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
9268 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
9269 "<quote>architecture of revenue.</quote>"
9272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9273 #: freeculture.xml:6535
9274 msgid "railroad industry"
9278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9279 #: freeculture.xml:6547
9281 "See Geoffrey Smith, <quote>Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a "
9282 "Bridge?</quote> BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
9283 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
9284 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, "
9285 "<quote>Can Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?</quote> Forbes.com, 6 October "
9286 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
9290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9291 #: freeculture.xml:6539
9293 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
9294 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
9295 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
9296 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
9297 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
9298 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
9299 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
9300 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
9301 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
9302 "trucks from roads <emphasis>for the purpose of</emphasis> protecting the "
9303 "railroads? Closer to the subject of this book, remote channel changers have "
9304 "weakened the <quote>stickiness</quote> of television advertising (if a "
9305 "boring commercial comes on the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf ), and "
9306 "it may well be that this change has weakened the television advertising "
9307 "market. But does anyone believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce "
9308 "commercial television? (Maybe by limiting them to function only once a "
9309 "second, or to switch to only ten channels within an hour?)"
9312 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
9313 #: freeculture.xml:6568 freeculture.xml:14889
9314 msgid "Brezhnev, Leonid"
9317 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9318 #: freeculture.xml:6569 freeculture.xml:13125
9323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9324 #: freeculture.xml:6581
9326 "Fred Warshofsky, <citetitle>The Patent Wars</citetitle> (New York: Wiley, "
9327 "1994), 170–71."
9330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9331 #: freeculture.xml:6571
9333 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
9334 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
9335 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
9336 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
9337 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
9338 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
9339 "patents, <quote>established companies have an interest in excluding future "
9340 "competitors.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative "
9341 "to a startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
9342 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
9343 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
9344 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
9345 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev."
9348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9349 #: freeculture.xml:6592
9351 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
9352 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
9353 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
9354 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
9355 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
9356 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
9357 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
9360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9361 #: freeculture.xml:6602
9363 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
9364 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
9365 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
9366 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
9367 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
9368 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
9369 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
9370 "Constitution: <quote>Congress shall make no law … abridging the "
9371 "freedom of speech.</quote> So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that "
9372 "would <quote>abridge</quote> the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
9373 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
9377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9378 #: freeculture.xml:6616
9380 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
9381 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are "
9382 "<quote>justified.</quote> My argument is about their effect. For before we "
9383 "get to the question of justification, a hard question that depends a great "
9384 "deal upon your values, we should first ask whether we understand the effect "
9385 "of the changes the content industry wants."
9388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9389 #: freeculture.xml:6625
9390 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
9393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9394 #: freeculture.xml:6627
9398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9399 #: freeculture.xml:6628
9400 msgid "Müller, Paul Hermann"
9403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9404 #: freeculture.xml:6630
9406 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
9407 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
9408 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
9409 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
9410 "increase farm production."
9413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9414 #: freeculture.xml:6637
9416 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
9417 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
9418 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
9421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9422 #: freeculture.xml:6641
9423 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
9426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9427 #: freeculture.xml:6642
9428 msgid "Silent Sprint (Carson)"
9431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9432 #: freeculture.xml:6644
9434 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published <citetitle>Silent Spring</citetitle>, "
9435 "which argued that DDT, whatever its primary benefits, was also having "
9436 "unintended environmental consequences. Birds were losing the ability to "
9437 "reproduce. Whole chains of the ecology were being destroyed."
9440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9441 #: freeculture.xml:6650
9443 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
9444 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
9445 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
9446 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
9447 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
9448 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
9452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9453 #: freeculture.xml:6658
9454 msgid "Boyle, James"
9458 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9459 #: freeculture.xml:6664
9461 "See, for example, James Boyle, <quote>A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
9462 "Environmentalism for the Net?</quote> <citetitle>Duke Law "
9463 "Journal</citetitle> 47 (1997): 87."
9467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9468 #: freeculture.xml:6660
9470 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
9471 "appeals when he argues that we need an <quote>environmentalism</quote> for "
9472 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
9473 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
9474 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
9475 "that music should be given away <quote>for free.</quote> The point is that "
9476 "some of the ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended "
9477 "consequences for the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural "
9478 "environment. And just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria "
9479 "or an attack on farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of "
9480 "regulations protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack "
9481 "on authors. It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should "
9482 "be aware of our actions' effects on the environment."
9485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9486 #: freeculture.xml:6681
9488 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
9489 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
9490 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
9491 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
9492 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
9493 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
9494 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
9495 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
9499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9500 #: freeculture.xml:6692
9502 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
9503 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
9506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9507 #: freeculture.xml:6699
9511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9512 #: freeculture.xml:6701
9514 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
9515 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of <quote>creative "
9516 "property</quote> rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English "
9517 "aim to avoid overly powerful publishers."
9520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9521 #: freeculture.xml:6707
9523 "The power to establish <quote>creative property</quote> rights is granted to "
9524 "Congress in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article "
9525 "I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
9529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9530 #: freeculture.xml:6712
9532 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
9533 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
9534 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
9535 "<quote>Progress Clause,</quote> for notice what this clause does not say. It "
9536 "does not say Congress has the power to grant <quote>creative property "
9537 "rights.</quote> It says that Congress has the power <emphasis>to promote "
9538 "progress</emphasis>. The grant of power is its purpose, and its purpose is a "
9539 "public one, not the purpose of enriching publishers, nor even primarily the "
9540 "purpose of rewarding authors."
9543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9544 #: freeculture.xml:6725
9546 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
9547 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"founders\"/>, the "
9548 "English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a few would not "
9549 "exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
9550 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
9551 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
9552 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend <quote>to "
9553 "Authors</quote> only."
9556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9557 #: freeculture.xml:6735
9559 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
9560 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
9561 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
9562 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
9563 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
9564 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
9565 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
9566 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
9567 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
9568 "select the president. In each case, a <emphasis>structure</emphasis> built "
9569 "checks and balances into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent "
9570 "otherwise inevitable concentrations of power."
9573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9574 #: freeculture.xml:6750
9576 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call "
9577 "<quote>copyright</quote> today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond "
9578 "anything they ever considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need "
9579 "to put our <quote>copyright</quote> in context: We need to see how it has "
9580 "changed in the 210 years since they first struck its design."
9584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9585 #: freeculture.xml:6757
9587 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
9588 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
9589 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
9592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9593 #: freeculture.xml:6768
9594 msgid "We will end here:"
9597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9598 #: freeculture.xml:6771
9599 msgid "<quote>Copyright</quote> today."
9602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9603 #: freeculture.xml:6772
9604 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.png\"></graphic>"
9608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9609 #: freeculture.xml:6775
9610 msgid "Let me explain how."
9613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9614 #: freeculture.xml:6780
9615 msgid "Law: Duration"
9618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9619 #: freeculture.xml:6796
9620 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
9623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9624 #: freeculture.xml:6790
9626 "William W. Crosskey, <citetitle>Politics and the Constitution in the History "
9627 "of the United States</citetitle> (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), "
9628 "vol. 1, 485–86: <quote>extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the "
9629 "supreme Law of the Land,' <emphasis>the perpetual rights which authors had, "
9630 "or were supposed by some to have, under the Common Law</emphasis></quote> "
9631 "(emphasis added). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9635 #: freeculture.xml:6782
9637 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
9638 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
9639 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
9640 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
9641 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
9642 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
9643 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
9644 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
9645 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
9646 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
9647 "to reprint and distribute works."
9650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9651 #: freeculture.xml:6806
9653 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
9654 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
9655 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
9656 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
9657 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
9661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9662 #: freeculture.xml:6814
9664 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
9665 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
9666 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
9667 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
9668 "work passed into the public domain."
9672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9673 #: freeculture.xml:6829
9675 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
9676 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, <citetitle>A "
9677 "History of Book Publishing in the United States</citetitle>, vol. 1, "
9678 "<citetitle>The Creation of an Industry, 1630–1865</citetitle> (New "
9679 "York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints recorded before 1790, only "
9680 "twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; William J. Maher, "
9681 "<citetitle>Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright Law of "
9682 "1790 in Historical Context</citetitle>, 7–10 (2002), available at "
9683 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
9684 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
9685 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
9686 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
9687 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
9688 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
9691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9692 #: freeculture.xml:6821
9694 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
9695 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
9696 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
9697 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
9698 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
9699 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
9700 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9705 #: freeculture.xml:6845
9707 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
9708 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
9709 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
9710 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
9711 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
9715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9716 #: freeculture.xml:6860
9718 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
9719 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
9720 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
9721 "<quote>Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Studies on "
9722 "Copyright</citetitle>, vol. 1 (New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), "
9723 "618. For a more recent and comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and "
9724 "Richard A. Posner, <quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> "
9725 "<citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 471, "
9726 "498–501, and accompanying figures."
9729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9730 #: freeculture.xml:6854
9732 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
9733 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
9734 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
9735 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9741 #: freeculture.xml:6877
9742 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
9745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9746 #: freeculture.xml:6873
9748 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
9749 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
9750 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
9751 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
9752 "books are no longer <emphasis>effectively</emphasis> controlled by "
9753 "copyright. The only practical commercial use of the books at that time is to "
9754 "sell the books as used books; that use—because it does not involve "
9755 "publication—is effectively free."
9758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9759 #: freeculture.xml:6885
9761 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
9762 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
9763 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
9764 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
9765 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
9766 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
9769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9770 #: freeculture.xml:6893
9772 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
9773 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
9774 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
9775 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
9776 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
9777 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
9778 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
9779 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
9783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9784 #: freeculture.xml:6903
9786 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
9787 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
9788 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
9789 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
9790 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
9791 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
9795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9796 #: freeculture.xml:6914
9798 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
9799 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
9800 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
9801 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
9802 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
9803 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
9804 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
9807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9808 #: freeculture.xml:6924
9810 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
9811 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
9812 "term. For <quote>natural</quote> authors, that term was life plus fifty "
9813 "years. For corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, "
9814 "Congress abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before "
9815 "1978. All works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term "
9816 "then available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
9819 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9820 #: freeculture.xml:6934
9822 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
9823 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
9824 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
9825 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
9826 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be "
9827 "<quote>limited,</quote> we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
9831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9832 #: freeculture.xml:6951
9834 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
9835 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
9836 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
9837 "<quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> loc. cit."
9840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9841 #: freeculture.xml:6943
9843 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
9844 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
9845 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
9846 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
9847 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
9848 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
9849 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9853 #: freeculture.xml:6960
9857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9858 #: freeculture.xml:6962
9860 "The <quote>scope</quote> of a copyright is the range of rights granted by "
9861 "the law. The scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those "
9862 "changes are not necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the "
9863 "changes if we're to keep this debate in context."
9866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9867 #: freeculture.xml:6968
9869 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only <quote>maps, "
9870 "charts, and books.</quote> That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
9871 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
9872 "author the exclusive right to <quote>publish</quote> copyrighted works. That "
9873 "means someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work "
9874 "without the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a "
9875 "copyright was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not "
9876 "extend to what lawyers call <quote>derivative works.</quote> It would not, "
9877 "therefore, interfere with the right of someone other than the author to "
9878 "translate a copyrighted book, or to adapt the story to a different form "
9879 "(such as a drama based on a published book)."
9882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9883 #: freeculture.xml:6981
9885 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
9886 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
9887 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
9888 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
9889 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
9890 "<quote>publish</quote> the work, but also the exclusive right of control "
9891 "over any <quote>copies</quote> of that work. And most significant for our "
9892 "purposes here, the right gives the copyright owner control over not only his "
9893 "or her particular work, but also any <quote>derivative work</quote> that "
9894 "might grow out of the original work. In this way, the right covers more "
9895 "creative work, protects the creative work more broadly, and protects works "
9896 "that are based in a significant way on the initial creative work."
9900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9901 #: freeculture.xml:6996
9903 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
9904 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
9905 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
9906 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
9907 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
9908 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
9909 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
9910 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis>. And for most of the history of American "
9911 "copyright law, there was a requirement that works be deposited with the "
9912 "government before a copyright could be secured."
9915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9916 #: freeculture.xml:7010
9918 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
9919 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
9920 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
9921 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
9922 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
9923 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
9924 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
9925 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
9926 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
9927 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
9931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9932 #: freeculture.xml:7024
9934 "All of these <quote>formalities</quote> were abolished in the American "
9935 "system when we decided to follow European copyright law. There is no "
9936 "requirement that you register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now "
9937 "is automatic; the copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a "
9938 "©; and the copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy "
9939 "available for others to copy."
9942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9943 #: freeculture.xml:7032
9944 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
9948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9949 #: freeculture.xml:7043
9951 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, <quote>Poets, Pirates, and the "
9952 "Creation of American Literature,</quote> 29 <citetitle>New York University "
9953 "Journal of International Law and Politics</citetitle> 255 (1997), and James "
9954 "Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, 1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., "
9958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9959 #: freeculture.xml:7036
9961 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
9962 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
9963 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
9964 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
9965 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
9966 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
9967 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
9968 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
9972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9973 #: freeculture.xml:7055
9975 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
9976 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
9977 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
9978 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
9979 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
9980 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
9983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9984 #: freeculture.xml:7064
9986 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
9987 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
9988 "note to your spouse, every doodle, <emphasis>every</emphasis> creative act "
9989 "that's reduced to a tangible form—all of this is automatically "
9990 "copyrighted. There is no need to register or mark your work. The protection "
9991 "follows the creation, not the steps you take to protect it."
9994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9995 #: freeculture.xml:7073
9997 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
9998 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
9999 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
10002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10003 #: freeculture.xml:7078
10005 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
10006 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
10007 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of <quote>derivative "
10008 "rights.</quote> If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your "
10009 "book without permission. No one can translate it without permission. "
10010 "CliffsNotes can't make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of "
10011 "these derivative uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright "
10012 "holder. The copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to "
10013 "your writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large "
10014 "proportion of the writings inspired by them."
10017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10018 #: freeculture.xml:7092
10020 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
10021 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
10022 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
10023 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
10024 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
10025 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
10026 "the verbatim original work."
10029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10030 #: freeculture.xml:7114
10032 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>The Copyright Cage,</quote> <citetitle>Legal "
10033 "Affairs</citetitle>, July/August 2003, available at <ulink "
10034 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>. <placeholder "
10035 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10039 #: freeculture.xml:7104
10041 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
10042 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
10043 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
10044 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
10045 "work. But whatever <emphasis>that</emphasis> wrong is, transforming someone "
10046 "else's work is a different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at "
10047 "all—they believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not "
10048 "protect derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10049 "Whether or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is "
10050 "involved is fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
10053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10054 #: freeculture.xml:7136
10055 msgid "Rubenfeld, Jeb"
10058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10059 #: freeculture.xml:7129
10061 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
10062 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
10063 "First Amendment) between mere <quote>copies</quote> and derivative "
10064 "works. See Jed Rubenfeld, <quote>The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's "
10065 "Constitutionality,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 112 "
10066 "(2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59). <placeholder "
10067 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10071 #: freeculture.xml:7124
10073 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
10074 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
10075 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
10076 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
10077 "my creative work are treated the same."
10080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10081 #: freeculture.xml:7143
10083 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
10084 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
10085 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called "
10086 "<quote>Mickey Mouse,</quote> why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse "
10087 "toys and be the one to trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
10090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10091 #: freeculture.xml:7151
10093 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
10094 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
10095 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
10096 "originally granted."
10099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10100 #: freeculture.xml:7158
10101 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
10105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10106 #: freeculture.xml:7165
10108 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
10109 "regulates more than <quote>copies</quote>—a public performance of a "
10110 "copyrighted song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se "
10111 "doesn't make a copy; 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section "
10112 "106(4). And it certainly sometimes doesn't regulate a <quote>copy</quote>; "
10113 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 112(a). But the "
10114 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates <quote>copies;</quote> "
10115 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 102) is that if there "
10116 "is a copy, there is a right."
10119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10120 #: freeculture.xml:7160
10122 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
10123 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
10124 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
10125 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
10126 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10131 #: freeculture.xml:7177
10133 "<quote>Copies.</quote> That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for "
10134 "<emphasis>copy</emphasis>right law to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's "
10135 "argument at the start of this chapter, that <quote>creative property</quote> "
10136 "deserves the <quote>same rights</quote> as all other property, it is the "
10137 "<emphasis>obvious</emphasis> that we need to be most careful about. For "
10138 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
10139 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
10140 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should <emphasis>not</emphasis> "
10141 "be the trigger for copyright law. More precisely, they should not "
10142 "<emphasis>always</emphasis> be the trigger for copyright law."
10146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10147 #: freeculture.xml:7195
10149 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
10150 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
10151 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
10152 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
10155 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10156 #: freeculture.xml:7190
10158 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
10159 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
10160 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
10161 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10162 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
10163 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
10167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10168 #: freeculture.xml:7206
10170 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
10174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10175 #: freeculture.xml:7210
10176 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
10179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10180 #: freeculture.xml:7211
10181 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.png\"></graphic>"
10184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10185 #: freeculture.xml:7213
10186 msgid "three types of uses of"
10190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10191 #: freeculture.xml:7216
10193 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
10194 "its potential <emphasis>uses</emphasis>. Most of these uses are unregulated "
10195 "by copyright law, because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, "
10196 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, "
10197 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act "
10198 "is not regulated (copyright law expressly states that after the first sale "
10199 "of a book, the copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the "
10200 "disposition of the book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a "
10201 "lamp or let your puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright "
10202 "law, because those acts do not make a copy."
10205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10206 #: freeculture.xml:7229
10207 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
10210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10211 #: freeculture.xml:7230
10212 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.png\"></graphic>"
10215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10216 #: freeculture.xml:7233
10218 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
10219 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
10220 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
10221 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
10222 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
10223 "diagram on next page)."
10226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10227 #: freeculture.xml:7241
10229 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
10230 "remain unregulated because the law considers these <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10234 #: freeculture.xml:7246
10236 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
10237 "copyrighted work."
10240 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10241 #: freeculture.xml:7247
10242 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\"></graphic>"
10245 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10246 #: freeculture.xml:7250
10248 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
10249 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
10250 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
10251 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
10252 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
10253 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
10254 "over such <quote>fair uses</quote> for public policy (and possibly First "
10255 "Amendment) reasons."
10258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10259 #: freeculture.xml:7260
10260 msgid "Unregulated copying considered <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10264 #: freeculture.xml:7261
10265 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\"></graphic>"
10268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10269 #: freeculture.xml:7265
10271 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
10275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10276 #: freeculture.xml:7266
10277 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\"></graphic>"
10281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10282 #: freeculture.xml:7270
10284 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
10285 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
10286 "are nonetheless deemed <quote>fair</quote> regardless of the copyright "
10290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10291 #: freeculture.xml:7275 freeculture.xml:7309 freeculture.xml:7518
10292 msgid "on Internet"
10296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10297 #: freeculture.xml:7280
10299 "I don't mean <quote>nature</quote> in the sense that it couldn't be "
10300 "different, but rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical "
10301 "networks need not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital "
10302 "network could be designed to delete anything it copies so that the same "
10303 "number of copies remain."
10306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10307 #: freeculture.xml:7277
10309 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
10310 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10311 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
10312 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
10313 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
10314 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
10315 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
10316 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
10317 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
10318 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
10319 "burden of this shift."
10323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10324 #: freeculture.xml:7298
10326 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
10327 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
10328 "plausible <emphasis>copyright</emphasis>-related argument that the copyright "
10329 "owner could make to control that use of her book. Copyright law would have "
10330 "nothing to say about whether you read the book once, ten times, or every "
10331 "night before you went to bed. None of those instances of "
10332 "use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because none of "
10333 "those uses produced a copy."
10336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10337 #: freeculture.xml:7311
10339 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
10340 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
10341 "only once a month, then <emphasis>copyright law</emphasis> would aid the "
10342 "copyright owner in exercising this degree of control, because of the "
10343 "accidental feature of copyright law that triggers its application upon there "
10344 "being a copy. Now if you read the book ten times and the license says you "
10345 "may read it only five times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion "
10346 "of it) beyond the fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to "
10347 "the copyright owner's wish."
10350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10351 #: freeculture.xml:7323
10353 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
10354 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
10355 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
10359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10360 #: freeculture.xml:7329
10362 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
10363 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
10364 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
10365 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
10366 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
10370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10371 #: freeculture.xml:7337
10373 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
10374 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
10375 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate "
10376 "<emphasis>any</emphasis> transformation you make of creative work using a "
10377 "machine. <quote>Copy and paste</quote> and <quote>cut and paste</quote> "
10378 "become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others exposes the "
10379 "tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However troubling the "
10380 "expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is extraordinarily "
10381 "troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative work."
10385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10386 #: freeculture.xml:7349
10388 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
10389 "on category 3 (<quote>fair use</quote>) that fair use never before had to "
10390 "bear. If a copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read "
10391 "a book on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a "
10392 "violation of my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation "
10393 "about whether I have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, "
10394 "reading did not trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need "
10395 "for a fair use defense. The right to read was effectively protected before "
10396 "because reading was not regulated."
10399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10400 #: freeculture.xml:7363
10402 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
10403 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
10404 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
10405 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
10406 "when the vast majority of uses are <emphasis>unregulated</emphasis>. But "
10407 "when everything becomes presumptively regulated, then the protections of "
10408 "fair use are not enough."
10411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10412 #: freeculture.xml:7374
10414 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
10415 "business of making <quote>trailer</quote> advertisements for movies "
10416 "available to video stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way "
10417 "to sell videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, "
10418 "put the trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
10421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
10422 #: freeculture.xml:7380 freeculture.xml:7440 freeculture.xml:13476
10426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10427 #: freeculture.xml:7382
10429 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
10430 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
10431 "idea was to expand their <quote>selling by sampling</quote> technique by "
10432 "giving on-line stores the same ability to enable <quote>browsing.</quote> "
10433 "Just as in a bookstore you can read a few pages of a book before you buy the "
10434 "book, so, too, you would be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line "
10435 "before you bought it."
10439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10440 #: freeculture.xml:7391
10442 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
10443 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
10444 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
10445 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
10446 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
10447 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
10448 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
10449 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
10450 "was within their <quote>fair use</quote> rights to distribute the clips as "
10451 "they had. So they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these "
10452 "rights were in fact their rights."
10455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10456 #: freeculture.xml:7406
10458 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
10459 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had <quote>willfully "
10460 "infringed</quote> on Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of "
10461 "willful infringement, it can award damages not on the basis of the actual "
10462 "harm to the copyright owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the "
10463 "statute. Because Video Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of "
10464 "Disney movies to enable video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney "
10465 "was now suing Video Pipeline for $100 million."
10468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10469 #: freeculture.xml:7416
10471 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
10472 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
10473 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
10474 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
10475 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
10476 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
10477 "Disney's permission."
10480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10481 #: freeculture.xml:7426
10483 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
10484 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
10485 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
10486 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
10487 "<quote>first-sale doctrine</quote> would free the seller to use the video as "
10488 "he wished, including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of "
10489 "the entire movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for "
10490 "Disney to centralize control over access to this content. Because each use "
10491 "of the Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
10492 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
10493 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
10496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10497 #: freeculture.xml:7439
10498 msgid "Barnes & Noble"
10502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10503 #: freeculture.xml:7443
10505 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
10506 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
10507 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
10508 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
10509 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
10510 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
10511 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
10512 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
10513 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
10514 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
10515 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
10516 "are quite slight."
10519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10520 #: freeculture.xml:7458
10522 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
10523 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
10524 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
10525 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
10526 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
10527 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
10530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10531 #: freeculture.xml:7467
10532 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
10535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10536 #: freeculture.xml:7469
10538 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
10539 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
10540 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
10541 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
10544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10545 #: freeculture.xml:7475
10547 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
10548 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
10549 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
10550 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
10551 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
10554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10555 #: freeculture.xml:7482
10559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10560 #: freeculture.xml:7483 freeculture.xml:7652
10561 msgid "Marx Brothers"
10565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10566 #: freeculture.xml:7494
10568 "See David Lange, <quote>Recognizing the Public Domain,</quote> "
10569 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 44 (1981): "
10573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10574 #: freeculture.xml:7486
10576 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
10577 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of "
10578 "<citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>. Warner Brothers objected. They wrote a "
10579 "nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them that there would be serious legal "
10580 "consequences if they went forward with their plan.<placeholder "
10581 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10585 #: freeculture.xml:7503
10587 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, "
10588 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 1–3."
10591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10592 #: freeculture.xml:7499
10594 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
10595 "that the Marx Brothers <quote>were brothers long before you "
10596 "were.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers "
10597 "therefore owned the word <citetitle>brothers</citetitle>, and if Warner "
10598 "Brothers insisted on trying to control <citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>, "
10599 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over "
10600 "<citetitle>brothers</citetitle>."
10603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10604 #: freeculture.xml:7513
10606 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
10607 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
10608 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
10609 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
10612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10613 #: freeculture.xml:7520
10615 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
10616 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
10617 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
10618 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
10619 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
10620 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
10621 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
10624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10625 #: freeculture.xml:7532
10626 msgid "Adobe eBook Reader"
10629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10630 #: freeculture.xml:7534
10631 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10635 #: freeculture.xml:7537
10637 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
10638 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
10639 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
10640 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
10643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10644 #: freeculture.xml:7544
10645 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10649 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10650 #: freeculture.xml:7548
10652 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
10653 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
10654 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, for example, is in the public domain. "
10655 "Some of them reproduce content that is not in the public domain: My own book "
10656 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> is not yet within the public "
10657 "domain. Consider <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> first. If you click on "
10658 "my e-book copy of <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, you'll see a fancy "
10659 "cover, and then a button at the bottom called Permissions."
10662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10663 #: freeculture.xml:7561
10664 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
10667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10668 #: freeculture.xml:7562
10669 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\"></graphic>"
10672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10673 #: freeculture.xml:7565
10675 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
10676 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
10679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10680 #: freeculture.xml:7569
10681 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
10684 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10685 #: freeculture.xml:7570
10686 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\"></graphic>"
10690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10691 #: freeculture.xml:7574
10693 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
10694 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
10695 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
10696 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
10697 "button to hear <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> read aloud through the "
10701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10702 #: freeculture.xml:7581
10706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10707 #: freeculture.xml:7582
10708 msgid "<citetitle>Politics</citetitle>, (Aristotle)"
10711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10712 #: freeculture.xml:7584
10714 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
10715 "translation): Aristotle's <citetitle>Politics</citetitle>."
10718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10719 #: freeculture.xml:7588
10720 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>"
10723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10724 #: freeculture.xml:7589
10725 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\"></graphic>"
10728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10729 #: freeculture.xml:7592
10731 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
10732 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
10735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10736 #: freeculture.xml:7597
10737 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>."
10740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10741 #: freeculture.xml:7598
10742 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\"></graphic>"
10745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10746 #: freeculture.xml:7601
10748 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
10749 "e-book version of my last book, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>:"
10752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10753 #: freeculture.xml:7607
10754 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>The Future of Ideas</quote>."
10757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10758 #: freeculture.xml:7608
10759 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\"></graphic>"
10762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10763 #: freeculture.xml:7611
10764 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
10768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10769 #: freeculture.xml:7621
10771 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
10772 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
10773 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
10774 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
10775 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
10776 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
10779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10780 #: freeculture.xml:7614
10782 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls "
10783 "<quote>permissions</quote>— as if the publisher has the power to "
10784 "control how you use these works. For works under copyright, the copyright "
10785 "owner certainly does have the power—up to the limits of the copyright "
10786 "law. But for work not under copyright, there is no such copyright "
10787 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of "
10788 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> says I have the permission to copy only "
10789 "ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means "
10790 "is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the "
10791 "book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable."
10794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10795 #: freeculture.xml:7636
10797 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
10798 "which the e-book <quote>lives.</quote> Though the e-book says that these are "
10799 "permissions, they are not the sort of <quote>permissions</quote> that most "
10800 "of us deal with. When a teenager gets <quote>permission</quote> to stay out "
10801 "till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out "
10802 "till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the "
10803 "Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text "
10804 "into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the "
10805 "computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: "
10806 "After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the "
10807 "same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud "
10808 "button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if "
10809 "you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine "
10810 "simply won't read aloud."
10814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10815 #: freeculture.xml:7655
10817 "These are <emphasis>controls</emphasis>, not permissions. Imagine a world "
10818 "where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried "
10819 "to type <quote>Warner Brothers,</quote> erased <quote>Brothers</quote> from "
10823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10824 #: freeculture.xml:7661
10826 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright "
10827 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> as copyright <emphasis>code</emphasis>. The "
10828 "controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by "
10829 "courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded "
10830 "by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are "
10831 "always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the "
10832 "technology have no similar built-in check."
10835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10836 #: freeculture.xml:7670
10838 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
10839 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
10840 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
10841 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
10845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10846 #: freeculture.xml:7677
10848 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
10852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10853 #: freeculture.xml:7680
10854 msgid "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)"
10857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10858 #: freeculture.xml:7682
10860 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
10861 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
10862 "Adobe site was a copy of <citetitle>Alice's Adventures in "
10863 "Wonderland</citetitle>. This wonderful book is in the public domain. Yet "
10864 "when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the following report:"
10867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10868 #: freeculture.xml:7690
10869 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</quote>."
10872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10873 #: freeculture.xml:7692
10874 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\"></graphic>"
10877 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10878 #: freeculture.xml:7696
10880 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
10881 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the "
10882 "<quote>permissions</quote> indicated, not allowed to <quote>read "
10886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10887 #: freeculture.xml:7701
10889 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
10890 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
10891 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
10892 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
10893 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
10897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10898 #: freeculture.xml:7709
10900 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
10901 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
10902 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
10903 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
10904 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
10905 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
10906 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
10907 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
10908 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
10909 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
10912 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10913 #: freeculture.xml:7722
10915 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
10916 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
10917 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
10918 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
10919 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
10922 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10923 #: freeculture.xml:7732
10925 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
10926 "of mine that makes the same point."
10929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10930 #: freeculture.xml:7735 freeculture.xml:7879 freeculture.xml:7944 freeculture.xml:8052
10931 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
10934 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10935 #: freeculture.xml:7736 freeculture.xml:7880 freeculture.xml:7945 freeculture.xml:8053
10936 msgid "robotic dog"
10939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10940 #: freeculture.xml:7737 freeculture.xml:7881 freeculture.xml:7946 freeculture.xml:8054
10944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10945 #: freeculture.xml:7737 freeculture.xml:7881 freeculture.xml:7946 freeculture.xml:8054
10946 msgid "Aibo robotic dog produced by"
10949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10950 #: freeculture.xml:7739
10952 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named <quote>Aibo.</quote> The Aibo "
10953 "learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and "
10954 "that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
10958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10959 #: freeculture.xml:7744
10961 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
10962 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
10963 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set up aibopet.com "
10964 "(and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site), and on that site he "
10965 "provided information about how to teach an Aibo to do tricks in addition to "
10966 "the ones Sony had taught it."
10969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10970 #: freeculture.xml:7753
10972 "<quote>Teach</quote> here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute "
10973 "computers. You teach a computer how to do something by programming it "
10974 "differently. So to say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to "
10975 "teach the dog to do new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving "
10976 "information to users of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer "
10977 "<quote>dog</quote> to make it do new tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
10980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10981 #: freeculture.xml:7760
10985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10986 #: freeculture.xml:7762
10988 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word "
10989 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> has a particularly unfriendly "
10990 "connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror "
10991 "movies do even worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, "
10992 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> is a much more positive "
10993 "term. <citetitle>Hack</citetitle> just means code that enables the program "
10994 "to do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy a "
10995 "new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer doesn't "
10996 "run, or <quote>drive,</quote> the printer. If you discovered that, you'd "
10997 "later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a "
10998 "driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought."
11001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11002 #: freeculture.xml:7776
11004 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
11005 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
11006 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11007 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11012 #: freeculture.xml:7783
11014 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
11015 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
11016 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
11017 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
11022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11023 #: freeculture.xml:7793
11025 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
11026 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
11027 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
11028 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
11029 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
11030 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
11031 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
11032 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
11033 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, <emphasis>What possible problem could "
11034 "there be with teaching a robot dog to dance?</emphasis>"
11037 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11038 #: freeculture.xml:7808
11039 msgid "government case against"
11042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11043 #: freeculture.xml:7810
11045 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
11046 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
11047 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
11048 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
11049 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
11050 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
11051 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
11052 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
11056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11057 #: freeculture.xml:7833 freeculture.xml:10322
11058 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
11061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11062 #: freeculture.xml:7823
11064 "See Pamela Samuelson, <quote>Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to "
11065 "Science,</quote> <citetitle>Science</citetitle> 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan "
11066 "I. Koerner, <quote>Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog "
11067 "New Tricks,</quote> <citetitle>American Prospect</citetitle>, January 2002; "
11068 "<quote>Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,</quote> "
11069 "<citetitle>Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter</citetitle>, 11 "
11070 "December 2001; Bill Holland, <quote>Copyright Act Raising Free-Speech "
11071 "Concerns,</quote> <citetitle>Billboard</citetitle>, May 2001; Janelle Brown, "
11072 "<quote>Is the RIAA Running Scared?</quote> Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic "
11073 "Frontier Foundation, <quote>Frequently Asked Questions about "
11074 "<citetitle>Felten and USENIX</citetitle> v. <citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> "
11075 "Legal Case,</quote> available at <ulink "
11076 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #27</ulink>. <placeholder "
11077 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11081 #: freeculture.xml:7821
11083 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
11084 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
11085 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
11086 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
11087 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
11090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11091 #: freeculture.xml:7841
11093 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
11094 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
11095 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
11096 "standard that would allow the content owner to say <quote>this music cannot "
11097 "be copied,</quote> and have a computer respect that command. The technology "
11098 "was to be part of a <quote>trusted system</quote> of control that would get "
11099 "content owners to trust the system of the Internet much more."
11102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11103 #: freeculture.xml:7851
11105 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
11106 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
11107 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
11108 "problems to the consortium."
11112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11113 #: freeculture.xml:7858
11115 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
11116 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
11117 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
11118 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
11121 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11122 #: freeculture.xml:7864
11124 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
11125 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
11126 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
11127 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
11128 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
11129 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
11132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11133 #: freeculture.xml:7872
11135 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
11136 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
11137 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
11138 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
11139 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
11142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11143 #: freeculture.xml:7883
11145 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
11146 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
11147 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
11150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11151 #: freeculture.xml:7890
11153 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
11154 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
11155 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
11158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11159 #: freeculture.xml:7899
11161 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
11162 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
11163 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
11167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11168 #: freeculture.xml:7905
11170 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
11171 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
11172 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
11173 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<quote>DMCA</quote>)."
11176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11177 #: freeculture.xml:7913
11179 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
11180 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
11181 "information an offense."
11184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11185 #: freeculture.xml:7918
11187 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
11188 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
11189 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
11190 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
11191 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
11192 "were designed as <emphasis>code</emphasis> to modify the original "
11193 "<emphasis>code</emphasis> of the Internet, to reestablish some protection "
11194 "for copyright owners."
11197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11198 #: freeculture.xml:7929
11200 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
11201 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, "
11202 "<emphasis>legal code</emphasis> intended to buttress <emphasis>software "
11203 "code</emphasis> which itself was intended to support the <emphasis>legal "
11204 "code of copyright</emphasis>."
11207 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11208 #: freeculture.xml:7936
11210 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
11211 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
11212 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
11213 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
11214 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
11215 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
11219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11220 #: freeculture.xml:7948
11222 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
11223 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
11224 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
11225 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
11226 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
11227 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
11228 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
11229 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
11230 "system was circumvented."
11233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11234 #: freeculture.xml:7960
11236 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
11237 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
11238 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
11239 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
11240 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
11241 "others to infringe others' copyright."
11244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11245 #: freeculture.xml:7967 freeculture.xml:8002
11246 msgid "Rogers, Fred"
11249 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11250 #: freeculture.xml:7978 freeculture.xml:8015 freeculture.xml:8041
11251 msgid "Conrad, Paul"
11254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11255 #: freeculture.xml:7970
11257 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
11258 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
11259 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
11260 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
11261 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
11262 "<quote><citetitle>Mr. Rogers</citetitle>,</quote> for example, had testified "
11263 "in that case that he wanted people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' "
11264 "Neighborhood. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11268 #: freeculture.xml:7997
11270 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <citetitle>Sony Corporation of "
11271 "America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>., "
11272 "464 U.S. 417, 455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the "
11273 "VCR. See James Lardner, <citetitle>Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, "
11274 "and the Onslaught of the VCR</citetitle> (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), "
11275 "270–71. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
11278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11279 #: freeculture.xml:7982
11281 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
11282 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> at hours when some children cannot use it. I "
11283 "think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such "
11284 "programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with "
11285 "the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "
11286 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "
11287 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> because that's what I produce, that they then "
11288 "become much more active in the programming of their family's television "
11289 "life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My "
11290 "whole approach in broadcasting has always been <quote>You are an important "
11291 "person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.</quote> Maybe "
11292 "I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to "
11293 "be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is "
11294 "important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11299 #: freeculture.xml:8008
11301 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
11302 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
11306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11307 #: freeculture.xml:8013
11309 "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA. "
11310 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11314 #: freeculture.xml:8018
11315 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
11318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11319 #: freeculture.xml:8021
11321 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
11322 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
11323 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
11324 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
11325 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
11326 "use—a good end."
11329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11330 #: freeculture.xml:8028
11335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11336 #: freeculture.xml:8030
11338 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
11339 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
11340 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
11341 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
11344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11345 #: freeculture.xml:8038
11346 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
11349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11350 #: freeculture.xml:8039
11351 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\"></graphic>"
11354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11355 #: freeculture.xml:8043
11357 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
11358 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
11359 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: <emphasis>No one ever died from copyright "
11360 "circumvention</emphasis>. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies "
11361 "absolutely, despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits "
11362 "guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do."
11365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11366 #: freeculture.xml:8056
11368 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
11369 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
11370 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
11371 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
11372 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
11376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11377 #: freeculture.xml:8064
11379 "This is how <emphasis>code</emphasis> becomes <emphasis>law</emphasis>. The "
11380 "controls built into the technology of copy and access protection become "
11381 "rules the violation of which is also a violation of the law. In this way, "
11382 "the code extends the law—increasing its regulation, even if the "
11383 "subject it regulates (activities that would otherwise plainly constitute "
11384 "fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code becomes law; code extends the "
11385 "law; code thus extends the control that copyright owners effect—at "
11386 "least for those copyright holders with the lawyers who can write the nasty "
11387 "letters that Felten and aibopet.com received."
11390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11391 #: freeculture.xml:8076
11393 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
11394 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
11395 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
11396 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
11397 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
11398 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
11399 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
11400 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
11401 "violate the rules."
11405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11406 #: freeculture.xml:8095
11408 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, <quote>Legal "
11409 "Fictions, Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,</quote> "
11410 "<citetitle>Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal</citetitle> 17 "
11414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11415 #: freeculture.xml:8089
11417 "For example, imagine you were part of a <citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> fan "
11418 "club. You gathered every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of "
11419 "fan fiction about the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain "
11420 "Kirk. The characters would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply "
11421 "continue it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11425 #: freeculture.xml:8101
11427 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
11428 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
11429 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
11430 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
11431 "wished without fear of legal control."
11434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11435 #: freeculture.xml:8109
11437 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
11438 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
11439 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
11440 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
11441 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
11442 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
11443 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
11447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11448 #: freeculture.xml:8119
11450 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
11451 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
11452 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
11453 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
11454 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
11455 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
11458 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
11459 #: freeculture.xml:8128
11460 msgid "Market: Concentration"
11464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11465 #: freeculture.xml:8130
11467 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
11468 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
11469 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
11470 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
11471 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
11472 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
11473 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
11474 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
11475 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
11476 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
11477 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
11478 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
11479 "to copyright's control."
11482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11483 #: freeculture.xml:8148
11485 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
11486 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
11487 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
11488 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
11489 "about all the other changes I have described."
11492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11493 #: freeculture.xml:8155
11495 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
11496 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
11497 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
11498 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
11499 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
11500 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
11501 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
11502 "three companies control more than percent of the media."
11505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11506 #: freeculture.xml:8166
11507 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
11510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11511 #: freeculture.xml:8170
11515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11516 #: freeculture.xml:8171 freeculture.xml:9515
11520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11521 #: freeculture.xml:8172
11522 msgid "McCain, John"
11525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11526 #: freeculture.xml:8173 freeculture.xml:9516
11527 msgid "Universal Music Group"
11530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11531 #: freeculture.xml:8174
11532 msgid "Warner Music Group"
11536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11537 #: freeculture.xml:8180
11539 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
11540 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
11541 "of Senator John McCain)."
11545 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11546 #: freeculture.xml:8187
11548 "Lynette Holloway, <quote>Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to "
11549 "Slide,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 23 December 2002."
11553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11554 #: freeculture.xml:8193
11556 "Molly Ivins, <quote>Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,</quote> "
11557 "<citetitle>Charleston Gazette</citetitle>, 31 May 2003."
11560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11561 #: freeculture.xml:8176
11563 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
11564 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, "
11565 "<quote>five companies control 85 percent of our media "
11566 "sources.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording "
11567 "labels of Universal Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music "
11568 "Group, and EMI control 84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder "
11569 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The <quote>five largest cable companies pipe "
11570 "programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers "
11571 "nationwide.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
11575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11576 #: freeculture.xml:8198
11578 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
11579 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
11580 "seventy-five stations. Today <emphasis>one</emphasis> company owns more than "
11581 "1,200 stations. During that period of consolidation, the total number of "
11582 "radio owners dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest "
11583 "broadcasters control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just "
11584 "four companies control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising "
11588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11589 #: freeculture.xml:8210
11591 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
11592 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
11593 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
11594 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
11595 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
11596 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
11597 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
11598 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
11602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11603 #: freeculture.xml:8224 freeculture.xml:8241
11604 msgid "Fallows, James"
11607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11608 #: freeculture.xml:8221
11610 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
11611 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
11612 "article about Rupert Murdoch, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11616 #: freeculture.xml:8239
11618 "James Fallows, <quote>The Age of Murdoch,</quote> <citetitle>Atlantic "
11619 "Monthly</citetitle> (September 2003): 89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11624 #: freeculture.xml:8228
11626 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
11627 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies … Fox TV shows "
11628 "… Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They "
11629 "sell the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on "
11630 "the broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
11631 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
11632 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
11633 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
11634 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
11635 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11639 #: freeculture.xml:8246
11641 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
11642 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
11643 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
11644 "thousand words could do:"
11647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11648 #: freeculture.xml:8252
11649 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
11652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11653 #: freeculture.xml:8253
11654 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\"></graphic>"
11658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11659 #: freeculture.xml:8257
11661 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
11662 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
11666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11667 #: freeculture.xml:8262
11669 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
11670 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
11671 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
11672 "beginning to change my mind."
11675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11676 #: freeculture.xml:8268
11678 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
11682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11683 #: freeculture.xml:8271
11684 msgid "Lear, Norman"
11687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11688 #: freeculture.xml:8273 freeculture.xml:8336
11689 msgid "All in the Family"
11692 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11693 #: freeculture.xml:8275
11695 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for <citetitle>All in the "
11696 "Family</citetitle>. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It "
11697 "was too edgy, they told Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more "
11698 "edgy than the first. ABC was exasperated. You're missing the point, they "
11699 "told Lear. We wanted less edgy, not more."
11703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11704 #: freeculture.xml:8287
11706 "Leonard Hill, <quote>The Axis of Access,</quote> remarks before Weidenbaum "
11707 "Center Forum, <quote>Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,</quote> "
11708 "St. Louis, Missouri, 3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available "
11709 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the "
11710 "Lear story, not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
11711 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
11714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11715 #: freeculture.xml:8282
11717 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
11718 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
11719 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
11720 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11725 #: freeculture.xml:8298
11727 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
11728 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
11729 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
11730 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
11731 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
11732 "<quote>independent</quote> of the networks."
11736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11737 #: freeculture.xml:8317
11739 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
11740 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
11741 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
11742 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
11743 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
11744 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
11745 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
11748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11749 #: freeculture.xml:8307
11751 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
11752 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
11753 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
11754 "independent television studios remained. <quote>In 1992, only 15 percent of "
11755 "new series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last "
11756 "year, the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
11757 "quintupled to 77 percent.</quote> <quote>In 1992, 16 new series were "
11758 "produced independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
11759 "one.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of "
11760 "prime time television was owned by the networks that ran it. <quote>In the "
11761 "ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television "
11762 "hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the "
11763 "number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent "
11764 "studios decreased 63%.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
11767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11768 #: freeculture.xml:8338
11770 "Today, another Norman Lear with another <citetitle>All in the "
11771 "Family</citetitle> would find that he had the choice either to make the show "
11772 "less edgy or to be fired: The content of any show developed for a network is "
11773 "increasingly owned by the network."
11776 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11777 #: freeculture.xml:8343
11778 msgid "Diller, Barry"
11781 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11782 #: freeculture.xml:8344
11783 msgid "Moyers, Bill"
11786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11787 #: freeculture.xml:8346
11789 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
11790 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
11791 "Diller said to Bill Moyers,"
11795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11796 #: freeculture.xml:8361
11798 "<quote>Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,</quote> <citetitle>Now with "
11799 "Bill Moyers</citetitle>, Bill Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript "
11800 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
11803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11804 #: freeculture.xml:8352
11806 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
11807 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
11808 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
11809 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
11810 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
11811 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11815 #: freeculture.xml:8368
11817 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
11818 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
11819 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
11820 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
11821 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
11822 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
11823 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
11824 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
11825 "the environment for a democracy."
11828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11829 #: freeculture.xml:8379
11830 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
11834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11835 #: freeculture.xml:8388
11837 "Clayton M. Christensen, <citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The "
11838 "Revolutionary National Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do "
11839 "Business</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, "
11840 "1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first suggested by Dean "
11841 "Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, <quote>The Interaction of Design Hierarchies "
11842 "and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,</quote> <citetitle>Research "
11843 "Policy</citetitle> 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see "
11844 "Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, <citetitle>Creative Destruction: Why "
11845 "Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to "
11846 "Successfully Transform Them</citetitle> (New York: Currency/Doubleday, "
11850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11851 #: freeculture.xml:8381
11853 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
11854 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the "
11855 "<quote>Innovator's Dilemma</quote>: the fact that large traditional firms "
11856 "find it rational to ignore new, breakthrough technologies that compete with "
11857 "their core business. The same analysis could help explain why large, "
11858 "traditional media companies would find it rational to ignore new cultural "
11859 "trends.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only "
11860 "don't, but should not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, "
11861 "there will be far too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11865 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11866 #: freeculture.xml:8405
11868 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
11869 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
11870 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
11873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11874 #: freeculture.xml:8411
11876 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
11880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11881 #: freeculture.xml:8415
11883 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
11884 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
11885 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
11889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11890 #: freeculture.xml:8420
11892 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
11893 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
11894 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
11895 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
11896 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
11897 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
11898 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
11899 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
11900 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
11901 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
11902 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
11903 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
11904 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
11907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11908 #: freeculture.xml:8439
11910 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
11911 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
11912 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
11915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11916 #: freeculture.xml:8446
11918 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
11919 "media campaign as part of the <quote>war on drugs.</quote> The campaign "
11920 "produced scores of short film clips about issues related to illegal "
11921 "drugs. In one series (the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, "
11922 "discussing the idea of legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the "
11923 "collateral damage from the war. One advances an argument in favor of drug "
11924 "legalization. The other responds in a powerful and effective way against the "
11925 "argument of the first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
11926 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
11930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11931 #: freeculture.xml:8458
11933 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
11934 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
11937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11938 #: freeculture.xml:8462
11940 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
11941 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
11942 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
11943 "war. Can you do it?"
11947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11948 #: freeculture.xml:8468
11950 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
11951 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
11952 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
11956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11957 #: freeculture.xml:8510
11961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11962 #: freeculture.xml:8511
11963 msgid "Marijuana Policy Project"
11966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11967 #: freeculture.xml:8512
11971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11972 #: freeculture.xml:8513
11976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11977 #: freeculture.xml:8514
11981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11982 #: freeculture.xml:8485
11984 "The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that "
11985 "directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the "
11986 "Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as <quote>against [their] "
11987 "policy.</quote> The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without "
11988 "reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the "
11989 "ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and "
11990 "returned the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. "
11991 "These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for "
11992 "example, Nat Ives, <quote>On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet "
11993 "with Rejection from TV Networks,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
11994 "Times</citetitle>, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time "
11995 "there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to even "
11996 "the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, <quote>Ad Hoc "
11997 "Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and "
11998 "Radio,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law and Policy Review</citetitle> 6 (1988): "
11999 "449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the "
12000 "courts, see <citetitle>Radio-Television News Directors "
12001 "Association</citetitle> v. <citetitle>FCC</citetitle>, 184 F. 3d 872 "
12002 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
12003 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
12004 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
12005 "Matier and Andrew Ross, <quote>Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects "
12006 "Ad,</quote> SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12007 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
12008 "the criticism was <quote>too controversial.</quote> <placeholder "
12009 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
12010 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12011 "id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> <placeholder "
12012 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"6\"/>"
12015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12016 #: freeculture.xml:8475
12018 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
12019 "<quote>controversial</quote> ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
12020 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
12021 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
12022 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
12023 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
12024 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
12025 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
12026 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12030 #: freeculture.xml:8519
12032 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
12033 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
12034 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
12035 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
12036 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
12037 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
12038 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
12039 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
12042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12043 #: freeculture.xml:8532
12047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12048 #: freeculture.xml:8534
12050 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
12051 "warriors that the government should <quote>protect my property.</quote> In "
12052 "the abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No "
12053 "sane sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
12057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12058 #: freeculture.xml:8540
12060 "But when we see how dramatically this <quote>property</quote> has "
12061 "changed— when we recognize how it might now interact with both "
12062 "technology and markets to mean that the effective constraint on the liberty "
12063 "to cultivate our culture is dramatically different—the claim begins to "
12064 "seem less innocent and obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to "
12065 "supplement the law's control, and (2) the power of concentrated markets to "
12066 "weaken the opportunity for dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively "
12067 "expanded <quote>property</quote> rights granted by copyright fundamentally "
12068 "changes the freedom within this culture to cultivate and build upon our "
12069 "past, then we have to ask whether this property should be redefined."
12072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12073 #: freeculture.xml:8556
12075 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
12076 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
12077 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
12081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12082 #: freeculture.xml:8562
12084 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
12085 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
12086 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
12087 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
12088 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
12089 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
12090 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
12091 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
12092 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
12095 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12096 #: freeculture.xml:8574
12098 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
12099 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
12100 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
12101 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
12102 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
12103 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
12104 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be "
12105 "<emphasis>reductions</emphasis> in the scope of copyright, in response to "
12106 "the extraordinary increase in control that technology and the market enable."
12110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12111 #: freeculture.xml:8586
12113 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
12114 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
12115 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
12116 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: <emphasis>Never in our "
12117 "history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of "
12118 "our culture than now</emphasis>."
12121 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12122 #: freeculture.xml:8610
12124 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a "
12125 "similar point in his <quote>four surrenders</quote> of copyright law in the "
12126 "digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60."
12129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12130 #: freeculture.xml:8595
12132 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
12133 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
12134 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
12135 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
12136 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
12137 "networks. <emphasis>Never</emphasis> has copyright protected such a wide "
12138 "range of rights, against as broad a range of actors, for a term that was "
12139 "remotely as long. This form of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny "
12140 "part of the creative energy of a nation at the founding—is now a "
12141 "massive regulation of the overall creative process. Law plus technology plus "
12142 "the market now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the "
12143 "most significant regulation of culture that our free society has "
12144 "known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12148 #: freeculture.xml:8616
12150 "<emphasis role='strong'>This has been</emphasis> a long chapter. Its point "
12151 "can now be briefly stated."
12154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12155 #: freeculture.xml:8620
12157 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
12158 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
12159 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
12160 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
12161 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
12164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12165 #: freeculture.xml:8632 freeculture.xml:8669
12169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12170 #: freeculture.xml:8633 freeculture.xml:8670 freeculture.xml:8708 freeculture.xml:8740
12174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12175 #: freeculture.xml:8638 freeculture.xml:8675 freeculture.xml:8713 freeculture.xml:8745
12179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12180 #: freeculture.xml:8639 freeculture.xml:8676 freeculture.xml:8677 freeculture.xml:8714 freeculture.xml:8715 freeculture.xml:8746 freeculture.xml:8747 freeculture.xml:8751 freeculture.xml:8752
12184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12185 #: freeculture.xml:8640 freeculture.xml:8644 freeculture.xml:8645 freeculture.xml:8681 freeculture.xml:8682 freeculture.xml:8720
12189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12190 #: freeculture.xml:8643 freeculture.xml:8680 freeculture.xml:8718 freeculture.xml:8750
12191 msgid "Noncommercial"
12195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12196 #: freeculture.xml:8652
12198 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
12199 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
12200 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
12201 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
12205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12206 #: freeculture.xml:8661
12207 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
12210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12211 #: freeculture.xml:8689
12213 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
12214 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
12215 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
12216 "essentially free."
12219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12220 #: freeculture.xml:8695
12222 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
12223 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
12224 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
12225 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
12229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12230 #: freeculture.xml:8707 freeculture.xml:8739
12234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12235 #: freeculture.xml:8719
12236 msgid "©/Free"
12239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12240 #: freeculture.xml:8727
12242 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
12243 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
12244 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
12245 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
12250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12251 #: freeculture.xml:8759
12253 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
12254 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
12255 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
12256 "commercial publishers."
12259 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12260 #: freeculture.xml:8767
12262 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
12263 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
12264 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
12265 "actually does any good."
12268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12269 #: freeculture.xml:8773
12271 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
12272 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
12273 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
12274 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
12275 "chapters <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/> and "
12276 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"transformers\"/>, one "
12277 "might well wonder whether it does more harm than good for commercial "
12278 "transformation. More commercial transformative work would be created if "
12279 "derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
12282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12283 #: freeculture.xml:8797
12284 msgid "legal realist movement"
12287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12288 #: freeculture.xml:8791
12290 "It was the single most important contribution of the legal realist movement "
12291 "to demonstrate that all property rights are always crafted to balance public "
12292 "and private interests. See Thomas C. Grey, <quote>The Disintegration of "
12293 "Property,</quote> in <citetitle>Nomos XXII: Property</citetitle>, J. Roland "
12294 "Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds. (New York: New York University Press, "
12295 "1980). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12299 #: freeculture.xml:8785
12301 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
12302 "copyright is a kind of <quote>property,</quote> and of course, as with any "
12303 "property, the state ought to protect it. But first impressions "
12304 "notwithstanding, historically, this property right (as with all property "
12305 "rights<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to "
12306 "balance the important need to give authors and artists incentives with the "
12307 "equally important need to assure access to creative work. This balance has "
12308 "always been struck in light of new technologies. And for almost half of our "
12309 "tradition, the <quote>copyright</quote> did not control <emphasis>at "
12310 "all</emphasis> the freedom of others to build upon or transform a creative "
12311 "work. American culture was born free, and for almost 180 years our country "
12312 "consistently protected a vibrant and rich free culture."
12316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12317 #: freeculture.xml:8810
12319 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
12320 "the scope of the interests protected by <quote>property.</quote> The very "
12321 "birth of <quote>copyright</quote> as a statutory right recognized those "
12322 "limits, by granting copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the "
12323 "story of chapter 6). The tradition of <quote>fair use</quote> is animated by "
12324 "a similar concern that is increasingly under strain as the costs of "
12325 "exercising any fair use right become unavoidably high (the story of chapter "
12326 "7). Adding statutory rights where markets might stifle innovation is another "
12327 "familiar limit on the property right that copyright is (chapter 8). And "
12328 "granting archives and libraries a broad freedom to collect, claims of "
12329 "property notwithstanding, is a crucial part of guaranteeing the soul of a "
12330 "culture (chapter 9). Free cultures, like free markets, are built with "
12331 "property. But the nature of the property that builds a free culture is very "
12332 "different from the extremist vision that dominates the debate today."
12335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12336 #: freeculture.xml:8829
12338 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
12339 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
12340 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
12341 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
12342 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
12343 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
12344 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
12345 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
12346 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
12350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
12351 #: freeculture.xml:8846
12355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12356 #: freeculture.xml:8850
12357 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
12360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12361 #: freeculture.xml:8851
12365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12366 #: freeculture.xml:8852
12367 msgid "Wells, H. G."
12370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12371 #: freeculture.xml:8853
12372 msgid "<quote>Country of the Blind, The</quote> (Wells)"
12376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12377 #: freeculture.xml:8861
12379 "H. G. Wells, <quote>The Country of the Blind</quote> (1904, 1911). See "
12380 "H. G. Wells, <citetitle>The Country of the Blind and Other "
12381 "Stories</citetitle>, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: Oxford University "
12385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12386 #: freeculture.xml:8856
12388 "<emphasis role='strong'>In a well-known</emphasis> short story by "
12389 "H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez trips (literally, down an ice "
12390 "slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in the Peruvian "
12391 "Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
12392 "extraordinarily beautiful, with <quote>sweet water, pasture, an even "
12393 "climate, slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an "
12394 "excellent fruit.</quote> But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this "
12395 "as an opportunity. <quote>In the Country of the Blind,</quote> he tells "
12396 "himself, <quote>the One-Eyed Man is King.</quote> So he resolves to live "
12397 "with the villagers to explore life as a king."
12400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12401 #: freeculture.xml:8873
12403 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
12404 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are "
12405 "<quote>blind.</quote> They don't have the word "
12406 "<citetitle>blind</citetitle>. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
12407 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
12408 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
12409 "becomes increasingly frustrated. <quote>`You don't understand,' he cried, in "
12410 "a voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
12411 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'</quote>"
12415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12416 #: freeculture.xml:8885
12418 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
12419 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
12420 "a young woman who to him seems <quote>the most beautiful thing in the whole "
12421 "of creation,</quote> understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of "
12422 "what he sees <quote>seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she "
12423 "listened to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet "
12424 "white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.</quote> <quote>She "
12425 "did not believe,</quote> Wells tells us, and <quote>she could only half "
12426 "understand, but she was mysteriously delighted.</quote>"
12429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12430 #: freeculture.xml:8896
12432 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his <quote>mysteriously "
12433 "delighted</quote> love, the father and the village object. <quote>You see, "
12434 "my dear,</quote> her father instructs, <quote>he's an idiot. He has "
12435 "delusions. He can't do anything right.</quote> They take Nunez to the "
12439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12440 #: freeculture.xml:8902
12442 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. <quote>His brain "
12443 "is affected,</quote> he reports."
12446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12447 #: freeculture.xml:8906
12449 "<quote>What affects it?</quote> the father asks. <quote>Those queer things "
12450 "that are called the eyes … are diseased … in such a way as to "
12451 "affect his brain.</quote>"
12454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12455 #: freeculture.xml:8911
12457 "The doctor continues: <quote>I think I may say with reasonable certainty "
12458 "that in order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and "
12459 "easy surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
12463 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12464 #: freeculture.xml:8917
12466 "<quote>Thank Heaven for science!</quote> says the father to the doctor. They "
12467 "inform Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. "
12468 "(You'll have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I "
12469 "believe in free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.)"
12473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12474 #: freeculture.xml:8923
12476 "<emphasis role='strong'>It sometimes</emphasis> happens that the eggs of "
12477 "twins fuse in the mother's womb. That fusion produces a "
12478 "<quote>chimera.</quote> A chimera is a single creature with two sets of "
12479 "DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different from the DNA of "
12480 "the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder "
12481 "mysteries. <quote>But the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was "
12482 "not the person whose blood was at the scene. …</quote>"
12485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12486 #: freeculture.xml:8937
12488 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
12489 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
12490 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
12491 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
12492 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a <quote>person</quote> should "
12493 "reflect this reality."
12496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12497 #: freeculture.xml:8945
12499 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
12500 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
12501 "enough, <quote>the copyright wars,</quote> the more I think we're dealing "
12502 "with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question <quote>What is "
12503 "p2p file sharing?</quote> both sides have it right, and both sides have it "
12504 "wrong. One side says, <quote>File sharing is just like two kids taping each "
12505 "others' records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty "
12506 "years without any question at all.</quote> That's true, at least in "
12507 "part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but "
12508 "rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all "
12509 "relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company "
12510 "no doubt did as a kid: sharing music."
12513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12514 #: freeculture.xml:8959
12516 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
12517 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
12518 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "
12519 "<quote>friends</quote> beyond recognition to say <quote>my ten thousand best "
12520 "friends</quote> can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best "
12521 "friend is what <quote>we have always been allowed to do,</quote> we have not "
12522 "always been allowed to share music with <quote>our ten thousand best "
12526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12527 #: freeculture.xml:8968
12529 "Likewise, when the other side says, <quote>File sharing is just like walking "
12530 "into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with "
12531 "it,</quote> that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) "
12532 "releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free "
12533 "copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower. "
12534 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12538 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12539 #: freeculture.xml:8979
12541 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
12542 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
12543 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
12544 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
12545 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
12546 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
12547 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
12550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12551 #: freeculture.xml:8989
12553 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
12554 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
12555 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
12556 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
12557 "rules should govern it?"
12560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12561 #: freeculture.xml:9005 freeculture.xml:9287 freeculture.xml:10323
12562 msgid "ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by"
12565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12566 #: freeculture.xml:9036
12567 msgid "Conyers, John, Jr."
12570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12571 #: freeculture.xml:9037 freeculture.xml:9758
12572 msgid "Berman, Howard L."
12575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12576 #: freeculture.xml:9005
12578 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For an excellent summary, see the "
12579 "report prepared by GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society "
12580 "at Harvard Law School, <quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
12581 "World,</quote> 27 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12582 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John Conyers "
12583 "Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill that "
12584 "would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
12585 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
12586 "<quote>House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
12587 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 17 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12588 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #34</ulink>. Civil penalties are "
12589 "currently set at $150,000 per copied song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) "
12590 "legal challenge to the RIAA's demand that an ISP reveal the identity of a "
12591 "user accused of sharing more than 600 songs through a family computer, see "
12592 "<citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Verizon Internet Services (In "
12593 "re. Verizon Internet Services)</citetitle>, 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 "
12594 "(D.D.C. 2003). Such a user could face liability ranging as high as $90 "
12595 "million. Such astronomical figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal "
12596 "in its prosecution of file sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to "
12597 "$17,500 for four students accused of heavy file sharing on university "
12598 "networks must have seemed a mere pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA "
12599 "could seek should the matter proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, "
12600 "<quote>Downloading Could Lead to Fines,</quote> redandblack.com, August "
12601 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12602 "#35</ulink>. For an example of the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, "
12603 "and of the subpoenas issued to universities to reveal student file-sharer "
12604 "identities, see James Collins, <quote>RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to "
12605 "Name Students,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 8 August 2003, "
12606 "D3, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12607 "#36</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
12608 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
12611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12612 #: freeculture.xml:8996
12614 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
12615 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
12616 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
12617 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
12618 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
12619 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
12620 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
12624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12625 #: freeculture.xml:9043
12627 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
12628 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
12629 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
12630 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
12631 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
12634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12635 #: freeculture.xml:9050
12637 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
12638 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
12639 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
12640 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
12641 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
12642 "<emphasis>either</emphasis> extreme would be worse than a reasonable "
12643 "alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse "
12644 "of the two extremes."
12648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12649 #: freeculture.xml:9062
12651 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
12652 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
12653 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
12654 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
12655 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
12659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12660 #: freeculture.xml:9070
12662 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to <quote>steal</quote> "
12663 "music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this "
12664 "war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so "
12665 "broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation "
12666 "that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing "
12667 "of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The "
12668 "law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public "
12669 "policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing "
12670 "the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,"
12673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12674 #: freeculture.xml:9083
12676 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
12677 "and we want to protect those rights."
12680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12681 #: freeculture.xml:9087
12683 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
12684 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
12685 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
12686 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
12691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12692 #: freeculture.xml:9104
12694 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
12695 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
12696 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
12697 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
12698 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
12699 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
12702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12703 #: freeculture.xml:9094
12705 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
12706 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
12707 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
12708 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
12709 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
12710 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
12711 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
12712 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12716 #: freeculture.xml:9118 freeculture.xml:9476
12717 msgid "Vivendi Universal"
12720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12721 #: freeculture.xml:9115
12723 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "
12724 "<quote>the major labels.</quote> Its position on these matters has now "
12725 "changed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12729 #: freeculture.xml:9121
12731 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
12732 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
12733 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
12736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12737 #: freeculture.xml:9129
12738 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
12741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12742 #: freeculture.xml:9131
12744 "<emphasis role='strong'>To fight</emphasis> <quote>piracy,</quote> to "
12745 "protect <quote>property,</quote> the content industry has launched a "
12746 "war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought the "
12747 "government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both direct "
12748 "and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages will be "
12749 "suffered most by our own people."
12752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12753 #: freeculture.xml:9139
12755 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
12756 "particular, the consequences for <quote>free culture.</quote> But my aim now "
12757 "is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
12761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12762 #: freeculture.xml:9145
12764 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
12765 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
12766 "the property called <quote>intellectual property</quote> is at its greatest "
12770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12771 #: freeculture.xml:9153
12773 "Yet <quote>common sense</quote> does not see it this way. Common sense is "
12774 "still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme "
12775 "claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical "
12776 "rejection of <quote>piracy</quote> still has play."
12780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12781 #: freeculture.xml:9161
12783 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
12784 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
12785 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
12786 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
12787 "today's monopolists of culture."
12790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12791 #: freeculture.xml:9168
12792 msgid "Constraining Creators"
12795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12796 #: freeculture.xml:9170
12798 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
12799 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
12800 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
12801 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
12802 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
12803 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
12804 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
12805 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
12806 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
12807 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
12808 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
12809 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
12812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12813 #: freeculture.xml:9185
12815 "This digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> is in part an extension of "
12816 "the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and "
12817 "in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it "
12818 "explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of "
12819 "digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> promises a world of "
12820 "extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly "
12821 "shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a "
12822 "broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and "
12823 "contribute to the culture all around."
12827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12828 #: freeculture.xml:9196
12830 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
12831 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
12832 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
12833 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
12834 "across the globe."
12837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12838 #: freeculture.xml:9206
12840 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
12841 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
12842 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
12843 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
12844 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
12845 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
12846 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
12847 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
12848 "presumptively illegal."
12851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12852 #: freeculture.xml:9216 freeculture.xml:9235
12856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12857 #: freeculture.xml:9230
12859 "See Lynne W. Jeter, <citetitle>Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at "
12860 "WorldCom</citetitle> (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; "
12861 "for details of the settlement, see MCI press release, <quote>MCI Wins "
12862 "U.S. District Court Approval for SEC Settlement</quote> (7 July 2003), "
12863 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>. "
12864 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12868 #: freeculture.xml:9251
12869 msgid "Bush, George W."
12872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12873 #: freeculture.xml:9242
12875 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
12876 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
12877 "overview, see Tanya Albert, <quote>Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be "
12878 "Back,' Say Tort Reformers,</quote> amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at "
12879 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and "
12880 "<quote>Senate Turns Back Malpractice Caps,</quote> CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, "
12881 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12882 "#39</ulink>. President Bush has continued to urge tort reform in recent "
12883 "months. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12887 #: freeculture.xml:9218
12889 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
12890 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
12891 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
12892 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
12893 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 "
12894 "was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search "
12895 "engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which "
12896 "defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in "
12897 "market capitalization of over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere "
12898 "$750 million.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation "
12899 "being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the "
12900 "wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in "
12901 "damages for pain and suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can "
12902 "common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for "
12903 "downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's "
12904 "negligently butchering a patient?"
12907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12908 #: freeculture.xml:9257
12909 msgid "art, underground"
12913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12914 #: freeculture.xml:9278
12916 "See Danit Lidor, <quote>Artists Just Wanna Be Free,</quote> "
12917 "<citetitle>Wired</citetitle>, 7 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12918 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #40</ulink>. For an overview of "
12919 "the exhibition, see <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12924 #: freeculture.xml:9259
12926 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
12927 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
12928 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
12929 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys "
12930 "<quote>pirates.</quote> We make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a "
12931 "public domain, because the boundaries of the public domain are designed to "
12932 "be unclear. It never pays to do anything except pay for the right to create, "
12933 "and hence only those who can pay are allowed to create. As was the case in "
12934 "the Soviet Union, though for very different reasons, we will begin to see a "
12935 "world of underground art—not because the message is necessarily "
12936 "political, or because the subject is controversial, but because the very act "
12937 "of creating the art is legally fraught. Already, exhibits of <quote>illegal "
12938 "art</quote> tour the United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
12939 "In what does their <quote>illegality</quote> consist? In the act of mixing "
12940 "the culture around us with an expression that is critical or reflective."
12943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12944 #: freeculture.xml:9289
12946 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
12947 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
12948 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>. But an even bigger part has to do "
12949 "with the increasing ease with which infractions can be tracked. As users of "
12950 "file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a trivial matter for "
12951 "copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service providers to reveal "
12952 "who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape player transmitted a "
12953 "list of the songs that you played in the privacy of your own home that "
12954 "anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
12957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12958 #: freeculture.xml:9302
12960 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
12961 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
12962 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
12963 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
12964 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
12965 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
12966 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
12967 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
12968 "them is not similarly free."
12971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12972 #: freeculture.xml:9313
12974 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
12975 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/>, "
12976 "in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, I have been "
12977 "lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was fair use, and "
12978 "hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
12982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12983 #: freeculture.xml:9324
12985 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
12986 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
12987 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
12988 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
12989 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
12990 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
12991 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
12992 "on the rule of law."
12995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12996 #: freeculture.xml:9334
12998 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
12999 "<quote>breathing room</quote> between regulation by the law and the access "
13000 "the law should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal "
13001 "system has become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that "
13002 "publishers impose upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon "
13003 "filmmakers, the rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these "
13004 "are the real laws governing creativity. And these rules have little "
13005 "relationship to the <quote>law</quote> with which judges comfort themselves."
13008 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13009 #: freeculture.xml:9345
13011 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
13012 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
13013 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
13014 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
13015 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
13016 "that pass under the name <quote>copyright</quote> silence speech and "
13017 "creativity. And in that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to "
13018 "continue to believe they live in a culture that is free."
13021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13022 #: freeculture.xml:9356
13023 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
13027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13028 #: freeculture.xml:9360
13030 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
13031 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
13032 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
13033 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made … you're not going to "
13034 "get it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note "
13035 "from a lawyer saying, <quote>This has been cleared.</quote> You're not even "
13036 "going to get it on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at "
13037 "which they control it."
13040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13041 #: freeculture.xml:9373
13042 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
13045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13046 #: freeculture.xml:9375
13048 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
13049 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
13050 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
13051 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
13052 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
13056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13057 #: freeculture.xml:9383
13059 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
13060 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
13061 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, 188 "
13062 "pages into a book like this), then you can see this other aspect by "
13063 "substituting <quote>free market</quote> every place I've spoken of "
13064 "<quote>free culture.</quote> The point is the same, even if the interests "
13065 "affecting culture are more fundamental."
13068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13069 #: freeculture.xml:9393
13071 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
13072 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
13073 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
13074 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
13075 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
13076 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
13077 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
13078 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
13079 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
13080 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
13083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13084 #: freeculture.xml:9405 freeculture.xml:9513
13085 msgid "Barry, Hank"
13089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13090 #: freeculture.xml:9407
13092 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
13093 "that I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13094 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>. The consequence of this massive threat of "
13095 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
13096 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
13097 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
13098 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
13099 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
13100 "Barry calls a <quote>nuclear pall</quote> that has fallen over the "
13101 "Valley—has been learned."
13104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13105 #: freeculture.xml:9420
13107 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
13108 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> and which has progressed in a way "
13109 "that even I (pessimist extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
13112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13113 #: freeculture.xml:9424
13114 msgid "Roberts, Michael"
13117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13118 #: freeculture.xml:9426
13120 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
13121 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
13122 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
13123 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
13124 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
13128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13129 #: freeculture.xml:9434
13130 msgid "preference data on"
13133 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13134 #: freeculture.xml:9436
13136 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
13137 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
13138 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
13139 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
13143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13144 #: freeculture.xml:9443
13146 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
13147 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
13148 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
13149 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
13150 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
13151 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
13152 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
13153 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
13154 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
13158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13159 #: freeculture.xml:9455
13161 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
13162 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
13163 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
13164 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
13168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13169 #: freeculture.xml:9465
13171 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
13172 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
13173 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
13174 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
13175 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
13176 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
13177 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
13178 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
13179 "something they had already bought."
13182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13183 #: freeculture.xml:9478
13185 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
13186 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
13187 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
13188 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
13189 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
13190 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
13191 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
13194 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13195 #: freeculture.xml:9488
13196 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
13199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13200 #: freeculture.xml:9491
13202 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
13203 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
13204 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
13205 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
13206 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
13207 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
13208 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
13212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13213 #: freeculture.xml:9501
13215 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
13216 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
13217 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
13218 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
13219 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
13220 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
13221 "cost you and your firm dearly."
13224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13225 #: freeculture.xml:9512
13226 msgid "Hummer, John"
13229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13230 #: freeculture.xml:9514
13231 msgid "Hummer Winblad"
13235 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13236 #: freeculture.xml:9524
13238 "See Joseph Menn, <quote>Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,</quote> "
13239 "<citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 23 April 2003. For a parallel "
13240 "argument about the effects on innovation in the distribution of music, see "
13241 "Janelle Brown, <quote>The Music Revolution Will Not Be Digitized,</quote> "
13242 "Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
13243 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
13244 "Healey, <quote>Online Music Services Besieged,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
13245 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 28 May 2001."
13248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13249 #: freeculture.xml:9518
13251 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
13252 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
13253 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
13254 "cofounder ( John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
13255 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
13256 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
13257 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
13258 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
13259 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
13260 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
13261 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
13262 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
13263 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
13264 "that touch content. In an article in <citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, "
13265 "Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW:"
13268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13269 #: freeculture.xml:9546
13273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13274 #: freeculture.xml:9547
13275 msgid "cars, MP3 sound system in"
13278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13279 #: freeculture.xml:9562
13280 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
13283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13284 #: freeculture.xml:9558
13286 "Rafe Needleman, <quote>Driving in Cars with MP3s,</quote> "
13287 "<citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
13288 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #43</ulink>. I am grateful to "
13289 "Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
13293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13294 #: freeculture.xml:9549
13296 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
13297 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
13298 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
13299 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
13300 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
13301 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. … <placeholder "
13302 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13306 #: freeculture.xml:9567
13308 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with <quote>your money or your "
13309 "life</quote> offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats "
13310 "that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that "
13311 "will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to "
13312 "start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly "
13313 "threatened by litigation."
13317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13318 #: freeculture.xml:9577
13320 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
13321 "enterprises. The point is the definition of <quote>illegal.</quote> The law "
13322 "is a mess of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to "
13323 "new technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and "
13324 "by embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, "
13325 "that uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
13326 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
13327 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
13328 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
13329 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
13330 "and much less creativity."
13333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13334 #: freeculture.xml:9592
13336 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
13337 "use. Whatever the <quote>real</quote> law is, realism about the effect of "
13338 "law in both contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation "
13339 "will systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
13340 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
13341 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
13342 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
13343 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
13344 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulatedregulated market."
13348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13349 #: freeculture.xml:9604
13351 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
13352 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
13353 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
13354 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
13355 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
13356 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
13357 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
13358 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
13359 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
13360 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
13361 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
13362 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
13363 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
13364 "justifying to justify that result."
13367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13368 #: freeculture.xml:9623
13370 "<emphasis role='strong'>The uncertainty</emphasis> of the law is one burden "
13371 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
13372 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
13373 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
13377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13378 #: freeculture.xml:9630
13380 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
13381 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
13382 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
13383 "<quote>bug.</quote> The efficient spread of content means that content "
13384 "distributors have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. "
13385 "One obvious response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less "
13386 "efficient. If the Internet enables <quote>piracy,</quote> then, this "
13387 "response says, we should break the kneecaps of the Internet."
13391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13392 #: freeculture.xml:9645
13394 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> "
13395 "GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law "
13396 "School (2003), 33–35, available at <ulink "
13397 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
13401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13402 #: freeculture.xml:9658
13403 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
13406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13407 #: freeculture.xml:9641
13409 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
13410 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
13411 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
13412 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
13413 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
13414 "explore a mandatory <quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would be required on "
13415 "any device capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and "
13416 "that would disable the copying of any content that is marked with a "
13417 "broadcast flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content "
13418 "providers from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt "
13419 "down copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
13420 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
13424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13425 #: freeculture.xml:9662
13427 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
13428 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
13429 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
13430 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
13431 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
13434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13435 #: freeculture.xml:9671 freeculture.xml:11516
13440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13441 #: freeculture.xml:9677
13443 "See David McGuire, <quote>Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,</quote> "
13444 "Newsbytes, February 2002 (Entertainment)."
13447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13448 #: freeculture.xml:9673
13450 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
13451 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
13452 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
13453 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
13454 "any protection should not do more harm than good."
13457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13458 #: freeculture.xml:9685
13460 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is one</emphasis> more obvious way in which "
13461 "this war has harmed innovation—again, a story that will be quite "
13462 "familiar to the free market crowd."
13465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13466 #: freeculture.xml:9690
13468 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
13469 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
13470 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
13471 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
13474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13475 #: freeculture.xml:9704
13477 "Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (Amherst, N.Y.: "
13478 "Prometheus Books, 2001). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13482 #: freeculture.xml:9698
13484 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13485 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, despite this feature of copyright as regulation, "
13486 "and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica Litman in her "
13487 "book <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle>,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13488 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter 10 "
13489 "details, when new technologies have come along, Congress has struck a "
13490 "balance to assure that the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or "
13491 "statutory, licenses have been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the "
13492 "case of the VCR) has been another."
13495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13496 #: freeculture.xml:9715
13498 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
13499 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
13500 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
13501 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
13502 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
13505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13506 #: freeculture.xml:9724
13507 msgid "Grokster, Ltd."
13510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13511 #: freeculture.xml:9724
13513 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The only circuit court exception "
13514 "is found in <citetitle>Recording Industry Association of America "
13515 "(RIAA)</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Diamond Multimedia Systems</citetitle>, 180 "
13516 "F. 3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999). There the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit "
13517 "reasoned that makers of a portable MP3 player were not liable for "
13518 "contributory copyright infringement for a device that is unable to record or "
13519 "redistribute music (a device whose only copying function is to render "
13520 "portable a music file already stored on a user's hard drive). At the "
13521 "district court level, the only exception is found in "
13522 "<citetitle>Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, "
13523 "Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Grokster, Ltd</citetitle>., 259 F. Supp. 2d "
13524 "1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the link between the "
13525 "distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to make the "
13526 "distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement liability."
13529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13530 #: freeculture.xml:9743
13531 msgid "Tauzin, Billy"
13534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13535 #: freeculture.xml:9759
13536 msgid "Hollings, Fritz"
13539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13540 #: freeculture.xml:9743
13542 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For example, in July 2002, "
13543 "Representative Howard Berman introduced the Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention "
13544 "Act (H.R. 5211), which would immunize copyright holders from liability for "
13545 "damage done to computers when the copyright holders use technology to stop "
13546 "copyright infringement. In August 2002, Representative Billy Tauzin "
13547 "introduced a bill to mandate that technologies capable of rebroadcasting "
13548 "digital copies of films broadcast on TV (i.e., computers) respect a "
13549 "<quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would disable copying of that "
13550 "content. And in March of the same year, Senator Fritz Hollings introduced "
13551 "the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandated "
13552 "copyright protection technology in all digital media devices. See GartnerG2, "
13553 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> 27 June "
13554 "2003, 33–34, available at <ulink "
13555 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>. <placeholder "
13556 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> "
13557 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
13560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13561 #: freeculture.xml:9722
13563 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
13564 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
13565 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
13566 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
13567 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
13568 "demise of Internet radio."
13572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13573 #: freeculture.xml:9770
13575 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13576 "linkend=\"pirates\"/>, when a radio station plays a song, the recording "
13577 "artist doesn't get paid for that <quote>radio performance</quote> unless he "
13578 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
13579 "a version of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote>—to memorialize her famous "
13580 "performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then "
13581 "whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current copyright "
13582 "owners of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> would get some money, whereas "
13583 "Marilyn Monroe would not."
13586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13587 #: freeculture.xml:9781
13589 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
13590 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
13591 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
13592 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
13593 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
13594 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
13595 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
13596 "compensation to the recording artists."
13599 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13600 #: freeculture.xml:9792
13602 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
13603 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
13604 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
13605 "<quote>tune in</quote> to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting "
13606 "in San Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular "
13607 "radio station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
13610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13611 #: freeculture.xml:9801
13613 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
13614 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
13615 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
13616 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
13617 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
13618 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
13619 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
13620 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
13621 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
13622 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
13626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13627 #: freeculture.xml:9817
13629 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
13630 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
13631 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
13632 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
13633 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
13634 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
13638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13639 #: freeculture.xml:9841
13640 msgid "Lessing, 239."
13643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13644 #: freeculture.xml:9827
13646 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
13647 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
13648 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
13649 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
13650 "restrictions. … Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
13651 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
13652 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
13653 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
13654 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
13655 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
13656 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
13657 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13662 #: freeculture.xml:9851
13663 msgid "Ibid., 229."
13666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13667 #: freeculture.xml:9846
13669 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
13670 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
13671 "<quote>vested interests, habits, customs and legislation</quote><placeholder "
13672 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
13676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13677 #: freeculture.xml:9856
13679 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
13680 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
13681 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
13682 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
13683 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
13687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13688 #: freeculture.xml:9865
13690 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
13691 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
13692 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
13693 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
13694 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
13695 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
13696 "it plays her hypothetical recording of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> on the "
13697 "air, <emphasis>Internet radio does</emphasis>. Not only is the law not "
13698 "neutral toward Internet radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio "
13699 "more than it burdens terrestrial radio."
13702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13703 #: freeculture.xml:9904
13704 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
13707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13708 #: freeculture.xml:9887
13710 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
13711 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
13712 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
13713 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
13714 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
13715 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
13716 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
13717 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
13718 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>Copyright as "
13719 "Entry Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,</quote> <citetitle>Antitrust "
13720 "Bulletin</citetitle> (Summer/Fall 2002): 461: <quote>This was not confusion, "
13721 "these are just old-fashioned entry barriers. Analog radio stations are "
13722 "protected from digital entrants, reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, "
13723 "this is done in the name of getting royalties to copyright holders, but, "
13724 "absent the play of powerful interests, that could have been done in a "
13725 "media-neutral way.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
13726 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
13729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13730 #: freeculture.xml:9880
13732 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
13733 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
13734 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
13735 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
13736 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
13737 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
13740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13741 #: freeculture.xml:9912
13743 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
13744 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
13745 "would have to collect the following data from <emphasis>every listening "
13746 "transaction</emphasis>:"
13749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13750 #: freeculture.xml:9920
13751 msgid "name of the service;"
13754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13755 #: freeculture.xml:9923
13756 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
13759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13760 #: freeculture.xml:9926
13761 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
13764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13765 #: freeculture.xml:9929
13766 msgid "date of transmission;"
13769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13770 #: freeculture.xml:9932
13771 msgid "time of transmission;"
13774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13775 #: freeculture.xml:9935
13776 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
13779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13780 #: freeculture.xml:9938
13781 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
13784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13785 #: freeculture.xml:9941
13786 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
13789 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13790 #: freeculture.xml:9944
13791 msgid "sound recording title;"
13794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13795 #: freeculture.xml:9947
13796 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
13799 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13800 #: freeculture.xml:9950
13802 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
13803 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
13807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13808 #: freeculture.xml:9953
13809 msgid "featured recording artist;"
13812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13813 #: freeculture.xml:9956
13814 msgid "retail album title;"
13817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13818 #: freeculture.xml:9959
13819 msgid "recording label;"
13822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13823 #: freeculture.xml:9962
13824 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
13827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13828 #: freeculture.xml:9965
13829 msgid "catalog number;"
13832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13833 #: freeculture.xml:9968
13834 msgid "copyright owner information;"
13837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13838 #: freeculture.xml:9971
13839 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
13842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13843 #: freeculture.xml:9974
13844 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
13847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13848 #: freeculture.xml:9977
13849 msgid "channel or program;"
13852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13853 #: freeculture.xml:9980
13854 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
13857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13858 #: freeculture.xml:9983
13859 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
13862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13863 #: freeculture.xml:9986
13864 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
13867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13868 #: freeculture.xml:9989
13869 msgid "unique user identifier;"
13872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13873 #: freeculture.xml:9992
13874 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
13877 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13878 #: freeculture.xml:9997
13880 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
13881 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
13882 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
13883 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
13884 "pay a <emphasis>type of copyright fee</emphasis> that terrestrial radio does "
13888 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13889 #: freeculture.xml:10005
13891 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
13892 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
13893 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
13896 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
13897 #: freeculture.xml:10009 freeculture.xml:14683
13898 msgid "Real Networks"
13901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13902 #: freeculture.xml:10012
13904 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
13905 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
13906 "Real Networks, told me,"
13910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13911 #: freeculture.xml:10018
13913 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
13914 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
13915 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
13916 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
13917 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, … <quote>How do you come "
13918 "up with a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? "
13919 "Because here we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, "
13920 "and that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, "
13921 "you're going to drive the small webcasters out of business. …</quote>"
13924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13925 #: freeculture.xml:10034
13927 "And the RIAA experts said, <quote>Well, we don't really model this as an "
13928 "industry with thousands of webcasters, <emphasis>we think it should be an "
13929 "industry with, you know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate "
13930 "and it's a stable, predictable market</emphasis>.</quote> (Emphasis added.)"
13933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13934 #: freeculture.xml:10043
13936 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
13937 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
13938 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
13939 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
13940 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
13941 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
13944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13945 #: freeculture.xml:10053
13946 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
13949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13950 #: freeculture.xml:10055
13952 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
13953 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
13954 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
13957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13958 #: freeculture.xml:10061
13960 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
13961 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
13962 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
13966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13967 #: freeculture.xml:10070
13969 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, <quote>The Music Downloading Deluge,</quote> "
13970 "Pew Internet and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
13971 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
13972 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
13973 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
13977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13978 #: freeculture.xml:10066
13980 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
13981 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
13982 "of citizens. According to <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, 43 "
13983 "million Americans downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder "
13984 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 "
13985 "million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 "
13986 "percent of America into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not "
13987 "only the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, but against students building "
13988 "search engines, and increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, "
13989 "the technologies for sharing will advance to further protect and hide "
13990 "illegal use. It is an arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one "
13991 "side inviting a more extreme response by the other."
13995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13996 #: freeculture.xml:10104
13998 "Alex Pham, <quote>The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA "
13999 "Case,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, "
14003 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14004 #: freeculture.xml:10091
14006 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
14007 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
14008 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
14009 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
14010 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
14011 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
14012 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
14013 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
14014 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
14015 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
14016 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
14017 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
14018 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
14019 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
14020 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
14021 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
14022 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
14025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14026 #: freeculture.xml:10115
14027 msgid "alcohol prohibition"
14031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14032 #: freeculture.xml:10127
14034 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, <quote>Alcohol Consumption During "
14035 "Prohibition,</quote> <citetitle>American Economic Review</citetitle> 81, "
14036 "no. 2 (1991): 242."
14040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14041 #: freeculture.xml:10135
14043 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
14044 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
14045 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
14049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14050 #: freeculture.xml:10145
14052 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, <quote>Tax "
14053 "Compliance,</quote> <citetitle>Journal of Economic Literature</citetitle> 36 "
14054 "(1998): 818 (survey of compliance literature)."
14057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14058 #: freeculture.xml:10117
14060 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
14061 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
14062 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
14063 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
14064 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
14065 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
14066 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
14067 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
14068 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
14069 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14070 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
14071 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
14072 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
14073 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
14074 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our <quote>free "
14075 "society,</quote> but an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated "
14076 "within our society. And as a result, a huge proportion of Americans "
14077 "regularly violate at least some law."
14080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14081 #: freeculture.xml:10153
14082 msgid "law schools"
14085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14086 #: freeculture.xml:10155
14088 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
14089 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
14090 "about the importance of <quote>ethics.</quote> As my colleague Charlie "
14091 "Nesson told a class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of "
14092 "students who have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and "
14093 "sometimes drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven "
14094 "cars. These are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the "
14095 "norm. And then we, as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to "
14096 "behave ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds "
14097 "separate, or honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your "
14098 "case is over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some "
14099 "parts of America than in others, but still, everywhere in America "
14100 "today—can't live their lives both normally and legally, since "
14101 "<quote>normally</quote> entails a certain degree of illegality."
14104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14105 #: freeculture.xml:10172
14107 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
14108 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
14109 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
14110 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
14111 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
14112 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
14113 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
14114 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
14118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14119 #: freeculture.xml:10185
14121 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
14122 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
14123 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
14124 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
14125 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
14128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14129 #: freeculture.xml:10192
14131 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
14132 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
14133 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
14134 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
14135 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
14136 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
14137 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
14138 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
14139 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
14140 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of "
14141 "<quote>sharing.</quote> We need to be able to call these twenty million "
14142 "Americans <quote>citizens,</quote> not <quote>felons.</quote>"
14145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14146 #: freeculture.xml:10206
14148 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
14149 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
14150 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
14151 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
14152 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
14153 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
14154 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
14155 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
14156 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
14159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14160 #: freeculture.xml:10218
14161 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
14165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14166 #: freeculture.xml:10221
14168 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
14169 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
14170 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
14171 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
14172 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That <quote>use</quote> of the "
14173 "recordings is free."
14176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14177 #: freeculture.xml:10232
14179 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
14180 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
14181 "copy-protection technologies, I am <quote>free</quote> to copy, or "
14182 "<quote>rip,</quote> music from my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, "
14183 "Apple Corporation went so far as to suggest that <quote>freedom</quote> was "
14184 "a right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the <quote>Rip, Mix, "
14185 "Burn</quote> capacities of digital technologies."
14188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14189 #: freeculture.xml:10240
14193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14194 #: freeculture.xml:10241
14195 msgid "mix technology and"
14198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14199 #: freeculture.xml:10243
14201 "This <quote>use</quote> of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a "
14202 "large process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing "
14203 "them in one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program "
14204 "called Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, "
14205 "Baroque, Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
14206 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
14207 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
14208 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
14212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14213 #: freeculture.xml:10254
14215 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
14216 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
14217 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
14218 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
14219 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
14220 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
14221 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
14225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14226 #: freeculture.xml:10264
14228 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
14229 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
14230 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
14231 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
14232 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
14233 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
14234 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
14235 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
14236 "part of a massively complex <quote>digital rights management</quote> system."
14239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14240 #: freeculture.xml:10279
14242 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
14243 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
14244 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
14245 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
14246 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
14247 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
14251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14252 #: freeculture.xml:10288
14254 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
14255 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
14256 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
14257 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
14258 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
14259 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
14260 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
14261 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
14264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14265 #: freeculture.xml:10299
14267 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
14268 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
14269 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
14270 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
14271 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
14272 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
14273 "horse-drawn buggy."
14276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14277 #: freeculture.xml:10308
14279 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
14280 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
14281 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
14282 "as criminals and their own survival."
14286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14287 #: freeculture.xml:10314
14289 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
14290 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
14291 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
14292 "important as our tradition of free culture."
14295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14296 #: freeculture.xml:10325
14298 "<emphasis role='strong'>There's one more</emphasis> aspect to this "
14299 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
14300 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
14301 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the <quote>collateral "
14302 "damage</quote> that <quote>arises whenever you turn a very large percentage "
14303 "of the population into criminals.</quote> This is the collateral damage to "
14304 "civil liberties generally."
14307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14308 #: freeculture.xml:10333 freeculture.xml:10433
14309 msgid "von Lohmann, Fred"
14312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14313 #: freeculture.xml:10335
14315 "<quote>If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,</quote> von "
14316 "Lohmann explains,"
14319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14320 #: freeculture.xml:10340
14322 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
14323 "one degree or another. … If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
14324 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
14325 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
14326 "continue to receive Internet access? … Our sensibilities change as "
14327 "soon as we think, <quote>Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a "
14328 "lawbreaker.</quote> Well, what this campaign against file sharing has done "
14329 "is turn a remarkable percentage of the American Internet-using population "
14330 "into <quote>lawbreakers.</quote>"
14333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14334 #: freeculture.xml:10352
14336 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
14337 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
14338 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
14341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14342 #: freeculture.xml:10357
14344 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
14345 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
14346 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
14347 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
14348 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
14349 "user is revealed."
14353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14354 #: freeculture.xml:10375
14356 "See Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single "
14357 "Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> "
14358 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, "
14359 "<quote>Worried Parents Pull Plug on File `Stealing'; With the Music Industry "
14360 "Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents are Yanking Software from Home PCs "
14361 "to Avoid Being Sued,</quote> <citetitle>Orlando Sentinel "
14362 "Tribune</citetitle>, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, <quote>Recording "
14363 "Industry Sues Parents,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 15 "
14364 "September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, <quote>She Says She's No Music Pirate. No "
14365 "Snoop Fan, Either,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 25 "
14366 "September 2003, C1; Margo Varadi, <quote>Is Brianna a Criminal?</quote> "
14367 "<citetitle>Toronto Star</citetitle>, 18 September 2003, P7."
14370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14371 #: freeculture.xml:10366
14373 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
14374 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
14375 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
14376 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
14377 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
14378 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
14379 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
14380 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14385 #: freeculture.xml:10393
14387 "See <quote>Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses "
14388 "Some Methods Used,</quote> CNN.com, available at <ulink "
14389 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
14392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14393 #: freeculture.xml:10389
14395 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
14396 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
14397 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
14398 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
14399 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
14400 "MP3s will have the same <quote>fingerprint.</quote>"
14404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14405 #: freeculture.xml:10414
14407 "See Jeff Adler, <quote>Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not "
14408 "Penitent,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 18 May 2003, City "
14409 "Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, <quote>Four Students Sued over Music Sites; "
14410 "Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,</quote> "
14411 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth "
14412 "Armstrong, <quote>Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at Their Own Risk,</quote> "
14413 "<citetitle>Christian Science Monitor</citetitle>, 2 September 2003, 20; "
14414 "Robert Becker and Angela Rozas, <quote>Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; "
14415 "Two Students Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,</quote> "
14416 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 16 July 2003, 1C; Beth Cox, "
14417 "<quote>RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,</quote> "
14418 "<citetitle>Internet News</citetitle>, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
14419 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
14420 "<quote>Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include "
14421 "Record Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,</quote> <citetitle>San "
14422 "Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 11 August 2003, E11; <quote>Raid, Letters "
14423 "Are Weapons at Universities,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 26 "
14424 "September 2000, 3D."
14427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14428 #: freeculture.xml:10402
14430 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
14431 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
14432 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
14433 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
14434 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
14435 "if the college network is <quote>cooperating</quote> with the RIAA's "
14436 "espionage, and she hasn't properly protected her content from the network "
14437 "(do you know how to do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to "
14438 "identify your daughter as a <quote>criminal.</quote> And under the rules "
14439 "that universities are beginning to deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14440 "id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer "
14441 "network. She can, in some cases, be expelled."
14445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14446 #: freeculture.xml:10435
14448 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
14449 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
14450 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
14451 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
14452 "university might not believe her. It might treat this "
14453 "<quote>contraband</quote> as presumptive of guilt. And as any number of "
14454 "college students have already learned, our presumptions about innocence "
14455 "disappear in the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different. "
14456 "Says von Lohmann,"
14459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14460 #: freeculture.xml:10450
14462 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
14463 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
14464 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
14465 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
14466 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
14467 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
14468 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
14469 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
14470 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
14471 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
14472 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
14473 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
14474 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. … If forty to "
14475 "sixty million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a "
14476 "slippery slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty "
14480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14481 #: freeculture.xml:10470
14483 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered "
14484 "<quote>criminals</quote> under the law, and when the law could achieve the "
14485 "same objective— securing rights to authors—without these "
14486 "millions being considered <quote>criminals,</quote> who is the villain? "
14487 "Americans or the law? Which is American, a constant war on our own people or "
14488 "a concerted effort through our democracy to change our law?"
14491 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
14492 #: freeculture.xml:10483
14496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14497 #: freeculture.xml:10488
14499 "<emphasis role='strong'>So here's</emphasis> the picture: You're standing at "
14500 "the side of the road. Your car is on fire. You are angry and upset because "
14501 "in part you helped start the fire. Now you don't know how to put it "
14502 "out. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline "
14503 "won't put the fire out."
14506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14507 #: freeculture.xml:10495
14509 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
14510 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
14511 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
14512 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
14513 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
14516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14517 #: freeculture.xml:10503
14519 "<emphasis role='strong'>A war</emphasis> about copyright rages all "
14520 "around—and we're all focusing on the wrong thing. No doubt, current "
14521 "technologies threaten existing businesses. No doubt they may threaten "
14522 "artists. But technologies change. The industry and technologists have "
14523 "plenty of ways to use technology to protect themselves against the current "
14524 "threats of the Internet. This is a fire that if let alone would burn itself "
14529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14530 #: freeculture.xml:10513
14532 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
14533 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
14534 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
14535 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
14536 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
14539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14540 #: freeculture.xml:10521
14542 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
14543 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
14547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14548 #: freeculture.xml:10526
14550 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
14551 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
14552 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
14553 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
14556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14557 #: freeculture.xml:10532
14559 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
14560 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
14561 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
14562 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
14565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
14566 #: freeculture.xml:10542
14567 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
14570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14571 #: freeculture.xml:10543
14572 msgid "Hawthorne, Nathaniel"
14575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14576 #: freeculture.xml:10545
14578 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1995</emphasis>, a father was frustrated that his "
14579 "daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one "
14580 "such father, but at least one did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired "
14581 "computer programmer living in New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the "
14582 "Web. An electronic version, Eldred thought, with links to pictures and "
14583 "explanatory text, would make this nineteenth-century author's work come "
14587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14588 #: freeculture.xml:10554
14590 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
14591 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
14592 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
14593 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
14597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14598 #: freeculture.xml:10563
14600 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
14601 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
14602 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
14603 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
14604 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
14605 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
14606 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
14609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14610 #: freeculture.xml:10574
14612 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
14613 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's <citetitle>Scarlet Letter</citetitle> had passed "
14614 "into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the "
14615 "permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press "
14616 "and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed "
14617 "editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as "
14618 "Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes "
14619 "successfully (<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle>), sometimes not "
14620 "(<citetitle>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</citetitle>, <citetitle>Treasure "
14621 "Planet</citetitle>). These are all commercial publications of public domain "
14626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14627 #: freeculture.xml:10599
14629 "There's a parallel here with pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but "
14630 "it's a strong one. One phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of "
14631 "noncommercial pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were "
14632 "not making money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a "
14633 "class didn't exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of "
14634 "distributing porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got "
14635 "special attention in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the "
14636 "Communications Decency Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on "
14637 "noncommercial speakers that the statute was found to exceed Congress's "
14638 "power. The same point could have been made about noncommercial publishers "
14639 "after the advent of the Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the "
14640 "Internet were extremely few. Yet one would think it at least as important to "
14641 "protect the Eldreds of the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
14644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14645 #: freeculture.xml:10588
14647 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
14648 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
14649 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
14650 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
14651 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the "
14652 "<quote>noncommercial publishing industry,</quote> which before the Internet "
14653 "was limited to people with large egos or with political or social "
14654 "causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and "
14655 "groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.<placeholder "
14656 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14660 #: freeculture.xml:10616
14662 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
14663 "of poems <citetitle>New Hampshire</citetitle> was slated to pass into the "
14664 "public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public "
14665 "library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter <xref "
14666 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, in 1998, for the "
14667 "eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing "
14668 "copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add "
14669 "any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no "
14670 "copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not "
14671 "even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same "
14672 "period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain."
14675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14676 #: freeculture.xml:10629 freeculture.xml:10639
14680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14681 #: freeculture.xml:10630 freeculture.xml:10640
14682 msgid "Bono, Sonny"
14685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14686 #: freeculture.xml:10639
14688 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14689 "id=\"1\"/> The full text is: <quote>Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of "
14690 "copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a "
14691 "change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me "
14692 "to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you "
14693 "know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less "
14694 "one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,</quote> 144 "
14695 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
14698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14699 #: freeculture.xml:10634
14701 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
14702 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
14703 "Mary Bono, says, believed that <quote>copyrights should be "
14704 "forever.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14708 #: freeculture.xml:10652
14710 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
14711 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
14712 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
14713 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
14714 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
14715 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
14718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14719 #: freeculture.xml:10661
14721 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
14722 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
14723 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
14724 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
14725 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
14728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
14729 #: freeculture.xml:10672
14731 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science … by "
14732 "securing for limited Times to Authors … exclusive Right to their "
14733 "… Writings. …"
14736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14737 #: freeculture.xml:10678
14739 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
14740 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
14741 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
14742 "example, to regulate <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> or "
14743 "<quote>declare War.</quote> But here, the <quote>something</quote> is "
14744 "something quite specific—to <quote>promote … "
14745 "Progress</quote>—through means that are also specific— by "
14746 "<quote>securing</quote> <quote>exclusive Rights</quote> (i.e., copyrights) "
14747 "<quote>for limited Times.</quote>"
14750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14751 #: freeculture.xml:10687 freeculture.xml:12173
14752 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
14756 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14757 #: freeculture.xml:10689
14759 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
14760 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
14761 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
14762 "requirement that terms be <quote>limited</quote> will have no practical "
14763 "effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power "
14764 "to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
14765 "forbids—perpetual terms <quote>on the installment plan,</quote> as "
14766 "Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it."
14769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14770 #: freeculture.xml:10700
14772 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
14773 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
14774 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
14775 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
14776 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
14777 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
14778 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
14779 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
14782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14783 #: freeculture.xml:10711
14785 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
14786 "government. <quote>Corruption</quote> not in the sense that representatives "
14787 "are bribed. Rather, <quote>corruption</quote> in the sense that the system "
14788 "induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to "
14789 "Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so "
14790 "much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must "
14791 "do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
14794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14795 #: freeculture.xml:10720
14797 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
14798 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
14799 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
14800 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
14801 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
14802 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
14803 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
14806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14807 #: freeculture.xml:10730
14809 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
14810 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
14811 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
14812 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
14816 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14817 #: freeculture.xml:10737
14819 "<quote>Next year,</quote> the adviser announces, <quote>our copyrights in "
14820 "works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no "
14821 "longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers "
14822 "of those works.</quote>"
14825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14826 #: freeculture.xml:10745
14828 "<quote>There's a proposal in Congress, however,</quote> she continues, "
14829 "<quote>that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to "
14830 "extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be "
14831 "extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.</quote>"
14834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14835 #: freeculture.xml:10751
14837 "<quote>Hope?</quote> a fellow board member says. <quote>Can't we be doing "
14838 "something about it?</quote>"
14841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14842 #: freeculture.xml:10755
14844 "<quote>Well, obviously, yes,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>We could "
14845 "contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure "
14846 "that they support the bill.</quote>"
14849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14850 #: freeculture.xml:10760
14852 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
14853 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. <quote>How much would we get "
14854 "if this extension were passed?</quote> you ask the adviser. <quote>How much "
14855 "is it worth?</quote>"
14858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14859 #: freeculture.xml:10766
14861 "<quote>Well,</quote> the adviser says, <quote>if you're confident that you "
14862 "will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you "
14863 "use the `discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 "
14864 "percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.</quote>"
14867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14868 #: freeculture.xml:10772
14870 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
14874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14875 #: freeculture.xml:10776
14877 "<quote>So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than "
14878 "$1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those "
14879 "contributions would assure that the bill was passed?</quote>"
14882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14883 #: freeculture.xml:10782
14885 "<quote>Absolutely,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>It is worth it to "
14886 "you to contribute up to the `present value' of the income you expect from "
14887 "these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.</quote>"
14891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14892 #: freeculture.xml:10788
14894 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
14895 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
14896 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
14897 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
14898 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
14899 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
14903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14904 #: freeculture.xml:10799
14906 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
14907 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
14908 "buy further extensions of copyright."
14912 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14913 #: freeculture.xml:10811
14915 "Associated Press, <quote>Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey "
14916 "Mouse Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,</quote> "
14917 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 17 October 1998, 22."
14921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14922 #: freeculture.xml:10818
14924 "See Nick Brown, <quote>Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information "
14925 "Age,</quote> available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
14930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14931 #: freeculture.xml:10826
14933 "Alan K. Ota, <quote>Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,</quote> "
14934 "<citetitle>Congressional Quarterly This Week</citetitle>, 8 August 1990, "
14935 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
14938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14939 #: freeculture.xml:10804
14941 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
14942 "Extension Act, this <quote>theory</quote> about incentives was proved "
14943 "real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received "
14944 "the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the "
14945 "Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder "
14946 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have "
14947 "spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out "
14948 "more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14949 "id=\"1\"/> Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to "
14950 "reelection campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
14953 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14954 #: freeculture.xml:10833
14956 "<emphasis role='strong'>Constitutional law</emphasis> is not oblivious to "
14957 "the obvious. Or at least, it need not be. So when I was considering Eldred's "
14958 "complaint, this reality about the never-ending incentives to increase the "
14959 "copyright term was central to my thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court "
14960 "committed to interpreting and applying the Constitution of our framers would "
14961 "see that if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then there "
14962 "would be no effective constitutional requirement that terms be "
14963 "<quote>limited.</quote> If they could extend it once, they would extend it "
14964 "again and again and again."
14968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14969 #: freeculture.xml:10845
14971 "It was also my judgment that <emphasis>this</emphasis> Supreme Court would "
14972 "not allow Congress to extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme "
14973 "Court's work knows, this Court has increasingly restricted the power of "
14974 "Congress when it has viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power "
14975 "granted to it by the Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most "
14976 "famous example of this trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to "
14977 "strike down a law that banned the possession of guns near schools."
14980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14981 #: freeculture.xml:10858
14983 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
14984 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
14985 "only <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> (aka <quote>interstate "
14986 "commerce</quote>), the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include "
14987 "the power to regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
14990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14991 #: freeculture.xml:10868
14993 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
14994 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
14995 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
14996 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
15000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15001 #: freeculture.xml:10874 freeculture.xml:11660
15002 msgid "Rehnquist, William H."
15005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15006 #: freeculture.xml:10876
15008 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
15009 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The "
15010 "government had argued that possessing guns near schools affected interstate "
15011 "commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, crime lowers property values, "
15012 "and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief Justice asked the government "
15013 "whether there was any activity that would not affect interstate commerce "
15014 "under the reasoning the government advanced. The government said there was "
15015 "not; if Congress says an activity affects interstate commerce, then that "
15016 "activity affects interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, the government "
15017 "said, was not in the position to second-guess Congress."
15021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15022 #: freeculture.xml:10891
15024 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>, 514 "
15025 "U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
15029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15030 #: freeculture.xml:10898
15032 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>, 529 "
15036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15037 #: freeculture.xml:10889
15039 "<quote>We pause to consider the implications of the government's "
15040 "arguments,</quote> the Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15041 "id=\"0\"/> If anything Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore "
15042 "be considered interstate commerce, then there would be no limit to "
15043 "Congress's power. The decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> was "
15044 "reaffirmed five years later in <citetitle>United States</citetitle> "
15045 "v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
15049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15050 #: freeculture.xml:10905
15052 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
15053 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
15054 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
15055 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
15056 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
15057 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
15058 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
15059 "copyrights—the limitation to <quote>limited times</quote> "
15064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15065 #: freeculture.xml:10902
15067 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
15068 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15069 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
15070 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
15071 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no "
15072 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power over terms, though the "
15073 "Constitution expressly states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same "
15074 "principle applied to the power to grant copyrights should entail that "
15075 "Congress is not allowed to extend the term of existing copyrights."
15078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15079 #: freeculture.xml:10926
15081 "<emphasis>If</emphasis>, that is, the principle announced in "
15082 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for a principle. Many believed the "
15083 "decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for politics—a "
15084 "conservative Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its "
15085 "power over Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I "
15086 "rejected that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after "
15087 "the decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the <quote>fidelity</quote> "
15088 "in such an interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme "
15089 "Court decides cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily "
15090 "boring. I was not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if "
15091 "these nine Justices were going to be petty politicians."
15094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15095 #: freeculture.xml:10938
15096 msgid "copyright purpose established in"
15099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15100 #: freeculture.xml:10939
15101 msgid "constitutional purpose of"
15104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15105 #: freeculture.xml:10943
15107 "<emphasis role='strong'>Now let's pause</emphasis> for a moment to make sure "
15108 "we understand what the argument in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was not "
15109 "about. By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously "
15110 "Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was "
15111 "fighting a kind of piracy—piracy of the public domain. When Robert "
15112 "Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum "
15113 "copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost "
15114 "and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their "
15115 "work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution "
15116 "envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they "
15117 "created new work. But now these entities were using their "
15118 "power—expressed through the power of lobbyists' money—to get "
15119 "another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be "
15120 "taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects "
15124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15125 #: freeculture.xml:10960
15126 msgid "Nashville Songwriters Association"
15130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15131 #: freeculture.xml:10968
15133 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, "
15134 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. "
15135 "186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
15136 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
15139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15140 #: freeculture.xml:10962
15142 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
15143 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
15144 "domain is nothing more than <quote>legal piracy.</quote><placeholder "
15145 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; "
15146 "and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
15147 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
15148 "pirate's charter."
15151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15152 #: freeculture.xml:10978
15154 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
15155 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
15156 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
15157 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
15158 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
15159 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
15160 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
15163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15164 #: freeculture.xml:10990
15166 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is valuable</emphasis> copyrights that are "
15167 "responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and <quote>Rhapsody in "
15168 "Blue.</quote> These works are too valuable for copyright owners to "
15169 "ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not "
15170 "that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert "
15171 "Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing "
15172 "commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these "
15173 "famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not "
15174 "commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
15178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15179 #: freeculture.xml:11008
15181 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
15182 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
15183 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15184 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 7, available at <ulink "
15185 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
15188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15189 #: freeculture.xml:11002
15191 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
15192 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
15193 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
15194 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
15195 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
15196 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15201 #: freeculture.xml:11017
15203 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
15204 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
15205 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
15206 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
15207 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
15211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15212 #: freeculture.xml:11030
15214 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
15215 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
15216 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
15217 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
15218 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
15222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15223 #: freeculture.xml:11038
15225 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
15226 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
15229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15230 #: freeculture.xml:11042
15232 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
15233 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
15234 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
15237 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15238 #: freeculture.xml:11049
15240 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
15241 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
15242 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
15243 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
15244 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
15247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15248 #: freeculture.xml:11058
15250 "<quote>But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,</quote> the "
15251 "apologists for the system respond. <quote>Why should there be a list of "
15252 "copyright owners?</quote>"
15255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15256 #: freeculture.xml:11063
15258 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there <emphasis>are</emphasis> plenty "
15259 "of lists of who owns what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles "
15260 "to cars. And where there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty "
15261 "good at suggesting who the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in "
15262 "your backyard is probably yours.) So formally or informally, we have a "
15263 "pretty good way to know who owns what tangible property."
15267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15268 #: freeculture.xml:11072
15270 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
15271 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
15272 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
15273 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
15274 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
15275 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
15276 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
15277 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
15278 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
15281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15282 #: freeculture.xml:11087
15284 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
15285 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
15286 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
15287 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
15288 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
15289 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
15290 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
15291 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
15295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15296 #: freeculture.xml:11099
15298 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
15299 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
15300 "creative works is much more dire."
15303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15304 #: freeculture.xml:11104
15305 msgid "Agee, Michael"
15308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15309 #: freeculture.xml:11105 freeculture.xml:11540
15310 msgid "Hal Roach Studios"
15313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15314 #: freeculture.xml:11106
15315 msgid "Laurel and Hardy Films"
15318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15319 #: freeculture.xml:11107
15320 msgid "Lucky Dog, The"
15324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15325 #: freeculture.xml:11120
15327 "See David G. Savage, <quote>High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright "
15328 "Law,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 6 October 2002; David "
15329 "Streitfeld, <quote>Classic Movies, Songs, Books at Stake; Supreme Court "
15330 "Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down Copyright Extension,</quote> "
15331 "<citetitle>Orlando Sentinel Tribune</citetitle>, 9 October 2002."
15334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15335 #: freeculture.xml:11109
15337 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
15338 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
15339 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
15340 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, <citetitle>The Lucky "
15341 "Dog</citetitle>, is currently out of copyright. But for the CTEA, films made "
15342 "after 1923 would have begun entering the public domain. Because Agee "
15343 "controls the exclusive rights for these popular films, he makes a great deal "
15344 "of money. According to one estimate, <quote>Roach has sold about 60,000 "
15345 "videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's silent "
15346 "films.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15350 #: freeculture.xml:11127
15352 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
15353 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
15354 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
15355 "a whole generation of American film."
15359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15360 #: freeculture.xml:11133
15362 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
15363 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
15364 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
15365 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
15366 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
15367 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
15371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15372 #: freeculture.xml:11151
15374 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
15375 "Petitoners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15376 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), "
15377 "12. See also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the "
15378 "Internet Archive, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15379 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
15380 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
15383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15384 #: freeculture.xml:11144
15386 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
15387 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
15388 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
15389 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
15390 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of mm film.<placeholder "
15391 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15394 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15395 #: freeculture.xml:11161
15397 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
15398 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
15399 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
15400 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
15401 "locate the copyright owner."
15404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15405 #: freeculture.xml:11169
15407 "Or more accurately, <emphasis>owners</emphasis>. As we've seen, there isn't "
15408 "only a single copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't "
15409 "a single person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as "
15410 "many as can hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large "
15411 "number. Thus the costs of clearing the rights to these films is "
15412 "exceptionally high."
15415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15416 #: freeculture.xml:11177
15418 "<quote>But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
15419 "copyright owner when she shows up?</quote> Sure, if you want to commit a "
15420 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
15421 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
15422 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
15423 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
15424 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
15425 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
15426 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
15430 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15431 #: freeculture.xml:11188
15433 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
15434 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
15435 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
15436 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
15440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15441 #: freeculture.xml:11199
15443 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
15444 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
15445 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
15446 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
15449 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15450 #: freeculture.xml:11207
15452 "<emphasis role='strong'>Of all the</emphasis> creative work produced by "
15453 "humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that "
15454 "tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that "
15455 "tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute "
15456 "the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "
15457 "<quote>engine of free expression.</quote>"
15460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15461 #: freeculture.xml:11215
15463 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
15464 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
15465 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
15466 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
15467 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
15468 "commercial life ends."
15471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15472 #: freeculture.xml:11225
15474 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
15475 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
15476 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
15477 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
15478 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
15479 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
15480 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
15481 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
15485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15486 #: freeculture.xml:11238
15488 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
15489 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
15490 "context do no good."
15493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15494 #: freeculture.xml:11245
15496 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
15497 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
15498 "<emphasis>copyright-related use</emphasis> that would be inhibited by an "
15499 "exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a "
15500 "publisher. But you could still buy it from a used book store, and when a "
15501 "used book store sells it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the "
15502 "copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its "
15503 "commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law."
15506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15507 #: freeculture.xml:11256
15509 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
15510 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
15511 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
15512 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
15513 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
15514 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
15517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15518 #: freeculture.xml:11265
15520 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
15521 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
15522 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
15523 "interfered with anything."
15526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15527 #: freeculture.xml:11271
15528 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
15531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15532 #: freeculture.xml:11275
15534 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
15535 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
15536 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
15537 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
15538 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
15539 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
15540 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
15541 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
15542 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
15546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15547 #: freeculture.xml:11288
15549 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
15550 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
15551 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
15552 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
15553 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
15554 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
15555 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
15556 "radically different context."
15559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15560 #: freeculture.xml:11298
15562 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
15563 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
15564 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful "
15565 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis> purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to "
15566 "enable the commercial market that spreads culture. No, we are talking about "
15567 "culture after it has lived its commercial life. In this context, copyright "
15568 "is serving no purpose <emphasis>at all</emphasis> related to the spread of "
15569 "knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
15570 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
15573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15574 #: freeculture.xml:11309
15576 "You may well ask, <quote>But if digital technologies lower the costs for "
15577 "Brewster Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So "
15578 "won't Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture "
15582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15583 #: freeculture.xml:11315
15585 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
15586 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
15587 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
15588 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
15589 "what <quote>the market</quote> would demand. But if you think the role of a "
15590 "library is bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive "
15591 "culture, whether there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or "
15592 "not—then we can't count on the commercial market to do our library "
15597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15598 #: freeculture.xml:11339
15600 "Jason Schultz, <quote>The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,</quote> "
15601 "20 December 2002, available at <ulink "
15602 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
15605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15606 #: freeculture.xml:11327
15608 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
15609 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
15610 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
15611 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
15612 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
15613 "films, books, and music produced between and 1946 is not commercially "
15614 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
15615 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
15616 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15620 #: freeculture.xml:11346
15622 "<emphasis role='strong'>In January 1999</emphasis>, we filed a lawsuit on "
15623 "Eric Eldred's behalf in federal district court in Washington, D.C., asking "
15624 "the court to declare the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act "
15625 "unconstitutional. The two central claims that we made were (1) that "
15626 "extending existing terms violated the Constitution's <quote>limited "
15627 "Times</quote> requirement, and (2) that extending terms by another twenty "
15628 "years violated the First Amendment."
15631 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15632 #: freeculture.xml:11355
15634 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
15635 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
15636 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
15637 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
15638 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
15641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15642 #: freeculture.xml:11362
15644 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
15645 "be for <quote>limited Times</quote> only. His argument was as elegant as it "
15646 "was simple: If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no "
15647 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power under the Copyright "
15648 "Clause. The power to extend existing terms means Congress is not required to "
15649 "grant terms that are <quote>limited.</quote> Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, "
15650 "the court had to interpret the term <quote>limited Times</quote> to give it "
15651 "meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle argued, would be to "
15652 "deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
15655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15656 #: freeculture.xml:11373
15658 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
15659 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
15660 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
15661 "the court will sit <quote>en banc</quote> to hear the case."
15664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15665 #: freeculture.xml:11378
15666 msgid "Tatel, David"
15670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15671 #: freeculture.xml:11380
15673 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
15674 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
15675 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
15676 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
15680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15681 #: freeculture.xml:11389
15683 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
15684 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
15685 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
15686 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
15687 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
15690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15691 #: freeculture.xml:11396
15693 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
15694 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
15695 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
15698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15699 #: freeculture.xml:11402
15701 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is over</emphasis> a year later as I write these "
15702 "words. It is still astonishingly hard. If you know anything at all about "
15703 "this story, you know that we lost the appeal. And if you know something more "
15704 "than just the minimum, you probably think there was no way this case could "
15705 "have been won. After our defeat, I received literally thousands of missives "
15706 "by well-wishers and supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this "
15707 "noble but doomed cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me "
15708 "than the e-mail from my client, Eric Eldred."
15711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15712 #: freeculture.xml:11413
15714 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
15715 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
15716 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
15719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15720 #: freeculture.xml:11418 freeculture.xml:11432
15721 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
15725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15726 #: freeculture.xml:11420
15728 "<emphasis role='strong'>The mistake</emphasis> was made early, though it "
15729 "became obvious only at the very end. Our case had been supported from the "
15730 "very beginning by an extraordinary lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law "
15731 "firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great "
15732 "deal of heat from its copyright-protectionist clients for supporting "
15733 "us. They ignored this pressure (something that few law firms today would "
15734 "ever do), and throughout the case, they gave it everything they could."
15737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15738 #: freeculture.xml:11430 freeculture.xml:11789 freeculture.xml:11805 freeculture.xml:11902 freeculture.xml:12122 freeculture.xml:12153 freeculture.xml:12251
15742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15743 #: freeculture.xml:11431
15744 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
15747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15748 #: freeculture.xml:11434
15750 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
15751 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
15752 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
15753 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
15754 "make the issue seem <quote>important</quote> to the Supreme Court. It had to "
15755 "seem as if dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; "
15756 "otherwise, they would never vote against <quote>the most powerful media "
15757 "companies in the world.</quote>"
15760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15761 #: freeculture.xml:11444
15763 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
15764 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
15765 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
15766 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be "
15767 "<quote>right</quote> as in <quote>true,</quote> I thought, but it is "
15768 "<quote>wrong</quote> as in <quote>it just shouldn't be that way.</quote> As "
15769 "I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the framers of our "
15770 "Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
15771 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
15772 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
15773 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
15774 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
15775 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
15776 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
15777 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
15778 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
15779 "put in the Constitution."
15782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15783 #: freeculture.xml:11465
15785 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
15786 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
15787 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
15788 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
15789 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
15793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15794 #: freeculture.xml:11473
15796 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
15797 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
15798 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
15799 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
15800 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
15801 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
15802 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
15803 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
15804 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
15805 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in "
15806 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> and not politics, then, we tried to gather the "
15807 "widest range of credible critics—credible not because they were rich "
15808 "and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law "
15809 "was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics."
15812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15813 #: freeculture.xml:11491 freeculture.xml:11518
15814 msgid "Eagle Forum"
15817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15818 #: freeculture.xml:11492
15819 msgid "Schlafly, Phyllis"
15822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15823 #: freeculture.xml:11494
15825 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
15826 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
15827 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
15828 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
15829 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, <quote>Do you sometimes wonder why "
15830 "bills that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide "
15831 "easily through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit "
15832 "the general public seem to get bogged down?</quote> The answer, as the "
15833 "editorial documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
15834 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
15835 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
15839 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15840 #: freeculture.xml:11508
15842 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
15843 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
15844 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
15845 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
15846 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
15850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15851 #: freeculture.xml:11520
15853 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
15854 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
15855 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/ Linux possible). They "
15856 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
15857 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
15858 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
15859 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
15860 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments."
15863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15864 #: freeculture.xml:11532
15865 msgid "American Association of Law Libraries"
15868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15869 #: freeculture.xml:11533
15870 msgid "National Writers Union"
15873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15874 #: freeculture.xml:11535
15876 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
15877 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
15878 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
15879 "National Writers Union."
15882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15883 #: freeculture.xml:11542
15885 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
15886 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
15887 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
15888 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
15891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15892 #: freeculture.xml:11548
15893 msgid "Akerlof, George"
15896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15897 #: freeculture.xml:11549
15898 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
15901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15902 #: freeculture.xml:11550
15903 msgid "Buchanan, James"
15906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15907 #: freeculture.xml:11551
15908 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
15911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15912 #: freeculture.xml:11552
15913 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
15916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15917 #: freeculture.xml:11554
15919 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
15920 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
15921 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
15922 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
15923 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
15924 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
15925 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than "
15926 "<quote>rent-seeking</quote>—the fancy term economists use to describe "
15927 "special-interest legislation gone wild."
15930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15931 #: freeculture.xml:11564 freeculture.xml:11582 freeculture.xml:11791 freeculture.xml:12154
15932 msgid "Fried, Charles"
15935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15936 #: freeculture.xml:11565
15937 msgid "Morrison, Alan"
15940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15941 #: freeculture.xml:11566
15942 msgid "Public Citizen"
15945 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15946 #: freeculture.xml:11567 freeculture.xml:11790 freeculture.xml:12910
15947 msgid "Reagan, Ronald"
15951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15952 #: freeculture.xml:11569
15954 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
15955 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
15956 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
15957 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
15958 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
15959 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
15960 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
15961 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
15962 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried."
15965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15966 #: freeculture.xml:11584
15968 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
15969 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
15970 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
15971 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
15972 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
15973 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
15974 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
15975 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
15976 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument."
15979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15980 #: freeculture.xml:11596
15982 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
15983 "well. Significantly, however, none of these <quote>friends</quote> included "
15984 "historians or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were "
15985 "written exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright "
15989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15990 #: freeculture.xml:11603
15992 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
15993 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
15994 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
15995 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
15996 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
15997 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
16000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16001 #: freeculture.xml:11611
16002 msgid "Gershwin, George"
16006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16007 #: freeculture.xml:11620
16009 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16010 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. (2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
16014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16015 #: freeculture.xml:11628
16017 "Dinitia Smith, <quote>Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse "
16018 "Joins the Fray,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 28 March "
16023 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16024 #: freeculture.xml:11613
16026 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
16027 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
16028 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
16029 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to "
16030 "<quote>glorify drugs or to create pornography.</quote><placeholder "
16031 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That was also the motive of the Gershwin "
16032 "estate, which defended its <quote>protection</quote> of the work of George "
16033 "Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to license <citetitle>Porgy and "
16034 "Bess</citetitle> to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
16035 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
16036 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
16037 "help them effect that control."
16040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16041 #: freeculture.xml:11637
16043 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
16044 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
16045 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
16046 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
16047 "Congress and say, <quote>Give us twenty years to control the speech about "
16048 "these icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone "
16049 "else.</quote> Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by "
16050 "giving them what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive "
16051 "right to speak in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is "
16052 "traditionally meant to block."
16055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16056 #: freeculture.xml:11649
16058 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
16059 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
16060 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
16061 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
16062 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak."
16065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16066 #: freeculture.xml:11656
16068 "<emphasis role='strong'>Between February</emphasis> and October, there was "
16069 "little I did beyond preparing for this case. Early on, as I said, I set the "
16073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16074 #: freeculture.xml:11661 freeculture.xml:11847
16075 msgid "O'Connor, Sandra Day"
16078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16079 #: freeculture.xml:11663
16081 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
16082 "<quote>the Conservatives.</quote> The other we called <quote>the "
16083 "Rest.</quote> The Conservatives included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice "
16084 "O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five "
16085 "had been the most consistent in limiting Congress's power. They were the "
16086 "five who had supported the <citetitle>Lopez/Morrison</citetitle> line of "
16087 "cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to assure "
16088 "that Congress's powers had limits."
16091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16092 #: freeculture.xml:11672 freeculture.xml:11697 freeculture.xml:12049 freeculture.xml:12061
16093 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
16096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16097 #: freeculture.xml:11673 freeculture.xml:12013
16098 msgid "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader"
16102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16103 #: freeculture.xml:11675
16105 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
16106 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
16107 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
16108 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
16109 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
16110 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
16111 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
16112 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
16115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16116 #: freeculture.xml:11687
16118 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
16119 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
16120 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
16121 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
16122 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
16123 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
16124 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
16125 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
16128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16129 #: freeculture.xml:11699
16131 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
16132 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
16133 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
16134 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
16135 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
16138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16139 #: freeculture.xml:11708
16141 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
16142 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
16143 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
16144 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
16145 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
16146 "confident he would recognize limits here."
16149 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16150 #: freeculture.xml:11716
16152 "This analysis of <quote>the Rest</quote> showed most clearly where our focus "
16153 "had to be: on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open "
16154 "these five and get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single "
16155 "overriding argument that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' "
16156 "most important jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge "
16157 "Sentelle had relied upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must "
16158 "be interpreted so that its enumerated powers have limits."
16162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16163 #: freeculture.xml:11726
16165 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
16166 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the "
16167 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, under the government's argument here, "
16168 "Congress would always have unlimited power to extend existing terms. If "
16169 "anything was plain about Congress's power under the Progress Clause, it was "
16170 "that this power was supposed to be <quote>limited.</quote> Our aim would be "
16171 "to get the Court to reconcile <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> with "
16172 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was "
16173 "limited, then so, too, must Congress's power to regulate copyright be "
16177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16178 #: freeculture.xml:11740
16180 "<emphasis role='strong'>The argument</emphasis> on the government's side "
16181 "came down to this: Congress has done it before. It should be allowed to do "
16182 "it again. The government claimed that from the very beginning, Congress has "
16183 "been extending the term of existing copyrights. So, the government argued, "
16184 "the Court should not now say that practice is unconstitutional."
16187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16188 #: freeculture.xml:11748
16190 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
16191 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in 1831 and in 1909. And of "
16192 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
16193 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
16196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16197 #: freeculture.xml:11755
16199 "But this <quote>consistency</quote> should be kept in perspective. Congress "
16200 "extended existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It "
16201 "then extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare "
16202 "extensions are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
16203 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
16204 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
16205 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
16206 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
16207 "couldn't intervene here."
16211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16212 #: freeculture.xml:11770
16214 "<emphasis role='strong'>Oral argument</emphasis> was scheduled for the first "
16215 "week in October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During "
16216 "those two weeks, I was repeatedly <quote>mooted</quote> by lawyers who had "
16217 "volunteered to help in the case. Such <quote>moots</quote> are basically "
16218 "practice rounds, where wannabe justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
16221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16222 #: freeculture.xml:11780
16224 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
16225 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
16226 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
16227 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
16228 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
16229 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
16232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16233 #: freeculture.xml:11793
16235 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
16236 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
16237 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
16238 "of the moot, he let his concern speak:"
16241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16242 #: freeculture.xml:11799
16244 "<quote>I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
16245 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
16246 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
16247 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
16248 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.</quote>"
16251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16252 #: freeculture.xml:11807
16254 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
16255 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
16256 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
16257 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
16258 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
16259 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
16260 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
16261 "politicians learn to see that it was also good."
16265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16266 #: freeculture.xml:11817
16268 "<emphasis role='strong'>The night before</emphasis> the argument, a line of "
16269 "people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The case had become a "
16270 "focus of the press and of the movement to free culture. Hundreds stood in "
16271 "line for the chance to see the proceedings. Scores spent the night on the "
16272 "Supreme Court steps so that they would be assured a seat."
16275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16276 #: freeculture.xml:11827
16278 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
16279 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
16280 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
16281 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
16282 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
16283 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
16284 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
16285 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
16286 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
16287 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
16288 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
16291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16292 #: freeculture.xml:11842
16294 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
16295 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
16296 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
16297 "powers had any limit."
16300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16301 #: freeculture.xml:11849
16303 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
16304 "was bothering her."
16307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16308 #: freeculture.xml:11854
16310 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
16311 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
16312 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
16316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16317 #: freeculture.xml:11861
16319 "She was quite willing to concede <quote>that this flies directly in the face "
16320 "of what the framers had in mind.</quote> But my response again and again was "
16321 "to emphasize limits on Congress's power."
16325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16326 #: freeculture.xml:11867
16328 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
16329 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
16330 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
16333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16334 #: freeculture.xml:11875
16336 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
16337 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
16340 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16341 #: freeculture.xml:11881
16343 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
16344 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
16345 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
16346 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
16347 "evidence for that."
16350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16351 #: freeculture.xml:11889
16353 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
16357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16358 #: freeculture.xml:11895
16360 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
16361 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
16362 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
16363 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
16364 "under the copyright laws."
16367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16368 #: freeculture.xml:11904
16370 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
16371 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
16372 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
16373 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
16374 "was a swing and a miss."
16377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16378 #: freeculture.xml:11911
16380 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
16381 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16382 "ruling, and we hoped that he would see this case as its second cousin."
16386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16387 #: freeculture.xml:11916
16389 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
16390 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
16393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16394 #: freeculture.xml:11923
16396 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
16397 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
16400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16401 #: freeculture.xml:11927
16403 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
16404 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
16405 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
16406 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
16409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16410 #: freeculture.xml:11935
16411 msgid "Olson, Theodore B."
16414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16415 #: freeculture.xml:11937
16417 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
16418 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
16422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16423 #: freeculture.xml:11943
16425 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
16426 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
16427 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
16428 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
16431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16432 #: freeculture.xml:11951
16434 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
16435 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
16436 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
16437 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
16438 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
16439 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
16440 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
16441 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
16442 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
16443 "Court to my side."
16447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16448 #: freeculture.xml:11964
16450 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I left</emphasis> the court that day, I knew "
16451 "there were a hundred points I wished I could remake. There were a hundred "
16452 "questions I wished I had answered differently. But one way of thinking about "
16453 "this case left me optimistic."
16456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16457 #: freeculture.xml:11973
16459 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
16460 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
16461 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
16462 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
16463 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
16464 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
16465 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
16466 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
16467 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
16468 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
16469 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
16470 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
16473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16474 #: freeculture.xml:11988
16476 "<emphasis role='strong'>The morning</emphasis> of January 15, 2003, I was "
16477 "five minutes late to the office and missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the "
16478 "Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the message, I could tell in an instant "
16479 "that she had bad news to report.The Supreme Court had affirmed the decision "
16480 "of the Court of Appeals. Seven justices had voted in the majority. There "
16481 "were two dissents."
16484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16485 #: freeculture.xml:11996
16487 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
16488 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
16489 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
16492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16493 #: freeculture.xml:12001
16495 "My <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. Here was a case that pitted all the money "
16496 "in the world against <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. And here was the last "
16497 "naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."
16500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16501 #: freeculture.xml:12007
16503 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
16504 "principle in this case from the principle in "
16505 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The argument was nowhere to be found. The case "
16506 "was not even cited. The argument that was the core argument of our case did "
16507 "not even appear in the Court's opinion."
16511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16512 #: freeculture.xml:12017
16514 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
16515 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
16516 "Congress's power not limited here."
16519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16520 #: freeculture.xml:12022
16522 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
16523 "Souter. Neither believes in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. It would be too "
16524 "much to expect them to write an opinion that recognized, much less "
16525 "explained, the doctrine they had worked so hard to defeat."
16528 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16529 #: freeculture.xml:12028
16531 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
16532 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
16533 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
16534 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
16535 "simply <emphasis>by not addressing the argument</emphasis>. There was no "
16536 "inconsistency because they would not talk about the two together. There was "
16537 "therefore no principle that followed from the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16538 "case: In that context, Congress's power would be limited, but in this "
16539 "context it would not."
16542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16543 #: freeculture.xml:12039
16545 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
16546 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
16547 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
16548 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
16549 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
16550 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
16551 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
16552 "will respect, that is the system we have."
16555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16556 #: freeculture.xml:12051
16558 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
16559 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
16560 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
16561 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
16562 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
16563 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
16564 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
16565 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
16566 "charge go unanswered."
16570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16571 #: freeculture.xml:12064
16573 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
16574 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
16575 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
16576 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
16577 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
16578 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
16579 "Constitution said a term had to be <quote>limited,</quote> and the existing "
16580 "term was so long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was "
16581 "unconstitutional."
16584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16585 #: freeculture.xml:12075
16587 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
16588 "neither believed in the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, neither was "
16589 "willing to push it as a reason to reject this extension. The case was "
16590 "decided without anyone having addressed the argument that we had carried "
16591 "from Judge Sentelle. It was <citetitle>Hamlet</citetitle> without the "
16595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16596 #: freeculture.xml:12082
16598 "<emphasis role='strong'>Defeat brings depression</emphasis>. They say it is "
16599 "a sign of health when depression gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, "
16600 "but it didn't cure the depression. This anger was of two sorts."
16603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16604 #: freeculture.xml:12087
16605 msgid "originalism"
16608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16609 #: freeculture.xml:12089
16611 "It was first anger with the five <quote>Conservatives.</quote> It would have "
16612 "been one thing for them to have explained why the principle of "
16613 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> didn't apply in this case. That wouldn't have "
16614 "been a very convincing argument, I don't believe, having read it made by "
16615 "others, and having tried to make it myself. But it at least would have been "
16616 "an act of integrity. These justices in particular have repeatedly said that "
16617 "the proper mode of interpreting the Constitution is "
16618 "<quote>originalism</quote>—to first understand the framers' text, "
16619 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
16620 "Constitution. That method had produced <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> and many "
16621 "other <quote>originalist</quote> rulings. Where was their "
16622 "<quote>originalism</quote> now?"
16626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16627 #: freeculture.xml:12102
16629 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
16630 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
16631 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
16632 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
16633 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
16634 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
16635 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
16636 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
16637 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
16638 "consistent with their own principles."
16641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16642 #: freeculture.xml:12117
16644 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
16645 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
16649 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16650 #: freeculture.xml:12124
16652 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
16653 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
16654 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
16655 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
16656 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
16657 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
16658 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
16659 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
16664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16665 #: freeculture.xml:12135
16667 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
16668 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
16669 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
16670 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
16671 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
16672 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
16673 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
16674 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
16675 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
16676 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
16677 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
16678 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
16679 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
16680 "on which a court should decide the issue."
16683 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16684 #: freeculture.xml:12156
16686 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
16687 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
16691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16692 #: freeculture.xml:12161
16694 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
16695 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
16696 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
16697 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
16700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16701 #: freeculture.xml:12167
16703 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
16704 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
16705 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
16706 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
16710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16711 #: freeculture.xml:12175
16713 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
16714 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
16715 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
16716 "was a mistake. <quote>The Court is not ready,</quote> Peter Jaszi said; this "
16717 "issue should not be raised until it is."
16720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16721 #: freeculture.xml:12182
16723 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
16724 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
16725 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
16726 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
16727 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
16728 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
16729 "had made four years before—was wrong."
16733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16734 #: freeculture.xml:12191
16736 "<emphasis role='strong'>While the reaction</emphasis> to the Sonny Bono Act "
16737 "itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's decision "
16738 "was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that extending the "
16739 "term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over ideas. Where "
16740 "the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had been skeptical "
16741 "of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good thing, even if "
16742 "it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was attacked, it was "
16743 "attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful law. <citetitle>The "
16744 "New York Times</citetitle> wrote in its editorial,"
16747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16748 #: freeculture.xml:12206
16750 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
16751 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
16752 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
16753 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
16754 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
16755 "creative ferment."
16758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><indexterm><primary>
16759 #: freeculture.xml:12220 freeculture.xml:12225
16760 msgid "Bolling, Ruben"
16763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16764 #: freeculture.xml:12215
16766 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
16767 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
16768 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page (<xref "
16769 "linkend=\"fig-18\"/>). The <quote>powerful and wealthy</quote> line is a bit "
16770 "unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like that. <placeholder "
16771 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
16775 #: freeculture.xml:12223
16776 msgid "Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon"
16779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
16780 #: freeculture.xml:12224
16782 "<graphic fileref=\"images/18.png\"></graphic> <placeholder "
16783 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16787 #: freeculture.xml:12228
16789 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
16790 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>. That <quote>grand "
16791 "experiment</quote> we call the <quote>public domain</quote> is over? When I "
16792 "can make light of it, I think, <quote>Honey, I shrunk the "
16793 "Constitution.</quote> But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
16794 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
16795 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
16796 "have made them see differently."
16799 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
16800 #: freeculture.xml:12239
16801 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
16804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16805 #: freeculture.xml:12241
16807 "<emphasis role='strong'>The day</emphasis> <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16808 "decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The "
16809 "day the rehearing petition in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16810 "denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have "
16811 "it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a "
16812 "particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city "
16813 "from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and "
16814 "wrote an op-ed piece."
16817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16818 #: freeculture.xml:12253
16820 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
16821 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
16822 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
16823 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: "
16824 "<quote>For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the "
16825 "useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.</quote> And "
16826 "so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I "
16827 "turned to an argument of politics."
16831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16832 #: freeculture.xml:12263
16834 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> published the piece. In it, I "
16835 "proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the "
16836 "copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small "
16837 "fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of "
16838 "copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain."
16841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16842 #: freeculture.xml:12271
16844 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
16845 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
16846 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
16849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16850 #: freeculture.xml:12276
16852 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
16853 "the <quote>Public Domain Enhancement Act</quote> or the <quote>Copyright "
16854 "Term Deregulation Act.</quote> Either way, the essence of the idea is clear "
16855 "and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking "
16856 "access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows "
16857 "for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let "
16861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16862 #: freeculture.xml:12284 freeculture.xml:12485
16863 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
16866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16867 #: freeculture.xml:12286
16869 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
16870 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
16871 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
16872 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
16873 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
16874 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
16875 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
16876 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
16877 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
16880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16881 #: freeculture.xml:12298
16883 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
16884 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
16885 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
16886 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
16887 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
16888 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
16889 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
16890 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
16893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16894 #: freeculture.xml:12308
16895 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
16898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16899 #: freeculture.xml:12309 freeculture.xml:12350
16900 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
16903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
16904 #: freeculture.xml:12317
16905 msgid "German copyright law"
16908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16909 #: freeculture.xml:12317
16911 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the "
16912 "Berne Convention, national copyright legislation sometimes made protection "
16913 "depend upon compliance with formalities such as registration, deposit, and "
16914 "affixation of notice of the author's claim of copyright. However, starting "
16915 "with the 1908 act, every text of the Convention has provided that <quote>the "
16916 "enjoyment and the exercise</quote> of rights guaranteed by the Convention "
16917 "<quote>shall not be subject to any formality.</quote> The prohibition "
16918 "against formalities is presently embodied in Article 5(2) of the Paris Text "
16919 "of the Berne Convention. Many countries continue to impose some form of "
16920 "deposit or registration requirement, albeit not as a condition of "
16921 "copyright. French law, for example, requires the deposit of copies of works "
16922 "in national repositories, principally the National Museum. Copies of books "
16923 "published in the United Kingdom must be deposited in the British "
16924 "Library. The German Copyright Act provides for a Registrar of Authors where "
16925 "the author's true name can be filed in the case of anonymous or pseudonymous "
16926 "works. Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>International Intellectual Property Law, "
16927 "Cases and Materials</citetitle> (New York: Foundation Press, 2001), "
16931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16932 #: freeculture.xml:12312
16934 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
16935 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, "
16936 "when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement "
16937 "before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
16938 "Europeans are said to view copyright as a <quote>natural right.</quote> "
16939 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
16940 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
16941 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
16942 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
16943 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
16946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16947 #: freeculture.xml:12344
16949 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
16950 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
16951 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread <quote>Walt "
16952 "Disney creativity</quote> is destroyed when there is no simple way to know "
16953 "what's protected and what's not."
16956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16957 #: freeculture.xml:12352
16959 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
16960 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
16961 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
16962 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
16963 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
16964 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an "
16965 "<citetitle>i</citetitle> or cross a <citetitle>t</citetitle> resulted in the "
16966 "loss of widows' only income."
16969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16970 #: freeculture.xml:12362
16972 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
16973 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
16974 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
16975 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
16976 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
16980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16981 #: freeculture.xml:12370
16983 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
16984 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
16985 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
16986 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
16987 "imposed upon creators."
16991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16992 #: freeculture.xml:12378
16994 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
16995 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
16996 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
16997 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
16998 "a property right over the table <quote>naturally,</quote> and he can assert "
16999 "that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has "
17000 "informed the government of his ownership of the table."
17003 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17004 #: freeculture.xml:12390
17006 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
17007 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
17008 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
17009 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
17010 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
17011 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
17014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17015 #: freeculture.xml:12399
17017 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
17018 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
17019 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
17020 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
17021 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
17022 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
17023 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
17024 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
17025 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
17026 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
17027 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
17028 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
17029 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
17032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17033 #: freeculture.xml:12415
17035 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
17036 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
17037 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
17038 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
17039 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
17040 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
17041 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
17042 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
17043 "formalities. Complex, expensive, <emphasis>lawyer</emphasis> transactions "
17044 "take their place. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17048 #: freeculture.xml:12430
17050 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
17051 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't "
17052 "<quote>get.</quote> Because we live in a system without formalities, there "
17053 "is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright "
17054 "terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, <quote>short,</quote> then "
17055 "this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a "
17056 "work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be "
17057 "presumptively uncontrolled."
17060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17061 #: freeculture.xml:12440
17063 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
17064 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
17065 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
17066 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
17067 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
17068 "in a way that has never been seen before <emphasis>because there are no "
17069 "formalities</emphasis>."
17072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17073 #: freeculture.xml:12449
17075 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
17076 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
17077 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
17078 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
17079 "extended copyright term."
17082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17083 #: freeculture.xml:12456
17085 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
17086 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
17087 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
17088 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
17089 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
17092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17093 #: freeculture.xml:12463
17095 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
17096 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
17097 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
17101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17102 #: freeculture.xml:12469
17104 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
17105 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
17106 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
17107 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
17108 "the real problem of <emphasis>governments</emphasis> standing at the core of "
17109 "any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That "
17110 "solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was "
17111 "Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click "
17112 "registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration "
17113 "fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that "
17114 "system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that "
17115 "no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty "
17116 "years. What do you think?"
17119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17120 #: freeculture.xml:12487
17122 "<emphasis role='strong'>When Steve Forbes</emphasis> endorsed the idea, some "
17123 "in Washington began to pay attention. Many people contacted me pointing to "
17124 "representatives who might be willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had "
17125 "a few who directly suggested that they might be willing to take the first "
17129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17130 #: freeculture.xml:12493
17131 msgid "Lofgren, Zoe"
17134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17135 #: freeculture.xml:12495
17137 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
17138 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
17139 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
17140 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
17141 "the Eldred Act blog, <quote>we are close.</quote> There was a general "
17142 "reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here."
17145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17146 #: freeculture.xml:12504
17148 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
17149 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
17150 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
17151 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
17152 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
17153 "about what this debate is really about."
17157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17158 #: freeculture.xml:12512
17160 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had <quote>firmly rejected the central "
17161 "concept in the proposed bill</quote>—that copyrights be renewed. That "
17162 "was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's <quote>firm rejection</quote> had "
17163 "occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. "
17164 "Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright "
17165 "owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they "
17166 "argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would "
17167 "encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of "
17168 "work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again "
17169 "this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term "
17170 "unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would "
17171 "impose <quote>enormous</quote> costs, since a registration system is not "
17172 "free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of "
17173 "clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they "
17174 "worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were "
17175 "to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the "
17176 "public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use."
17179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17180 #: freeculture.xml:12533
17182 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
17183 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
17184 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
17185 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
17186 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
17190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17191 #: freeculture.xml:12541
17193 "<emphasis role='strong'>At the beginning</emphasis> of this book, I told two "
17194 "stories about the law reacting to changes in technology. In the one, common "
17195 "sense prevailed. In the other, common sense was delayed. The difference "
17196 "between the two stories was the power of the opposition—the power of "
17197 "the side that fought to defend the status quo. In both cases, a new "
17198 "technology threatened old interests. But in only one case did those "
17199 "interest's have the power to protect themselves against this new competitive "
17203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17204 #: freeculture.xml:12551
17206 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
17207 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
17208 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
17209 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
17213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17214 #: freeculture.xml:12560
17216 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
17217 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
17218 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
17219 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
17220 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
17221 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
17222 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
17223 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
17227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17228 #: freeculture.xml:12570
17229 msgid "Kelly, Kevin"
17232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17233 #: freeculture.xml:12572
17235 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
17236 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
17237 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
17238 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
17239 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
17240 "what Kevin Kelly calls the <quote>Dark Content</quote> that fills archives "
17241 "around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should "
17242 "ask one simple question:"
17245 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17246 #: freeculture.xml:12582
17247 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
17250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17251 #: freeculture.xml:12585
17253 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
17254 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
17255 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an "
17256 "effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is "
17257 "another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there "
17258 "will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that "
17259 "there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require "
17260 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> permission first."
17263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17264 #: freeculture.xml:12596
17266 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
17267 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
17268 "the protection of <quote>property</quote> but the rejection of a tradition. "
17269 "Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. <emphasis>Their aim is to "
17270 "assure that all there is is what is theirs</emphasis>."
17274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17275 #: freeculture.xml:12604
17277 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
17278 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
17279 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
17280 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
17281 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
17285 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17286 #: freeculture.xml:12616
17288 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
17289 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
17290 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
17291 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
17295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17296 #: freeculture.xml:12623
17298 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
17299 "<quote>property</quote> in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, "
17300 "and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of "
17301 "the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing <quote>permission "
17302 "society.</quote> The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the "
17303 "owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be "
17304 "controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
17307 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
17308 #: freeculture.xml:12635
17312 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17313 #: freeculture.xml:12636
17314 msgid "antiretroviral drugs"
17317 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17318 #: freeculture.xml:12637
17319 msgid "HIV/AIDS therapies"
17322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17323 #: freeculture.xml:12638
17324 msgid "Africa, medications for HIV patients in"
17327 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17328 #: freeculture.xml:12640
17330 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are more</emphasis> than 35 million people "
17331 "with the AIDS virus worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in "
17332 "sub-Saharan Africa. Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million "
17333 "Africans is proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More "
17334 "importantly, it is seventeen million Africans."
17337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17338 #: freeculture.xml:12647
17340 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
17341 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
17342 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
17343 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
17344 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
17348 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17349 #: freeculture.xml:12662
17351 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, <quote>Final Report: Integrating "
17352 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy</quote> (London, 2002), "
17353 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17354 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
17355 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
17356 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
17359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17360 #: freeculture.xml:12655
17362 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
17363 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
17364 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
17365 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
17366 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
17367 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17372 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17373 #: freeculture.xml:12673
17375 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
17376 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
17377 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
17378 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
17379 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
17380 "used to keep the prices high."
17383 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17384 #: freeculture.xml:12681
17386 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
17387 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
17388 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
17389 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
17390 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
17391 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
17392 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
17393 "it, at least without other changes."
17396 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17397 #: freeculture.xml:12692
17399 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
17400 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
17401 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
17402 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
17406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17407 #: freeculture.xml:12710 freeculture.xml:13165
17408 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
17411 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17412 #: freeculture.xml:12708
17414 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism: "
17415 "Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New Press, 2003), "
17416 "37. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
17417 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
17420 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17421 #: freeculture.xml:12699
17423 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
17424 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
17425 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
17426 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
17427 "called <quote>parallel importation,</quote> and it is generally permitted "
17428 "under international trade law and is specifically permitted within the "
17429 "European Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17434 #: freeculture.xml:12721
17436 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17437 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17438 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17439 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 14, available at <ulink "
17440 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #56</ulink>. For a firsthand "
17441 "account of the struggle over South Africa, see Hearing Before the "
17442 "Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, House "
17443 "Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., Ser. No. 106-126 (22 "
17444 "July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
17448 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17449 #: freeculture.xml:12748
17451 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17452 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17453 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17454 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 15."
17457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17458 #: freeculture.xml:12715
17460 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
17461 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
17462 "characterized it, <quote>The U.S. government pressured South Africa … "
17463 "not to permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.</quote><placeholder "
17464 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
17465 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
17466 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
17467 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
17468 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
17469 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
17470 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
17471 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
17472 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
17473 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
17474 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
17475 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
17476 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
17477 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
17480 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17481 #: freeculture.xml:12754
17483 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
17484 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
17485 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
17486 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
17487 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
17488 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
17489 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
17492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17493 #: freeculture.xml:12764
17495 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
17496 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
17497 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
17498 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
17499 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
17500 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
17503 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17504 #: freeculture.xml:12772
17506 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
17507 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
17508 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
17509 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
17510 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
17511 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
17517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17518 #: freeculture.xml:12787
17520 "See Sabin Russell, <quote>New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's "
17521 "Needs at Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
17522 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 May 1999, A1, available at <ulink "
17523 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> (<quote>compulsory "
17524 "licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system of intellectual "
17525 "property protection</quote>); Robert Weissman, <quote>AIDS and Developing "
17526 "Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,</quote> "
17527 "<citetitle>Foreign Policy in Focus</citetitle> 4:23 (August 1999), available "
17528 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
17529 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, <quote>TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and "
17530 "the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual "
17531 "Property Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,</quote> <citetitle>Widener Law "
17532 "Symposium Journal</citetitle> (Spring 2001): 175."
17535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17536 #: freeculture.xml:12781
17538 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
17539 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
17540 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
17541 "because <quote>intellectual property</quote> would be violated that these "
17542 "drugs should not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance "
17543 "of <quote>intellectual property</quote> that led these government actors to "
17544 "intervene against the South African response to AIDS."
17547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17548 #: freeculture.xml:12808
17550 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
17551 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
17552 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
17553 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
17554 "would be to uphold the <quote>sanctity</quote> of an idea? What possible "
17555 "justification could there ever be for a policy that results in so many "
17556 "deaths? What exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for "
17557 "such an abstraction?"
17560 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17561 #: freeculture.xml:12818
17563 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
17564 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
17565 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
17566 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
17567 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
17568 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
17571 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17572 #: freeculture.xml:12826
17574 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
17575 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
17576 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
17577 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
17578 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
17579 "could be overcome."
17583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17584 #: freeculture.xml:12834
17586 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
17587 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
17588 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, <quote>How is it you can sell "
17589 "this HIV drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an "
17590 "American $1,500?</quote> Because there is no <quote>sound bite</quote> "
17591 "answer to that question, its effect would be to induce regulation of prices "
17592 "in America. The drug companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first "
17593 "step. They reinforce the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a "
17594 "rational strategy in an irrational context, with the unintended consequence "
17595 "that perhaps millions die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in "
17596 "terms of this ideal—the sanctity of an idea called <quote>intellectual "
17597 "property.</quote>"
17600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17601 #: freeculture.xml:12849
17603 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
17604 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
17605 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
17608 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17609 #: freeculture.xml:12855
17611 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
17612 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
17613 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
17614 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
17615 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
17616 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
17617 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
17618 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
17619 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
17622 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17623 #: freeculture.xml:12867
17625 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
17626 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
17627 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
17628 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
17629 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
17630 "decision that we as a democracy will make."
17634 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17635 #: freeculture.xml:12878
17637 "<emphasis role='strong'>A simple idea</emphasis> blinds us, and under the "
17638 "cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us "
17639 "looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we "
17640 "don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are "
17641 "dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in "
17642 "culture that we don't even question when the control of that property "
17643 "removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture "
17644 "democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for "
17645 "anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way "
17646 "to make this common sense open its eyes."
17649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17650 #: freeculture.xml:12892
17652 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
17653 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
17654 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
17655 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight <quote>piracy,</quote> "
17656 "and devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of "
17657 "<quote>creative property,</quote> while transforming real creators into "
17658 "modern-day sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should "
17659 "be balanced, even though each of the major players in this content war was "
17660 "itself a beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a "
17661 "city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, "
17662 "complex issues, and MTV attention spans produce the <quote>perfect "
17663 "storm</quote> for free culture."
17666 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
17667 #: freeculture.xml:12905
17668 msgid "public projects in"
17671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17672 #: freeculture.xml:12906
17673 msgid "single nucleotied polymorphisms (SNPs)"
17676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17677 #: freeculture.xml:12907
17678 msgid "Wellcome Trust"
17681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17682 #: freeculture.xml:12908
17683 msgid "World Wide Web"
17686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17687 #: freeculture.xml:12909
17688 msgid "Global Positioning System"
17691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17692 #: freeculture.xml:12911
17693 msgid "biomedical research"
17697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17698 #: freeculture.xml:12916
17700 "Jonathan Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> "
17701 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, August 2003, E1, available at <ulink "
17702 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #59</ulink>; William New, "
17703 "<quote>Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir,</quote> "
17704 "<citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 August 2003, "
17705 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; "
17706 "William New, <quote>U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at "
17707 "WIPO,</quote> <citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 "
17708 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17712 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17713 #: freeculture.xml:12944 freeculture.xml:13635
17714 msgid "academic journals"
17717 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17718 #: freeculture.xml:12945 freeculture.xml:13012 freeculture.xml:13561
17722 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17723 #: freeculture.xml:12946 freeculture.xml:13698
17724 msgid "PLoS (Public Library of Science)"
17727 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17728 #: freeculture.xml:12913
17730 "<emphasis role='strong'>In August 2003</emphasis>, a fight broke out in the "
17731 "United States about a decision by the World Intellectual Property "
17732 "Organization to cancel a meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
17733 "At the request of a wide range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a "
17734 "meeting to discuss <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17735 "goods.</quote> These are projects that have been successful in producing "
17736 "public goods without relying exclusively upon a proprietary use of "
17737 "intellectual property. Examples include the Internet and the World Wide Web, "
17738 "both of which were developed on the basis of protocols in the public "
17739 "domain. It included an emerging trend to support open academic journals, "
17740 "including the Public Library of Science project that I describe in the "
17741 "Afterword. It included a project to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms "
17742 "(SNPs), which are thought to have great significance in biomedical "
17743 "research. (That nonprofit project comprised a consortium of the Wellcome "
17744 "Trust and pharmaceutical and technological companies, including Amersham "
17745 "Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La "
17746 "Roche, Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It "
17747 "included the Global Positioning System, which Ronald Reagan set free in the "
17748 "early 1980s. And it included <quote>open source and free software.</quote> "
17749 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17750 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
17753 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17754 #: freeculture.xml:12950
17756 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
17757 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
17758 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
17759 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
17760 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
17764 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17765 #: freeculture.xml:12958
17767 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
17771 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17772 #: freeculture.xml:12957
17774 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
17775 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
17776 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
17777 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
17778 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
17779 "with intellectual property issues."
17783 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17784 #: freeculture.xml:12968
17786 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
17787 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
17788 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
17789 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
17790 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
17791 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
17792 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
17793 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
17794 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
17795 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
17796 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
17797 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
17798 "no way to talk about an <quote>Information Society</quote> unless one also "
17799 "talked about the range of information and culture that would be free. My "
17800 "talk did not make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt "
17801 "correct that the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily "
17802 "the stuff of WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a "
17803 "conversation about how much intellectual property is needed, since in my "
17804 "view, the very idea of balance in intellectual property had been lost."
17807 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17808 #: freeculture.xml:12992
17810 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
17811 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
17812 "meeting about <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17813 "goods</quote> seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
17816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17817 #: freeculture.xml:12997 freeculture.xml:14681
17818 msgid "Apple Corporation"
17821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17822 #: freeculture.xml:12999
17824 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
17825 "least among lobbyists. That project is <quote>open source and free "
17826 "software.</quote> Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the "
17827 "subject. From its perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free "
17828 "software would be like a conference to discuss Apple's operating "
17829 "system. Both open source and free software compete with Microsoft's "
17830 "software. And internationally, many governments have begun to explore "
17831 "requirements that they use open source or free software, rather than "
17832 "<quote>proprietary software,</quote> for their own internal uses."
17835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17836 #: freeculture.xml:13009
17837 msgid "<quote>copyleft</quote> licenses"
17841 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17842 #: freeculture.xml:13025
17844 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
17845 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with "
17846 "<quote>open source</quote> software or software in the public "
17847 "domain. Microsoft's principal opposition is to <quote>free software</quote> "
17848 "licensed under a <quote>copyleft</quote> license, meaning a license that "
17849 "requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any derivative work. See "
17850 "Bradford L. Smith, <quote>The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace "
17851 "to Decide,</quote> <citetitle>Government Policy Toward Open Source "
17852 "Software</citetitle> (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for "
17853 "Regulatory Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy "
17854 "Research, 2002), 69, available at <ulink "
17855 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #62</ulink>. See also Craig "
17856 "Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, <citetitle>The Commercial Software "
17857 "Model</citetitle>, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
17858 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
17859 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
17862 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17863 #: freeculture.xml:13014
17865 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
17866 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
17867 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
17868 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
17869 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
17870 "famous bit of <quote>free software</quote>—and IBM is emphatically a "
17871 "commercial entity. Thus, to support <quote>open source and free "
17872 "software</quote> is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to "
17873 "support a mode of software development that is different from "
17874 "Microsoft's.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17877 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17878 #: freeculture.xml:13042
17879 msgid "General Public License (GPL)"
17882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17883 #: freeculture.xml:13043
17884 msgid "GPL (General Public License)"
17888 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17889 #: freeculture.xml:13045
17891 "More important for our purposes, to support <quote>open source and free "
17892 "software</quote> is not to oppose copyright. <quote>Open source and free "
17893 "software</quote> is not software in the public domain. Instead, like "
17894 "Microsoft's software, the copyright owners of free and open source software "
17895 "insist quite strongly that the terms of their software license be respected "
17896 "by adopters of free and open source software. The terms of that license are "
17897 "no doubt different from the terms of a proprietary software license. Free "
17898 "software licensed under the General Public License (GPL), for example, "
17899 "requires that the source code for the software be made available by anyone "
17900 "who modifies and redistributes the software. But that requirement is "
17901 "effective only if copyright governs software. If copyright did not govern "
17902 "software, then free software could not impose the same kind of requirements "
17903 "on its adopters. It thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does."
17906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17907 #: freeculture.xml:13062
17908 msgid "Krim, Jonathan"
17911 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
17912 #: freeculture.xml:13063
17913 msgid "WIPO meeting opposed by"
17917 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17918 #: freeculture.xml:13073
17920 "Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> available at <ulink "
17921 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
17924 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17925 #: freeculture.xml:13065
17927 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
17928 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
17929 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
17930 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
17931 "to Jonathan Krim of the <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, Microsoft's "
17932 "lobbyists succeeded in getting the United States government to veto the "
17933 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, "
17934 "the meeting was canceled."
17937 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17938 #: freeculture.xml:13079
17940 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
17941 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
17942 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
17943 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
17944 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
17947 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17948 #: freeculture.xml:13086 freeculture.xml:13139
17949 msgid "Boland, Lois"
17952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17953 #: freeculture.xml:13088
17955 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
17956 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
17957 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
17958 "that <quote>open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which "
17959 "is to promote intellectual-property rights.</quote> She is quoted as saying, "
17960 "<quote>To hold a meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such "
17961 "rights seems to us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.</quote>"
17964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17965 #: freeculture.xml:13098
17966 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
17969 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17970 #: freeculture.xml:13102
17972 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
17973 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
17974 "<quote>copyright</quote>. Without it, restrictions imposed by those "
17975 "licenses wouldn't work. Thus, to say it <quote>runs counter</quote> to the "
17976 "mission of promoting intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary "
17977 "gap in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a "
17978 "first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official "
17979 "dealing with intellectual property issues."
17982 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17983 #: freeculture.xml:13111
17984 msgid "generic drugs"
17987 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17988 #: freeculture.xml:13113
17990 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to "
17991 "<quote>promote</quote> intellectual property maximally? As I had been "
17992 "scolded at the preparatory conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only "
17993 "how best to protect intellectual property, but also what the best balance of "
17994 "intellectual property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard "
17995 "question in intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that "
17996 "there should be limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask "
17997 "Ms. Boland, are generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has "
17998 "expired) contrary to the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken "
17999 "intellectual property? Would it have been better if the protocols of the "
18000 "Internet had been patented?"
18003 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18004 #: freeculture.xml:13127
18006 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
18007 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
18008 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
18009 "those rights because, again, they are <emphasis>their</emphasis> rights. If "
18010 "they want to <quote>waive</quote> or <quote>disclaim</quote> their rights, "
18011 "that is, within our tradition, totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives "
18012 "away more than $20 billion to do good in the world, that is not inconsistent "
18013 "with the objectives of the property system. That is, on the contrary, just "
18014 "what a property system is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right "
18015 "to decide what to do with <emphasis>their</emphasis> property."
18019 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18020 #: freeculture.xml:13141
18022 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting "
18023 "<quote>which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,</quote> "
18024 "she's saying that WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of "
18025 "the individuals who own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's "
18026 "objective should be to stop an individual from <quote>waiving</quote> or "
18027 "<quote>disclaiming</quote> an intellectual property right. That the interest "
18028 "of WIPO is not just that intellectual property rights be maximized, but that "
18029 "they also should be exercised in the most extreme and restrictive way "
18033 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18034 #: freeculture.xml:13153
18036 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
18037 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called <quote>feudalism.</quote> Under "
18038 "feudalism, not only was property held by a relatively small number of "
18039 "individuals and entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that "
18040 "property powerful and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest "
18041 "in assuring that property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by "
18042 "liberating people or property within their control to the free "
18043 "market. Feudalism depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought "
18044 "any freedom that might interfere with that control."
18047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18048 #: freeculture.xml:13170
18050 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism</citetitle>, "
18051 "210–20. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18055 #: freeculture.xml:13167
18057 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
18058 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
18059 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
18060 "only choice now is whether that information society will be "
18061 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> or <emphasis>feudal</emphasis>. The trend is "
18062 "toward the feudal."
18065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18066 #: freeculture.xml:13179
18068 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
18069 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
18070 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
18071 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
18075 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
18076 #: freeculture.xml:13186
18078 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
18079 "should be (<quote>the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should "
18080 "be to promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply "
18081 "to promote intellectual property rights</quote>), not as it is. If we were "
18082 "talking about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
18083 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
18084 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
18088 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18089 #: freeculture.xml:13198
18091 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
18092 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
18093 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
18094 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
18095 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
18096 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
18097 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
18101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18102 #: freeculture.xml:13209
18104 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
18105 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the "
18106 "<quote>goal</quote> of a government should be <quote>to promote the right "
18107 "balance</quote> of intellectual property. That was obviously silly to "
18108 "him. And it obviously betrayed, he believed, my own silly "
18109 "utopianism. <quote>Typical for an academic,</quote> the poster might well "
18113 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18114 #: freeculture.xml:13217
18116 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
18117 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
18118 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
18121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18122 #: freeculture.xml:13223
18124 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
18125 "should be to <quote>seek balance,</quote> then count me with the silly, for "
18126 "that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be "
18127 "obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the "
18128 "government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea "
18129 "of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea "
18130 "of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just "
18131 "naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, "
18136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18137 #: freeculture.xml:13234
18139 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
18140 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
18141 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
18142 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
18143 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
18146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18147 #: freeculture.xml:13242
18148 msgid "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon."
18151 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18152 #: freeculture.xml:13246
18153 msgid "Turner, Ted"
18156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18157 #: freeculture.xml:13248
18159 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are moments</emphasis> of hope in this "
18160 "struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was considering relaxing "
18161 "ownership rules, which would thereby further increase the concentration in "
18162 "media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition formed to fight this "
18163 "change. For perhaps the first time in history, interests as diverse as the "
18164 "NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted Turner, and CodePink Women "
18165 "for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC policy. An astonishing "
18166 "700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more hearings and a "
18167 "different result."
18170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18171 #: freeculture.xml:13259
18173 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
18174 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
18175 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
18176 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
18177 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
18180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18181 #: freeculture.xml:13267
18183 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
18184 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
18185 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
18186 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
18187 "hamburger from somewhere else."
18190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18191 #: freeculture.xml:13274
18193 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
18194 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
18195 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
18196 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
18197 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
18198 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
18199 "their bigness bad."
18202 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18203 #: freeculture.xml:13284
18205 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
18206 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
18207 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
18208 "history of fighting <quote>big,</quote> wisely or not. That we could be "
18209 "motivated to fight <quote>big</quote> again is not something new."
18212 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18213 #: freeculture.xml:13291
18215 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
18216 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
18217 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote> Not because balance is alien to our "
18218 "tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the "
18219 "muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "
18220 "<quote>property</quote> is not well exercised within this tradition anymore."
18223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18224 #: freeculture.xml:13299
18226 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
18230 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18231 #: freeculture.xml:13302
18236 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18237 #: freeculture.xml:13308
18239 "John Borland, <quote>RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,</quote> CNET News.com, "
18240 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
18241 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, "
18242 "<quote>Music Industry Sues Swappers,</quote> CNN/Money, 8 September 2003, "
18243 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; "
18244 "Soni Sangha and Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, <quote>Sued for a Song, "
18245 "N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among 261 Cited as Sharers,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
18246 "Daily News</citetitle>, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's "
18247 "Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl "
18248 "in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 "
18249 "September 2003, E1; Katie Dean, <quote>Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,</quote> "
18250 "<citetitle>Wired News</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18251 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
18255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18256 #: freeculture.xml:13326
18258 "Jon Wiederhorn, <quote>Eminem Gets Sued … by a Little Old "
18259 "Lady,</quote> mtv.com, 17 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18260 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
18265 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18266 #: freeculture.xml:13333
18268 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, <quote>Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for "
18269 "Dylan Songs,</quote> Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
18270 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
18273 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18274 #: freeculture.xml:13304
18276 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I write</emphasis> these final words, the news is "
18277 "filled with stories about the RIAA lawsuits against almost three hundred "
18278 "individuals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been "
18279 "sued for <quote>sampling</quote> someone else's music.<placeholder "
18280 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The story about Bob Dylan "
18281 "<quote>stealing</quote> from a Japanese author has just finished making the "
18282 "rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> An insider from "
18283 "Hollywood—who insists he must remain anonymous—reports <quote>an "
18284 "amazing conversation with these studio guys. They've got extraordinary [old] "
18285 "content that they'd love to use but can't because they can't begin to clear "
18286 "the rights. They've got scores of kids who could do amazing things with the "
18287 "content, but it would take scores of lawyers to clean it first.</quote> "
18288 "Congressmen are talking about deputizing computer viruses to bring down "
18289 "computers thought to violate the law. Universities are threatening expulsion "
18290 "for kids who use a computer to share content."
18293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18294 #: freeculture.xml:13350
18298 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18299 #: freeculture.xml:13351
18300 msgid "Brazil, free culture in"
18303 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18304 #: freeculture.xml:13352 freeculture.xml:13714
18305 msgid "Creative Commons"
18308 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18309 #: freeculture.xml:13353
18310 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
18313 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18314 #: freeculture.xml:13354
18315 msgid "United Kingdom"
18318 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18319 #: freeculture.xml:13354
18320 msgid "public creative archive in"
18324 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18325 #: freeculture.xml:13359
18327 "<quote>BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,</quote> BBC press "
18328 "release, 24 August 2003, available at <ulink "
18329 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #70</ulink>."
18333 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18334 #: freeculture.xml:13368
18336 "<quote>Creative Commons and Brazil,</quote> Creative Commons Weblog, 6 "
18337 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
18342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18343 #: freeculture.xml:13356
18345 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
18346 "will build a <quote>Creative Archive,</quote> from which British citizens "
18347 "can download BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder "
18348 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto "
18349 "Gil, himself a folk hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative "
18350 "Commons to release content and free licenses in that Latin American "
18351 "country.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark "
18352 "story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new "
18353 "freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean "
18354 "anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without "
18355 "artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being "
18356 "destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take "
18357 "some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys."
18361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18362 #: freeculture.xml:13382
18364 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
18365 "potential is ever to be realized."
18368 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
18369 #: freeculture.xml:13390
18374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18375 #: freeculture.xml:13394
18377 "<emphasis role='strong'>At least some</emphasis> who have read this far will "
18378 "agree with me that something must be done to change where we are "
18379 "heading. The balance of this book maps what might be done."
18382 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18383 #: freeculture.xml:13399
18385 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
18386 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
18387 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
18388 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
18391 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18392 #: freeculture.xml:13405
18394 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
18395 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
18396 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
18397 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
18400 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18401 #: freeculture.xml:13412
18403 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
18404 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
18405 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
18406 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
18407 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
18410 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
18411 #: freeculture.xml:13421
18415 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18416 #: freeculture.xml:13423
18418 "<emphasis role='strong'>Common sense</emphasis> is with the copyright "
18419 "warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes—as "
18420 "a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or "
18421 "artists won't be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors "
18425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18426 #: freeculture.xml:13430
18428 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
18429 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
18430 "believe in maximal copyright—<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote>— "
18431 "and those who reject copyright—<quote>No Rights Reserved.</quote> The "
18432 "<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe that you should ask "
18433 "permission before you <quote>use</quote> a copyrighted work in any way. The "
18434 "<quote>No Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe you should be able to do "
18435 "with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not."
18439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18440 #: freeculture.xml:13440
18442 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
18443 "tilted in the <quote>no rights reserved</quote> direction. Content could be "
18444 "copied perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
18445 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
18446 "original design of the Internet was <quote>no rights reserved.</quote> "
18447 "Content was <quote>taken</quote> regardless of the rights. Any rights were "
18448 "effectively unprotected."
18451 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18452 #: freeculture.xml:13452
18454 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
18455 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
18456 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
18457 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
18458 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
18459 "default <quote>no rights reserved,</quote> the future architecture will make "
18460 "the effective default <quote>all rights reserved.</quote> The architecture "
18461 "and law that surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an "
18462 "environment where all use of content requires permission. The <quote>cut "
18463 "and paste</quote> world that defines the Internet today will become a "
18464 "<quote>get permission to cut and paste</quote> world that is a creator's "
18468 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18469 #: freeculture.xml:13466
18471 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither "
18472 "<quote>all rights reserved</quote> nor <quote>no rights reserved</quote> but "
18473 "<quote>some rights reserved</quote>— and thus a way to respect "
18474 "copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other "
18475 "words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take "
18476 "for granted before."
18479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18480 #: freeculture.xml:13475
18481 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
18484 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18485 #: freeculture.xml:13478
18487 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
18488 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
18489 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
18490 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
18491 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
18492 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The "
18493 "<quote>privacy</quote> of your browsing habits was assured."
18496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18497 #: freeculture.xml:13488
18498 msgid "What made it assured?"
18501 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18502 #: freeculture.xml:13492
18504 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter <xref "
18505 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, your privacy was "
18506 "assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering data and hence "
18507 "a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather that data. If you "
18508 "were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, no doubt your "
18509 "privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA would (we hope) "
18510 "find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to track you. But "
18511 "for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The highly "
18512 "inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly robust "
18513 "amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not by law "
18514 "(there is no law protecting <quote>privacy</quote> in public places), and in "
18515 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
18516 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
18519 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18520 #: freeculture.xml:13507
18524 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18525 #: freeculture.xml:13508
18526 msgid "cookies, Internet"
18529 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18530 #: freeculture.xml:13510
18532 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
18533 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
18534 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
18535 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of <quote>recently "
18536 "viewed</quote> pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the "
18537 "function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than "
18538 "not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any <quote>privacy</quote> "
18539 "protected by the friction disappears, too."
18542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18543 #: freeculture.xml:13520
18545 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
18546 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
18547 "should have the <quote>right</quote> to browse in a library without the "
18548 "government knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), "
18549 "then this change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it "
18550 "becomes simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then "
18551 "the friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
18555 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18556 #: freeculture.xml:13537
18558 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, <quote>Fair Information Practices and the "
18559 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),</quote> "
18560 "<citetitle>Stanford Technology Law Review</citetitle> 1 (2001): "
18561 "par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
18562 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
18563 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, "
18564 "<citetitle>The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious "
18565 "Age</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between "
18566 "technology and privacy)."
18570 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18571 #: freeculture.xml:13531
18573 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define "
18574 "<quote>privacy</quote> on the Internet. It is the recognition that "
18575 "technology can remove what friction before gave us that leads many to push "
18576 "for laws to do what friction did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
18577 "And whether you're in favor of those laws or not, it is the pattern that is "
18578 "important here. We must take affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom "
18579 "that was passively provided before. A change in technology now forces those "
18580 "who believe in privacy to affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given "
18584 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18585 #: freeculture.xml:13555
18587 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
18588 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
18589 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
18590 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
18591 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
18592 "about controlling their software. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
18596 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18597 #: freeculture.xml:13563
18598 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
18601 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18602 #: freeculture.xml:13565
18604 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
18605 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
18606 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
18607 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
18608 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
18611 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18612 #: freeculture.xml:13573
18614 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
18615 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
18616 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
18617 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
18618 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
18619 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
18620 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
18621 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
18625 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18626 #: freeculture.xml:13585
18628 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
18629 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
18630 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
18631 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
18632 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
18633 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
18634 "market than it was for you."
18638 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18639 #: freeculture.xml:13594
18641 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
18642 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
18643 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
18644 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
18645 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
18648 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18649 #: freeculture.xml:13602
18650 msgid "Torvalds, Linus"
18653 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18654 #: freeculture.xml:13604
18656 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
18657 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
18658 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's "
18659 "<quote>Linux</quote> kernel was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating "
18660 "system. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
18661 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18664 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18665 #: freeculture.xml:13612
18667 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
18668 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
18669 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
18670 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
18671 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
18672 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
18673 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
18674 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
18677 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18678 #: freeculture.xml:13623
18680 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
18681 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
18682 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
18683 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
18684 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
18685 "passively guaranteed."
18688 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18689 #: freeculture.xml:13631
18691 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
18692 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
18693 "journals are produced."
18697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18698 #: freeculture.xml:13637
18700 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
18701 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
18702 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
18703 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
18704 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
18705 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
18706 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
18707 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
18708 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
18709 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
18710 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
18711 "opinion through their respective services."
18714 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18715 #: freeculture.xml:13653
18717 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
18718 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
18719 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
18720 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
18721 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
18722 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
18723 "the public domain."
18726 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18727 #: freeculture.xml:13662
18729 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
18730 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
18731 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
18734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18735 #: freeculture.xml:13667
18737 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
18738 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
18739 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
18740 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
18741 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
18742 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
18743 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
18744 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
18745 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
18749 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18750 #: freeculture.xml:13679
18752 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
18753 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
18754 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
18755 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
18756 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
18759 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18760 #: freeculture.xml:13687
18762 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
18763 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
18764 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
18765 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
18766 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
18767 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
18768 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
18769 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
18770 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free. <placeholder "
18771 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18774 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18775 #: freeculture.xml:13701
18777 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
18778 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
18779 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
18780 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
18781 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
18782 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
18785 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18786 #: freeculture.xml:13713
18787 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
18790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18791 #: freeculture.xml:13716
18793 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
18794 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
18797 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18798 #: freeculture.xml:13719
18799 msgid "Stanford University"
18802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18803 #: freeculture.xml:13721
18805 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
18806 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
18807 "aim is to build a layer of <emphasis>reasonable</emphasis> copyright on top "
18808 "of the extremes that now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to "
18809 "build upon other people's work, by making it simple for creators to express "
18810 "the freedom for others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied "
18811 "to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
18816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18817 #: freeculture.xml:13732
18819 "<emphasis>Simple</emphasis>—which means without a middleman, or "
18820 "without a lawyer. By developing a free set of licenses that people can "
18821 "attach to their content, Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content "
18822 "that can easily, and reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to "
18823 "machine-readable versions of the license that enable computers automatically "
18824 "to identify content that can easily be shared. These three expressions "
18825 "together—a legal license, a human-readable description, and "
18826 "machine-readable tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A "
18827 "Creative Commons license constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who "
18828 "accesses the license, and more importantly, an expression of the ideal that "
18829 "the person associated with the license believes in something different than "
18830 "the <quote>All</quote> or <quote>No</quote> extremes. Content is marked with "
18831 "the CC mark, which does not mean that copyright is waived, but that certain "
18832 "freedoms are given."
18835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18836 #: freeculture.xml:13750
18838 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
18839 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
18840 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
18841 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
18842 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
18843 "uses (<quote>share and share alike</quote>). Or any use so long as no "
18844 "derivative use is made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any "
18845 "sampling use, so long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any "
18849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18850 #: freeculture.xml:13761
18852 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
18853 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
18854 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
18855 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
18856 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
18857 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
18858 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
18859 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
18862 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18863 #: freeculture.xml:13771
18864 msgid "Garlick, Mia"
18868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18869 #: freeculture.xml:13773
18871 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
18872 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
18873 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
18874 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
18875 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
18876 "movement of consumers and producers of content (<quote>content "
18877 "conducers,</quote> as attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the "
18878 "public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the importance of the public "
18879 "domain to other creativity."
18882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18883 #: freeculture.xml:13785
18885 "The aim is not to fight the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts. The "
18886 "aim is to complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a "
18887 "culture are produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written "
18888 "centuries ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have "
18889 "imagined. The rules may well have made sense against a background of "
18890 "technologies from centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the "
18891 "background of digital technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, "
18892 "expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use them—are "
18893 "needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively to begin to build "
18897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18898 #: freeculture.xml:13798
18900 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
18901 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
18902 "fiction author. His first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
18903 "Kingdom</citetitle>, was released on-line and for free, under a Creative "
18904 "Commons license, on the same day that it went on sale in bookstores."
18907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18908 #: freeculture.xml:13805
18910 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
18911 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
18912 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
18913 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
18914 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
18915 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
18916 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
18917 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
18918 "will probably <emphasis>increase</emphasis> sales of Cory's book."
18921 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18922 #: freeculture.xml:13817
18924 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
18925 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
18926 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
18929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18930 #: freeculture.xml:13822
18931 msgid "Free for All (Wayner)"
18934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18935 #: freeculture.xml:13823
18936 msgid "Wayner, Peter"
18940 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18941 #: freeculture.xml:13825
18943 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
18944 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
18945 "book about the free software movement titled <citetitle>Free for "
18946 "All</citetitle>, made an electronic version of his book free on-line under a "
18947 "Creative Commons license after the book went out of print. He then monitored "
18948 "used book store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of "
18949 "downloads increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well."
18952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18953 #: freeculture.xml:13836
18954 msgid "Public Enemy"
18957 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18958 #: freeculture.xml:13837
18962 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18963 #: freeculture.xml:13838
18964 msgid "Leaphart, Walter"
18968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18969 #: freeculture.xml:13855
18971 "<citetitle>Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real "
18972 "Culture Wars</citetitle> (2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg "
18973 "Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre production, available at <ulink "
18974 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink>."
18977 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18978 #: freeculture.xml:13840
18980 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
18981 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
18982 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
18983 "the <quote>sampling license</quote> do so because anything else would be "
18984 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
18985 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
18986 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
18987 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
18988 "others. Because the <emphasis>legal</emphasis> costs of sampling are so high "
18989 "(Walter Leaphart, manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born "
18990 "sampling the music of others, has stated that he does not "
18991 "<quote>allow</quote> Public Enemy to sample anymore, because the legal costs "
18992 "are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), these artists release "
18993 "into the creative environment content that others can build upon, so that "
18994 "their form of creativity might grow."
18997 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18998 #: freeculture.xml:13864
19000 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
19001 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
19002 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
19003 "are effectively saying you believe in the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> "
19004 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
19005 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
19006 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
19007 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of <quote>Some Rights "
19008 "Reserved,</quote> and gives many the chance to say it to others."
19012 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19013 #: freeculture.xml:13876
19015 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
19016 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
19017 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
19018 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
19019 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
19020 "build content based upon content set free."
19023 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19024 #: freeculture.xml:13886
19026 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
19027 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
19028 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
19029 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
19030 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
19034 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19035 #: freeculture.xml:13894
19037 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
19038 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
19039 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
19040 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
19041 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
19042 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
19045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
19046 #: freeculture.xml:13908
19050 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19051 #: freeculture.xml:13910
19053 "<emphasis role='strong'>We will</emphasis> not reclaim a free culture by "
19054 "individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We "
19055 "have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and "
19056 "implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build "
19057 "awareness around the changes that we need."
19060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19061 #: freeculture.xml:13917
19063 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
19064 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
19065 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
19069 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19070 #: freeculture.xml:13924
19071 msgid "1. More Formalities"
19074 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19075 #: freeculture.xml:13926
19077 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
19078 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
19079 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
19080 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
19084 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19085 #: freeculture.xml:13933
19087 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
19088 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
19091 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19092 #: freeculture.xml:13938
19094 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
19095 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
19096 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
19097 "and <quote>formalities</quote> are banished."
19100 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19101 #: freeculture.xml:13944
19105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19106 #: freeculture.xml:13947
19108 "As I suggested in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19109 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, the motivation to abolish formalities was a good "
19110 "one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a burden "
19111 "on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when the "
19112 "law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
19113 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
19116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19117 #: freeculture.xml:13956
19119 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
19120 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
19121 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
19122 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
19123 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
19124 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
19125 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
19126 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the <emphasis>lack</emphasis> "
19127 "of formalities forces many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
19131 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19132 #: freeculture.xml:13970
19134 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
19135 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
19136 "by other countries as well."
19139 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19140 #: freeculture.xml:13968
19142 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
19143 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
19144 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
19145 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
19146 "these formalities."
19149 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19150 #: freeculture.xml:13978
19152 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
19153 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
19154 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
19155 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
19156 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
19157 "approving standards developed by others."
19160 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19161 #: freeculture.xml:13990
19162 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
19165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19166 #: freeculture.xml:13992
19168 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
19169 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
19170 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
19171 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
19172 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
19173 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
19174 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
19175 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
19176 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
19177 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
19180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19181 #: freeculture.xml:14005
19183 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
19184 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
19185 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
19186 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
19187 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
19188 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
19189 "that the government sets."
19192 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19193 #: freeculture.xml:14014
19195 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
19196 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
19197 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
19198 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
19199 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
19200 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
19201 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
19205 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19206 #: freeculture.xml:14024
19208 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
19209 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
19210 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
19211 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
19212 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
19213 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
19214 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
19215 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
19216 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
19219 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19220 #: freeculture.xml:14039
19224 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19225 #: freeculture.xml:14041
19227 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
19228 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
19229 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
19230 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
19231 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
19232 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
19233 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
19236 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19237 #: freeculture.xml:14051
19239 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
19240 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
19241 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
19244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19245 #: freeculture.xml:14057
19247 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
19248 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
19249 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
19250 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
19251 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
19252 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
19253 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
19254 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
19258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19259 #: freeculture.xml:14074
19261 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
19262 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
19263 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
19267 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19268 #: freeculture.xml:14067
19270 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
19271 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
19272 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
19273 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
19274 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
19275 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
19276 "unmarked work would therefore be <quote>use unless someone "
19277 "complains.</quote> If someone does complain, then the obligation would be to "
19278 "stop using the work in any new work from then on though no penalty would "
19279 "attach for existing uses. This would create a strong incentive for "
19280 "copyright owners to mark their work."
19283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19284 #: freeculture.xml:14087
19286 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
19287 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
19288 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
19289 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
19293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19294 #: freeculture.xml:14093
19295 msgid "copyright marking of"
19298 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19299 #: freeculture.xml:14095
19301 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
19302 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
19303 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
19304 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
19305 "and it would base that choice <emphasis>solely</emphasis> upon the "
19306 "consideration of which method could best be integrated into the registration "
19307 "and renewal system. We would not count on the government to innovate; but we "
19308 "would count on the government to keep the product of innovation in line with "
19309 "its other important functions."
19312 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19313 #: freeculture.xml:14107
19315 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
19316 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
19317 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
19318 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
19319 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
19323 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19324 #: freeculture.xml:14115
19326 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
19327 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
19331 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19332 #: freeculture.xml:14120
19334 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
19335 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
19336 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
19337 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
19338 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
19339 "the appropriate time."
19342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19343 #: freeculture.xml:14132
19344 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
19347 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19348 #: freeculture.xml:14134
19350 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
19351 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
19356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19357 #: freeculture.xml:14147
19359 "<quote>A Radical Rethink,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 366:8308 "
19360 "(25 January 2003): 15, available at <ulink "
19361 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
19364 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19365 #: freeculture.xml:14139
19367 "In <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>, I proposed a "
19368 "seventy-five-year term, granted in five-year increments with a requirement "
19369 "of renewal every five years. That seemed radical enough at the time. But "
19370 "after we lost <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
19371 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, the proposals became even more "
19372 "radical. <citetitle>The Economist</citetitle> endorsed a proposal for a "
19373 "fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
19374 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
19377 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19378 #: freeculture.xml:14154
19380 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
19381 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
19382 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
19386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19387 #: freeculture.xml:14162
19389 "<emphasis>Keep it short:</emphasis> The term should be as long as necessary "
19390 "to give incentives to create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong "
19391 "protections for authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from "
19392 "publishers), rights to the same work (not derivative works) might be "
19393 "extended further. The key is not to tie the work up with legal regulations "
19394 "when it no longer benefits an author."
19399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19400 #: freeculture.xml:14171
19402 "<emphasis>Keep it simple:</emphasis> The line between the public domain and "
19403 "protected content must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of "
19404 "<quote>fair use,</quote> and the distinction between <quote>ideas</quote> "
19405 "and <quote>expression.</quote> That kind of law gives them lots of work. But "
19406 "our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected versus unprotected. The "
19407 "value of short terms is that there is little need to build exceptions into "
19408 "copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active "
19409 "<quote>lawyer-free zone</quote> makes the complexities of <quote>fair "
19410 "use</quote> and <quote>idea/expression</quote> less necessary to navigate."
19413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
19414 #: freeculture.xml:14183
19415 msgid "veterans' pensions"
19419 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
19420 #: freeculture.xml:14194
19422 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
19423 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
19424 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
19427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19428 #: freeculture.xml:14186
19430 "<emphasis>Keep it alive:</emphasis> Copyright should have to be renewed. "
19431 "Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be "
19432 "required to signal periodically that he wants the protection continued. This "
19433 "need not be an onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly "
19434 "protection has to be granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes "
19435 "for a veteran to apply for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19436 "id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we "
19437 "couldn't require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a "
19442 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19443 #: freeculture.xml:14205
19445 "<emphasis>Keep it prospective:</emphasis> Whatever the term of copyright "
19446 "should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once "
19447 "given should not be extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the "
19448 "law to offer authors only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's "
19449 "possible. If it was a mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer "
19450 "authors to create in 1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct "
19451 "that mistake today by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we "
19452 "will not increase the number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can "
19453 "increase the reward that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase "
19454 "the copyright burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But "
19455 "increasing their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's "
19456 "not done is not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
19459 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19460 #: freeculture.xml:14221
19462 "These changes together should produce an <emphasis>average</emphasis> "
19463 "copyright term that is much shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the "
19464 "average term was just 32.2 years. We should be aiming for the same."
19467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19468 #: freeculture.xml:14227
19470 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas <quote>radical.</quote> (After "
19471 "all, I call them <quote>extremists.</quote>) But again, the term I "
19472 "recommended was longer than the term under Richard Nixon. How "
19473 "<quote>radical</quote> can it be to ask for a more generous copyright law "
19474 "than Richard Nixon presided over?"
19477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19478 #: freeculture.xml:14237
19479 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
19482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19483 #: freeculture.xml:14241
19485 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
19486 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
19487 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
19488 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
19489 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
19493 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19494 #: freeculture.xml:14249
19496 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors <quote>exclusive "
19497 "right</quote> to <quote>their writings.</quote> Congress has given authors "
19498 "an exclusive right to <quote>their writings</quote> plus any derivative "
19499 "writings (made by others) that are sufficiently close to the author's "
19500 "original work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I "
19501 "have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even though that "
19502 "movie is not <quote>my writing.</quote>"
19505 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19506 #: freeculture.xml:14257
19507 msgid "Kaplan, Benjamin"
19511 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19512 #: freeculture.xml:14263
19514 "Benjamin Kaplan, <citetitle>An Unhurried View of Copyright</citetitle> (New "
19515 "York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 32."
19518 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19519 #: freeculture.xml:14259
19521 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
19522 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
19523 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
19524 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
19525 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
19526 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan."
19530 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
19531 #: freeculture.xml:14276
19535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para>
19536 #: freeculture.xml:14272
19538 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
19539 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
19540 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
19541 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19545 #: freeculture.xml:14281
19547 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
19548 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
19549 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
19550 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
19551 "each limitation in turn."
19554 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19555 #: freeculture.xml:14288
19557 "<emphasis>Term:</emphasis> If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, "
19558 "then that right should be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect "
19559 "John Grisham's right to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at "
19560 "least I'm willing to assume it does); but it does not make sense for that "
19561 "right to run for the same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative "
19562 "right could be important in inducing creativity; it is not important long "
19563 "after the creative work is done. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19567 #: freeculture.xml:14301
19569 "<emphasis>Scope:</emphasis> Likewise should the scope of derivative rights "
19570 "be narrowed. Again, there are some cases in which derivative rights are "
19571 "important. Those should be specified. But the law should draw clear lines "
19572 "around regulated and unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all "
19573 "<quote>reuse</quote> of creative material was within the control of "
19574 "businesses, perhaps it made sense to require lawyers to negotiate the "
19575 "lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers to negotiate the lines. Think "
19576 "about all the creative possibilities that digital technologies enable; now "
19577 "imagine pouring molasses into the machines. That's what this general "
19578 "requirement of permission does to the creative process. Smothers it."
19581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19582 #: freeculture.xml:14315
19584 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
19585 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
19586 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
19587 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
19588 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
19591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19592 #: freeculture.xml:14331
19593 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
19596 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19597 #: freeculture.xml:14329
19599 "Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the "
19600 "Celestial Jukebox</citetitle> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), "
19601 "187–216. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19604 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19605 #: freeculture.xml:14323
19607 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
19608 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
19609 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
19610 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
19611 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
19614 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19615 #: freeculture.xml:14337
19617 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
19618 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
19619 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
19620 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
19621 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
19625 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19626 #: freeculture.xml:14344
19628 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
19629 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
19630 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
19631 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
19632 "would earn artists more income."
19635 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19636 #: freeculture.xml:14354
19637 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
19640 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19641 #: freeculture.xml:14356
19643 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
19644 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
19645 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
19646 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
19650 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19651 #: freeculture.xml:14363
19653 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
19654 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
19655 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
19656 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
19657 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
19658 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
19661 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19662 #: freeculture.xml:14372
19664 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
19665 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
19666 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
19667 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
19668 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
19671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19672 #: freeculture.xml:14379
19674 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
19675 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
19676 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter <xref "
19677 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"piracy\"/>, they enable four "
19678 "different kinds of sharing:"
19682 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19683 #: freeculture.xml:14388
19685 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
19690 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19691 #: freeculture.xml:14393
19693 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
19699 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19700 #: freeculture.xml:14399
19702 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19703 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
19704 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
19708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19709 #: freeculture.xml:14405
19711 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19712 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
19716 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19717 #: freeculture.xml:14413
19719 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
19720 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
19721 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
19722 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
19723 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
19727 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19728 #: freeculture.xml:14421
19730 "As I said in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19731 "linkend=\"piracy\"/>, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
19732 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
19733 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
19734 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
19737 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19738 #: freeculture.xml:14429
19740 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
19741 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
19745 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19746 #: freeculture.xml:14434
19748 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
19749 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
19750 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
19751 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
19752 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
19753 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
19754 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
19755 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
19756 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
19760 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19761 #: freeculture.xml:14446
19763 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
19764 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
19765 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
19766 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
19767 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
19768 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
19769 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
19770 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
19771 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
19772 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
19773 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
19776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19777 #: freeculture.xml:14460
19778 msgid "cell phones, music streamed over"
19782 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19783 #: freeculture.xml:14480
19785 "See, for example, <quote>Music Media Watch,</quote> The J@pan "
19786 "Inc. Newsletter, 3 April 2002, available at <ulink "
19787 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #76</ulink>."
19790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19791 #: freeculture.xml:14462
19793 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
19794 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
19795 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
19796 "point: When it is <emphasis>extremely</emphasis> easy to connect to services "
19797 "that give access to content, it will be <emphasis>easier</emphasis> to "
19798 "connect to services that give you access to content than it will be to "
19799 "download and store content <emphasis>on the many devices you will have for "
19800 "playing content</emphasis>. It will be easier, in other words, to subscribe "
19801 "than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
19802 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
19803 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
19804 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
19805 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
19806 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
19807 "<quote>free</quote> content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
19808 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19812 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19813 #: freeculture.xml:14487
19815 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
19816 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The <quote>problem</quote> with file "
19817 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
19818 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
19819 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
19820 "to be <quote>solving</quote> this problem in light of a technology that will "
19821 "be gone tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet "
19822 "to eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The "
19823 "question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
19824 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
19825 "twenty-first-century technologies."
19828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19829 #: freeculture.xml:14503
19831 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different "
19832 "<quote>problems</quote> here to solve. Let's start with type D "
19833 "content—uncopyrighted content or copyrighted content that the artist "
19834 "wants shared. The <quote>problem</quote> with this content is to make sure "
19835 "that the technology that would enable this kind of sharing is not rendered "
19836 "illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones are used to deliver ransom "
19837 "demands, no doubt. But there are many who need to use pay phones who have "
19838 "nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to ban pay phones in order to "
19839 "eliminate kidnapping."
19842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19843 #: freeculture.xml:14514
19845 "Type C content raises a different <quote>problem.</quote> This is content "
19846 "that was, at one time, published and is no longer available. It may be "
19847 "unavailable because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record "
19848 "label he signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the "
19849 "work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate "
19850 "the access to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the "
19854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19855 #: freeculture.xml:14525
19857 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
19858 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
19859 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
19860 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
19861 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
19862 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this "
19863 "<quote>sharing</quote> of his content without his being compensated is less "
19867 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19868 #: freeculture.xml:14535
19870 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
19871 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
19872 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
19873 "be free, under this rule, to <quote>share</quote> that content, even though "
19874 "the sharing involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the "
19875 "trade; in a context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music "
19876 "should be as free as trading books."
19880 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19881 #: freeculture.xml:14546
19883 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
19884 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
19885 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
19886 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
19887 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
19888 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
19889 "artists would benefit from this trade."
19892 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19893 #: freeculture.xml:14556
19895 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
19896 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
19897 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
19898 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
19899 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
19900 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
19901 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
19905 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19906 #: freeculture.xml:14566
19908 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
19909 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
19910 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
19911 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
19912 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
19916 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19917 #: freeculture.xml:14574
19919 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
19920 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
19923 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19924 #: freeculture.xml:14578
19926 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
19927 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
19928 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
19929 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
19930 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
19931 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
19932 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
19937 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19938 #: freeculture.xml:14589
19940 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
19941 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
19942 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
19943 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
19944 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
19945 "compensate those who are harmed."
19948 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19949 #: freeculture.xml:14596 freeculture.xml:14638
19950 msgid "Promises to Keep (Fisher)"
19953 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19954 #: freeculture.xml:14636
19955 msgid "Fisher, William"
19958 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19959 #: freeculture.xml:14602
19961 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> William Fisher, "
19962 "<citetitle>Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities</citetitle> (last "
19963 "revised: 10 October 2000), available at <ulink "
19964 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
19965 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of "
19966 "Entertainment</citetitle> (forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University "
19967 "Press, 2004), ch. 6, available at <ulink "
19968 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor Netanel "
19969 "has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing from the "
19970 "reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to balance "
19971 "any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, <quote>Impose a Noncommercial Use Levy "
19972 "to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,</quote> available at <ulink "
19973 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
19974 "see Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Who's Holding Back Broadband?</quote> "
19975 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 8 January 2002, A17; Philip "
19976 "S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter to Senator Joseph "
19977 "R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 "
19978 "February 2002, available at <ulink "
19979 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, "
19980 "<citetitle>A Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee "
19981 "(IPUF)</citetitle>, 3 March 2002, available at <ulink "
19982 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson Graham, "
19983 "<quote>Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,</quote> "
19984 "<citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 13 May 2002, available at <ulink "
19985 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, "
19986 "<quote>Getting Copyright Right,</quote> IEEE Spectrum Online, 1 July 2002, "
19987 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; "
19988 "Declan McCullagh, <quote>Verizon's Copyright Campaign,</quote> CNET "
19989 "News.com, 27 August 2002, available at <ulink "
19990 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's proposal "
19991 "is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike Fisher's, "
19992 "Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, though "
19993 "more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is typical "
19994 "with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
19995 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
19996 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
19997 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
20000 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20001 #: freeculture.xml:14598
20003 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
20004 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
20005 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
20006 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
20007 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
20008 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
20009 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
20010 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
20011 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
20012 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
20015 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20016 #: freeculture.xml:14652
20018 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
20019 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, "
20020 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep</citetitle>. The modification that I would make "
20021 "is relatively simple: Fisher imagines his proposal replacing the existing "
20022 "copyright system. I imagine it complementing the existing system. The aim "
20023 "of the proposal would be to facilitate compensation to the extent that harm "
20024 "could be shown. This compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating "
20025 "a transition between regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of "
20026 "years. If it continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, "
20027 "supported through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form "
20028 "of protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the "
20029 "old system of controlling access."
20033 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20034 #: freeculture.xml:14669
20036 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
20037 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
20038 "supports the widest range of <quote>semiotic democracy</quote> possible. But "
20039 "the aims of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I "
20040 "described were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative "
20041 "uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden "
20042 "semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to "
20043 "do with the content itself."
20046 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20047 #: freeculture.xml:14682
20051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20052 #: freeculture.xml:14684
20056 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20057 #: freeculture.xml:14686
20059 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of "
20060 "<quote>harm</quote> to an industry. But the difficulty of making that "
20061 "calculation would be outweighed by the benefit of facilitating "
20062 "innovation. This background system to compensate would also not need to "
20063 "interfere with innovative proposals such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts "
20064 "predicted when Apple launched the MusicStore, it could beat "
20065 "<quote>free</quote> by being easier than free is. This has proven correct: "
20066 "Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price of 99 cents a "
20067 "song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song CD price, "
20068 "though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's move was "
20069 "countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no "
20070 "doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music "
20074 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20075 #: freeculture.xml:14701
20079 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20080 #: freeculture.xml:14701
20081 msgid "cable vs. broadcast"
20084 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20085 #: freeculture.xml:14704
20086 msgid "film industry"
20089 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20090 #: freeculture.xml:14704
20091 msgid "luxury theatres vs. video piracy in"
20094 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20095 #: freeculture.xml:14706
20097 "This competition has already occurred against the background of "
20098 "<quote>free</quote> music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable "
20099 "television have known for thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for "
20100 "much more than that, there is nothing impossible at all about "
20101 "<quote>competing with free.</quote> Indeed, if anything, the competition "
20102 "spurs the competitors to offer new and better products. This is precisely "
20103 "what the competitive market was to be about. Thus in Singapore, though "
20104 "piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often luxurious—with "
20105 "<quote>first class</quote> seats, and meals served while you watch a "
20106 "movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
20107 "<quote>free.</quote>"
20110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20111 #: freeculture.xml:14718
20113 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
20114 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
20115 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
20116 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
20117 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
20118 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
20121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20122 #: freeculture.xml:14727
20123 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
20127 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20128 #: freeculture.xml:14732
20130 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
20131 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
20132 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
20133 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
20136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20137 #: freeculture.xml:14739
20138 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
20142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20143 #: freeculture.xml:14745
20144 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
20148 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20149 #: freeculture.xml:14749
20151 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
20152 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
20156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20157 #: freeculture.xml:14755
20159 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
20160 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
20163 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20164 #: freeculture.xml:14760
20166 "But what if <quote>piracy</quote> doesn't disappear? What if there is a "
20167 "competitive market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number "
20168 "of consumers continue to <quote>take</quote> content for nothing? Should the "
20169 "law do something then?"
20172 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20173 #: freeculture.xml:14766
20175 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
20176 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
20177 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
20178 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
20179 "percent secure and produces a market of size <citetitle>x</citetitle>, or "
20180 "(b) to have a technology that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of "
20181 "five times <citetitle>x</citetitle>? Less secure might produce more "
20182 "unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a much bigger market "
20183 "in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to assure artists' "
20184 "compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's assured, then it may "
20185 "well be appropriate to find ways to track down the petty pirates."
20189 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20190 #: freeculture.xml:14780
20192 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
20193 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
20194 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
20195 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
20196 "and creativity that the Internet is."
20199 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20200 #: freeculture.xml:14791
20201 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
20204 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20205 #: freeculture.xml:14793
20207 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
20208 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
20209 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
20210 "the end that I would love to live."
20213 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20214 #: freeculture.xml:14799
20216 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
20217 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
20218 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
20219 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
20220 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
20223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20224 #: freeculture.xml:14806
20225 msgid "Nimmer, Melville"
20228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20229 #: freeculture.xml:14807
20230 msgid "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) (1998)"
20233 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20234 #: freeculture.xml:14807
20235 msgid "Supreme Court challenge of"
20239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20240 #: freeculture.xml:14818
20242 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Copyright's First Amendment</quote> (Melville "
20243 "B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture), <citetitle>UCLA Law Review</citetitle> 48 "
20244 "(2001): 1057, 1069–70."
20247 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20248 #: freeculture.xml:14809
20250 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "
20251 "<quote>radical</quote> by many within the profession, yet the positions that "
20252 "I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and "
20253 "significant figures in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for "
20254 "example, thought crazy the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term "
20255 "Extension Act. Yet just thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and "
20256 "practitioner in the field of copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it "
20257 "obvious.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20261 #: freeculture.xml:14824
20263 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
20264 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
20265 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
20268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20269 #: freeculture.xml:14834
20271 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
20272 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
20273 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
20274 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
20275 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
20276 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network "
20277 "Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace</citetitle> (New "
20278 "York: Amacom, 2002), (reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) "
20279 "with Stan J. Liebowitz, <quote>Will MP3s Annihilate the Record "
20280 "Industry?</quote> working paper, June 2003, available at <ulink "
20281 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful "
20282 "analysis is extremely valuable in estimating the effect of file-sharing "
20283 "technology. In my view, however, he underestimates the costs of the legal "
20284 "system. See, for example, <citetitle>Rethinking</citetitle>, 174–76. "
20285 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
20288 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20289 #: freeculture.xml:14829
20291 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
20292 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
20293 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
20294 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
20295 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
20296 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
20300 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20301 #: freeculture.xml:14858
20303 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
20304 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
20305 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
20306 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
20307 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
20310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20311 #: freeculture.xml:14866
20313 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
20314 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
20315 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
20316 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
20317 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
20318 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
20319 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
20320 "and costly cases."
20323 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20324 #: freeculture.xml:14876
20326 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
20327 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
20328 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
20329 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
20330 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
20331 "and hence radically more just."
20334 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20335 #: freeculture.xml:14884
20337 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
20338 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
20339 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
20342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20343 #: freeculture.xml:14891
20345 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
20346 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
20347 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
20348 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
20349 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
20350 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
20351 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
20355 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20356 #: freeculture.xml:14900
20358 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
20359 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
20360 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
20361 "question: <quote>Will it do good?</quote> When challenged about the "
20362 "expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, <quote>Why not?</quote>"
20365 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20366 #: freeculture.xml:14909
20368 "We should ask, <quote>Why?</quote> Show me why your regulation of culture is "
20369 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
20373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20374 #: freeculture.xml:14918
20378 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20379 #: freeculture.xml:14920
20381 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
20382 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
20383 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
20384 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
20385 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
20386 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
20387 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
20388 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
20392 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20393 #: freeculture.xml:14939
20394 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
20397 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20398 #: freeculture.xml:14941
20400 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
20401 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
20402 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
20403 "this book is dedicated."
20406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20407 #: freeculture.xml:14948
20409 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
20410 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
20411 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
20412 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
20413 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
20414 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
20415 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
20416 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
20417 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
20418 "her own critical eye on much of this."
20422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20423 #: freeculture.xml:14961
20425 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
20426 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
20427 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
20428 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
20429 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
20430 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
20431 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
20435 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20436 #: freeculture.xml:14972
20438 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
20439 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
20440 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
20441 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
20442 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
20443 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
20444 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
20445 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
20446 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
20447 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
20448 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
20449 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
20450 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
20451 "Williams, <quote>Wink,</quote> Roger Wood, <quote>Ximmbo da Jazz,</quote> "
20452 "and Richard Yanco. (I apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come "
20453 "glitches, and a crash of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great "
20457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20458 #: freeculture.xml:14992
20460 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
20461 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
20462 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
20463 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
20464 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
20465 "places throughout this book."
20468 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20469 #: freeculture.xml:15001
20471 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
20472 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
20473 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
20474 "patience and love."