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.
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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
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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
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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><dedication><para>
221 #: freeculture.xml:168
223 "To Eric Eldred—whose work first drew me to this cause, and for whom it "
227 #. type: Content of: <book><lot><title>
228 #: freeculture.xml:176
229 msgid "List of figures"
232 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><title>
233 #: freeculture.xml:238
237 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
238 #: freeculture.xml:239
242 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
243 #: freeculture.xml:241
245 "<emphasis role=\"bold\">At the end</emphasis> of his review of my first "
246 "book, <citetitle>Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle>, David "
247 "Pogue, a brilliant writer and author of countless technical and "
248 "computer-related texts, wrote this:"
251 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
252 #: freeculture.xml:252
254 "David Pogue, <quote>Don't Just Chat, Do Something,</quote> <citetitle>New "
255 "York Times</citetitle>, 30 January 2000."
258 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
259 #: freeculture.xml:248
261 "Unlike actual law, Internet software has no capacity to punish. It doesn't "
262 "affect people who aren't online (and only a tiny minority of the world "
263 "population is). And if you don't like the Internet's system, you can always "
264 "flip off the modem.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
267 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
268 #: freeculture.xml:257
270 "Pogue was skeptical of the core argument of the book—that software, or "
271 "<quote>code,</quote> functioned as a kind of law—and his review "
272 "suggested the happy thought that if life in cyberspace got bad, we could "
273 "always <quote>drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome</quote>-like simply flip a "
274 "switch and be back home. Turn off the modem, unplug the computer, and any "
275 "troubles that exist in <emphasis>that</emphasis> space wouldn't "
276 "<quote>affect</quote> us anymore."
280 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
281 #: freeculture.xml:266
283 "Pogue might have been right in 1999—I'm skeptical, but maybe. But "
284 "even if he was right then, the point is not right now: <citetitle>Free "
285 "Culture</citetitle> is about the troubles the Internet causes even after the "
286 "modem is turned off. It is an argument about how the battles that now rage "
287 "regarding life on-line have fundamentally affected <quote>people who aren't "
288 "online.</quote> There is no switch that will insulate us from the Internet's "
292 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
293 #: freeculture.xml:277
295 "But unlike <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, the argument here is not much about "
296 "the Internet itself. It is instead about the consequence of the Internet to "
297 "a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this "
298 "is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important."
301 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para><footnote><para>
302 #: freeculture.xml:289
304 "Richard M. Stallman, <citetitle>Free Software, Free Societies</citetitle> 57 "
305 "(Joshua Gay, ed. 2002)."
308 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
309 #: freeculture.xml:284
311 "That tradition is the way our culture gets made. As I explain in the pages "
312 "that follow, we come from a tradition of <quote>free "
313 "culture</quote>—not <quote>free</quote> as in <quote>free beer</quote> "
314 "(to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free software "
315 "movement<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), but <quote>free</quote> "
316 "as in <quote>free speech,</quote> <quote>free markets,</quote> <quote>free "
317 "trade,</quote> <quote>free enterprise,</quote> <quote>free will,</quote> and "
318 "<quote>free elections.</quote> A free culture supports and protects creators "
319 "and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property "
320 "rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to "
321 "guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain <emphasis>as free as "
322 "possible</emphasis> from the control of the past. A free culture is not a "
323 "culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which "
324 "everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a <quote>permission "
325 "culture</quote>—a culture in which creators get to create only with "
326 "the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past."
329 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
330 #: freeculture.xml:304
332 "If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not "
333 "<quote>we</quote> on the Left or <quote>you</quote> on the Right, but we who "
334 "have no stake in the particular industries of culture that defined the "
335 "twentieth century. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, if you are in "
336 "this sense disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For "
337 "the changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political "
338 "culture deem fundamental."
341 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
342 #: freeculture.xml:312 freeculture.xml:966
343 msgid "power, concentration of"
346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
347 #: freeculture.xml:313 freeculture.xml:13794
348 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
352 #: freeculture.xml:314 freeculture.xml:335 freeculture.xml:13795
353 msgid "Safire, William"
356 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
357 #: freeculture.xml:315
361 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
362 #: freeculture.xml:317
364 "We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of 2003. As "
365 "the FCC considered changes in media ownership rules that would relax limits "
366 "on media concentration, an extraordinary coalition generated more than "
367 "700,000 letters to the FCC opposing the change. As William Safire described "
368 "marching <quote>uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the "
369 "National Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative "
370 "Ted Stevens,</quote> he formulated perhaps most simply just what was at "
371 "stake: the concentration of power. And as he asked,"
374 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
375 #: freeculture.xml:333
377 "William Safire, <quote>The Great Media Gulp,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
378 "Times</citetitle>, 22 May 2003. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
381 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
382 #: freeculture.xml:329
384 "Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of "
385 "power—political, corporate, media, cultural—should be anathema "
386 "to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby "
387 "encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the "
388 "greatest expression of democracy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
391 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
392 #: freeculture.xml:340
394 "This idea is an element of the argument of <citetitle>Free "
395 "Culture</citetitle>, though my focus is not just on the concentration of "
396 "power produced by concentrations in ownership, but more importantly, if "
397 "because less visibly, on the concentration of power produced by a radical "
398 "change in the effective scope of the law. The law is changing; that change "
399 "is altering the way our culture gets made; that change should worry "
400 "you—whether or not you care about the Internet, and whether you're on "
401 "Safire's left or on his right."
404 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
405 #: freeculture.xml:351
407 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The inspiration</emphasis> for the title and for "
408 "much of the argument of this book comes from the work of Richard Stallman "
409 "and the Free Software Foundation. Indeed, as I reread Stallman's own work, "
410 "especially the essays in <citetitle>Free Software, Free Society</citetitle>, "
411 "I realize that all of the theoretical insights I develop here are insights "
412 "Stallman described decades ago. One could thus well argue that this work is "
413 "<quote>merely</quote> derivative."
417 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
418 #: freeculture.xml:360
420 "I accept that criticism, if indeed it is a criticism. The work of a lawyer "
421 "is always derivative, and I mean to do nothing more in this book than to "
422 "remind a culture about a tradition that has always been its own. Like "
423 "Stallman, I defend that tradition on the basis of values. Like Stallman, I "
424 "believe those are the values of freedom. And like Stallman, I believe those "
425 "are values of our past that will need to be defended in our future. A free "
426 "culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the "
427 "path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an "
428 "argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and "
429 "even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; "
430 "it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without "
431 "property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not "
432 "freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here."
435 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
436 #: freeculture.xml:378
438 "Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between "
439 "anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with "
440 "property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced "
441 "by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes "
442 "feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property "
443 "rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is "
444 "against that extremism that this book is written."
447 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
448 #: freeculture.xml:393
452 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
453 #: freeculture.xml:394 freeculture.xml:497 freeculture.xml:955
454 msgid "Wright brothers"
457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
458 #: freeculture.xml:396
460 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">On December 17</emphasis>, 1903, on a windy North "
461 "Carolina beach for just shy of one hundred seconds, the Wright brothers "
462 "demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, self-propelled vehicle could fly. The "
463 "moment was electric and its importance widely understood. Almost "
464 "immediately, there was an explosion of interest in this newfound technology "
465 "of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began to build upon it."
468 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
469 #: freeculture.xml:403
470 msgid "air traffic, land ownership vs."
473 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
474 #: freeculture.xml:404 freeculture.xml:14818
475 msgid "land ownership, air traffic and"
478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
479 #: freeculture.xml:405 freeculture.xml:4628 freeculture.xml:13697 freeculture.xml:14819
480 msgid "property rights"
483 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
484 #: freeculture.xml:405 freeculture.xml:14819
485 msgid "air traffic vs."
488 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
489 #: freeculture.xml:411
491 "St. George Tucker, <citetitle>Blackstone's Commentaries</citetitle> 3 (South "
492 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1969), 18."
495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
496 #: freeculture.xml:407
498 "At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American law held "
499 "that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface of his land, "
500 "but all the land below, down to the center of the earth, and all the space "
501 "above, to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards.</quote><placeholder "
502 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> For many years, scholars had puzzled about how "
503 "best to interpret the idea that rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that "
504 "mean that you owned the stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful "
505 "and regular trespass?"
508 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
509 #: freeculture.xml:421
511 "Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American "
512 "law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged by "
513 "the most important legal thinkers of our past—mattered. If my land "
514 "reaches to the heavens, what happens when United flies over my field? Do I "
515 "have the right to banish it from my property? Am I allowed to enter into an "
516 "exclusive license with Delta Airlines? Could we set up an auction to decide "
517 "how much these rights are worth?"
520 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
521 #: freeculture.xml:429 freeculture.xml:442 freeculture.xml:475 freeculture.xml:495 freeculture.xml:681 freeculture.xml:808 freeculture.xml:935 freeculture.xml:953 freeculture.xml:1001 freeculture.xml:9547 freeculture.xml:13113 freeculture.xml:13898
522 msgid "Causby, Thomas Lee"
525 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
526 #: freeculture.xml:430 freeculture.xml:443 freeculture.xml:476 freeculture.xml:496 freeculture.xml:682 freeculture.xml:809 freeculture.xml:936 freeculture.xml:954 freeculture.xml:1002 freeculture.xml:9548 freeculture.xml:13114 freeculture.xml:13899
527 msgid "Causby, Tinie"
530 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
531 #: freeculture.xml:432
533 "In 1945, these questions became a federal case. When North Carolina farmers "
534 "Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby started losing chickens because of low-flying "
535 "military aircraft (the terrified chickens apparently flew into the barn "
536 "walls and died), the Causbys filed a lawsuit saying that the government was "
537 "trespassing on their land. The airplanes, of course, never touched the "
538 "surface of the Causbys' land. But if, as Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had "
539 "said, their land reached to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards,</quote> "
540 "then the government was trespassing on their property, and the Causbys "
544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
545 #: freeculture.xml:444
546 msgid "Douglas, William O."
549 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
550 #: freeculture.xml:445 freeculture.xml:4517 freeculture.xml:5119 freeculture.xml:8860 freeculture.xml:14206
551 msgid "Supreme Court, U.S."
554 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
555 #: freeculture.xml:445
556 msgid "on airspace vs. land rights"
559 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
560 #: freeculture.xml:447
562 "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had declared "
563 "the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the heavens, "
564 "then Congress's declaration could well have been an unconstitutional "
565 "<quote>taking</quote> of property without compensation. The Court "
566 "acknowledged that <quote>it is ancient doctrine that common law ownership of "
567 "the land extended to the periphery of the universe.</quote> But Justice "
568 "Douglas had no patience for ancient doctrine. In a single paragraph, "
569 "hundreds of years of property law were erased. As he wrote for the Court,"
572 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
573 #: freeculture.xml:467
575 "United States v. Causby, U.S. 328 (1946): 256, 261. The Court did find that "
576 "there could be a <quote>taking</quote> if the government's use of its land "
577 "effectively destroyed the value of the Causbys' land. This example was "
578 "suggested to me by Keith Aoki's wonderful piece, <quote>(Intellectual) "
579 "Property and Sovereignty: Notes Toward a Cultural Geography of "
580 "Authorship,</quote> <citetitle>Stanford Law Review</citetitle> 48 (1996): "
581 "1293, 1333. See also Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Real Property</citetitle> "
582 "(Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1984), 1112–13. <placeholder "
583 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
586 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
587 #: freeculture.xml:458
589 "[The] doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public "
590 "highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every "
591 "transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass "
592 "suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to "
593 "the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their "
594 "control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private "
595 "ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.<placeholder "
596 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
599 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
600 #: freeculture.xml:481
601 msgid "<quote>Common sense revolts at the idea.</quote>"
605 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
606 #: freeculture.xml:485
608 "This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, "
609 "but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to "
610 "dither. Other justices would have blathered on for pages to reach the "
611 "conclusion that Douglas holds in a single line: <quote>Common sense revolts "
612 "at the idea.</quote> But whether it takes pages or a few words, it is the "
613 "special genius of a common law system, as ours is, that the law adjusts to "
614 "the technologies of the time. And as it adjusts, it changes. Ideas that were "
615 "as solid as rock in one age crumble in another."
618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
619 #: freeculture.xml:499
621 "Or at least, this is how things happen when there's no one powerful on the "
622 "other side of the change. The Causbys were just farmers. And though there "
623 "were no doubt many like them who were upset by the growing traffic in the "
624 "air (though one hopes not many chickens flew themselves into walls), the "
625 "Causbys of the world would find it very hard to unite and stop the idea, and "
626 "the technology, that the Wright brothers had birthed. The Wright brothers "
627 "spat airplanes into the technological meme pool; the idea then spread like a "
628 "virus in a chicken coop; farmers like the Causbys found themselves "
629 "surrounded by <quote>what seemed reasonable</quote> given the technology "
630 "that the Wrights had produced. They could stand on their farms, dead "
631 "chickens in hand, and shake their fists at these newfangled technologies all "
632 "they wanted. They could call their representatives or even file a "
633 "lawsuit. But in the end, the force of what seems <quote>obvious</quote> to "
634 "everyone else—the power of <quote>common sense</quote>—would "
635 "prevail. Their <quote>private interest</quote> would not be allowed to "
636 "defeat an obvious public gain."
639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
640 #: freeculture.xml:520 freeculture.xml:9555 freeculture.xml:10250
641 msgid "Armstrong, Edwin Howard"
644 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
645 #: freeculture.xml:521
646 msgid "Bell, Alexander Graham"
649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
650 #: freeculture.xml:522
651 msgid "Edison, Thomas"
654 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
655 #: freeculture.xml:523
656 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
660 #: freeculture.xml:524 freeculture.xml:4258 freeculture.xml:6797 freeculture.xml:10157
664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
665 #: freeculture.xml:524 freeculture.xml:6797
666 msgid "FM spectrum of"
670 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
671 #: freeculture.xml:526
673 "<emphasis role='strong'>Edwin Howard Armstrong</emphasis> is one of "
674 "America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American "
675 "inventor scene just after the titans Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham "
676 "Bell. But his work in the area of radio technology was perhaps the most "
677 "important of any single inventor in the first fifty years of radio. He was "
678 "better educated than Michael Faraday, who as a bookbinder's apprentice had "
679 "discovered electric induction in 1831. But he had the same intuition about "
680 "how the world of radio worked, and on at least three occasions, Armstrong "
681 "invented profoundly important technologies that advanced our understanding "
685 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
686 #: freeculture.xml:539
688 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
689 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
690 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
691 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
692 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
693 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
694 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
698 #: freeculture.xml:549
700 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
701 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
702 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
703 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
704 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
705 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
706 "of an announcer's voice: <quote>This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
707 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.</quote>"
710 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
711 #: freeculture.xml:560
712 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
715 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
716 #: freeculture.xml:571
718 "Lawrence Lessing, <citetitle>Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard "
719 "Armstrong</citetitle> (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
722 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
723 #: freeculture.xml:564
725 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
726 "like a glass of water being poured. … A paper was crumpled and torn; "
727 "it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. … Sousa "
728 "marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
729 "performed. … The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
730 "heard before from a radio <quote>music box.</quote><placeholder "
731 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
735 #: freeculture.xml:576 freeculture.xml:6800
739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
740 #: freeculture.xml:577 freeculture.xml:2454 freeculture.xml:2472 freeculture.xml:2506 freeculture.xml:2508
744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
745 #: freeculture.xml:577 freeculture.xml:2508
746 msgid "ownership concentration in"
750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
751 #: freeculture.xml:579
753 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
754 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
755 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
756 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
757 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
761 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
762 #: freeculture.xml:587 freeculture.xml:609
763 msgid "Sarnoff, David"
766 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
767 #: freeculture.xml:589
769 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
770 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
771 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
772 "from <quote>radio.</quote> But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, "
773 "Sarnoff was not pleased."
776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
777 #: freeculture.xml:600
779 "See <quote>Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,</quote> "
780 "First Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, "
781 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
784 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
785 #: freeculture.xml:597
787 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
788 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
789 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
794 #: freeculture.xml:608 freeculture.xml:6796
798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
799 #: freeculture.xml:611
801 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
802 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
803 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described,"
806 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
807 #: freeculture.xml:616
808 msgid "Lessing, Lawrence"
811 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
812 #: freeculture.xml:624
813 msgid "Lessing, 226."
816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
817 #: freeculture.xml:619
819 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
820 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
821 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
822 "posed … a complete reordering of radio power … and the "
823 "eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had "
824 "grown to power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
827 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
828 #: freeculture.xml:628
832 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
833 #: freeculture.xml:628
837 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
838 #: freeculture.xml:630
840 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
841 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
842 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
843 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
844 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
845 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
846 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
847 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
848 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
849 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
850 "Lessing described it,"
853 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
854 #: freeculture.xml:649
855 msgid "Lessing, 256."
858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
859 #: freeculture.xml:645
861 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
862 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
863 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
864 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
867 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
868 #: freeculture.xml:654
872 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
873 #: freeculture.xml:656
875 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
876 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
877 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
878 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
879 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
880 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
881 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
885 #: freeculture.xml:668
887 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
888 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
889 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
890 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
891 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
892 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
893 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
894 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
895 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
899 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
900 #: freeculture.xml:684
902 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
903 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
904 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
905 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
906 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
907 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
908 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
909 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
910 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
911 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
912 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
915 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
916 #: freeculture.xml:701 freeculture.xml:1074 freeculture.xml:2325 freeculture.xml:2337 freeculture.xml:2421 freeculture.xml:2455 freeculture.xml:2481 freeculture.xml:2731 freeculture.xml:4133 freeculture.xml:6680 freeculture.xml:7537 freeculture.xml:7610 freeculture.xml:10156 freeculture.xml:13429 freeculture.xml:13989 freeculture.xml:13990 freeculture.xml:14064
920 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
921 #: freeculture.xml:701 freeculture.xml:4668 freeculture.xml:13429 freeculture.xml:13989
922 msgid "development of"
925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
926 #: freeculture.xml:709
928 "Amanda Lenhart, <quote>The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
929 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,</quote> Pew Internet and American "
930 "Life Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
931 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
935 #: freeculture.xml:703
937 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">There's no</emphasis> single inventor of the "
938 "Internet. Nor is there any good date upon which to mark its birth. Yet in a "
939 "very short time, the Internet has become part of ordinary American "
940 "life. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 58 percent of "
941 "Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up from 49 percent two years "
942 "before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That number could well "
943 "exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
946 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
947 #: freeculture.xml:718
949 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
950 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
951 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
952 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
953 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
954 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
955 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
956 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
957 "is not a book about the Internet."
960 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
961 #: freeculture.xml:729
963 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
964 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
965 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
966 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
967 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
968 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
971 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
972 #: freeculture.xml:738
976 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
977 #: freeculture.xml:739
981 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
982 #: freeculture.xml:739
983 msgid "commercial vs. noncommercial"
986 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
987 #: freeculture.xml:740
988 msgid "Webster, Noah"
992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
993 #: freeculture.xml:742
995 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
996 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
997 "<quote>commercial culture</quote> I mean that part of our culture that is "
998 "produced and sold or produced to be sold. By <quote>noncommercial "
999 "culture</quote> I mean all the rest. When old men sat around parks or on "
1000 "street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was "
1001 "noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his "
1002 "<quote>Reader,</quote> or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial "
1006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1007 #: freeculture.xml:754
1009 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
1010 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
1011 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
1012 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
1013 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture "
1014 "<quote>free.</quote> The ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared "
1015 "and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from "
1016 "plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making "
1017 "tapes—were left alone by the law."
1020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1021 #: freeculture.xml:764 freeculture.xml:2828 freeculture.xml:2829 freeculture.xml:2856 freeculture.xml:2857 freeculture.xml:2858 freeculture.xml:7769 freeculture.xml:9614 freeculture.xml:9615 freeculture.xml:9890 freeculture.xml:9891 freeculture.xml:9892 freeculture.xml:9935
1022 msgid "copyright infringement lawsuits"
1025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1026 #: freeculture.xml:764
1027 msgid "commercial creativity as primary purpose of"
1030 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1031 #: freeculture.xml:780 freeculture.xml:1916 freeculture.xml:1929
1032 msgid "Brandeis, Louis D."
1035 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1036 #: freeculture.xml:772
1038 "This is not the only purpose of copyright, though it is the overwhelmingly "
1039 "primary purpose of the copyright established in the federal constitution. "
1040 "State copyright law historically protected not just the commercial interest "
1041 "in publication, but also a privacy interest. By granting authors the "
1042 "exclusive right to first publication, state copyright law gave authors the "
1043 "power to control the spread of facts about them. See Samuel D. Warren and "
1044 "Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> Harvard Law Review 4 "
1045 "(1890): 193, 198–200. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1048 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1049 #: freeculture.xml:766
1051 "The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly, then "
1052 "quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by granting "
1053 "them exclusive rights to their creative work, so that they could sell those "
1054 "exclusive rights in a commercial marketplace.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
1055 "id=\"0\"/> This is also, of course, an important part of creativity and "
1056 "culture, and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in "
1057 "no sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one part, "
1058 "a controlled part, balanced with the free."
1061 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
1062 #: freeculture.xml:787 freeculture.xml:1675 freeculture.xml:5226 freeculture.xml:6451 freeculture.xml:14029
1063 msgid "free culture"
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:787
1068 msgid "permission culture vs."
1071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1072 #: freeculture.xml:788
1073 msgid "permission culture"
1076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1077 #: freeculture.xml:788
1078 msgid "free culture vs."
1081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1082 #: freeculture.xml:794 freeculture.xml:10140
1083 msgid "Litman, Jessica"
1086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1087 #: freeculture.xml:792
1089 "See Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (New York: "
1090 "Prometheus Books, 2001), ch. 13. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1093 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1094 #: freeculture.xml:790
1096 "This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been "
1097 "erased.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Internet has set the "
1098 "stage for this erasure and, pushed by big media, the law has now affected "
1099 "it. For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which "
1100 "individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation "
1101 "of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of "
1102 "culture and creativity that it never reached before. The technology that "
1103 "preserved the balance of our history—between uses of our culture that "
1104 "were free and uses of our culture that were only upon permission—has "
1105 "been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free culture, "
1106 "more and more a permission culture."
1109 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1110 #: freeculture.xml:810
1111 msgid "protection of artists vs. business interests"
1114 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1115 #: freeculture.xml:812
1117 "This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial creativity. "
1118 "And indeed, protectionism is precisely its motivation. But the protectionism "
1119 "that justifies the changes that I will describe below is not the limited and "
1120 "balanced sort that has defined the law in the past. This is not a "
1121 "protectionism to protect artists. It is instead a protectionism to protect "
1122 "certain forms of business. Corporations threatened by the potential of the "
1123 "Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are "
1124 "made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect "
1125 "them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the Causbys."
1128 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1129 #: freeculture.xml:826
1131 "For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to "
1132 "participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that "
1133 "reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace "
1134 "for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn "
1135 "threatens established content industries. The Internet is thus to the "
1136 "industries that built and distributed content in the twentieth century what "
1137 "FM radio was to AM radio, or what the truck was to the railroad industry of "
1138 "the nineteenth century: the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial "
1139 "transformation. Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a "
1140 "vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating "
1141 "culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of "
1142 "creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant "
1143 "range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those "
1144 "creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do "
1145 "today—all so long as the RCAs of our day don't use the law to protect "
1146 "themselves against this competition."
1149 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1150 #: freeculture.xml:845
1152 "Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is "
1153 "happening in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early "
1154 "twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their "
1155 "power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient, more "
1156 "vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in their plan "
1157 "to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."
1160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1161 #: freeculture.xml:854 freeculture.xml:7492
1162 msgid "Valenti, Jack"
1165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1166 #: freeculture.xml:854 freeculture.xml:7492
1167 msgid "on creative property rights"
1170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1171 #: freeculture.xml:864
1173 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Black Hawk Download: Moving Beyond Music, Pirates Use New "
1174 "Tools to Turn the Net into an Illicit Video Club,</quote> <citetitle>New "
1175 "York Times</citetitle>, 17 January 2002."
1178 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1179 #: freeculture.xml:856
1181 "It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the "
1182 "Internet seem remote to most. To the few who follow them, they seem mainly "
1183 "about a much simpler brace of questions—whether <quote>piracy</quote> "
1184 "will be permitted, and whether <quote>property</quote> will be "
1185 "protected. The <quote>war</quote> that has been waged against the "
1186 "technologies of the Internet—what Motion Picture Association of "
1187 "America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti calls his <quote>own terrorist "
1188 "war</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—has been framed "
1189 "as a battle about the rule of law and respect for property. To know which "
1190 "side to take in this war, most think that we need only decide whether we're "
1191 "for property or against it."
1194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1195 #: freeculture.xml:873
1197 "If those really were the choices, then I would be with Jack Valenti and the "
1198 "content industry. I, too, am a believer in property, and especially in the "
1199 "importance of what Mr. Valenti nicely calls <quote>creative "
1200 "property.</quote> I believe that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that "
1201 "the law, properly tuned, should punish <quote>piracy,</quote> whether on or "
1205 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1206 #: freeculture.xml:881
1208 "But those simple beliefs mask a much more fundamental question and a much "
1209 "more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see this change, the "
1210 "war to rid the world of Internet <quote>pirates</quote> will also rid our "
1211 "culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start."
1214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1215 #: freeculture.xml:886 freeculture.xml:6832 freeculture.xml:6945 freeculture.xml:6946 freeculture.xml:6947 freeculture.xml:6992 freeculture.xml:7580 freeculture.xml:8858 freeculture.xml:11143 freeculture.xml:11434 freeculture.xml:12080
1216 msgid "Constitution, U.S."
1219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1220 #: freeculture.xml:886 freeculture.xml:6832 freeculture.xml:7580 freeculture.xml:8858
1221 msgid "First Amendment to"
1224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1225 #: freeculture.xml:887 freeculture.xml:1052 freeculture.xml:1159 freeculture.xml:1184 freeculture.xml:1528 freeculture.xml:1572 freeculture.xml:1686 freeculture.xml:3089 freeculture.xml:3180 freeculture.xml:4256 freeculture.xml:4257 freeculture.xml:4668 freeculture.xml:4669 freeculture.xml:5270 freeculture.xml:6453 freeculture.xml:6899 freeculture.xml:6979 freeculture.xml:6980 freeculture.xml:7164 freeculture.xml:7263 freeculture.xml:7295 freeculture.xml:7325 freeculture.xml:7360 freeculture.xml:7474 freeculture.xml:7475 freeculture.xml:7536 freeculture.xml:7570 freeculture.xml:7675 freeculture.xml:7689 freeculture.xml:7748 freeculture.xml:7749 freeculture.xml:7847 freeculture.xml:9776 freeculture.xml:10129 freeculture.xml:11083 freeculture.xml:11128
1226 msgid "copyright law"
1229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1230 #: freeculture.xml:887 freeculture.xml:6979
1231 msgid "as protection of creators"
1234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1235 #: freeculture.xml:888 freeculture.xml:6833 freeculture.xml:7581 freeculture.xml:8859
1236 msgid "First Amendment"
1239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1240 #: freeculture.xml:889 freeculture.xml:899 freeculture.xml:15217
1241 msgid "Netanel, Neil Weinstock"
1244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1245 #: freeculture.xml:897
1247 "Neil W. Netanel, <quote>Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society,</quote> "
1248 "<citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 106 (1996): 283. <placeholder "
1249 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1252 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1253 #: freeculture.xml:891
1255 "These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of our "
1256 "Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their past, and "
1257 "protected creators and innovators from either state or private control. The "
1258 "First Amendment protected creators against state control. And as Professor "
1259 "Neil Netanel powerfully argues,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1260 "copyright law, properly balanced, protected creators against private "
1261 "control. Our tradition was thus neither Soviet nor the tradition of "
1262 "patrons. It instead carved out a wide berth within which creators could "
1263 "cultivate and extend our culture."
1266 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1267 #: freeculture.xml:907
1269 "Yet the law's response to the Internet, when tied to changes in the "
1270 "technology of the Internet itself, has massively increased the effective "
1271 "regulation of creativity in America. To build upon or critique the culture "
1272 "around us one must ask, Oliver Twist–like, for permission first. "
1273 "Permission is, of course, often granted—but it is not often granted to "
1274 "the critical or the independent. We have built a kind of cultural nobility; "
1275 "those within the noble class live easily; those outside it don't. But it is "
1276 "nobility of any form that is alien to our tradition."
1279 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1280 #: freeculture.xml:919
1282 "The story that follows is about this war. Is it not about the "
1283 "<quote>centrality of technology</quote> to ordinary life. I don't believe in "
1284 "gods, digital or otherwise. Nor is it an effort to demonize any individual "
1285 "or group, for neither do I believe in a devil, corporate or otherwise. It is "
1286 "not a morality tale. Nor is it a call to jihad against an industry."
1289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1290 #: freeculture.xml:927
1292 "It is instead an effort to understand a hopelessly destructive war inspired "
1293 "by the technologies of the Internet but reaching far beyond its code. And by "
1294 "understanding this battle, it is an effort to map peace. There is no good "
1295 "reason for the current struggle around Internet technologies to "
1296 "continue. There will be great harm to our tradition and culture if it is "
1297 "allowed to continue unchecked. We must come to understand the source of this "
1298 "war. We must resolve it soon."
1301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1302 #: freeculture.xml:937 freeculture.xml:13345 freeculture.xml:13428 freeculture.xml:13598
1303 msgid "intellectual property rights"
1306 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1307 #: freeculture.xml:939
1309 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Like the Causbys'</emphasis> battle, this war is, "
1310 "in part, about <quote>property.</quote> The property of this war is not as "
1311 "tangible as the Causbys', and no innocent chicken has yet to lose its "
1312 "life. Yet the ideas surrounding this <quote>property</quote> are as obvious "
1313 "to most as the Causbys' claim about the sacredness of their farm was to "
1314 "them. We are the Causbys. Most of us take for granted the extraordinarily "
1315 "powerful claims that the owners of <quote>intellectual property</quote> now "
1316 "assert. Most of us, like the Causbys, treat these claims as obvious. And "
1317 "hence we, like the Causbys, object when a new technology interferes with "
1318 "this property. It is as plain to us as it was to them that the new "
1319 "technologies of the Internet are <quote>trespassing</quote> upon legitimate "
1320 "claims of <quote>property.</quote> It is as plain to us as it was to them "
1321 "that the law should intervene to stop this trespass."
1325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1326 #: freeculture.xml:957
1328 "And thus, when geeks and technologists defend their Armstrong or Wright "
1329 "brothers technology, most of us are simply unsympathetic. Common sense does "
1330 "not revolt. Unlike in the case of the unlucky Causbys, common sense is on "
1331 "the side of the property owners in this war. Unlike the lucky Wright "
1332 "brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution on its side."
1335 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1336 #: freeculture.xml:968
1338 "My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly "
1339 "amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more "
1340 "importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and "
1341 "citizens. There has never been a time in our history when more of our "
1342 "<quote>culture</quote> was as <quote>owned</quote> as it is now. And yet "
1343 "there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the "
1344 "<emphasis>uses</emphasis> of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as "
1348 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1349 #: freeculture.xml:978
1351 "The puzzle is, Why? Is it because we have come to understand a truth about "
1352 "the value and importance of absolute property over ideas and culture? Is it "
1353 "because we have discovered that our tradition of rejecting such an absolute "
1357 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1358 #: freeculture.xml:984
1360 "Or is it because the idea of absolute property over ideas and culture "
1361 "benefits the RCAs of our time and fits our own unreflective intuitions?"
1364 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1365 #: freeculture.xml:988
1367 "Is the radical shift away from our tradition of free culture an instance of "
1368 "America correcting a mistake from its past, as we did after a bloody war "
1369 "with slavery, and as we are slowly doing with inequality? Or is the radical "
1370 "shift away from our tradition of free culture yet another example of a "
1371 "political system captured by a few powerful special interests?"
1374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1375 #: freeculture.xml:995
1377 "Does common sense lead to the extremes on this question because common sense "
1378 "actually believes in these extremes? Or does common sense stand silent in "
1379 "the face of these extremes because, as with Armstrong versus RCA, the more "
1380 "powerful side has ensured that it has the more powerful view?"
1384 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1385 #: freeculture.xml:1004
1387 "I don't mean to be mysterious. My own views are resolved. I believe it was "
1388 "right for common sense to revolt against the extremism of the Causbys. I "
1389 "believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme "
1390 "claims made today on behalf of <quote>intellectual property.</quote> What "
1391 "the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an "
1392 "airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much "
1396 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1397 #: freeculture.xml:1015
1399 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The struggle</emphasis> that rages just now "
1400 "centers on two ideas: <quote>piracy</quote> and <quote>property.</quote> My "
1401 "aim in this book's next two parts is to explore these two ideas."
1404 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1405 #: freeculture.xml:1020
1407 "My method is not the usual method of an academic. I don't want to plunge you "
1408 "into a complex argument, buttressed with references to obscure French "
1409 "theorists—however natural that is for the weird sort we academics have "
1410 "become. Instead I begin in each part with a collection of stories that set a "
1411 "context within which these apparently simple ideas can be more fully "
1415 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1416 #: freeculture.xml:1028
1418 "The two sections set up the core claim of this book: that while the Internet "
1419 "has indeed produced something fantastic and new, our government, pushed by "
1420 "big media to respond to this <quote>something new,</quote> is destroying "
1421 "something very old. Rather than understanding the changes the Internet might "
1422 "permit, and rather than taking time to let <quote>common sense</quote> "
1423 "resolve how best to respond, we are allowing those most threatened by the "
1424 "changes to use their power to change the law—and more importantly, to "
1425 "use their power to change something fundamental about who we have always "
1429 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1430 #: freeculture.xml:1039
1432 "We allow this, I believe, not because it is right, and not because most of "
1433 "us really believe in these changes. We allow it because the interests most "
1434 "threatened are among the most powerful players in our depressingly "
1435 "compromised process of making law. This book is the story of one more "
1436 "consequence of this form of corruption—a consequence to which most of "
1437 "us remain oblivious."
1440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
1441 #: freeculture.xml:1049
1442 msgid "<quote>PIRACY</quote>"
1445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1446 #: freeculture.xml:1052 freeculture.xml:4669
1450 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1451 #: freeculture.xml:1053 freeculture.xml:5079
1452 msgid "Mansfield, William Murray, Lord"
1455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1456 #: freeculture.xml:1054
1457 msgid "music publishing"
1460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1461 #: freeculture.xml:1055 freeculture.xml:3177
1465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1466 #: freeculture.xml:1057
1468 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Since the inception</emphasis> of the law "
1469 "regulating creative property, there has been a war against "
1470 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The precise contours of this concept, "
1471 "<quote>piracy,</quote> are hard to sketch, but the animating injustice is "
1472 "easy to capture. As Lord Mansfield wrote in a case that extended the reach "
1473 "of English copyright law to include sheet music,"
1477 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1478 #: freeculture.xml:1069
1480 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
1481 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield)."
1484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1485 #: freeculture.xml:1065
1487 "A person may use the copy by playing it, but he has no right to rob the "
1488 "author of the profit, by multiplying copies and disposing of them for his "
1489 "own use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1493 #: freeculture.xml:1074
1494 msgid "efficient content distribution on"
1497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1498 #: freeculture.xml:1075 freeculture.xml:6681 freeculture.xml:11131
1499 msgid "peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing"
1502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1503 #: freeculture.xml:1075
1504 msgid "efficiency of"
1508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1509 #: freeculture.xml:1077
1511 "Today we are in the middle of another <quote>war</quote> against "
1512 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The Internet has provoked this war. The Internet "
1513 "makes possible the efficient spread of content. Peer-to-peer (p2p) file "
1514 "sharing is among the most efficient of the efficient technologies the "
1515 "Internet enables. Using distributed intelligence, p2p systems facilitate the "
1516 "easy spread of content in a way unimagined a generation ago."
1519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1520 #: freeculture.xml:1086
1522 "This efficiency does not respect the traditional lines of copyright. The "
1523 "network doesn't discriminate between the sharing of copyrighted and "
1524 "uncopyrighted content. Thus has there been a vast amount of sharing of "
1525 "copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the war, as copyright "
1526 "owners fear the sharing will <quote>rob the author of the profit.</quote>"
1529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1530 #: freeculture.xml:1095
1532 "The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and "
1533 "increasingly to technology to defend their <quote>property</quote> against "
1534 "this <quote>piracy.</quote> A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is "
1535 "being raised to believe that <quote>property</quote> should be "
1536 "<quote>free.</quote> Forget tattoos, never mind body piercing—our kids "
1537 "are becoming <emphasis>thieves</emphasis>!"
1540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1541 #: freeculture.xml:1103
1543 "There's no doubt that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that pirates "
1544 "should be punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put "
1545 "this notion of <quote>piracy</quote> in some context. For as the concept is "
1546 "increasingly used, at its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost "
1550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1551 #: freeculture.xml:1109
1552 msgid "The idea goes something like this:"
1555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1556 #: freeculture.xml:1113
1558 "Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative "
1559 "work of others, I am taking from them something of value. Whenever I take "
1560 "something of value from someone else, I should have their permission. The "
1561 "taking of something of value from someone else without permission is "
1562 "wrong. It is a form of piracy."
1565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1566 #: freeculture.xml:1121
1570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1571 #: freeculture.xml:1122
1572 msgid "Dreyfuss, Rochelle"
1575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1576 #: freeculture.xml:1123
1580 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1581 #: freeculture.xml:1124 freeculture.xml:6950 freeculture.xml:7050 freeculture.xml:7493
1582 msgid "creative property"
1585 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1586 #: freeculture.xml:1124
1587 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory of"
1590 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1591 #: freeculture.xml:1125 freeculture.xml:2985
1592 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory"
1596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1597 #: freeculture.xml:1131
1599 "See Rochelle Dreyfuss, <quote>Expressive Genericity: Trademarks as Language "
1600 "in the Pepsi Generation,</quote> <citetitle>Notre Dame Law "
1601 "Review</citetitle> 65 (1990): 397."
1604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1605 #: freeculture.xml:1144 freeculture.xml:7429
1606 msgid "Zittrain, Jonathan"
1609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1610 #: freeculture.xml:1139
1612 "Lisa Bannon, <quote>The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay "
1613 "Up,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 21 August 1996, "
1614 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; "
1615 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of "
1616 "Property vs. Free Speech, No One Wins,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
1617 "Globe</citetitle>, 24 November 2002. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1622 #: freeculture.xml:1127
1624 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1625 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1626 "theory of creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1627 "—if there is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It "
1628 "is the perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue "
1629 "the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1630 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1631 "<quote>value</quote> (the songs) so there must have been a "
1632 "<quote>right</quote>—even against the Girl Scouts."
1636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1637 #: freeculture.xml:1151
1639 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1640 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1641 "protecting creative property. But the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1642 "theory of creative property has never been America's theory of creative "
1643 "property. It has never taken hold within our law."
1646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1647 #: freeculture.xml:1159 freeculture.xml:7263 freeculture.xml:7360 freeculture.xml:7675
1648 msgid "on republishing vs. transformation of original work"
1651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1652 #: freeculture.xml:1160 freeculture.xml:1342 freeculture.xml:1499
1656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1657 #: freeculture.xml:1160
1658 msgid "legal restrictions on"
1661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1662 #: freeculture.xml:1162
1664 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1665 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1666 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1667 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1672 #: freeculture.xml:1169
1674 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1675 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1676 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1677 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1678 "copyright law today regulates both."
1681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1682 #: freeculture.xml:1177
1684 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1685 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1686 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1687 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1688 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1692 #: freeculture.xml:1184
1693 msgid "creativity impeded by"
1696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1697 #: freeculture.xml:1185 freeculture.xml:1216
1698 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1702 #: freeculture.xml:1186 freeculture.xml:1217
1703 msgid "Rise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)"
1706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1707 #: freeculture.xml:1208
1709 "In <citetitle>The Rise of the Creative Class</citetitle> (New York: Basic "
1710 "Books, 2002), Richard Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor "
1711 "toward a labor of creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address "
1712 "the legal conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I "
1713 "certainly agree with him about the importance and significance of this "
1714 "change, but I also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are "
1715 "much more tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1716 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1720 #: freeculture.xml:1188
1722 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1723 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1724 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1725 "matter much if copyright law regulated only <quote>copying,</quote> when the "
1726 "law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1727 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1728 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1729 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1730 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1731 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1732 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1733 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1734 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1735 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1736 "writes, the <quote>Rise of the Creative Class.</quote><placeholder "
1737 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an "
1738 "extraordinary rise of regulation of this creative class."
1741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1742 #: freeculture.xml:1224
1744 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1745 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1746 "context the current battles about behavior labeled <quote>piracy.</quote>"
1749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
1750 #: freeculture.xml:1232
1751 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1755 #: freeculture.xml:1233
1756 msgid "animated cartoons"
1759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1760 #: freeculture.xml:1234
1761 msgid "cartoon films"
1764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1765 #: freeculture.xml:1235 freeculture.xml:5274 freeculture.xml:5308 freeculture.xml:6020 freeculture.xml:6064
1769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1770 #: freeculture.xml:1235
1774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1775 #: freeculture.xml:1236
1776 msgid "Steamboat Willie"
1779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1780 #: freeculture.xml:1237 freeculture.xml:7454
1781 msgid "Mickey Mouse"
1784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1785 #: freeculture.xml:1239
1787 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">In 1928</emphasis>, a cartoon character was "
1788 "born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut in May of that year, in a silent "
1789 "flop called <citetitle>Plane Crazy</citetitle>. In November, in New York "
1790 "City's Colony Theater, in the first widely distributed cartoon synchronized "
1791 "with sound, <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle> brought to life the "
1792 "character that would become Mickey Mouse."
1795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1796 #: freeculture.xml:1245 freeculture.xml:1462 freeculture.xml:1516 freeculture.xml:1657 freeculture.xml:1903 freeculture.xml:4504 freeculture.xml:6196 freeculture.xml:7453 freeculture.xml:11024 freeculture.xml:11437
1797 msgid "Disney, Walt"
1800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1801 #: freeculture.xml:1247
1803 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1804 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle>. That success led Walt Disney to copy "
1805 "the technique and mix sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work "
1806 "or, if it did work, whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a "
1807 "test in the summer of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney "
1808 "describes that first experiment,"
1812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1813 #: freeculture.xml:1256
1815 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1816 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1817 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1818 "going to see the picture."
1821 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1822 #: freeculture.xml:1263
1824 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1825 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1826 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1827 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1832 #: freeculture.xml:1276
1834 "Leonard Maltin, <citetitle>Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated "
1835 "Cartoons</citetitle> (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1839 #: freeculture.xml:1270
1841 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1842 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1843 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1844 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1845 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1849 #: freeculture.xml:1281
1853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1854 #: freeculture.xml:1283
1856 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1857 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: <quote>I have never been so thrilled in my "
1858 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.</quote>"
1861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1862 #: freeculture.xml:1288
1864 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
1865 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
1866 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
1867 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
1868 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
1869 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
1873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1874 #: freeculture.xml:1297 freeculture.xml:1659
1875 msgid "Keaton, Buster"
1878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1879 #: freeculture.xml:1298 freeculture.xml:1529 freeculture.xml:1917
1880 msgid "Steamboat Bill, Jr."
1883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1884 #: freeculture.xml:1300
1886 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
1887 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
1888 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
1889 "Buster Keaton. The film was <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>."
1892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1893 #: freeculture.xml:1306
1895 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
1896 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
1897 "laughter from his audience. <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. was a "
1898 "classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. "
1899 "The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its "
1903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1904 #: freeculture.xml:1313 freeculture.xml:1470 freeculture.xml:7264 freeculture.xml:7361 freeculture.xml:7539 freeculture.xml:7648 freeculture.xml:7690
1905 msgid "derivative works"
1908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1909 #: freeculture.xml:1313 freeculture.xml:1470 freeculture.xml:7361 freeculture.xml:7539
1913 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
1914 #: freeculture.xml:1314 freeculture.xml:1473 freeculture.xml:2984 freeculture.xml:3683 freeculture.xml:7362 freeculture.xml:7540 freeculture.xml:15283
1918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1919 #: freeculture.xml:1314 freeculture.xml:1473 freeculture.xml:7362 freeculture.xml:7540
1920 msgid "derivative work vs."
1924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1925 #: freeculture.xml:1322
1927 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
1928 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
1929 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
1930 "five songs in <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle>: <quote>Steamboat "
1931 "Bill,</quote> <quote>The Simpleton</quote> (Delille), <quote>Mischief "
1932 "Makers</quote> (Carbonara), <quote>Joyful Hurry No. 1</quote> (Baron), and "
1933 "<quote>Gawky Rube</quote> (Lakay). A sixth song, <quote>The Turkey in the "
1934 "Straw,</quote> was already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to "
1935 "Harry Surden, 10 July 2003, on file with author."
1938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1939 #: freeculture.xml:1316
1941 "<citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. appeared before Disney's cartoon "
1942 "Steamboat Willie. The coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat "
1943 "Willie is a direct cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder "
1944 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and both are built upon a common song as a "
1945 "source. It is not just from the invention of synchronized sound in "
1946 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle> that we get <citetitle>Steamboat "
1947 "Willie</citetitle>. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat "
1948 "Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song <quote>Steamboat Bill,</quote> that "
1949 "we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
1952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1953 #: freeculture.xml:1342 freeculture.xml:1499
1954 msgid "by transforming previous works"
1957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1958 #: freeculture.xml:1343 freeculture.xml:6237 freeculture.xml:7747
1959 msgid "Disney, Inc."
1963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1964 #: freeculture.xml:1349
1966 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, <quote>The Mouse "
1967 "that Ate the Public Domain,</quote> Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
1968 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
1971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1972 #: freeculture.xml:1345
1974 "This <quote>borrowing</quote> was nothing unique, either for Disney or for "
1975 "the industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream "
1976 "films of his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many "
1977 "others. Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on "
1978 "winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the "
1979 "brilliance of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his "
1980 "animation its spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the "
1981 "production-line cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were "
1982 "built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others "
1983 "before him, creating something new out of something just barely old."
1986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1987 #: freeculture.xml:1363 freeculture.xml:1658 freeculture.xml:11025
1988 msgid "Grimm fairy tales"
1991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1992 #: freeculture.xml:1365
1994 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
1995 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
1996 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
1997 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
1998 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
1999 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
2000 "bedtime or anytime."
2004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2005 #: freeculture.xml:1374
2007 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
2008 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
2009 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
2010 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
2011 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
2012 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
2013 "together: <citetitle>Snow White</citetitle> (1937), "
2014 "<citetitle>Fantasia</citetitle> (1940), <citetitle>Pinocchio</citetitle> "
2015 "(1940), <citetitle>Dumbo</citetitle> (1941), <citetitle>Bambi</citetitle> "
2016 "(1942), <citetitle>Song of the South</citetitle> (1946), "
2017 "<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle> (1950), <citetitle>Alice in "
2018 "Wonderland</citetitle> (1951), <citetitle>Robin Hood</citetitle> (1952), "
2019 "<citetitle>Peter Pan</citetitle> (1953), <citetitle>Lady and the "
2020 "Tramp</citetitle> (1955), <citetitle>Mulan</citetitle> (1998), "
2021 "<citetitle>Sleeping Beauty</citetitle> (1959), <citetitle>101 "
2022 "Dalmatians</citetitle> (1961), <citetitle>The Sword in the Stone</citetitle> "
2023 "(1963), and <citetitle>The Jungle Book</citetitle> (1967)—not to "
2024 "mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, "
2025 "<citetitle>Treasure Planet</citetitle> (2003). In all of these cases, Disney "
2026 "(or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that "
2027 "creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into "
2028 "the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
2031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2032 #: freeculture.xml:1397
2034 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
2035 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
2036 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
2037 "could call this <quote>Disney creativity,</quote> though that would be a bit "
2038 "misleading. It is, more precisely, <quote>Walt Disney "
2039 "creativity</quote>—a form of expression and genius that builds upon "
2040 "the culture around us and makes it something different."
2043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2044 #: freeculture.xml:1408 freeculture.xml:4721 freeculture.xml:4722 freeculture.xml:4788 freeculture.xml:4826 freeculture.xml:4882 freeculture.xml:4928 freeculture.xml:5063 freeculture.xml:5157 freeculture.xml:6648 freeculture.xml:6948 freeculture.xml:6949 freeculture.xml:6952 freeculture.xml:7021 freeculture.xml:7047 freeculture.xml:7086 freeculture.xml:7209 freeculture.xml:7256 freeculture.xml:7293 freeculture.xml:7601 freeculture.xml:7768 freeculture.xml:11082 freeculture.xml:11106 freeculture.xml:11435 freeculture.xml:11436
2048 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2049 #: freeculture.xml:1408 freeculture.xml:4721 freeculture.xml:4882 freeculture.xml:6949 freeculture.xml:6952 freeculture.xml:7047 freeculture.xml:11082 freeculture.xml:11436
2053 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
2054 #: freeculture.xml:1409 freeculture.xml:1410 freeculture.xml:5158 freeculture.xml:7051 freeculture.xml:7174 freeculture.xml:8059 freeculture.xml:11016 freeculture.xml:13433 freeculture.xml:14223 freeculture.xml:14224
2055 msgid "public domain"
2058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2059 #: freeculture.xml:1409
2063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2064 #: freeculture.xml:1410
2065 msgid "traditional term for conversion to"
2069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2070 #: freeculture.xml:1417
2072 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
2073 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the "
2074 "<quote>average</quote> term by determining the weighted average of total "
2075 "registrations for any particular year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if "
2076 "100 copyrights are registered in year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the "
2077 "renewal term is 28 years, then the average term is 32.2 years. For the "
2078 "renewal data and other relevant data, see the Web site associated with this "
2079 "book, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2084 #: freeculture.xml:1411
2086 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
2087 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
2088 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
2089 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
2090 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
2091 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
2092 "work had an <quote>exclusive right</quote> to control certain uses of the "
2093 "work. To use this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission "
2094 "of the copyright owner."
2097 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2098 #: freeculture.xml:1434
2100 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
2101 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
2102 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a <quote>lawyer-free zone.</quote> "
2103 "Thus, most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to "
2104 "use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected "
2105 "or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build "
2110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2111 #: freeculture.xml:1445
2113 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
2114 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
2115 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
2116 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
2117 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
2118 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
2119 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
2120 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
2123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2124 #: freeculture.xml:1464
2126 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Of course</emphasis>, Walt Disney had no monopoly "
2127 "on <quote>Walt Disney creativity.</quote> Nor does America. The norm of free "
2128 "culture has, until recently, and except within totalitarian nations, been "
2129 "broadly exploited and quite universal."
2132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2133 #: freeculture.xml:1469 freeculture.xml:1573 freeculture.xml:1687
2134 msgid "comics, Japanese"
2137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2138 #: freeculture.xml:1471 freeculture.xml:1689
2139 msgid "Japanese comics"
2142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2143 #: freeculture.xml:1472 freeculture.xml:1690
2147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2148 #: freeculture.xml:1475
2150 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
2151 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: "
2152 "<citetitle>manga</citetitle>, or comics. The Japanese are fanatics about "
2153 "comics. Some 40 percent of publications are comics, and 30 percent of "
2154 "publication revenue derives from comics. They are everywhere in Japanese "
2155 "society, at every magazine stand, carried by a large proportion of commuters "
2156 "on Japan's extraordinary system of public transportation."
2159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2160 #: freeculture.xml:1484
2162 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
2163 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
2164 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
2165 "that these <quote>graphic novels</quote> tell. For the Japanese, manga cover "
2166 "every aspect of social life. For us, comics are <quote>men in "
2167 "tights.</quote> And anyway, it's not as if the New York subways are filled "
2168 "with readers of Joyce or even Hemingway. People of different cultures "
2169 "distract themselves in different ways, the Japanese in this interestingly "
2173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2174 #: freeculture.xml:1495
2176 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
2177 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
2178 "perspective is quite familiar."
2181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2182 #: freeculture.xml:1500 freeculture.xml:1688
2183 msgid "doujinshi comics"
2187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2188 #: freeculture.xml:1502
2190 "This is the phenomenon of <citetitle>doujinshi</citetitle>. Doujinshi are "
2191 "also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the "
2192 "creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is "
2193 "<emphasis>just</emphasis> a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the "
2194 "art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
2195 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
2196 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
2197 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
2198 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently <quote>different.</quote> But they "
2199 "must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there "
2200 "are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject "
2201 "any copycat comic that is merely a copy."
2204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2205 #: freeculture.xml:1518
2207 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
2208 "huge. More than 33,000 <quote>circles</quote> of creators from across Japan "
2209 "produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese "
2210 "come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, "
2211 "to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
2212 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
2213 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
2214 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
2215 "competition and despite the law."
2218 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2219 #: freeculture.xml:1528 freeculture.xml:1572 freeculture.xml:1686
2223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2224 #: freeculture.xml:1531
2226 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
2227 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
2228 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
2229 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
2230 "<quote>derivative works.</quote> There is no general practice by doujinshi "
2231 "artists of securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the "
2232 "practice is simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt "
2233 "Disney did with <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. Under both "
2234 "Japanese and American law, that <quote>taking</quote> without the permission "
2235 "of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an infringement of the "
2236 "original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work without the original "
2237 "copyright owner's permission."
2240 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2241 #: freeculture.xml:1545
2242 msgid "Winick, Judd"
2246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2247 #: freeculture.xml:1557
2249 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, <citetitle>Reinventing "
2250 "Comics</citetitle> (New York: Perennial, 2000)."
2253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2254 #: freeculture.xml:1547
2256 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
2257 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
2258 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, <quote>The "
2259 "early days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
2260 "now. … American comics were born out of copying each other. … "
2261 "That's how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and "
2262 "not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them</quote> and building "
2263 "from them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2267 #: freeculture.xml:1562
2268 msgid "Superman comics"
2271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2272 #: freeculture.xml:1564
2274 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
2275 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
2276 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, <quote>there are these rules "
2277 "and you have to stick to them.</quote> There are things Superman "
2278 "<quote>cannot</quote> do. <quote>As a creator, it's frustrating having to "
2279 "stick to some parameters which are fifty years old.</quote>"
2282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2283 #: freeculture.xml:1574
2284 msgid "Mehra, Salil"
2288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2289 #: freeculture.xml:1584
2291 "See Salil K. Mehra, <quote>Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain "
2292 "Why All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?</quote> "
2293 "<citetitle>Rutgers Law Review</citetitle> 55 (2002): 155, "
2294 "182. <quote>[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that would "
2295 "lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
2296 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
2297 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
2298 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
2302 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2303 #: freeculture.xml:1576
2305 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
2306 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
2307 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
2308 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
2309 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
2310 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
2311 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2315 #: freeculture.xml:1598
2317 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
2318 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
2319 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
2320 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
2321 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
2322 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
2323 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this "
2324 "<quote>free taking</quote> by the doujinshi culture?"
2327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2328 #: freeculture.xml:1611
2330 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
2331 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
2332 "a major Japanese law firm. <quote>We don't have enough lawyers,</quote> he "
2333 "told me one afternoon. There <quote>just aren't enough resources to "
2334 "prosecute cases like this.</quote>"
2338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2339 #: freeculture.xml:1618
2341 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
2342 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
2343 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
2344 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
2345 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
2346 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
2347 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
2348 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them?"
2351 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2352 #: freeculture.xml:1631
2353 msgid "<emphasis role='strong'>Let's pause</emphasis> for a moment."
2356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2357 #: freeculture.xml:1634
2359 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
2360 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
2361 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
2364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2365 #: freeculture.xml:1644 freeculture.xml:3002 freeculture.xml:4734 freeculture.xml:4993 freeculture.xml:7878 freeculture.xml:9003
2366 msgid "Vaidhyanathan, Siva"
2369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2370 #: freeculture.xml:1644
2372 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The term <citetitle>intellectual "
2373 "property</citetitle> is of relatively recent origin. See Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
2374 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 11 (New York: New York "
2375 "University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>The Future of "
2376 "Ideas</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term "
2377 "accurately describes a set of <quote>property</quote> "
2378 "rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and trade-secret—but the "
2379 "nature of those rights is very different."
2382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2383 #: freeculture.xml:1639
2385 "We live in a world that celebrates <quote>property.</quote> I am one of "
2386 "those celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
2387 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
2388 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2389 "id=\"0\"/> A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a "
2390 "large, diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual "
2394 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2395 #: freeculture.xml:1661
2397 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
2398 "value out there that <quote>property</quote> doesn't capture. I don't mean "
2399 "<quote>money can't buy you love,</quote> but rather, value that is plainly "
2400 "part of a process of production, including commercial as well as "
2401 "noncommercial production. If Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils "
2402 "to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd have no hesitation in condemning that taking "
2403 "as wrong— even though trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was "
2404 "nothing wrong, at least under the law of the day, with Disney's taking from "
2405 "Buster Keaton or from the Brothers Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the "
2406 "taking from Keaton because Disney's use would have been considered "
2407 "<quote>fair.</quote> There was nothing wrong with the taking from the Grimms "
2408 "because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
2411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2412 #: freeculture.xml:1675
2413 msgid "derivative works based on"
2417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2418 #: freeculture.xml:1677
2420 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
2421 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
2422 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
2423 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
2426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2427 #: freeculture.xml:1692
2429 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
2430 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
2431 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
2432 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
2433 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
2434 "whether large or small."
2437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2438 #: freeculture.xml:1701
2440 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
2441 "the copycat comic artists are <quote>stealing.</quote> This form of Walt "
2442 "Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular "
2443 "find it hard to say why."
2446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2447 #: freeculture.xml:1712 freeculture.xml:4674 freeculture.xml:4806 freeculture.xml:4843 freeculture.xml:5173
2448 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
2451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2452 #: freeculture.xml:1714
2454 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
2455 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
2456 "or paying for the privilege. (<quote>Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may "
2457 "I have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were "
2458 "wrong about quantum physics?</quote>) Acting companies perform adaptations "
2459 "of the works of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does "
2460 "<emphasis>anyone</emphasis> believe Shakespeare would be better spread "
2461 "within our culture if there were a central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse "
2462 "that all productions of Shakespeare must appeal to first?) And Hollywood "
2463 "goes through cycles with a certain kind of movie: five asteroid films in the "
2464 "late 1990s; two volcano disaster films in 1997."
2468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2469 #: freeculture.xml:1728
2471 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2472 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2473 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2474 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2475 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2476 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2477 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2478 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2482 #: freeculture.xml:1740
2484 "The hard question is therefore not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> a culture is "
2485 "free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is "
2486 "<quote><emphasis>How</emphasis> free is this culture?</quote> How much, and "
2487 "how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that "
2488 "freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top "
2489 "ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread "
2490 "broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To "
2491 "musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether "
2492 "affiliated with a studio or not?"
2495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2496 #: freeculture.xml:1752
2498 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2499 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2500 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
2504 #: freeculture.xml:1761
2505 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: <quote>Mere Copyists</quote>"
2508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2509 #: freeculture.xml:1762
2510 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2514 #: freeculture.xml:1763 freeculture.xml:1918 freeculture.xml:1973 freeculture.xml:6759
2515 msgid "camera technology"
2518 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2519 #: freeculture.xml:1764
2523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2524 #: freeculture.xml:1766
2526 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1839</emphasis>, Louis Daguerre invented the "
2527 "first practical technology for producing what we would call "
2528 "<quote>photographs.</quote> Appropriately enough, they were called "
2529 "<quote>daguerreotypes.</quote> The process was complicated and expensive, "
2530 "and the field was thus limited to professionals and a few zealous and "
2531 "wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre Association that "
2532 "helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, by keeping "
2533 "competition down so as to keep prices up.)"
2536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2537 #: freeculture.xml:1775
2538 msgid "Talbot, William"
2541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2542 #: freeculture.xml:1777
2544 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2545 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make <quote>automatic "
2546 "pictures.</quote> William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2547 "<quote>negatives.</quote> But because the negatives were glass, and had to "
2548 "be kept wet, the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the "
2549 "1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of "
2550 "a picture from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it "
2551 "was still not a process within reach of most amateurs."
2554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2555 #: freeculture.xml:1787
2556 msgid "Eastman, George"
2560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2561 #: freeculture.xml:1789
2563 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2564 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2565 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2566 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2567 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2568 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2569 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2570 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2574 #: freeculture.xml:1800 freeculture.xml:1955 freeculture.xml:6761
2575 msgid "Kodak cameras"
2578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2579 #: freeculture.xml:1801
2580 msgid "Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)"
2584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2585 #: freeculture.xml:1808
2587 "Reese V. Jenkins, <citetitle>Images and Enterprise</citetitle> (Baltimore: "
2588 "Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 112."
2591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2592 #: freeculture.xml:1803
2594 "Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed rolls of "
2595 "it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was marketed on the basis "
2596 "of its simplicity. <quote>You press the button and we do the "
2597 "rest.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As he described in "
2598 "<citetitle>The Kodak Primer</citetitle>:"
2601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2602 #: freeculture.xml:1824 freeculture.xml:1850
2606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2607 #: freeculture.xml:1824
2609 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Brian Coe, <citetitle>The Birth "
2610 "of Photography</citetitle> (New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1977), 53."
2613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2614 #: freeculture.xml:1813
2616 "The principle of the Kodak system is the separation of the work that any "
2617 "person whomsoever can do in making a photograph, from the work that only an "
2618 "expert can do. … We furnish anybody, man, woman or child, who has "
2619 "sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an "
2620 "instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the "
2621 "necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of "
2622 "the art. It can be employed without preliminary study, without a darkroom "
2623 "and without chemicals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2628 #: freeculture.xml:1843
2629 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2634 #: freeculture.xml:1847
2635 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2639 #: freeculture.xml:1832
2641 "For $25, anyone could make pictures. The camera came preloaded with film, "
2642 "and when it had been used, the camera was returned to an Eastman factory, "
2643 "where the film was developed. Over time, of course, the cost of the camera "
2644 "and the ease with which it could be used both improved. Roll film thus "
2645 "became the basis for the explosive growth of popular photography. Eastman's "
2646 "camera first went on sale in 1888; one year later, Kodak was printing more "
2647 "than six thousand negatives a day. From 1888 through 1909, while industrial "
2648 "production was rising by 4.7 percent, photographic equipment and material "
2649 "sales increased by 11 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
2650 "Eastman Kodak's sales during the same period experienced an average annual "
2651 "increase of over 17 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2656 #: freeculture.xml:1865
2660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2661 #: freeculture.xml:1854
2663 "The real significance of Eastman's invention, however, was not economic. It "
2664 "was social. Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places "
2665 "they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to "
2666 "record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before. As "
2667 "author Brian Coe notes, <quote>For the first time the snapshot album "
2668 "provided the man on the street with a permanent record of his family and its "
2669 "activities. … For the first time in history there exists an authentic "
2670 "visual record of the appearance and activities of the common man made "
2671 "without [literary] interpretation or bias.</quote><placeholder "
2672 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2676 #: freeculture.xml:1868 freeculture.xml:1974 freeculture.xml:2352 freeculture.xml:2370
2680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2681 #: freeculture.xml:1868 freeculture.xml:1974 freeculture.xml:2352
2682 msgid "in technologies of expression"
2685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2686 #: freeculture.xml:1869 freeculture.xml:1975 freeculture.xml:2015 freeculture.xml:2354
2687 msgid "expression, technologies of"
2690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2691 #: freeculture.xml:1869 freeculture.xml:1975 freeculture.xml:2354
2695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2696 #: freeculture.xml:1871
2698 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2699 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2700 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2701 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2702 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2703 "its <quote>quality</quote>; professionals would discount it as "
2704 "irrelevant. But watch a child study how best to frame a picture and you get "
2705 "a sense of the experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic "
2706 "tools gave ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any "
2707 "tools could have before."
2710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2711 #: freeculture.xml:1884
2715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2716 #: freeculture.xml:1884
2717 msgid "photography exempted from"
2721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2722 #: freeculture.xml:1895
2724 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, <citetitle>Pavesich</citetitle> "
2725 "v. <citetitle>N.E. Life Ins. Co</citetitle>., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); "
2726 "<citetitle>Foster-Milburn Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Chinn</citetitle>, "
2727 "123090 S.W. 364, 366 (Ky. 1909); <citetitle>Corliss</citetitle> "
2728 "v. <citetitle>Walker</citetitle>, 64 F. 280 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1894)."
2731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2732 #: freeculture.xml:1886
2734 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2735 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2736 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2737 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2738 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2739 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2740 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2741 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2745 #: freeculture.xml:1904 freeculture.xml:9702
2746 msgid "images, ownership of"
2750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2751 #: freeculture.xml:1906
2753 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2754 "familiar. The photographer was <quote>taking</quote> something from the "
2755 "person or building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of "
2756 "value. Some even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was "
2757 "not free to take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, "
2758 "too, should these photographers not be free to take images that they thought "
2762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2763 #: freeculture.xml:1930
2764 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2768 #: freeculture.xml:1927
2770 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> "
2771 "<citetitle>Harvard Law Review</citetitle> 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder "
2772 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2776 #: freeculture.xml:1920
2778 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2779 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2780 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2781 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2782 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2783 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2784 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from <citetitle>Steamboat "
2785 "Bill, Jr</citetitle>. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free "
2786 "to capture an image without compensating the source."
2790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2791 #: freeculture.xml:1948
2793 "See Melville B. Nimmer, <quote>The Right of Publicity,</quote> "
2794 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 19 (1954): 203; William "
2795 "L. Prosser, <quote>Privacy,</quote> <citetitle>California Law "
2796 "Review</citetitle> 48 (1960) 398–407; <citetitle>White</citetitle> "
2797 "v. <citetitle>Samsung Electronics America, Inc</citetitle>., 971 F. 2d 1395 "
2798 "(9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2802 #: freeculture.xml:1938
2804 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2805 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2806 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2807 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2808 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2809 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2810 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2811 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2812 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2816 #: freeculture.xml:1956 freeculture.xml:9943
2820 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2821 #: freeculture.xml:1958
2823 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2824 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2825 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2826 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2827 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2828 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2829 "<quote>theft</quote> committed by the photographer. Just as Napster "
2830 "benefited from the copyright infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak "
2831 "would be benefiting from the <quote>image-right</quote> infringement of its "
2832 "photographers. We could imagine the law then requiring that some form of "
2833 "permission be demonstrated before a company developed pictures. We could "
2834 "imagine a system developing to demonstrate that permission."
2838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2839 #: freeculture.xml:1979
2841 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2842 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2843 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2844 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2845 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2846 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2847 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2848 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2849 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2850 "of expression would have been realized."
2853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2854 #: freeculture.xml:1995 freeculture.xml:6760
2855 msgid "digital cameras"
2858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2859 #: freeculture.xml:1996
2863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2864 #: freeculture.xml:1998
2866 "<emphasis role='strong'>If you drive</emphasis> through San Francisco's "
2867 "Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted over with "
2868 "colorful and striking images, and the logo <quote>Just Think!</quote> in "
2869 "place of the name of a school. But there's little that's <quote>just</quote> "
2870 "cerebral in the projects that these busses enable. These buses are filled "
2871 "with technologies that teach kids to tinker with film. Not the film of "
2872 "Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the <quote>film</quote> of "
2873 "digital cameras. Just Think! is a project that enables kids to make films, "
2874 "as a way to understand and critique the filmed culture that they find all "
2875 "around them. Each year, these busses travel to more than thirty schools and "
2876 "enable three hundred to five hundred children to learn something about media "
2877 "by doing something with media. By doing, they think. By tinkering, they "
2881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2882 #: freeculture.xml:2013 freeculture.xml:2812
2886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2887 #: freeculture.xml:2013
2888 msgid "in media literacy"
2891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2892 #: freeculture.xml:2014
2893 msgid "media literacy"
2896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2897 #: freeculture.xml:2015
2898 msgid "media literacy and"
2902 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2903 #: freeculture.xml:2023
2905 "H. Edward Goldberg, <quote>Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and "
2906 "Software You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,</quote> "
2907 "cadalyst, February 2002, available at <ulink "
2908 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #7</ulink>."
2911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2912 #: freeculture.xml:2017
2914 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
2915 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
2916 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, <quote>Five years ago, a good "
2917 "real-time digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get "
2918 "professional quality for $595.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2919 "id=\"0\"/> These buses are filled with technology that would have cost "
2920 "hundreds of thousands just ten years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine "
2921 "not just buses like this, but classrooms across the country where kids are "
2922 "learning more and more of something teachers call <quote>media "
2926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2927 #: freeculture.xml:2033
2928 msgid "Yanofsky, Dave"
2932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2933 #: freeculture.xml:2036
2935 "<quote>Media literacy,</quote> as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of "
2936 "Just Think!, puts it, <quote>is the ability … to understand, analyze, "
2937 "and deconstruct media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the "
2938 "way media works, the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the "
2939 "way people access it.</quote>"
2942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2943 #: freeculture.xml:2044
2945 "This may seem like an odd way to think about <quote>literacy.</quote> For "
2946 "most people, literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway "
2947 "and noticing split infinitives are the things that <quote>literate</quote> "
2948 "people know about."
2951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2952 #: freeculture.xml:2049 freeculture.xml:2601 freeculture.xml:6756 freeculture.xml:7728 freeculture.xml:8825 freeculture.xml:8879
2956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2957 #: freeculture.xml:2050 freeculture.xml:6758 freeculture.xml:8826
2961 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
2962 #: freeculture.xml:2051 freeculture.xml:6757 freeculture.xml:8827 freeculture.xml:8861 freeculture.xml:15281
2966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
2967 #: freeculture.xml:2051 freeculture.xml:6757 freeculture.xml:8827
2968 msgid "advertising on"
2972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2973 #: freeculture.xml:2057
2975 "Judith Van Evra, <citetitle>Television and Child Development</citetitle> "
2976 "(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990); <quote>Findings on "
2977 "Family and TV Study,</quote> <citetitle>Denver Post</citetitle>, 25 May "
2981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2982 #: freeculture.xml:2053
2984 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
2985 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
2986 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
2987 "important to understand the <quote>grammar</quote> of media. For just as "
2988 "there is a grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for "
2989 "media. And just as kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible "
2990 "prose, kids learn how to write media by constructing lots of (at least at "
2991 "first) terrible media."
2994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2995 #: freeculture.xml:2068
2997 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
2998 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
2999 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
3000 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
3001 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
3002 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
3003 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
3007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3008 #: freeculture.xml:2079
3010 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
3011 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
3012 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
3013 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
3014 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
3015 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
3018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3019 #: freeculture.xml:2086 freeculture.xml:2102 freeculture.xml:2208
3020 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
3023 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3024 #: freeculture.xml:2087
3025 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
3028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3029 #: freeculture.xml:2101 freeculture.xml:2161 freeculture.xml:2168 freeculture.xml:2241 freeculture.xml:2664
3030 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
3033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3034 #: freeculture.xml:2099
3036 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
3037 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3043 #: freeculture.xml:2113
3045 "See Scott Steinberg, <quote>Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,</quote> E!online, "
3046 "4 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3047 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #8</ulink>; "
3048 "<quote>Timeline,</quote> 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3049 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
3052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3053 #: freeculture.xml:2089
3055 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
3056 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
3057 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
3058 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about <quote>the "
3059 "placement of objects, color, … rhythm, pacing, and "
3060 "texture.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers "
3061 "open up an interactive space where a story is <quote>played</quote> as well "
3062 "as experienced, that grammar changes. The simple control of narrative is "
3063 "lost, and so other techniques are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had "
3064 "mastered the narrative of science fiction. But when he tried to design a "
3065 "computer game based on one of his works, it was a new craft he had to "
3066 "learn. How to lead people through a game without their feeling they have "
3067 "been led was not obvious, even to a wildly successful author.<placeholder "
3068 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3072 #: freeculture.xml:2120
3073 msgid "computer games"
3076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3077 #: freeculture.xml:2122
3079 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
3080 "<quote>people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t "
3081 "is perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If "
3082 "a filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.</quote> If you know "
3083 "you were led through a film, the film has failed."
3086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3087 #: freeculture.xml:2129
3089 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
3090 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
3091 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
3092 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
3095 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3096 #: freeculture.xml:2136
3098 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
3099 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
3100 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
3101 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
3104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3105 #: freeculture.xml:2144
3107 "<quote>Read-only.</quote> Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. "
3108 "Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth "
3112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3113 #: freeculture.xml:2160
3114 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3119 #: freeculture.xml:2165 freeculture.xml:4047 freeculture.xml:5221 freeculture.xml:8714
3123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3124 #: freeculture.xml:2149
3126 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
3127 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
3128 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
3129 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
3130 "literacy in particular, is to <quote>empower people to choose the "
3131 "appropriate language for what they need to create or "
3132 "express.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable "
3133 "students <quote>to communicate in the language of the twenty-first "
3134 "century.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3138 #: freeculture.xml:2170
3140 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
3141 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
3142 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
3143 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
3144 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
3145 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
3146 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
3147 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
3148 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
3151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3152 #: freeculture.xml:2183
3154 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
3155 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
3156 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The "
3157 "<quote>kids were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,</quote> "
3158 "said Barish. They were working harder than in any other class to do what "
3159 "education should be about—learning how to express themselves."
3162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3163 #: freeculture.xml:2191
3165 "Using whatever <quote>free web stuff they could find,</quote> and relatively "
3166 "simple tools to enable the kids to mix <quote>image, sound, and "
3167 "text,</quote> Barish said this class produced a series of projects that "
3168 "showed something about gun violence that few would otherwise "
3169 "understand. This was an issue close to the lives of these students. The "
3170 "project <quote>gave them a tool and empowered them to be able to both "
3171 "understand it and talk about it,</quote> Barish explained. That tool "
3172 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
3173 "than could have been created using only text. <quote>If you had said to "
3174 "these students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their "
3175 "hands up and gone and done something else,</quote> Barish described, in "
3176 "part, no doubt, because expressing themselves in text is not something these "
3177 "students can do well. Yet neither is text a form in which "
3178 "<emphasis>these</emphasis> ideas can be expressed well. The power of this "
3179 "message depended upon its connection to this form of expression."
3183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3184 #: freeculture.xml:2212
3186 "<quote>But isn't education about teaching kids to write?</quote> I asked. In "
3187 "part, of course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, "
3188 "Daley explained, is about giving students a way of <quote>constructing "
3189 "meaning.</quote> To say that that means just writing is like saying teaching "
3190 "writing is only about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and "
3191 "increasingly, not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As "
3192 "Daley explained in the most moving part of our interview,"
3195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3196 #: freeculture.xml:2223
3198 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
3199 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
3200 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
3201 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
3202 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
3203 "comes to school and you say, <quote>Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you "
3204 "can do matters.</quote> Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss "
3205 "you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to "
3206 "dismiss you. [But i]nstead, if you say, <quote>Well, with all these things "
3207 "that you can do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you "
3208 "think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw "
3209 "for me something that reflects that.</quote> Not by giving a kid a video "
3210 "camera and … saying, <quote>Let's go have fun with the video camera "
3211 "and make a little movie.</quote> But instead, really help you take these "
3212 "elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning "
3213 "about the topic.…"
3216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3217 #: freeculture.xml:2243
3219 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
3220 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, "
3221 "<quote>I need to explain this and I really need to write something.</quote> "
3222 "And as one of the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, "
3223 "6, 7, 8 times, till they got it right."
3227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3228 #: freeculture.xml:2250
3230 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
3231 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
3232 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
3233 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language."
3236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3237 #: freeculture.xml:2264 freeculture.xml:2323 freeculture.xml:6049
3238 msgid "September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of"
3241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3242 #: freeculture.xml:2265
3243 msgid "World Trade Center"
3246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3247 #: freeculture.xml:2266 freeculture.xml:5969
3248 msgid "news coverage"
3251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3252 #: freeculture.xml:2268
3254 "<emphasis role='strong'>When two planes</emphasis> crashed into the World "
3255 "Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania "
3256 "field, all media around the world shifted to this news. Every moment of just "
3257 "about every day for that week, and for weeks after, television in "
3258 "particular, and media generally, retold the story of the events we had just "
3259 "witnessed. The telling was a retelling, because we had seen the events that "
3260 "were described. The genius of this awful act of terrorism was that the "
3261 "delayed second attack was perfectly timed to assure that the whole world "
3262 "would be watching."
3265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3266 #: freeculture.xml:2280
3268 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
3269 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
3270 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was <quote>balance,</quote> "
3271 "and seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
3272 "come to expect it, <quote>news as entertainment,</quote> even if the "
3273 "entertainment is tragedy."
3276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3277 #: freeculture.xml:2287 freeculture.xml:8653 freeculture.xml:8873
3281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3282 #: freeculture.xml:2288
3286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3287 #: freeculture.xml:2290
3289 "But in addition to this produced news about the <quote>tragedy of September "
3290 "11,</quote> those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different "
3291 "production as well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same "
3292 "events. Yet these Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people "
3293 "constructed photo pages that captured images from around the world and "
3294 "presented them as slide shows with text. Some offered open letters. There "
3295 "were sound recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts "
3296 "to provide context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn "
3297 "raising, in the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book <citetitle>Cyber "
3298 "Rights</citetitle>, around a news event that had captured the attention of "
3299 "the world. There was ABC and CBS, but there was also the Internet."
3303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3304 #: freeculture.xml:2305
3306 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
3307 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
3308 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
3309 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
3310 "on the <quote>Just Think!</quote> bus, the visual images could be mixed with "
3314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3315 #: freeculture.xml:2315
3317 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
3318 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
3319 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
3320 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
3321 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
3322 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
3323 "practically instantaneously."
3326 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3327 #: freeculture.xml:2324 freeculture.xml:2419 freeculture.xml:2558
3328 msgid "blogs (Web-logs)"
3331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3332 #: freeculture.xml:2325 freeculture.xml:2421
3336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3337 #: freeculture.xml:2326 freeculture.xml:2422
3338 msgid "Web-logs (blogs)"
3341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3342 #: freeculture.xml:2328
3344 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
3345 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
3346 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
3347 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
3348 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
3349 "public way—it's a kind of electronic <citetitle>Jerry "
3350 "Springer</citetitle>, available anywhere in the world."
3353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3354 #: freeculture.xml:2336 freeculture.xml:2405
3355 msgid "political discourse"
3358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3359 #: freeculture.xml:2337
3360 msgid "public discourse conducted on"
3363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3364 #: freeculture.xml:2339
3366 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
3367 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
3368 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
3369 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
3370 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
3371 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
3372 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
3373 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
3374 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
3375 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
3376 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
3379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3380 #: freeculture.xml:2353
3385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3386 #: freeculture.xml:2356
3388 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
3389 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
3390 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
3391 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
3392 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
3393 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
3394 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
3397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3398 #: freeculture.xml:2369
3399 msgid "Tocqueville, Alexis de"
3402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3403 #: freeculture.xml:2370
3404 msgid "public discourse in"
3407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3408 #: freeculture.xml:2371
3413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3414 #: freeculture.xml:2388
3416 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, <citetitle>Democracy in "
3417 "America</citetitle>, bk. 1, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, "
3421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3422 #: freeculture.xml:2373
3424 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
3425 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
3426 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
3427 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
3428 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
3429 "early <quote>Democracy in America.</quote> It wasn't popular elections that "
3430 "fascinated him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary "
3431 "people the right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most "
3432 "fascinating for him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome "
3433 "they would impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the "
3434 "<quote>right</quote> result; they tried to persuade each other of the "
3435 "<quote>right</quote> result, and in criminal cases at least, they had to "
3436 "agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come to an end.<placeholder "
3437 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3442 #: freeculture.xml:2398
3444 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, <quote>Deliberation Day,</quote> "
3445 "<citetitle>Journal of Political Philosophy</citetitle> 10 (2) (2002): 129."
3448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3449 #: freeculture.xml:2394
3451 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
3452 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
3453 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3454 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
3455 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
3456 "for <quote>democratic deliberation</quote> to occur."
3460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3461 #: freeculture.xml:2414
3463 "Cass Sunstein, <citetitle>Republic.com</citetitle> (Princeton: Princeton "
3464 "University Press, 2001), 65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
3467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3468 #: freeculture.xml:2407
3470 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
3471 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
3472 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
3473 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
3474 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
3475 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
3476 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
3479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3480 #: freeculture.xml:2420
3485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3486 #: freeculture.xml:2427
3488 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
3489 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
3490 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
3491 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
3492 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
3493 "needing to gather in a single public place."
3496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3497 #: freeculture.xml:2438
3499 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
3500 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
3501 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
3502 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
3503 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
3504 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
3507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3508 #: freeculture.xml:2445
3509 msgid "Dean, Howard"
3512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3513 #: freeculture.xml:2447
3515 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
3516 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
3517 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
3521 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3522 #: freeculture.xml:2452
3526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3527 #: freeculture.xml:2453
3528 msgid "Thurmond, Strom"
3531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3532 #: freeculture.xml:2454
3533 msgid "blog pressure on"
3536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3537 #: freeculture.xml:2455
3538 msgid "news events on"
3542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3543 #: freeculture.xml:2468
3545 "Noah Shachtman, <quote>With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the "
3546 "Pot,</quote> New York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
3549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3550 #: freeculture.xml:2457
3552 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
3553 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
3554 "<quote>misspoke</quote> at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially "
3555 "praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that "
3556 "this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight "
3557 "hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The "
3558 "bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of "
3559 "the same <quote>misspeaking</quote> emerged. Finally, the story broke back "
3560 "into the mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate "
3561 "majority leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3565 #: freeculture.xml:2472 freeculture.xml:2506
3566 msgid "commercial imperatives of"
3569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3570 #: freeculture.xml:2474
3572 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
3573 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
3574 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
3575 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
3578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3579 #: freeculture.xml:2481
3580 msgid "peer-generated rankings on"
3583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3584 #: freeculture.xml:2483
3586 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
3587 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
3588 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
3589 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
3590 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
3591 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
3594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3595 #: freeculture.xml:2492
3599 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3600 #: freeculture.xml:2493
3605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3606 #: freeculture.xml:2495
3608 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
3609 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
3610 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
3611 "absence of a financial <quote>conflict of interest.</quote> <quote>I think "
3612 "you have to take the conflict of interest</quote> out of journalism, Winer "
3613 "told me. <quote>An amateur journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of "
3614 "interest, or the conflict of interest is so easily disclosed that you know "
3615 "you can sort of get it out of the way.</quote>"
3618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3619 #: freeculture.xml:2505 freeculture.xml:2555
3623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3624 #: freeculture.xml:2507 freeculture.xml:2556 freeculture.xml:5913
3629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3630 #: freeculture.xml:2516
3631 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
3634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3635 #: freeculture.xml:2510
3637 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
3638 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
3639 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
3640 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
3641 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
3642 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
3643 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
3644 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
3645 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
3646 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
3647 "warranted, they told her that <emphasis>they</emphasis> were writing "
3648 "<quote>the story.</quote>)"
3652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3653 #: freeculture.xml:2536
3655 "John Schwartz, <quote>Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of "
3656 "Information Online,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 2 "
3657 "February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, <quote>Shuttle Disaster Coverage Mixed, "
3658 "but Strong Overall,</quote> Online Journalism Review, 2 February 2003, "
3659 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
3662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3663 #: freeculture.xml:2528
3665 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the "
3666 "debate—<quote>amateur</quote> not in the sense of inexperienced, but "
3667 "in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning not paid by anyone to give their "
3668 "reports. It allows for a much broader range of input into a story, as "
3669 "reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when hundreds from across the "
3670 "southwest United States turned to the Internet to retell what they had "
3671 "seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it drives readers to read "
3672 "across the range of accounts and <quote>triangulate,</quote> as Winer puts "
3673 "it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are <quote>communicating directly with our "
3674 "constituency, and the middle man is out of it</quote>—with all the "
3675 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
3678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3679 #: freeculture.xml:2557
3680 msgid "Olafson, Steve"
3683 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3684 #: freeculture.xml:2555
3686 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3687 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
3688 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> See Michael Falcone, <quote>Does an Editor's "
3689 "Pencil Ruin a Web Log?</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 29 "
3690 "September 2003, C4. (<quote>Not all news organizations have been as "
3691 "accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq "
3692 "who started a blog about his reporting of the war on March 9, stopped "
3693 "posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year Steve Olafson, a "
3694 "<citetitle>Houston Chronicle</citetitle> reporter, was fired for keeping a "
3695 "personal Web log, published under a pseudonym, that dealt with some of the "
3696 "issues and people he was covering.</quote>)"
3700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3701 #: freeculture.xml:2548
3703 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
3704 "blogs. <quote>It's going to become an essential skill,</quote> Winer "
3705 "predicts, for public figures and increasingly for private figures as "
3706 "well. It's not clear that <quote>journalism</quote> is happy about "
3707 "this—some journalists have been told to curtail their "
3708 "blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is clear that we "
3709 "are still in transition. <quote>A lot of what we are doing now is warm-up "
3710 "exercises,</quote> Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature before "
3711 "this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in this "
3712 "space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing on "
3713 "copyright), Winer said, <quote>we will be the last thing that gets shut "
3717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3718 #: freeculture.xml:2579
3720 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because <quote>you "
3721 "don't have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.</quote> "
3722 "That is true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and "
3723 "more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will "
3724 "change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
3725 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
3726 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
3727 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
3728 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
3729 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
3730 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
3731 "something extraordinary to report."
3734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
3735 #: freeculture.xml:2600 freeculture.xml:6747
3736 msgid "Brown, John Seely"
3739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3740 #: freeculture.xml:2603
3742 "<emphasis role='strong'>John Seely Brown</emphasis> is the chief scientist "
3743 "of the Xerox Corporation. His work, as his Web site describes it, is "
3744 "<quote>human learning and … the creation of knowledge ecologies for "
3745 "creating … innovation.</quote>"
3748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3749 #: freeculture.xml:2609
3751 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3752 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3753 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3754 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3759 #: freeculture.xml:2616
3761 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When <quote>a lot of us grew "
3762 "up,</quote> he explains, that tinkering was done <quote>on motorcycle "
3763 "engines, lawnmower engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.</quote> But "
3764 "digital technologies enable a different kind of tinkering—with "
3765 "abstract ideas though in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only "
3766 "think about how a commercial portrays a politician; using digital "
3767 "technology, they can take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker "
3768 "with it to see how it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind "
3769 "of bricolage, or <quote>free collage,</quote> as Brown calls it. Many get to "
3770 "add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3774 #: freeculture.xml:2629
3776 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3777 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3778 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3779 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3780 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3784 #: freeculture.xml:2636
3786 "This opportunity creates a <quote>completely new kind of learning "
3787 "platform,</quote> as Brown describes. <quote>As soon as you start doing "
3788 "that, you … unleash a free collage on the community, so that other "
3789 "people can start looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, "
3790 "seeing if they can improve it.</quote> Each effort is a kind of "
3791 "apprenticeship. <quote>Open source becomes a major apprenticeship "
3795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3796 #: freeculture.xml:2644
3798 "In this process, <quote>the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. "
3799 "They are code.</quote> Kids are <quote>shifting to the ability to tinker in "
3800 "the abstract, and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that "
3801 "you're doing in your garage. You are tinkering with a community "
3802 "platform. … You are tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you "
3803 "tinker the more you improve.</quote> The more you improve, the more you "
3807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3808 #: freeculture.xml:2653
3810 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3811 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3812 "<quote>the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3813 "intelligence.</quote> Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3814 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3815 "text. <quote>The Web … says if you are musical, if you are artistic, "
3816 "if you are visual, if you are interested in film … [then] there is a "
3817 "lot you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3818 "multiple forms of intelligence.</quote>"
3822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3823 #: freeculture.xml:2666
3825 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3826 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3827 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3832 #: freeculture.xml:2674
3834 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3835 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3836 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3837 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3838 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3839 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3840 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3845 #: freeculture.xml:2690
3847 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, <quote>Technological "
3848 "Access Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,</quote> "
3849 "<citetitle>Communications of the Association for Computer "
3850 "Machinery</citetitle> 43 (2000): 9."
3853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3854 #: freeculture.xml:2683
3856 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3857 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter <xref "
3858 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>) has developed a "
3859 "powerful argument in favor of the <quote>right to tinker</quote> as it "
3860 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3861 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3862 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3863 "because of the law."
3866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3867 #: freeculture.xml:2698
3869 "<quote>This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,</quote> "
3870 "Brown explains. We need to <quote>understand how kids who grow up digital "
3871 "think and want to learn.</quote>"
3874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3875 #: freeculture.xml:2703
3877 "<quote>Yet,</quote> as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will "
3878 "evince, <quote>we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the "
3879 "natural tendencies of today's digital kids. … We're building an "
3880 "architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system "
3881 "that closes down that part of the brain.</quote>"
3884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3885 #: freeculture.xml:2711
3887 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3888 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3889 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3894 #: freeculture.xml:2717
3896 "<quote>No way to run a culture,</quote> as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet "
3897 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>, "
3898 "quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3902 #: freeculture.xml:2724
3903 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
3907 #: freeculture.xml:2725 freeculture.xml:2769 freeculture.xml:9617
3908 msgid "Jordan, Jesse"
3911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3912 #: freeculture.xml:2726
3916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3917 #: freeculture.xml:2726 freeculture.xml:2727 freeculture.xml:2728
3918 msgid "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)"
3921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3922 #: freeculture.xml:2728
3923 msgid "computer network search engine of"
3926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3927 #: freeculture.xml:2729
3928 msgid "search engines"
3931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3932 #: freeculture.xml:2730
3933 msgid "university computer networks, p2p sharing on"
3936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3937 #: freeculture.xml:2731
3938 msgid "search engines used on"
3941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3942 #: freeculture.xml:2733
3944 "<emphasis role='strong'>In the fall</emphasis> of 2002, Jesse Jordan of "
3945 "Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic "
3946 "Institute, in Troy, New York. His major at RPI was information "
3947 "technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October Jesse decided to begin "
3948 "to tinker with search engine technology that was available on the RPI "
3952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3953 #: freeculture.xml:2741
3955 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
3956 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
3957 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
3958 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
3959 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
3960 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
3963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3964 #: freeculture.xml:2749
3966 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
3967 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
3968 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
3969 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
3970 "access to other members of the RPI community."
3973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3974 #: freeculture.xml:2755 freeculture.xml:2811
3979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3980 #: freeculture.xml:2757
3982 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
3983 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
3984 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
3985 "idea of <quote>intranet</quote> search engines, search engines that search "
3986 "within the network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that "
3987 "institution with better access to material from that institution. "
3988 "Businesses do this all the time, enabling employees to have access to "
3989 "material that people outside the business can't get. Universities do it as "
3993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3994 #: freeculture.xml:2770 freeculture.xml:3687 freeculture.xml:3689 freeculture.xml:3690 freeculture.xml:5505 freeculture.xml:8189 freeculture.xml:13532 freeculture.xml:13601
3998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3999 #: freeculture.xml:2770
4000 msgid "network file system of"
4003 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4004 #: freeculture.xml:2772
4006 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
4007 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
4008 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
4009 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
4010 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
4011 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
4014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4015 #: freeculture.xml:2782
4017 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
4018 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
4019 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
4020 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
4021 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
4022 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
4023 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
4024 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
4025 "file was still on-line."
4028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4029 #: freeculture.xml:2795
4031 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
4032 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
4033 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
4034 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
4039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4040 #: freeculture.xml:2803
4042 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
4043 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
4044 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
4045 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
4046 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
4049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4050 #: freeculture.xml:2812
4051 msgid "tinkering as means of"
4054 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4055 #: freeculture.xml:2814
4057 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
4058 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
4059 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
4060 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
4061 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
4062 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
4063 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
4064 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
4065 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
4066 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
4067 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
4071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4072 #: freeculture.xml:2828 freeculture.xml:9615 freeculture.xml:9892
4073 msgid "in recording industry"
4076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4077 #: freeculture.xml:2829
4078 msgid "against student file sharing"
4081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4082 #: freeculture.xml:2830 freeculture.xml:2928 freeculture.xml:3181 freeculture.xml:3310 freeculture.xml:4259 freeculture.xml:4260 freeculture.xml:4261 freeculture.xml:9893 freeculture.xml:10304 freeculture.xml:10305 freeculture.xml:10306 freeculture.xml:10462
4083 msgid "recording industry"
4086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4087 #: freeculture.xml:2830 freeculture.xml:9893
4088 msgid "copyright infringement lawsuits of"
4091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4092 #: freeculture.xml:2831 freeculture.xml:2860 freeculture.xml:2929 freeculture.xml:9894 freeculture.xml:10307 freeculture.xml:10308 freeculture.xml:10460
4093 msgid "Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)"
4096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4097 #: freeculture.xml:2831 freeculture.xml:9894
4098 msgid "copyright infringement lawsuits filed by"
4101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4102 #: freeculture.xml:2834
4104 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
4105 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
4106 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
4107 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
4108 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
4109 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
4112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4113 #: freeculture.xml:2843
4115 "<quote>It was absurd,</quote> he told me. <quote>I don't think I did "
4116 "anything wrong. … I don't think there's anything wrong with the "
4117 "search engine that I ran or … what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't "
4118 "modified it in any way that promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just "
4119 "modified the search engine in a way that would make it easier to "
4120 "use</quote>—again, a <emphasis>search engine</emphasis>, which Jesse "
4121 "had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, which Jesse had "
4122 "not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to get access to "
4123 "content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and the vast "
4124 "majority of which had nothing to do with music."
4127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4128 #: freeculture.xml:2856 freeculture.xml:9614 freeculture.xml:9891
4129 msgid "exaggerated claims of"
4132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4133 #: freeculture.xml:2857
4134 msgid "statutory damages of"
4137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4138 #: freeculture.xml:2858
4139 msgid "individual defendants intimidated by"
4142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4143 #: freeculture.xml:2859
4144 msgid "statutory damages"
4147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4148 #: freeculture.xml:2860
4149 msgid "intimidation tactics of"
4153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4154 #: freeculture.xml:2862
4156 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
4157 "had therefore <quote>willfully</quote> violated copyright laws. They "
4158 "demanded that he pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of "
4159 "<quote>willful infringement,</quote> the Copyright Act specifies something "
4160 "lawyers call <quote>statutory damages.</quote> These damages permit a "
4161 "copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement. As the RIAA alleged more "
4162 "than one hundred specific copyright infringements, they therefore demanded "
4163 "that Jesse pay them at least $15,000,000."
4166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4167 #: freeculture.xml:2872
4168 msgid "Michigan Technical University"
4171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4172 #: freeculture.xml:2873
4173 msgid "Princeton University"
4177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4178 #: freeculture.xml:2887
4180 "Tim Goral, <quote>Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
4181 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,</quote> <citetitle>Professional Media "
4182 "Group LCC</citetitle> 6 (2003): 5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
4185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4186 #: freeculture.xml:2875
4188 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
4189 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
4190 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
4191 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
4192 "demands for <quote>damages</quote> that the RIAA claimed it was entitled "
4193 "to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in "
4194 "the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 "
4195 "<emphasis>billion</emphasis>—six times the <emphasis>total</emphasis> "
4196 "profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4201 #: freeculture.xml:2894
4203 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
4204 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
4205 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
4206 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
4209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4210 #: freeculture.xml:2900
4211 msgid "Oppenheimer, Matt"
4214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4215 #: freeculture.xml:2902
4217 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
4218 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
4219 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
4220 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
4221 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
4222 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, <quote>You don't want to "
4223 "pay another visit to a dentist like me.</quote>) And throughout, the RIAA "
4224 "insisted it would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had "
4228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4229 #: freeculture.xml:2912
4230 msgid "legal system, attorney costs in"
4234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4235 #: freeculture.xml:2914
4237 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
4238 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
4239 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
4240 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
4241 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
4242 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
4246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4247 #: freeculture.xml:2924
4249 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
4250 "$12,000 and a settlement."
4253 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4254 #: freeculture.xml:2927 freeculture.xml:3311 freeculture.xml:4252 freeculture.xml:5514 freeculture.xml:5563 freeculture.xml:10202 freeculture.xml:10300 freeculture.xml:10461 freeculture.xml:10484 freeculture.xml:15182 freeculture.xml:15247
4258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
4259 #: freeculture.xml:2927 freeculture.xml:3311 freeculture.xml:4252 freeculture.xml:10202 freeculture.xml:10300 freeculture.xml:10461 freeculture.xml:10484 freeculture.xml:15182 freeculture.xml:15247
4260 msgid "recording industry payments to"
4263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4264 #: freeculture.xml:2928 freeculture.xml:4259 freeculture.xml:10304 freeculture.xml:10462
4265 msgid "artist remuneration in"
4268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4269 #: freeculture.xml:2929 freeculture.xml:10308
4270 msgid "lobbying power of"
4274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4275 #: freeculture.xml:2939
4277 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
4278 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
4279 "the Arts, <citetitle>More Than One in a Blue Moon</citetitle> (2000)."
4283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4284 #: freeculture.xml:2947
4286 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in <quote>KaZaA and "
4287 "Punishment,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 10 September "
4291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4292 #: freeculture.xml:2931
4294 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
4295 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
4296 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
4297 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
4298 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
4299 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
4300 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
4301 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
4302 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4306 #: freeculture.xml:2954
4308 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
4309 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
4310 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
4313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
4314 #: freeculture.xml:2961
4316 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
4317 "activist. … [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
4318 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
4322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4323 #: freeculture.xml:2968
4325 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
4326 "father told me, Jesse <quote>considers himself very conservative, and so do "
4327 "I. … He's not a tree hugger. … I think it's bizarre that they "
4328 "would pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the "
4329 "wrong message. And he wants to correct the record.</quote>"
4332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4333 #: freeculture.xml:2983
4334 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: <quote>Pirates</quote>"
4337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
4338 #: freeculture.xml:2984
4339 msgid "in development of content industry"
4342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4343 #: freeculture.xml:2987
4345 "<emphasis role='strong'>If <quote>piracy</quote> means</emphasis> using the "
4346 "creative property of others without their permission—if <quote>if "
4347 "value, then right</quote> is true—then the history of the content "
4348 "industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of <quote>big "
4349 "media</quote> today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
4350 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
4351 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
4354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4355 #: freeculture.xml:2998
4359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4360 #: freeculture.xml:3002
4362 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> I am grateful to Peter DiMauro "
4363 "for pointing me to this extraordinary history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
4364 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 87–93, which details "
4365 "Edison's <quote>adventures</quote> with copyright and patent."
4369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4370 #: freeculture.xml:3000
4372 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
4373 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
4374 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
4375 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
4376 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "
4377 "<quote>trust,</quote> the Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on "
4378 "Thomas Edison's creative property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to "
4379 "exercise the rights this creative property gave him, and the MPPC was "
4380 "serious about the control it demanded."
4383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4384 #: freeculture.xml:3018
4385 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
4388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4389 #: freeculture.xml:3022
4391 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
4392 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
4393 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
4394 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
4395 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
4396 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
4399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4400 #: freeculture.xml:3030
4401 msgid "Fox, William"
4404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4405 #: freeculture.xml:3031
4406 msgid "General Film Company"
4409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4410 #: freeculture.xml:3032 freeculture.xml:3329 freeculture.xml:4486 freeculture.xml:10350
4411 msgid "Picker, Randal C."
4414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4415 #: freeculture.xml:3056 freeculture.xml:4485 freeculture.xml:10070 freeculture.xml:10183
4416 msgid "broadcast flag"
4419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4420 #: freeculture.xml:3045
4422 "J. A. Aberdeen, <citetitle>Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent "
4423 "Motion Picture Producers</citetitle> (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and "
4424 "expanded texts posted at <quote>The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion "
4425 "Picture Patents Company vs. the Independent Outlaws,</quote> available at "
4426 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a "
4427 "discussion of the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits "
4428 "imposed by Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison "
4429 "to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the "
4430 "Propertization of Copyright</quote> (September 2002), University of Chicago "
4431 "Law School, James M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper "
4432 "No. 159. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4436 #: freeculture.xml:3034
4438 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
4439 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
4440 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
4441 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
4442 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
4443 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
4444 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
4445 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
4446 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
4447 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4452 #: freeculture.xml:3067
4454 "Marc Wanamaker, <quote>The First Studios,</quote> <citetitle>The Silents "
4455 "Majority</citetitle>, archived at <ulink "
4456 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
4459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4460 #: freeculture.xml:3061
4462 "The Napsters of those days, the <quote>independents,</quote> were companies "
4463 "like Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously "
4464 "resisted. <quote>Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and "
4465 "`accidents' resulting in loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and "
4466 "sometimes life and limb frequently occurred.</quote><placeholder "
4467 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the independents to flee the East "
4468 "Coast. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers "
4469 "there could pirate his inventions without fear of the law. And the leaders "
4470 "of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most prominently, did just that."
4474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4475 #: freeculture.xml:3077
4477 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
4478 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
4479 "truly <quote>limited</quote> monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), "
4480 "by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new "
4481 "industry had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative "
4485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4486 #: freeculture.xml:3088
4487 msgid "Recorded Music"
4490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4491 #: freeculture.xml:3089 freeculture.xml:4256
4492 msgid "on music recordings"
4495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4496 #: freeculture.xml:3091
4498 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
4499 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
4502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4503 #: freeculture.xml:3094
4504 msgid "Fourneaux, Henri"
4507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4508 #: freeculture.xml:3095
4509 msgid "Russel, Phil"
4512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4513 #: freeculture.xml:3097
4515 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
4516 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
4517 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
4518 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
4519 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit <quote>Happy "
4520 "Mose,</quote> the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy "
4521 "of the musical score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform "
4525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4526 #: freeculture.xml:3106 freeculture.xml:3244
4530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4531 #: freeculture.xml:3108
4533 "But what if I wanted to record <quote>Happy Mose,</quote> using Edison's "
4534 "phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear "
4535 "enough that I would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I "
4536 "performed in making this recording. And it was clear enough that I would "
4537 "have to pay for any public performance of the work I was recording. But it "
4538 "wasn't totally clear that I would have to pay for a <quote>public "
4539 "performance</quote> if I recorded the song in my own house (even today, you "
4540 "don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing their songs in the shower), or if "
4541 "I recorded the song from memory (copies in your brain are "
4542 "not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I simply sang the "
4543 "song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, it wasn't clear "
4544 "that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it wasn't clear "
4545 "whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those "
4546 "recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
4547 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
4550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4551 #: freeculture.xml:3131 freeculture.xml:3148
4552 msgid "Kittredge, Alfred"
4555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4556 #: freeculture.xml:3127
4558 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
4559 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it, <placeholder "
4560 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4564 #: freeculture.xml:3142
4566 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
4567 "and H.R. 19853 Before the (Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
4568 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
4569 "chairman), reprinted in <citetitle>Legislative History of the Copyright "
4570 "Act</citetitle>, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South "
4571 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4576 #: freeculture.xml:3135
4578 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
4579 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
4580 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
4581 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
4582 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4587 #: freeculture.xml:3152
4588 msgid "Sousa, John Philip"
4592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4593 #: freeculture.xml:3158
4595 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
4596 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4600 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4601 #: freeculture.xml:3164
4603 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
4604 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4609 #: freeculture.xml:3171
4611 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
4612 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
4615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4616 #: freeculture.xml:3154
4618 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
4619 "were <quote>sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of "
4620 "American composers,</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the "
4621 "<quote>music publishing industry</quote> was thereby <quote>at the complete "
4622 "mercy of this one pirate.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4623 "As John Philip Sousa put it, in as direct a way as possible, <quote>When "
4624 "they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it.</quote><placeholder "
4625 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4629 #: freeculture.xml:3175
4630 msgid "American Graphophone Company"
4633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4634 #: freeculture.xml:3176
4635 msgid "player pianos"
4638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4639 #: freeculture.xml:3178 freeculture.xml:3179 freeculture.xml:4254 freeculture.xml:4255 freeculture.xml:4338 freeculture.xml:4339 freeculture.xml:6959 freeculture.xml:7048 freeculture.xml:7162 freeculture.xml:7163 freeculture.xml:10301 freeculture.xml:10302 freeculture.xml:10303 freeculture.xml:11081 freeculture.xml:11142 freeculture.xml:12079
4640 msgid "Congress, U.S."
4643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4644 #: freeculture.xml:3178 freeculture.xml:4254 freeculture.xml:4338 freeculture.xml:7048 freeculture.xml:7162 freeculture.xml:10301
4645 msgid "on copyright laws"
4648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4649 #: freeculture.xml:3179 freeculture.xml:4255 freeculture.xml:10303
4650 msgid "on recording industry"
4653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4654 #: freeculture.xml:3180 freeculture.xml:4257 freeculture.xml:10129
4655 msgid "statutory licenses in"
4658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4659 #: freeculture.xml:3181
4660 msgid "statutory license system in"
4664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4665 #: freeculture.xml:3191
4667 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
4668 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
4669 "Company of New York)."
4673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4674 #: freeculture.xml:3202
4676 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
4677 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
4678 "Graphophone Company Association)."
4681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4682 #: freeculture.xml:3183
4684 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
4685 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
4686 "argued that <quote>it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
4687 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
4688 "before their introduction.</quote> Rather, the machines increased the sales "
4689 "of sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
4690 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was <quote>to consider first the "
4691 "interest of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they "
4692 "are.</quote> <quote>All talk about `theft,'</quote> the general counsel of "
4693 "the American Graphophone Company wrote, <quote>is the merest claptrap, for "
4694 "there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as "
4695 "defined by statute.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4699 #: freeculture.xml:3207
4704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4705 #: freeculture.xml:3209
4707 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer "
4708 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> the recording artist. Congress amended the law to "
4709 "make sure that composers would be paid for the <quote>mechanical "
4710 "reproductions</quote> of their music. But rather than simply granting the "
4711 "composer complete control over the right to make mechanical reproductions, "
4712 "Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set "
4713 "by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the "
4714 "part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer "
4715 "authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, "
4716 "so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law."
4719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4720 #: freeculture.xml:3223
4721 msgid "compulsory license"
4724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4725 #: freeculture.xml:3224 freeculture.xml:4262 freeculture.xml:10128
4726 msgid "statutory licenses"
4729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4730 #: freeculture.xml:3226
4732 "American law ordinarily calls this a <quote>compulsory license,</quote> but "
4733 "I will refer to it as a <quote>statutory license.</quote> A statutory "
4734 "license is a license whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's "
4735 "amendment of the Copyright Act in 1909, record companies were free to "
4736 "distribute copies of recordings so long as they paid the composer (or "
4737 "copyright holder) the fee set by the statute."
4740 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4741 #: freeculture.xml:3233 freeculture.xml:14878
4742 msgid "Grisham, John"
4745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4746 #: freeculture.xml:3235
4748 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
4749 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
4750 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
4751 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
4752 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
4753 "work except with permission of Grisham."
4757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4758 #: freeculture.xml:3260
4760 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
4761 "H.R. 11794 Before the (Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
4762 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
4763 "<citetitle>Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act</citetitle>, "
4764 "E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman "
4768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4769 #: freeculture.xml:3246
4771 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
4772 "effect, the law <emphasis>subsidizes</emphasis> the recording industry "
4773 "through a kind of piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right "
4774 "than it otherwise gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over "
4775 "their creative work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less "
4776 "control are the recording industry and the public. The recording industry "
4777 "gets something of value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public "
4778 "gets access to a much wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress "
4779 "was quite explicit about its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was "
4780 "the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle "
4781 "follow-on creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4785 #: freeculture.xml:3271
4787 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
4788 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
4789 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
4793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4794 #: freeculture.xml:3293
4796 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
4797 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
4798 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
4801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4802 #: freeculture.xml:3278
4804 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
4805 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
4806 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
4807 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
4808 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
4809 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
4810 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
4811 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
4812 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
4813 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
4814 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
4815 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4819 #: freeculture.xml:3304
4821 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
4822 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
4825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4826 #: freeculture.xml:3309 freeculture.xml:4450
4830 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4831 #: freeculture.xml:3310 freeculture.xml:4261 freeculture.xml:10305
4832 msgid "radio broadcast and"
4835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4836 #: freeculture.xml:3313
4837 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
4840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4841 #: freeculture.xml:3328
4842 msgid "Hand, Learned"
4845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4846 #: freeculture.xml:3319
4848 "See 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, sections 106 and 110. At "
4849 "the beginning, record companies printed <quote>Not Licensed for Radio "
4850 "Broadcast</quote> and other messages purporting to restrict the ability to "
4851 "play a record on a radio station. Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument "
4852 "that a warning attached to a record might restrict the rights of the radio "
4853 "station. See <citetitle>RCA Manufacturing "
4854 "Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Whiteman</citetitle>, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd "
4855 "Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison to the Broadcast "
4856 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
4857 "Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> "
4858 "70 (2003): 281. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4859 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4863 #: freeculture.xml:3316
4865 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a "
4866 "<quote>public performance</quote> of the composer's work.<placeholder "
4867 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the "
4868 "composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of "
4869 "his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money for that "
4873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4874 #: freeculture.xml:3346 freeculture.xml:9371 freeculture.xml:9846 freeculture.xml:12927
4875 msgid "Lovett, Lyle"
4879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4880 #: freeculture.xml:3336
4882 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
4883 "of the <emphasis>composer's</emphasis> work. The radio station is also "
4884 "performing a copy of the <emphasis>recording artist's</emphasis> work. It's "
4885 "one thing to have <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> sung on the radio by the "
4886 "local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung by the Rolling "
4887 "Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the "
4888 "composition performed on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly "
4889 "consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording artist for his "
4890 "work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work. <placeholder "
4891 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4895 #: freeculture.xml:3351
4897 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
4898 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
4899 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
4900 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
4901 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
4904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4905 #: freeculture.xml:3358 freeculture.xml:3865 freeculture.xml:6470 freeculture.xml:6486
4909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4910 #: freeculture.xml:3360
4912 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
4913 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
4914 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
4915 "she has to get your permission."
4918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4919 #: freeculture.xml:3366
4921 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
4922 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
4923 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
4924 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
4925 "public performance of her recording is not a <quote>protected</quote> "
4926 "right. The radio station thus gets to <emphasis>pirate</emphasis> the value "
4927 "of Madonna's work without paying her anything."
4930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4931 #: freeculture.xml:3378
4933 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
4934 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
4935 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
4936 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
4937 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
4941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4942 #: freeculture.xml:3388 freeculture.xml:4456
4946 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4947 #: freeculture.xml:3389 freeculture.xml:4276 freeculture.xml:8550 freeculture.xml:8589 freeculture.xml:15280
4948 msgid "cable television"
4951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4952 #: freeculture.xml:3391
4953 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
4957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4958 #: freeculture.xml:3394
4960 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
4961 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
4962 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
4963 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
4964 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
4965 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
4966 "the content it enabled others to give away."
4969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4970 #: freeculture.xml:3404
4971 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
4974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4975 #: freeculture.xml:3405
4976 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
4979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4980 #: freeculture.xml:3406 freeculture.xml:3417
4981 msgid "Hyde, Rosel H."
4984 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4985 #: freeculture.xml:3412
4987 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
4988 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
4989 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
4990 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission). <placeholder "
4991 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4996 #: freeculture.xml:3424
4998 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
4999 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
5002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5003 #: freeculture.xml:3408
5005 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
5006 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of <quote>unfair "
5007 "and potentially destructive competition.</quote><placeholder "
5008 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There may have been a <quote>public "
5009 "interest</quote> in spreading the reach of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, "
5010 "general counsel to the National Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator "
5011 "Quentin Burdick during testimony, <quote>Does public interest dictate that "
5012 "you use somebody else's property?</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5013 "id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster put it,"
5017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5018 #: freeculture.xml:3435
5020 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
5021 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
5024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
5025 #: freeculture.xml:3431
5027 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
5028 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
5029 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5033 #: freeculture.xml:3441
5034 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
5038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5039 #: freeculture.xml:3450
5041 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
5042 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
5043 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
5046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
5047 #: freeculture.xml:3445
5049 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
5050 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
5051 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
5052 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5056 #: freeculture.xml:3456 freeculture.xml:3464
5057 msgid "Heston, Charlton"
5060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5061 #: freeculture.xml:3462
5063 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
5064 "president of the Screen Actors Guild). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
5068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5069 #: freeculture.xml:3458
5071 "These were <quote>free-ride[rs],</quote> Screen Actor's Guild president "
5072 "Charlton Heston said, who were <quote>depriving actors of "
5073 "compensation.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5077 #: freeculture.xml:3469
5079 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
5080 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
5083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
5084 #: freeculture.xml:3485 freeculture.xml:3487
5085 msgid "Zimmerman, Edwin"
5088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5089 #: freeculture.xml:3483
5091 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
5092 "acting assistant attorney general). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
5096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
5097 #: freeculture.xml:3474
5099 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
5100 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
5101 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
5102 "extend that monopoly. … The question here is how much compensation "
5103 "they should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
5104 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5105 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5108 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5109 #: freeculture.xml:3491
5111 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
5112 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
5115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5116 #: freeculture.xml:3495
5118 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
5119 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they "
5120 "<quote>pirated.</quote> In the end, Congress resolved this question in the "
5121 "same way that it resolved the question about record players and player "
5122 "pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they "
5123 "broadcast; but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright "
5124 "owner. The price was set by law, so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise "
5125 "veto power over the emerging technologies of cable. Cable companies thus "
5126 "built their empire in part upon a <quote>piracy</quote> of the value created "
5127 "by broadcasters' content."
5131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5132 #: freeculture.xml:3514
5134 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, <citetitle>The "
5135 "Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free "
5136 "Information</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5137 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #13</ulink>. <quote>The threat of "
5138 "piracy—the use of someone else's creative work without permission or "
5139 "compensation—has grown with the Internet.</quote>"
5142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5143 #: freeculture.xml:3509
5145 "<emphasis role='strong'>These separate stories</emphasis> sing a common "
5146 "theme. If <quote>piracy</quote> means using value from someone else's "
5147 "creative property without permission from that creator—as it is "
5148 "increasingly described today<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
5149 "— then <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry affected by copyright today "
5150 "is the product and beneficiary of a certain kind of piracy. Film, records, "
5151 "radio, cable TV. … The list is long and could well be expanded. Every "
5152 "generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Every generation—until "
5156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
5157 #: freeculture.xml:3531
5158 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: <quote>Piracy</quote>"
5161 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5162 #: freeculture.xml:3533
5164 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is piracy</emphasis> of copyrighted "
5165 "material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in many forms. The most significant "
5166 "is commercial piracy, the unauthorized taking of other people's content "
5167 "within a commercial context. Despite the many justifications that are "
5168 "offered in its defense, this taking is wrong. No one should condone it, and "
5169 "the law should stop it."
5173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5174 #: freeculture.xml:3541
5176 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of "
5177 "<quote>taking</quote> that is more directly related to the Internet. That "
5178 "taking, too, seems wrong to many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before "
5179 "we paint this taking <quote>piracy,</quote> however, we should understand "
5180 "its nature a bit more. For the harm of this taking is significantly more "
5181 "ambiguous than outright copying, and the law should account for that "
5182 "ambiguity, as it has so often done in the past."
5185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5186 #: freeculture.xml:3551
5190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5191 #: freeculture.xml:3552 freeculture.xml:3632 freeculture.xml:3682 freeculture.xml:15282
5192 msgid "Asia, commercial piracy in"
5195 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5196 #: freeculture.xml:3553 freeculture.xml:4000 freeculture.xml:9847 freeculture.xml:10702 freeculture.xml:14673 freeculture.xml:15264
5200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5201 #: freeculture.xml:3553
5202 msgid "foreign piracy of"
5206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5207 #: freeculture.xml:3561
5209 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), "
5210 "<citetitle>The Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003</citetitle>, "
5211 "July 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
5212 "#14</ulink>. See also Ben Hunt, <quote>Companies Warned on Music Piracy "
5213 "Risk,</quote> <citetitle>Financial Times</citetitle>, 14 February 2003, 11."
5216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5217 #: freeculture.xml:3555
5219 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
5220 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
5221 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
5222 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
5223 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
5224 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
5225 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
5228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5229 #: freeculture.xml:3571
5231 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
5232 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
5233 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
5236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5237 #: freeculture.xml:3577
5239 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
5240 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
5241 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
5242 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
5243 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
5244 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
5248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5249 #: freeculture.xml:3586
5251 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
5252 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
5253 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
5254 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
5255 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
5256 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
5257 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
5258 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
5259 "legal wrong as well."
5263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5264 #: freeculture.xml:3597
5266 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
5267 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose not to "
5268 "protect copyright internationally. We may have been born a pirate nation, "
5269 "but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood."
5272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5273 #: freeculture.xml:3625
5274 msgid "agricultural patents"
5277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5278 #: freeculture.xml:3626 freeculture.xml:13219 freeculture.xml:13710 freeculture.xml:13717
5279 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
5282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5283 #: freeculture.xml:3610
5285 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: "
5286 "<citetitle>Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New "
5287 "Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual "
5288 "Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement obligates member nations to create "
5289 "administrative and enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights, "
5290 "a costly proposition for developing countries. Additionally, patent rights "
5291 "may lead to higher prices for staple industries such as agriculture. Critics "
5292 "of TRIPS question the disparity between burdens imposed upon developing "
5293 "countries and benefits conferred to industrialized nations. TRIPS does "
5294 "permit governments to use patents for public, noncommercial uses without "
5295 "first obtaining the patent holder's permission. Developing nations may be "
5296 "able to use this to gain the benefits of foreign patents at lower "
5297 "prices. This is a promising strategy for developing nations within the TRIPS "
5298 "framework. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5299 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5302 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5303 #: freeculture.xml:3605
5305 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
5306 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
5307 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
5308 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
5309 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
5310 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
5311 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
5314 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5315 #: freeculture.xml:3647 freeculture.xml:3921 freeculture.xml:15430
5316 msgid "Liebowitz, Stan"
5319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5320 #: freeculture.xml:3640
5322 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
5323 "Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle> (New York: "
5324 "Amacom, 2002), 144–90. <quote>In some instances … the impact of "
5325 "piracy on the copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the "
5326 "work will be negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the "
5327 "individual engaging in pirating would not have purchased an original even if "
5328 "pirating were not an option.</quote> Ibid., 149. <placeholder "
5329 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5333 #: freeculture.xml:3634
5335 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
5336 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
5337 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
5338 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
5339 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5343 #: freeculture.xml:3651
5345 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
5346 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
5347 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
5348 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, <quote>You wouldn't go into "
5349 "Barnes & Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why "
5350 "should it be any different with on-line music?</quote> The difference is, of "
5351 "course, that when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less "
5352 "book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, "
5353 "there is not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the "
5354 "intangible are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
5358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5359 #: freeculture.xml:3665
5361 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
5362 "right of a very special sort, it <emphasis>is</emphasis> a property "
5363 "right. Like all property rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to "
5364 "decide the terms under which content is shared. If the copyright owner "
5365 "doesn't want to sell, she doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important "
5366 "statutory licenses that apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish "
5367 "of the copyright owner. Those licenses give people the right to "
5368 "<quote>take</quote> copyrighted content whether or not the copyright owner "
5369 "wants to sell. But where the law does not give people the right to take "
5370 "content, it is wrong to take that content even if the wrong does no harm. If "
5371 "we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the "
5372 "technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the "
5373 "permission of a property owner. That is exactly what <quote>property</quote> "
5377 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5378 #: freeculture.xml:3683 freeculture.xml:15283
5382 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5383 #: freeculture.xml:3684 freeculture.xml:13530 freeculture.xml:14116
5384 msgid "free software/open-source software (FS/OSS)"
5387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5388 #: freeculture.xml:3685 freeculture.xml:3715 freeculture.xml:12011 freeculture.xml:13545 freeculture.xml:14172
5389 msgid "GNU/Linux operating system"
5392 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5393 #: freeculture.xml:3686 freeculture.xml:3716 freeculture.xml:12013 freeculture.xml:13546 freeculture.xml:14173
5394 msgid "Linux operating system"
5397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5398 #: freeculture.xml:3687
5399 msgid "competitive strategies of"
5402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5403 #: freeculture.xml:3688
5407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5408 #: freeculture.xml:3689
5409 msgid "international software piracy of"
5412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5413 #: freeculture.xml:3690
5414 msgid "Windows operating system of"
5417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5418 #: freeculture.xml:3692
5420 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
5421 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese "
5422 "<quote>steal</quote> Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on "
5423 "Microsoft. Microsoft loses the value of the software that was taken. But it "
5424 "gains users who are used to life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the "
5425 "nation grows more wealthy, more and more people will buy software rather "
5426 "than steal it. And hence over time, because that buying will benefit "
5427 "Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from the piracy. If instead of pirating "
5428 "Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system, "
5429 "then these Chinese users would not eventually be buying Microsoft. Without "
5430 "piracy, then, Microsoft would lose."
5433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5434 #: freeculture.xml:3704 freeculture.xml:4743 freeculture.xml:4967 freeculture.xml:6454 freeculture.xml:6530 freeculture.xml:6665 freeculture.xml:7077 freeculture.xml:14204
5438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5439 #: freeculture.xml:3704 freeculture.xml:14204
5440 msgid "databases of case reports in"
5443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5444 #: freeculture.xml:3706
5446 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
5447 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
5448 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
5449 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
5450 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
5451 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
5454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5455 #: freeculture.xml:3713
5459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5460 #: freeculture.xml:3714
5461 msgid "Internet Explorer"
5464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5465 #: freeculture.xml:3718
5467 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
5468 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
5469 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
5470 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
5471 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
5472 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
5473 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
5474 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
5475 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
5476 "access, then violating the law is still wrong."
5480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5481 #: freeculture.xml:3732
5483 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
5484 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
5485 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
5486 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
5487 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
5488 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
5489 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
5492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5493 #: freeculture.xml:3742
5495 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
5496 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all <quote>piracy</quote> "
5497 "is. Or at least, not all <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong if that term is "
5498 "understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of "
5499 "<quote>piracy</quote> are useful and productive, to produce either new "
5500 "content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any "
5501 "tradition has ever banned all <quote>piracy</quote> in that sense of the "
5505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5506 #: freeculture.xml:3751
5508 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
5509 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
5510 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
5511 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
5514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5515 #: freeculture.xml:3757
5517 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
5518 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
5519 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
5520 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
5523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5524 #: freeculture.xml:3763
5526 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
5527 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
5530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5531 #: freeculture.xml:3769
5536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5537 #: freeculture.xml:3774
5539 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
5540 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
5544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5545 #: freeculture.xml:3771
5547 "The key to the <quote>piracy</quote> that the law aims to quash is a use "
5548 "that <quote>rob[s] the author of [his] profit.</quote><placeholder "
5549 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This means we must determine whether and how "
5550 "much p2p sharing harms before we know how strongly the law should seek to "
5551 "either prevent it or find an alternative to assure the author of his profit."
5554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5555 #: freeculture.xml:3782 freeculture.xml:3790 freeculture.xml:9777
5559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5560 #: freeculture.xml:3783
5561 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
5564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5565 #: freeculture.xml:3800 freeculture.xml:8783
5566 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
5569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5570 #: freeculture.xml:3790
5572 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Clayton M. Christensen, "
5573 "<citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller "
5574 "That Changed the Way We Do Business</citetitle> (New York: HarperBusiness, "
5575 "2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that give rise to and "
5576 "dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up with the most "
5577 "creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This job usually "
5578 "falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology in inventive "
5579 "ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence Lessig, "
5580 "<citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 89–92, 139. <placeholder "
5581 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5585 #: freeculture.xml:3785
5587 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
5588 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
5589 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
5590 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
5591 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
5596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5597 #: freeculture.xml:3810
5599 "See Carolyn Lochhead, <quote>Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood "
5600 "Nightmare,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 "
5601 "September 2002, A1; <quote>Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,</quote> <citetitle>New "
5602 "Scientist</citetitle>, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, <quote>Napster "
5603 "Names CEO, Secures New Financing,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
5604 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 23 May 2003, C1; <quote>Napster's Wake-Up "
5605 "Call,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 24 June 2000, 23; John "
5606 "Naughton, <quote>Hollywood at War with the Internet</quote> (London) "
5607 "<citetitle>Times</citetitle>, 26 July 2002, 18."
5610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5611 #: freeculture.xml:3805
5613 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
5614 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
5615 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
5616 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
5617 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
5618 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
5619 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
5620 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
5621 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
5622 "or your 20,000 best friends."
5626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5627 #: freeculture.xml:3832
5629 "See Ipsos-Insight, <citetitle>TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music "
5630 "Distribution</citetitle> (September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of "
5631 "Americans aged twelve and older have downloaded music off of the Internet "
5632 "and 30 percent have listened to digital music files stored on their "
5637 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5638 #: freeculture.xml:3841
5640 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,</quote> "
5641 "<citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 6 June 2003, A1."
5644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5645 #: freeculture.xml:3826
5647 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
5648 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
5649 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
5650 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
5651 "by the NPD group quoted in <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> "
5652 "estimated that 43 million citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange "
5653 "content in May 2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast "
5654 "majority of these are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive "
5655 "quantity of content is being <quote>taken</quote> on these networks. The "
5656 "ease and inexpensiveness of file-sharing networks have inspired millions to "
5657 "enjoy music in a way that they hadn't before."
5660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5661 #: freeculture.xml:3850
5663 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
5664 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
5665 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
5666 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
5667 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
5668 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
5672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5673 #: freeculture.xml:3860
5675 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
5676 "kinds into four types."
5680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5681 #: freeculture.xml:3868
5683 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
5684 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
5685 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
5686 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
5687 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
5688 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
5693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5694 #: freeculture.xml:3878
5696 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
5697 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
5698 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
5699 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
5700 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
5701 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
5702 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
5706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5707 #: freeculture.xml:3889
5709 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
5710 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
5711 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
5712 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
5713 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
5714 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
5715 "solid weekend <quote>recalling</quote> old songs. She was astonished at the "
5716 "range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is "
5717 "still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright "
5718 "owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is "
5719 "zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s "
5720 "45-rpm records to a local collector."
5725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5726 #: freeculture.xml:3906
5728 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
5729 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
5732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5733 #: freeculture.xml:3912
5734 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
5737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5738 #: freeculture.xml:3920
5740 "See Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle>, "
5741 "148–49. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5745 #: freeculture.xml:3915
5747 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
5748 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
5749 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
5750 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
5751 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
5752 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is "
5753 "not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard "
5754 "question to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current "
5755 "rhetoric around the issue suggests."
5758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5759 #: freeculture.xml:3931
5761 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
5762 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
5763 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
5764 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
5765 "type A sharing is a kind of <quote>theft</quote> that is "
5766 "<quote>devastating</quote> the industry."
5769 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5770 #: freeculture.xml:3938 freeculture.xml:3947 freeculture.xml:4308 freeculture.xml:8349 freeculture.xml:8378 freeculture.xml:10126 freeculture.xml:14990
5771 msgid "cassette recording"
5774 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5775 #: freeculture.xml:3938 freeculture.xml:4308 freeculture.xml:8349 freeculture.xml:8378 freeculture.xml:10126 freeculture.xml:10127 freeculture.xml:14990 freeculture.xml:14991
5779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5780 #: freeculture.xml:3947
5782 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, "
5783 "<citetitle>Technology Evolution and the Music Industry's Business Model "
5784 "Crisis</citetitle> (2003), 3. This report describes the music industry's "
5785 "effort to stigmatize the budding practice of cassette taping in the 1970s, "
5786 "including an advertising campaign featuring a cassette-shape skull and the "
5787 "caption <quote>Home taping is killing music.</quote> At the time digital "
5788 "audio tape became a threat, the Office of Technical Assessment conducted a "
5789 "survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 percent of consumers older than ten "
5790 "had taped music to a cassette format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology "
5791 "Assessment, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the "
5792 "Law</citetitle>, OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing "
5793 "Office, October 1989), 145–56."
5796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5797 #: freeculture.xml:3940
5799 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
5800 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
5801 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
5802 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "
5803 "<quote>Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels "
5804 "fought it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels "
5805 "claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales "
5806 "fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was "
5807 "proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was "
5811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5812 #: freeculture.xml:3965
5817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5818 #: freeculture.xml:3975
5819 msgid "U.S. Congress, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying</citetitle>, 4."
5822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5823 #: freeculture.xml:3967
5825 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
5826 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record "
5827 "turnaround. <quote>In the end,</quote> Cap Gemini concludes, <quote>the "
5828 "`crisis' … was not the fault of the tapers—who did not [stop "
5829 "after MTV came into being]—but had to a large extent resulted from "
5830 "stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels.</quote><placeholder "
5831 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5835 #: freeculture.xml:3980
5837 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
5838 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
5839 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
5840 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
5841 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
5842 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also "
5843 "<emphasis>how</emphasis> harmful type A sharing is, and how beneficial the "
5844 "other types of sharing are."
5847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5848 #: freeculture.xml:3990
5850 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
5851 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
5852 "<quote>net harm</quote> to the industry as a whole is the amount by which "
5853 "type A sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records "
5854 "through sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks "
5855 "would actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
5856 "little <emphasis>static</emphasis> reason to resist them."
5859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5860 #: freeculture.xml:4000
5861 msgid "sales levels of"
5864 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5865 #: freeculture.xml:4002
5867 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
5868 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
5869 "it might be close."
5873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5874 #: freeculture.xml:4011
5876 "See Recording Industry Association of America, <citetitle>2002 Yearend "
5877 "Statistics</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5878 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #15</ulink>. A later report "
5879 "indicates even greater losses. See Recording Industry Association of "
5880 "America, <citetitle>Some Facts About Music Piracy</citetitle>, 25 June 2003, "
5881 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #16</ulink>: "
5882 "<quote>In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen "
5883 "by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 in the "
5884 "United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues are "
5885 "down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based on "
5886 "U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone from "
5887 "a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 (based "
5888 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments).</quote>"
5891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5892 #: freeculture.xml:4038
5896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5897 #: freeculture.xml:4035
5899 "Jane Black, <quote>Big Music's Broken Record,</quote> BusinessWeek online, "
5900 "13 February 2003, available at <ulink "
5901 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #17</ulink>. <placeholder "
5902 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5905 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5906 #: freeculture.xml:4007
5908 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
5909 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
5910 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
5911 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
5912 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
5913 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
5914 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
5915 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. <quote>From 1999 to "
5916 "2001, the average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to "
5917 "$14.19.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from "
5918 "other forms of media could also account for some of the decline. As Jane "
5919 "Black of <citetitle>BusinessWeek</citetitle> notes, <quote>The soundtrack to "
5920 "the film <citetitle>High Fidelity</citetitle> has a list price of "
5921 "$18.98. You could get the whole movie [on DVD] for "
5922 "$19.99.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
5926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5927 #: freeculture.xml:4053
5929 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
5930 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
5931 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
5932 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
5933 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
5937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5938 #: freeculture.xml:4061
5940 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
5941 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
5942 "industry constantly asks, <quote>What's the difference between downloading a "
5943 "song and stealing a CD?</quote>—but their own numbers reveal the "
5944 "difference. If I steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking "
5945 "is a lost sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is "
5946 "absolutely clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download "
5947 "were a lost sale—if every use of Kazaa <quote>rob[bed] the author of "
5948 "[his] profit</quote>—then the industry would have suffered a 100 "
5949 "percent drop in sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the "
5950 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped "
5951 "by just 6.7 percent, then there is a huge difference between "
5952 "<quote>downloading a song and stealing a CD.</quote>"
5955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5956 #: freeculture.xml:4077
5958 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
5959 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
5960 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
5964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5965 #: freeculture.xml:4089
5967 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
5968 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
5969 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
5970 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
5971 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
5972 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
5975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5976 #: freeculture.xml:4083
5978 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
5979 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
5980 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
5981 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5982 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
5983 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
5984 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
5985 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
5986 "<emphasis>to the company</emphasis> to make it available."
5989 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5990 #: freeculture.xml:4102 freeculture.xml:4110 freeculture.xml:4131 freeculture.xml:4155 freeculture.xml:4667 freeculture.xml:6124 freeculture.xml:6129 freeculture.xml:6181 freeculture.xml:7148 freeculture.xml:7149 freeculture.xml:7535 freeculture.xml:7609 freeculture.xml:7893 freeculture.xml:14376 freeculture.xml:15102 freeculture.xml:15103
5994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5995 #: freeculture.xml:4102 freeculture.xml:4110 freeculture.xml:7148 freeculture.xml:15103
5999 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6000 #: freeculture.xml:4110
6002 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> While there are not good "
6003 "estimates of the number of used record stores in existence, in 2002, there "
6004 "were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, an increase of 20 percent "
6005 "since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, <citetitle>The Quiet Revolution: The "
6006 "Expansion of the Used Book Market</citetitle> (2002), available at <ulink "
6007 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #19</ulink>. Used records "
6008 "accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See National Association of "
6009 "Recording Merchandisers, <quote>2002 Annual Survey Results,</quote> "
6010 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
6013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6014 #: freeculture.xml:4104
6016 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
6017 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
6018 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
6019 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
6020 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
6021 "sell this content, <emphasis>even if the content is still under "
6022 "copyright</emphasis>, the copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and "
6023 "record stores are commercial entities; their owners make money from the "
6024 "content they sell; but as with cable companies before statutory licensing, "
6025 "they don't have to pay the copyright owner for the content they sell."
6028 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
6029 #: freeculture.xml:4131 freeculture.xml:6124 freeculture.xml:6129 freeculture.xml:7149 freeculture.xml:15102
6030 msgid "out of print"
6033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6034 #: freeculture.xml:4132
6035 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
6038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6039 #: freeculture.xml:4133 freeculture.xml:7610
6043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6044 #: freeculture.xml:4135
6046 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
6047 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
6048 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
6049 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
6050 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
6051 "of Bernstein's <quote>Two Love Songs,</quote> I still have it. That "
6052 "difference would matter economically if the owner of the copyright were "
6053 "selling the record in competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the "
6054 "class of content that is not currently commercially available. The Internet "
6055 "is making it available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with "
6059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6060 #: freeculture.xml:4148
6062 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
6063 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
6064 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
6065 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
6066 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
6070 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
6071 #: freeculture.xml:4155 freeculture.xml:14376
6072 msgid "free on-line releases of"
6075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6076 #: freeculture.xml:4156
6077 msgid "Doctorow, Cory"
6080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6081 #: freeculture.xml:4157
6082 msgid "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (Doctorow)"
6086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6087 #: freeculture.xml:4159
6089 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
6090 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
6091 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
6092 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
6093 "for example, released his first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
6094 "Kingdom</citetitle>, both free on-line and in bookstores on the same "
6095 "day. His (and his publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution "
6096 "would be a great advertisement for the <quote>real</quote> book. People "
6097 "would read part on-line, and then decide whether they liked the book or "
6098 "not. If they liked it, they would be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's "
6099 "content is type D content. If sharing networks enable his work to be spread, "
6100 "then both he and society are better off. (Actually, much better off: It is a "
6104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6105 #: freeculture.xml:4177
6107 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
6108 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
6109 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
6110 "important in order to protect type A content."
6113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6114 #: freeculture.xml:4183
6116 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
6117 "says, <quote>This is how much we've lost,</quote> we must also ask, "
6118 "<quote>How much has society gained from p2p sharing? What are the "
6119 "efficiencies? What is the content that otherwise would be "
6120 "unavailable?</quote>"
6123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6124 #: freeculture.xml:4191
6126 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
6127 "of the <quote>piracy</quote> that file sharing enables is plainly legal and "
6128 "good. And like the piracy I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
6129 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"pirates\"/>, much of this piracy is motivated by a "
6130 "new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
6131 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
6132 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
6133 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
6134 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
6135 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
6136 "balance will be found only with time."
6139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6140 #: freeculture.xml:4205
6142 "<quote>But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the "
6143 "target just what you call type A sharing?</quote>"
6147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6148 #: freeculture.xml:4222
6150 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
6151 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
6152 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
6153 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, "
6154 "<citetitle>All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's "
6155 "Napster</citetitle> (New York: Crown Business, 2003), 269–82."
6158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6159 #: freeculture.xml:4209
6161 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
6162 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
6163 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
6164 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
6165 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
6166 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
6167 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements <quote>down to "
6168 "zero.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6172 #: freeculture.xml:4233
6174 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
6175 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
6176 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
6177 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
6178 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
6179 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
6180 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
6181 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
6182 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
6185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6186 #: freeculture.xml:4244
6188 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
6189 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
6190 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
6191 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
6192 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
6193 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
6197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6198 #: freeculture.xml:4253
6199 msgid "composers, copyright protections of"
6202 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6203 #: freeculture.xml:4258
6204 msgid "music recordings played on"
6207 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6208 #: freeculture.xml:4260
6209 msgid "copyright protections in"
6212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6213 #: freeculture.xml:4263
6214 msgid "composer's rights vs. producers' rights in"
6217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6218 #: freeculture.xml:4265
6220 "So, as we've seen, when <quote>mechanical reproduction</quote> threatened "
6221 "the interests of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers "
6222 "against the interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to "
6223 "composers, but also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but "
6224 "at a price set by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the "
6225 "recordings made by these recording artists, and they complained to Congress "
6226 "that their <quote>creative property</quote> was not being respected (since "
6227 "the radio station did not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), "
6228 "Congress rejected their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
6231 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6232 #: freeculture.xml:4278
6234 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
6235 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
6236 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
6237 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
6238 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
6242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6243 #: freeculture.xml:4289
6245 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
6246 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
6247 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
6248 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
6249 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
6250 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
6251 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
6252 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
6253 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
6254 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
6255 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure "
6256 "<emphasis>compensation</emphasis> without giving the past (broadcasters) "
6257 "control over the future (cable)."
6260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6261 #: freeculture.xml:4307
6265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6266 #: freeculture.xml:4310
6268 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
6269 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
6270 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
6271 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
6272 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
6273 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
6274 "device that Sony built had a <quote>record</quote> button, the device could "
6275 "be used to record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore "
6276 "benefiting from the copyright infringement of its customers. It should "
6277 "therefore, Disney and Universal claimed, be partially liable for that "
6282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6283 #: freeculture.xml:4324
6285 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
6286 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
6287 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
6288 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
6289 "only if there were a special <quote>copy me</quote> signal on the line. It "
6290 "was clear that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone "
6291 "permission to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of "
6292 "shows would not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious "
6293 "preference, Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity "
6294 "for copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
6295 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
6298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6299 #: freeculture.xml:4339
6300 msgid "on VCR technology"
6304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6305 #: freeculture.xml:4348
6307 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
6308 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
6309 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
6310 "of America, Inc.)."
6314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6315 #: freeculture.xml:4360
6316 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
6320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6321 #: freeculture.xml:4365
6323 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6324 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 480 F. Supp. 429, (C.D. Cal., 1979)."
6328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6329 #: freeculture.xml:4376
6331 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
6335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6336 #: freeculture.xml:4341
6338 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
6339 "called VCRs <quote>tapeworms.</quote> He warned, <quote>When there are 20, "
6340 "30, 40 million of these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of "
6341 "`tapeworms,' eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious "
6342 "asset the copyright owner has, his copyright.</quote><placeholder "
6343 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <quote>One does not have to be trained in "
6344 "sophisticated marketing and creative judgment,</quote> he told Congress, "
6345 "<quote>to understand the devastation on the after-theater marketplace caused "
6346 "by the hundreds of millions of tapings that will adversely impact on the "
6347 "future of the creative community in this country. It is simply a question of "
6348 "basic economics and plain common sense.</quote><placeholder "
6349 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would later show, 45 percent "
6350 "of VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or more<placeholder "
6351 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would later hold was "
6352 "not <quote>fair.</quote> By <quote>allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
6353 "means of an exemption from copyright infringement without creating a "
6354 "mechanism to compensate copyright owners,</quote> Valenti testified, "
6355 "Congress would <quote>take from the owners the very essence of their "
6356 "property: the exclusive right to control who may use their work, that is, "
6357 "who may copy it and thereby profit from its "
6358 "reproduction.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"3\"/>"
6362 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6363 #: freeculture.xml:4394
6365 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6366 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th Cir. 1981)."
6369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
6370 #: freeculture.xml:4397
6371 msgid "Kozinski, Alex"
6374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6375 #: freeculture.xml:4382
6377 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
6378 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
6379 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
6380 "refers to it as the <quote>Hollywood Circuit</quote>—held that Sony "
6381 "would be liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its "
6382 "machines. Under the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar "
6383 "technology—which Jack Valenti had called <quote>the Boston Strangler "
6384 "of the American film industry</quote> (worse yet, it was a "
6385 "<emphasis>Japanese</emphasis> Boston Strangler of the American film "
6386 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6387 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6392 #: freeculture.xml:4400
6394 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
6395 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
6396 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
6400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6401 #: freeculture.xml:4419
6403 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6404 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 431 (1984)."
6407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
6408 #: freeculture.xml:4409
6410 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
6411 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
6412 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
6413 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
6414 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
6415 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6418 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6419 #: freeculture.xml:4425
6421 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
6422 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
6423 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
6424 "<quote>taking</quote> notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a "
6428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6429 #: freeculture.xml:4436
6433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6434 #: freeculture.xml:4437
6435 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS <quote>PIRATED</quote>"
6438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6439 #: freeculture.xml:4438
6440 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
6443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6444 #: freeculture.xml:4439
6445 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
6448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6449 #: freeculture.xml:4444
6453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6454 #: freeculture.xml:4445
6458 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6459 #: freeculture.xml:4446 freeculture.xml:4458 freeculture.xml:4464
6460 msgid "No protection"
6463 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6464 #: freeculture.xml:4447 freeculture.xml:4459
6465 msgid "Statutory license"
6468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6469 #: freeculture.xml:4451
6470 msgid "Recording artists"
6473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6474 #: freeculture.xml:4452
6478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6479 #: freeculture.xml:4453 freeculture.xml:4465
6483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6484 #: freeculture.xml:4457
6485 msgid "Broadcasters"
6488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6489 #: freeculture.xml:4462
6493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6494 #: freeculture.xml:4463
6495 msgid "Film creators"
6498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6499 #: freeculture.xml:4475
6501 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
6502 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
6503 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
6504 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
6505 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
6506 "<citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. "
6507 "4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not "
6508 "eliminate the opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See "
6509 "Lessig, <citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 71. See also Picker, <quote>From "
6510 "Edison to the Broadcast Flag,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law "
6511 "Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 293–96. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6512 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6516 #: freeculture.xml:4472
6518 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
6519 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
6520 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a "
6521 "<quote>free ride</quote> on someone else's work."
6525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6526 #: freeculture.xml:4493
6528 "In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these cases did either the courts or "
6529 "Congress eliminate all free riding. In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these "
6530 "cases did the courts or Congress insist that the law should assure that the "
6531 "copyright holder get all the value that his copyright created. In every "
6532 "case, the copyright owners complained of <quote>piracy.</quote> In every "
6533 "case, Congress acted to recognize some of the legitimacy in the behavior of "
6534 "the <quote>pirates.</quote> In each case, Congress allowed some new "
6535 "technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced the interests at "
6539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6540 #: freeculture.xml:4506
6542 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
6543 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
6544 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
6545 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
6546 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
6547 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
6548 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
6549 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
6552 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6553 #: freeculture.xml:4517
6554 msgid "on balance of interests in copyright law"
6558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6559 #: freeculture.xml:4524
6561 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6562 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
6565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6566 #: freeculture.xml:4519
6568 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
6569 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
6570 "<quote>has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all "
6571 "possible uses of his work.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6572 "Instead, the particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by "
6573 "balancing the good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the "
6574 "burdens such an exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically "
6575 "been done <emphasis>after</emphasis> a technology has matured, or settled "
6576 "into the mix of technologies that facilitate the distribution of content."
6579 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6580 #: freeculture.xml:4535
6582 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
6583 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
6584 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
6585 "become a tool for <quote>stealing</quote> from artists. But neither should "
6586 "the law become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or "
6587 "more accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the "
6588 "last chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we "
6589 "allow the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
6590 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
6591 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
6592 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
6596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6597 #: freeculture.xml:4559
6599 "John Schwartz, <quote>New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software "
6600 "Echoes Past Efforts,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 22 "
6601 "September 2003, C3."
6604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6605 #: freeculture.xml:4551
6607 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
6608 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
6609 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
6610 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
6611 "<quote>potential public benefits,</quote> as John Schwartz writes in "
6612 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, <quote>could be delayed in the "
6613 "P2P fight.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6617 #: freeculture.xml:4564
6619 "<emphasis role='strong'>Yet when anyone</emphasis> begins to talk about "
6620 "<quote>balance,</quote> the copyright warriors raise a different "
6621 "argument. <quote>All this hand waving about balance and incentives,</quote> "
6622 "they say, <quote>misses a fundamental point. Our content,</quote> the "
6623 "warriors insist, <quote>is our <emphasis>property</emphasis>. Why should we "
6624 "wait for Congress to `rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait "
6625 "before calling the police when your car has been stolen? And why should "
6626 "Congress deliberate at all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether "
6627 "the car thief had a good use for the car before we arrest him?</quote>"
6630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6631 #: freeculture.xml:4576
6633 "<quote>It is <emphasis>our property</emphasis>,</quote> the warriors "
6634 "insist. <quote>And it should be protected just as any other property is "
6635 "protected.</quote>"
6638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
6639 #: freeculture.xml:4585
6640 msgid "<quote>PROPERTY</quote>"
6644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6645 #: freeculture.xml:4590
6647 "<emphasis role='strong'>The copyright warriors</emphasis> are right: A "
6648 "copyright is a kind of property. It can be owned and sold, and the law "
6649 "protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the copyright owner gets to hold out "
6650 "for any price he wants. Markets reckon the supply and demand that partially "
6651 "determine the price she can get."
6654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6655 #: freeculture.xml:4597
6657 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a <quote>property</quote> "
6658 "right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of "
6659 "property. Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression "
6660 "is very odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you "
6661 "put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I "
6662 "take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good "
6663 "<emphasis>idea</emphasis> you had to put a picnic table in the "
6664 "backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting "
6665 "it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking then?"
6668 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
6669 #: freeculture.xml:4608 freeculture.xml:6415 freeculture.xml:14363
6670 msgid "Jefferson, Thomas"
6674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6675 #: freeculture.xml:4623
6677 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in "
6678 "<citetitle>The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</citetitle>, vol. 6 (Andrew "
6679 "A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
6682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6683 #: freeculture.xml:4610
6685 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
6686 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
6687 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
6688 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
6689 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
6690 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
6691 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
6692 "copy the way someone else dresses), <quote>He who receives an idea from me, "
6693 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
6694 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.</quote><placeholder "
6695 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
6699 #: freeculture.xml:4628
6700 msgid "intangibility of"
6703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6704 #: freeculture.xml:4630
6706 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
6707 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
6708 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
6709 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
6713 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6714 #: freeculture.xml:4643
6716 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
6717 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
6718 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
6719 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
6720 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, "
6721 "<quote>What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,</quote> "
6722 "<citetitle>Arizona Law Review</citetitle> 45 (2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
6725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6726 #: freeculture.xml:4638
6728 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
6729 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
6730 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this "
6731 "<quote>property</quote> in its proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6736 #: freeculture.xml:4653
6738 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
6739 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of <quote>copyright material "
6740 "is property</quote> in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its "
6741 "limits? How does it function in practice? After these stories, the "
6742 "significance of this true statement—<quote>copyright material is "
6743 "property</quote>— will be a bit more clear, and its implications will "
6744 "be revealed as quite different from the implications that the copyright "
6745 "warriors would have us draw."
6748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6749 #: freeculture.xml:4666
6750 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
6753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6754 #: freeculture.xml:4667
6755 msgid "English copyright law developed for"
6758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6759 #: freeculture.xml:4670
6760 msgid "England, copyright laws developed in"
6763 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6764 #: freeculture.xml:4671 freeculture.xml:13904
6765 msgid "United Kingdom"
6768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6769 #: freeculture.xml:4671
6770 msgid "history of copyright law in"
6773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6774 #: freeculture.xml:4672 freeculture.xml:4842
6775 msgid "Branagh, Kenneth"
6778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6779 #: freeculture.xml:4673
6783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6784 #: freeculture.xml:4675 freeculture.xml:4807
6785 msgid "Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)"
6788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6789 #: freeculture.xml:4677
6791 "<emphasis role='strong'>William Shakespeare</emphasis> wrote "
6792 "<citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> in 1595. The play was first "
6793 "published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play that Shakespeare had "
6794 "written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, and the plays that "
6795 "he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture ever since. So "
6796 "deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped into our culture "
6797 "that we often don't even recognize their source. I once overheard someone "
6798 "commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: <quote>I liked it, "
6799 "but Shakespeare is so full of clichés.</quote>"
6802 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6803 #: freeculture.xml:4688 freeculture.xml:4772 freeculture.xml:4881 freeculture.xml:5014
6807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6808 #: freeculture.xml:4689
6809 msgid "Tonson, Jacob"
6812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6813 #: freeculture.xml:4695
6817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6818 #: freeculture.xml:4696
6819 msgid "Dryden, John"
6822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6823 #: freeculture.xml:4695
6825 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6826 "id=\"1\"/> Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with "
6827 "prominent eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and "
6828 "for his handsome <quote>definitive editions</quote> of classic works. In "
6829 "addition to <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle>, he published an "
6830 "astonishing array of works that still remain at the heart of the English "
6831 "canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, "
6832 "and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, <quote>Jacob Tonson, Bookseller,</quote> "
6833 "<citetitle>American Scholar</citetitle> 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
6837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6838 #: freeculture.xml:4708
6840 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6841 "Perspective</citetitle> (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), "
6846 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6847 #: freeculture.xml:4691
6849 "In 1774, almost 180 years after <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> was "
6850 "written, the <quote>copy-right</quote> for the work was still thought by "
6851 "many to be the exclusive right of a single London publisher, Jacob "
6852 "Tonson.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most "
6853 "prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<placeholder "
6854 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who controlled bookselling in England during "
6855 "the eighteenth century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "
6856 "<quote>copy</quote> of books that they had acquired from authors. That "
6857 "perpetual right meant that no one else could publish copies of a book to "
6858 "which they held the copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; "
6859 "competition to produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated."
6862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6863 #: freeculture.xml:4720 freeculture.xml:4773 freeculture.xml:4913 freeculture.xml:5094 freeculture.xml:5250
6864 msgid "British Parliament"
6867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6868 #: freeculture.xml:4722 freeculture.xml:7086
6869 msgid "renewability of"
6872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6873 #: freeculture.xml:4723 freeculture.xml:4775 freeculture.xml:4819 freeculture.xml:4926 freeculture.xml:5013 freeculture.xml:7076
6874 msgid "Statute of Anne (1710)"
6877 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6878 #: freeculture.xml:4734
6880 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely "
6881 "argues, it is erroneous to call this a <quote>copyright law.</quote> See "
6882 "Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 40."
6885 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6886 #: freeculture.xml:4725
6888 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
6889 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
6890 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
6891 "<quote>copyright</quote> act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated "
6892 "that all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, "
6893 "renewable once if the author was alive, and that all works already published "
6894 "by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
6895 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, <citetitle>Romeo and "
6896 "Juliet</citetitle> should have been free in 1731. So why was there any issue "
6897 "about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?"
6900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6901 #: freeculture.xml:4743 freeculture.xml:4967
6902 msgid "common vs. positive"
6905 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6906 #: freeculture.xml:4744 freeculture.xml:4968
6907 msgid "positive law"
6910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6911 #: freeculture.xml:4745
6912 msgid "Licensing Act (1662)"
6915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6916 #: freeculture.xml:4747
6918 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "
6919 "<quote>copyright</quote> was—indeed, no one had. At the time the "
6920 "English passed the Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing "
6921 "copyrights. The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, "
6922 "had expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as "
6923 "a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published. But "
6924 "after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the publishers, "
6925 "or <quote>Stationers,</quote> had an exclusive right to print books."
6928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6929 #: freeculture.xml:4758 freeculture.xml:4966 freeculture.xml:5037 freeculture.xml:5137
6933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6934 #: freeculture.xml:4760
6936 "There was no <emphasis>positive</emphasis> law, but that didn't mean that "
6937 "there was no law. The Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words "
6938 "of legislatures and the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern "
6939 "how people are to behave. We call the words from legislatures "
6940 "<quote>positive law.</quote> We call the words from judges <quote>common "
6941 "law.</quote> The common law sets the background against which legislatures "
6942 "legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that background only if it "
6943 "passes a law to displace it. And so the real question after the licensing "
6944 "statutes had expired was whether the common law protected a copyright, "
6945 "independent of any positive law."
6948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6949 #: freeculture.xml:4774 freeculture.xml:5003 freeculture.xml:5111 freeculture.xml:5189
6950 msgid "Scottish publishers"
6954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6955 #: freeculture.xml:4777
6957 "This question was important to the publishers, or "
6958 "<quote>booksellers,</quote> as they were called, because there was growing "
6959 "competition from foreign publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were "
6960 "increasingly publishing and exporting books to England. That competition "
6961 "reduced the profits of the Conger, which reacted by demanding that "
6962 "Parliament pass a law to again give them exclusive control over "
6963 "publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in the Statute of Anne."
6966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6967 #: freeculture.xml:4788
6968 msgid "as narrow monopoly right"
6971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6972 #: freeculture.xml:4790
6974 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or <quote>proprietor</quote> of a "
6975 "book an exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, "
6976 "however, and to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller "
6977 "that right for a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright "
6978 "<quote>expired,</quote> and the work would then be free and could be "
6979 "published by anyone. Or so the legislature is thought to have believed."
6982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6983 #: freeculture.xml:4800
6985 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
6986 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
6987 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right <emphasis>at "
6991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6992 #: freeculture.xml:4809
6994 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
6995 "strong claim. Take <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> as an example: "
6996 "That play was written by Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into "
6997 "the world. He didn't take anybody's property when he created this play "
6998 "(that's a controversial claim, but never mind), and by his creating this "
6999 "play, he didn't make it any harder for others to craft a play. So why is it "
7000 "that the law would ever allow someone else to come along and take "
7001 "Shakespeare's play without his, or his estate's, permission? What reason is "
7002 "there to allow someone else to <quote>steal</quote> Shakespeare's work?"
7005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7006 #: freeculture.xml:4821
7008 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
7009 "the notion of <quote>copyright</quote> that existed at the time of the "
7010 "Statute of Anne. Second, we have to see something important about "
7011 "<quote>booksellers.</quote>"
7014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
7015 #: freeculture.xml:4826 freeculture.xml:7601 freeculture.xml:7768
7016 msgid "usage restrictions attached to"
7020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7021 #: freeculture.xml:4828
7023 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
7024 "apply the concept of <quote>copyright</quote> ever more broadly. But in "
7025 "1710, it wasn't so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The "
7026 "copyright was born as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others "
7027 "from reprinting a book. In 1710, the <quote>copy-right</quote> was a right "
7028 "to use a particular machine to replicate a particular work. It did not go "
7029 "beyond that very narrow right. It did not control any more generally how a "
7030 "work could be <emphasis>used</emphasis>. Today the right includes a large "
7031 "collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It grants the author "
7032 "the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to distribute, the "
7033 "exclusive right to perform, and so on."
7036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7037 #: freeculture.xml:4845
7039 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
7040 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
7041 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
7042 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
7043 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
7044 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
7045 "<quote>copy-right</quote> was only an exclusive right to print—no "
7046 "less, of course, but also no more."
7049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7050 #: freeculture.xml:4854
7051 msgid "Henry VIII, King of England"
7054 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7055 #: freeculture.xml:4855
7056 msgid "monopoly, copyright as"
7059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7060 #: freeculture.xml:4856
7061 msgid "Statute of Monopolies (1656)"
7064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7065 #: freeculture.xml:4858
7067 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
7068 "had a long and ugly experience with <quote>exclusive rights,</quote> "
7069 "especially <quote>exclusive rights</quote> granted by the Crown. The English "
7070 "had fought a civil war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
7071 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
7072 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
7073 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
7074 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
7075 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
7076 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
7079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7080 #: freeculture.xml:4871
7082 "Thus the <quote>copy-right,</quote> when viewed as a monopoly right, was "
7083 "naturally viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the "
7084 "claim that <quote>it's my property, and I should have it forever,</quote> "
7085 "try sounding convincing when uttering, <quote>It's my monopoly, and I should "
7086 "have it forever.</quote>) The state would protect the exclusive right, but "
7087 "only so long as it benefited society. The British saw the harms from "
7088 "specialinterest favors; they passed a law to stop them."
7091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7092 #: freeculture.xml:4879 freeculture.xml:5172
7093 msgid "Milton, John"
7096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7097 #: freeculture.xml:4880
7098 msgid "booksellers, English"
7102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7103 #: freeculture.xml:4899
7105 "Philip Wittenberg, <citetitle>The Protection and Marketing of Literary "
7106 "Property</citetitle> (New York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
7109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7110 #: freeculture.xml:4884
7112 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
7113 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
7114 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
7115 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
7116 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
7117 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
7118 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
7119 "described them as <quote>old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
7120 "book-selling</quote>; they were <quote>men who do not therefore labour in an "
7121 "honest profession to which learning is indetted.</quote><placeholder "
7122 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7126 #: freeculture.xml:4903
7127 msgid "Enlightenment"
7130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7131 #: freeculture.xml:4904
7132 msgid "knowledge, freedom of"
7135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7136 #: freeculture.xml:4906
7138 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
7139 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
7140 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
7141 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
7142 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
7145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7146 #: freeculture.xml:4915
7148 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
7149 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
7150 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
7151 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
7152 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
7153 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
7154 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
7155 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
7159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7160 #: freeculture.xml:4928 freeculture.xml:5063 freeculture.xml:5157 freeculture.xml:11106
7161 msgid "in perpetuity"
7164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7165 #: freeculture.xml:4930
7167 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
7168 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
7169 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
7170 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
7171 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
7172 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
7176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7177 #: freeculture.xml:4939
7179 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
7184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
7185 #: freeculture.xml:4954
7187 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
7188 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
7189 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
7190 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
7191 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
7192 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
7193 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618)."
7196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7197 #: freeculture.xml:4944
7199 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
7200 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
7201 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
7202 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
7203 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
7204 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
7205 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7209 #: freeculture.xml:4970
7211 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
7212 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
7213 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
7214 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
7215 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
7216 "already wrong to take another person's creative <quote>property</quote> and "
7217 "use it without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, "
7218 "didn't change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute "
7219 "of Anne expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: "
7220 "Under the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, "
7221 "even if its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was "
7222 "the only way to protect authors."
7225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
7226 #: freeculture.xml:4992 freeculture.xml:5002 freeculture.xml:5045
7227 msgid "Patterson, Raymond"
7230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7231 #: freeculture.xml:4992
7233 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7234 "id=\"1\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, <quote>Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair "
7235 "Use,</quote> <citetitle>Vanderbilt Law Review</citetitle> 40 (1987): 28. For "
7236 "a wonderfully compelling account, see Vaidhyanathan, 37–48."
7239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7240 #: freeculture.xml:4986
7242 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
7243 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
7244 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, <quote>The publishers "
7245 "… had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
7246 "cattle.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller "
7247 "didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the "
7248 "monopoly profit that the author's work gave."
7251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7252 #: freeculture.xml:5001 freeculture.xml:5110
7253 msgid "Donaldson, Alexander"
7257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7258 #: freeculture.xml:5009
7260 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, <citetitle>Authorship and "
7261 "Copyright</citetitle> (London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
7264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7265 #: freeculture.xml:5005
7267 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
7268 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
7269 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7273 #: freeculture.xml:5015
7274 msgid "Boswell, James"
7277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7278 #: freeculture.xml:5016
7279 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
7282 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7283 #: freeculture.xml:5025 freeculture.xml:15526
7287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7288 #: freeculture.xml:5023
7290 "Mark Rose, <citetitle>Authors and Owners</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard "
7291 "University Press, 1993), 92. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7296 #: freeculture.xml:5034
7300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7301 #: freeculture.xml:5018
7303 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
7304 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints "
7305 "<quote>of standard works whose copyright term had expired,</quote> at least "
7306 "under the Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
7307 "Donaldson's publishing house prospered and became <quote>something of a "
7308 "center for literary Scotsmen.</quote> <quote>[A]mong them,</quote> Professor "
7309 "Mark Rose writes, was <quote>the young James Boswell who, together with his "
7310 "friend Andrew Erskine, published an anthology of contemporary Scottish poems "
7311 "with Donaldson.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
7314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7315 #: freeculture.xml:5045
7317 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, "
7318 "<citetitle>Copyright in Historical Perspective</citetitle>, 167 (quoting "
7322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7323 #: freeculture.xml:5039
7325 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
7326 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
7327 "editions <quote>of the most popular English books, in defiance of the "
7328 "supposed common law right of Literary Property.</quote><placeholder "
7329 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to "
7330 "50 percent, and he rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under "
7331 "the Statute of Anne, the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
7334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7335 #: freeculture.xml:5054
7336 msgid "Millar v. Taylor"
7339 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7340 #: freeculture.xml:5056
7342 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block <quote>piracy</quote> "
7343 "like Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the "
7344 "<quote>pirates,</quote> the most important early victory being "
7345 "<citetitle>Millar</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Taylor</citetitle>."
7348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7349 #: freeculture.xml:5062 freeculture.xml:5116
7350 msgid "Thomson, James"
7353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7354 #: freeculture.xml:5064
7355 msgid "Seasons, The (Thomson)"
7358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7359 #: freeculture.xml:5065
7360 msgid "Taylor, Robert"
7364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7365 #: freeculture.xml:5074
7367 "Howard B. Abrams, <quote>The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
7368 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Wayne Law "
7369 "Review</citetitle> 29 (1983): 1152."
7372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7373 #: freeculture.xml:5067
7375 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
7376 "Thomson's poem <quote>The Seasons.</quote> Millar complied with the "
7377 "requirements of the Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full "
7378 "protection of the statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor "
7379 "began printing a competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common "
7380 "law right, the Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder "
7381 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7385 #: freeculture.xml:5081
7387 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
7388 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
7389 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
7390 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
7391 "author against subsequent <quote>pirates.</quote> Mansfield's answer was "
7392 "yes: The common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without "
7393 "Millar's permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the "
7394 "booksellers a perpetual right to control the publication of any book "
7399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7400 #: freeculture.xml:5096
7402 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
7403 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
7404 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
7405 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
7406 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
7407 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
7408 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
7409 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
7410 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
7411 "the free culture that we inherited."
7414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7415 #: freeculture.xml:5113
7417 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
7418 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
7421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7422 #: freeculture.xml:5117
7423 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
7426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7427 #: freeculture.xml:5118 freeculture.xml:5225
7428 msgid "House of Lords"
7431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7432 #: freeculture.xml:5119
7433 msgid "House of Lords vs."
7437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7438 #: freeculture.xml:5125
7439 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
7442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7443 #: freeculture.xml:5121
7445 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
7446 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
7447 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
7448 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
7449 "decision in <citetitle>Millar</citetitle>, got an injunction against "
7450 "Donaldson. Donaldson appealed the case to the House of Lords, which "
7451 "functioned much like our own Supreme Court. In February of 1774, that body "
7452 "had the chance to interpret the meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty "
7456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7457 #: freeculture.xml:5136
7458 msgid "Donaldson v. Beckett"
7461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7462 #: freeculture.xml:5139
7464 "As few legal cases ever do, <citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> "
7465 "v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle> drew an enormous amount of attention "
7466 "throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever rights may have "
7467 "existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated those "
7468 "rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal protection for "
7469 "an exclusive right to control publication came from that statute. Thus, they "
7470 "argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne expired, works that "
7471 "had been protected by the statute were no longer protected."
7474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7475 #: freeculture.xml:5150
7477 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
7478 "the House and voted upon first by the <quote>law lords,</quote> members of "
7479 "special legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our "
7480 "Supreme Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally "
7484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7485 #: freeculture.xml:5158 freeculture.xml:5226
7486 msgid "English legal establishment of"
7490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7491 #: freeculture.xml:5160
7493 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
7494 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
7495 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
7496 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
7497 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
7498 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
7502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7503 #: freeculture.xml:5169
7504 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
7507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7508 #: freeculture.xml:5170
7509 msgid "Bunyan, John"
7512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7513 #: freeculture.xml:5171
7514 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
7517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7518 #: freeculture.xml:5175
7520 "<quote>The public domain.</quote> Before the case of "
7521 "<citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle>, there "
7522 "was no clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a "
7523 "strong argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the "
7524 "public domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the "
7525 "legal control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
7526 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
7527 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint."
7531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7532 #: freeculture.xml:5201
7536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7537 #: freeculture.xml:5191
7539 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
7540 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
7541 "of the <quote>pirate publishers</quote> did their work, people celebrated "
7542 "the decision in the streets. As the <citetitle>Edinburgh "
7543 "Advertiser</citetitle> reported, <quote>No private cause has so much "
7544 "engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried before the "
7545 "House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
7546 "interested.</quote> <quote>Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over "
7547 "literary property: bonfires and illuminations.</quote><placeholder "
7548 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7552 #: freeculture.xml:5206
7554 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
7555 "strong in the opposite direction. The <citetitle>Morning "
7556 "Chronicle</citetitle> reported:"
7559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7560 #: freeculture.xml:5212
7562 "By the above decision … near 200,000 pounds worth of what was "
7563 "honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property "
7564 "is now reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many "
7565 "of whom sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner "
7566 "ruined, and those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a "
7567 "competency to provide for their families now find themselves without a "
7568 "shilling to devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7574 #: freeculture.xml:5229
7576 "<quote>Ruined</quote> is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an "
7577 "exaggeration to say that the change was profound. The decision of the House "
7578 "of Lords meant that the booksellers could no longer control how culture in "
7579 "England would grow and develop. Culture in England was thereafter "
7580 "<emphasis>free</emphasis>. Not in the sense that copyrights would not be "
7581 "respected, for of course, for a limited time after a work was published, the "
7582 "bookseller had an exclusive right to control the publication of that "
7583 "book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, for even after a "
7584 "copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from someone. But "
7585 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> in the sense that the culture and its growth would "
7586 "no longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
7587 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
7588 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
7589 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
7590 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a "
7591 "<emphasis>competitive context</emphasis>, not a context in which the choices "
7592 "about what culture is available to people and how they get access to it are "
7593 "made by the few despite the wishes of the many."
7596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7597 #: freeculture.xml:5252
7599 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
7600 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
7601 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
7604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7605 #: freeculture.xml:5269
7606 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
7609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
7610 #: freeculture.xml:5270 freeculture.xml:7570 freeculture.xml:7689 freeculture.xml:7748
7611 msgid "fair use and"
7614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7615 #: freeculture.xml:5271
7616 msgid "documentary film"
7619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7620 #: freeculture.xml:5272
7624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
7625 #: freeculture.xml:5273 freeculture.xml:5420 freeculture.xml:7569 freeculture.xml:7611 freeculture.xml:7688 freeculture.xml:7750
7629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7630 #: freeculture.xml:5273
7631 msgid "in documentary film"
7634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7635 #: freeculture.xml:5274
7636 msgid "fair use of copyrighted material in"
7639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7640 #: freeculture.xml:5276
7642 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jon Else</emphasis> is a filmmaker. He is best known "
7643 "for his documentaries and has been very successful in spreading his art. He "
7644 "is also a teacher, and as a teacher myself, I envy the loyalty and "
7645 "admiration that his students feel for him. (I met, by accident, two of his "
7646 "students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
7649 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7650 #: freeculture.xml:5283
7652 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
7653 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
7656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7657 #: freeculture.xml:5287 freeculture.xml:5353
7658 msgid "Wagner, Richard"
7661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7662 #: freeculture.xml:5288 freeculture.xml:5367
7663 msgid "San Francisco Opera"
7666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7667 #: freeculture.xml:5290
7669 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
7670 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
7671 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
7672 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
7673 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage."
7676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7677 #: freeculture.xml:5297
7678 msgid "Simpsons, The"
7682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7683 #: freeculture.xml:5299
7685 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
7686 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
7687 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
7688 "played Wagner, was <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. As Else judged it, "
7689 "this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special about "
7693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7694 #: freeculture.xml:5308
7695 msgid "multiple copyrights associated with"
7698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7699 #: freeculture.xml:5310
7701 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
7702 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of <citetitle>The "
7703 "Simpsons</citetitle>. For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and "
7704 "of course, to use copyrighted material you need the permission of the "
7705 "copyright owner, unless <quote>fair use</quote> or some other privilege "
7709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7710 #: freeculture.xml:5316
7711 msgid "Gracie Films"
7714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7715 #: freeculture.xml:5317 freeculture.xml:5378 freeculture.xml:5442
7716 msgid "Groening, Matt"
7719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7720 #: freeculture.xml:5319
7722 "Else called <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> creator Matt Groening's office "
7723 "to get permission. Groening approved the shot. The shot was a "
7724 "four-and-a-halfsecond image on a tiny television set in the corner of the "
7725 "room. How could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he "
7726 "told Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program."
7729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7730 #: freeculture.xml:5325 freeculture.xml:5377 freeculture.xml:5441
7731 msgid "Fox (film company)"
7734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7735 #: freeculture.xml:5327
7737 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
7738 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
7739 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
7740 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
7741 "just confirming the permission with Fox."
7744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7745 #: freeculture.xml:5335
7747 "Then, as Else told me, <quote>two things happened. First we discovered "
7748 "… that Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least "
7749 "that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.</quote> And "
7750 "second, Fox <quote>wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to "
7751 "use this four-point-five seconds of … entirely unsolicited "
7752 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> which was in the corner of the shot.</quote>"
7755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7756 #: freeculture.xml:5344
7757 msgid "Herrera, Rebecca"
7760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7761 #: freeculture.xml:5346
7763 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
7764 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
7765 "to her, <quote>There must be some mistake here. … We're asking for "
7766 "your educational rate on this.</quote> That was the educational rate, "
7767 "Herrera told Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he "
7772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7773 #: freeculture.xml:5355
7775 "<quote>I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,</quote> he told "
7776 "me. <quote>Yes, you have your facts straight,</quote> she said. It would "
7777 "cost $10,000 to use the clip of <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle> in the "
7778 "corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's Ring Cycle. And then, "
7779 "astonishingly, Herrera told Else, <quote>And if you quote me, I'll turn you "
7780 "over to our attorneys.</quote> As an assistant to Herrera told Else later "
7781 "on, <quote>They don't give a shit. They just want the money.</quote>"
7784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7785 #: freeculture.xml:5368
7786 msgid "Day After Trinity, The"
7789 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7790 #: freeculture.xml:5370
7792 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
7793 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
7794 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
7795 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
7796 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, <citetitle>The Day "
7797 "After Trinity</citetitle>, from ten years before."
7800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7801 #: freeculture.xml:5380
7803 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
7804 "copyright to <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. That copyright is their "
7805 "property. To use that copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the "
7806 "permission of the copyright owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of "
7807 "the <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> copyright were one of the uses "
7808 "restricted by the law, then he would need to get the permission of the "
7809 "copyright owner before he could use the work in that way. And in a free "
7810 "market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set the price for any "
7811 "use that the law says the owner gets to control."
7814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7815 #: freeculture.xml:5391
7817 "For example, <quote>public performance</quote> is a use of <citetitle>The "
7818 "Simpsons</citetitle> that the copyright owner gets to control. If you take a "
7819 "selection of favorite episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets "
7820 "to come see <quote>My Favorite <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>,</quote> then "
7821 "you need to get permission from the copyright owner. And the copyright owner "
7822 "(rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she wants—$10 or "
7823 "$1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
7827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7828 #: freeculture.xml:5403
7830 "For an excellent argument that such use is <quote>fair use,</quote> but that "
7831 "lawyers don't permit recognition that it is <quote>fair use,</quote> see "
7832 "Richard A. Posner with William F. Patry, <quote>Fair Use and Statutory "
7833 "Reform in the Wake of <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle></quote> (draft on file "
7834 "with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August 2003."
7837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7838 #: freeculture.xml:5400
7840 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
7841 "is <quote>fair use.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's "
7842 "use of just 4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a "
7843 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> episode is clearly a fair use of "
7844 "<citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>—and fair use does not require the "
7845 "permission of anyone."
7849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7850 #: freeculture.xml:5417
7852 "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon <quote>fair use.</quote> Here's "
7856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
7857 #: freeculture.xml:5420 freeculture.xml:7750
7858 msgid "legal intimidation tactics against"
7861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7862 #: freeculture.xml:5422
7864 "The <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> fiasco was for me a great lesson in the "
7865 "gulf between what lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what "
7866 "is crushingly relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make "
7867 "and broadcast documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was "
7868 "<quote>clearly fair use</quote> in an absolute legal sense. But I couldn't "
7869 "rely on the concept in any concrete way. Here's why:"
7872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7873 #: freeculture.xml:5431
7874 msgid "Errors and Omissions insurance"
7878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7879 #: freeculture.xml:5434
7881 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
7882 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed <quote>visual cue "
7883 "sheet</quote> listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
7884 "film. They take a dim view of <quote>fair use,</quote> and a claim of "
7885 "<quote>fair use</quote> can grind the application process to a halt."
7888 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7889 #: freeculture.xml:5443
7890 msgid "Lucas, George"
7893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7894 #: freeculture.xml:5444
7895 msgid "<citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle>"
7899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7900 #: freeculture.xml:5447
7902 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
7903 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
7904 "stopping unlicensed <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> usage, just as George "
7905 "Lucas had a very high profile litigating <citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle> "
7906 "usage. So I decided to play by the book, thinking that we would be granted "
7907 "free or cheap license to four seconds of <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>. As "
7908 "a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, the last thing "
7909 "I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal trouble, and even to "
7910 "defend a principle."
7915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7916 #: freeculture.xml:5459
7918 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
7919 "… who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox "
7920 "would <quote>depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,</quote> "
7921 "regardless of the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down "
7922 "to who had the bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
7926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7927 #: freeculture.xml:5471
7929 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
7930 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
7933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7934 #: freeculture.xml:5479
7936 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
7937 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
7938 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
7939 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
7940 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
7941 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
7944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7945 #: freeculture.xml:5487
7947 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
7948 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
7949 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
7950 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
7953 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7954 #: freeculture.xml:5502
7955 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
7958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7959 #: freeculture.xml:5503
7963 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
7964 #: freeculture.xml:5504 freeculture.xml:5564 freeculture.xml:5749 freeculture.xml:10459 freeculture.xml:14893
7968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7969 #: freeculture.xml:5507
7971 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1993</emphasis>, Alex Alben was a lawyer working "
7972 "at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an innovative company founded by Microsoft "
7973 "cofounder Paul Allen to develop digital entertainment. Long before the "
7974 "Internet became popular, Starwave began investing in new technology for "
7975 "delivering entertainment in anticipation of the power of networks."
7978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7979 #: freeculture.xml:5514
7980 msgid "retrospective compilations on"
7983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7984 #: freeculture.xml:5515
7985 msgid "CD-ROMs, film clips used in"
7988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7989 #: freeculture.xml:5517
7991 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
7992 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
7993 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
7994 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
7995 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
7996 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
7997 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
8000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8001 #: freeculture.xml:5527
8003 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
8004 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
8005 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
8006 "include them on the CD."
8010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8011 #: freeculture.xml:5534
8013 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
8014 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
8015 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
8016 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
8017 "permission for that content."
8020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8021 #: freeculture.xml:5541
8023 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. <quote>Our "
8024 "goal was that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's "
8025 "films,</quote> Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. <quote>No "
8026 "one had ever really done this before,</quote> Alben explained. <quote>No one "
8027 "had ever tried to do this in the context of an artistic look at an actor's "
8031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8032 #: freeculture.xml:5549
8034 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
8035 "<quote>Well, what will it take?</quote>"
8038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
8039 #: freeculture.xml:5563
8040 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
8043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8044 #: freeculture.xml:5559
8046 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
8047 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
8048 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden <quote>Rip, Mix, Burn</quote> "
8049 "creativity, as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8050 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
8053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8054 #: freeculture.xml:5553
8056 "Alben replied, <quote>Well, we're going to have to clear rights from "
8057 "everyone who appears in these films, and the music and everything else that "
8058 "we want to use in these film clips.</quote> Slade said, <quote>Great! Go for "
8059 "it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8063 #: freeculture.xml:5568
8065 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
8066 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
8067 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
8068 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
8069 "Starwave was to do."
8072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8073 #: freeculture.xml:5575
8075 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
8076 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
8077 "recounted just what they did:"
8080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8081 #: freeculture.xml:5581
8083 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
8084 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
8085 "going to use the <quote>Make my day</quote> clip from <citetitle>Dirty "
8086 "Harry</citetitle>. But you then need to get the guy on the ground who's "
8087 "wiggling under the gun and you need to get his permission. And then you "
8088 "have to decide what you are going to pay him."
8092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8093 #: freeculture.xml:5590
8095 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
8096 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
8097 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
8098 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
8099 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
8100 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
8101 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
8102 "just started calling people."
8105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8106 #: freeculture.xml:5601
8107 msgid "Sutherland, Donald"
8110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8111 #: freeculture.xml:5603
8113 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
8114 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
8115 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, <quote>Hey, can I pay "
8116 "you $600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?</quote> And "
8117 "they would say, <quote>Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get "
8118 "$1,200.</quote> And some of course were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, "
8119 "in particular). But eventually, Alben and his team had cleared the rights to "
8120 "this retrospective CD-ROM on Clint Eastwood's career."
8123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8124 #: freeculture.xml:5614
8126 "It was one <emphasis>year</emphasis> later—<quote>and even then we "
8127 "weren't sure whether we were totally in the clear.</quote>"
8130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8131 #: freeculture.xml:5618
8133 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
8134 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
8135 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
8138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8139 #: freeculture.xml:5624
8141 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
8142 "and said, <quote>Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the "
8143 "music, there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the "
8144 "actors.</quote> But we just broke it down. We just put it into its "
8145 "constituent parts and said, <quote>Okay, there's this many actors, this many "
8146 "directors, … this many musicians,</quote> and we just went at it very "
8147 "systematically and cleared the rights."
8151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8152 #: freeculture.xml:5636
8154 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
8155 "and it sold very well."
8158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8159 #: freeculture.xml:5639
8160 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
8164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8165 #: freeculture.xml:5647
8167 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, "
8168 "<citetitle>Seven Steps to Performance-Based Services "
8169 "Acquisition</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
8170 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
8173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8174 #: freeculture.xml:5641
8176 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
8177 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
8178 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, <quote>There is "
8179 "nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
8180 "all.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I "
8181 "asked Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
8184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8185 #: freeculture.xml:5655
8187 "For, as he acknowledged, <quote>very few … have the time and "
8188 "resources, and the will to do this,</quote> and thus, very few such works "
8189 "would ever be made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of "
8190 "what anybody really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, "
8191 "that you would have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
8194 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8195 #: freeculture.xml:5663
8197 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
8198 "gets paid very well. … And then when 30 seconds of that performance "
8199 "is used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I "
8200 "don't think that that person … should be compensated for that."
8203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8204 #: freeculture.xml:5671
8206 "Or at least, is this <emphasis>how</emphasis> the artist should be "
8207 "compensated? Would it make sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of "
8208 "statutory license that someone could pay and be free to make derivative use "
8209 "of clips like this? Did it really make sense that a follow-on creator would "
8210 "have to track down every artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit "
8211 "permission from each? Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of "
8212 "the creative process could be made to be more clean?"
8216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8217 #: freeculture.xml:5682
8219 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
8220 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
8221 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
8222 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
8223 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
8224 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
8225 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
8226 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
8227 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
8228 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
8229 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
8230 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, <quote>Oh, "
8231 "I want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
8232 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for "
8233 "money,</quote> then it becomes difficult to put one of these things "
8237 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8238 #: freeculture.xml:5702
8240 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
8241 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
8242 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
8243 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
8244 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high?"
8247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8248 #: freeculture.xml:5711
8250 "These costs are the burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat "
8251 "for a moment, and get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of "
8252 "these rights, and the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost "
8253 "to negotiate them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and "
8254 "imagine the pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from "
8255 "Los Angeles to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made "
8256 "sense; but as circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, "
8257 "a well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights "
8258 "and ask, <quote>Does this still make sense?</quote>"
8262 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8263 #: freeculture.xml:5724
8265 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
8266 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
8267 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
8268 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
8269 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
8270 "Fairbank, had produced."
8273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8274 #: freeculture.xml:5734
8276 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
8277 "century, all framed around the idea of a <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> "
8278 "episode. The execution was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The "
8279 "judges loved every minute of it."
8282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8283 #: freeculture.xml:5739
8284 msgid "Nimmer, David"
8287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8288 #: freeculture.xml:5741
8290 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
8291 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
8292 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
8293 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
8294 "question: <quote>Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in "
8295 "this room?</quote>"
8298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8299 #: freeculture.xml:5748
8300 msgid "Boies, David"
8303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8304 #: freeculture.xml:5751
8306 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
8307 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
8308 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
8309 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
8310 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
8311 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
8312 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
8313 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
8314 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
8315 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
8316 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
8317 "couldn't easily do them legally."
8320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8321 #: freeculture.xml:5766
8323 "We live in a <quote>cut and paste</quote> culture enabled by "
8324 "technology. Anyone building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom "
8325 "that the cut and paste architecture of the Internet created—in a "
8326 "second you can find just about any image you want; in another second, you "
8327 "can have it planted in your presentation."
8330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8331 #: freeculture.xml:5772
8336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8337 #: freeculture.xml:5774
8339 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
8340 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
8341 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
8342 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
8343 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
8344 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
8345 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
8349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8350 #: freeculture.xml:5785
8352 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
8353 "to be <quote>legal,</quote> the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
8354 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
8355 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
8356 "rules, it doesn't get released."
8359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8360 #: freeculture.xml:5792
8362 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
8363 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
8364 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
8365 "the <quote>free</quote> use be free as in <quote>free beer.</quote> Instead, "
8366 "the system could simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate "
8367 "artists without requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for "
8368 "example, that says <quote>the royalty owed the copyright owner of an "
8369 "unregistered work for the derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 "
8370 "percent of net revenues, to be held in escrow for the copyright "
8371 "owner.</quote> Under this rule, the copyright owner could benefit from some "
8372 "royalty, but he would not have the benefit of a full property right (meaning "
8373 "the right to name his own price) unless he registers the work."
8376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8377 #: freeculture.xml:5807
8379 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
8380 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
8381 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
8382 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
8386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8387 #: freeculture.xml:5813
8389 "<emphasis role='strong'>In February 2003</emphasis>, DreamWorks studios "
8390 "announced an agreement with Mike Myers, the comic genius of "
8391 "<citetitle>Saturday Night Live</citetitle> and Austin Powers. According to "
8392 "the announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work together to form a "
8393 "<quote>unique filmmaking pact.</quote> Under the agreement, DreamWorks "
8394 "<quote>will acquire the rights to existing motion picture hits and classics, "
8395 "write new storylines and—with the use of stateof-the-art digital "
8396 "technology—insert Myers and other actors into the film, thereby "
8397 "creating an entirely new piece of entertainment.</quote>"
8400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8401 #: freeculture.xml:5826
8403 "The announcement called this <quote>film sampling.</quote> As Myers "
8404 "explained, <quote>Film Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin "
8405 "on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap "
8406 "artists have been doing this for years with music and now we are able to "
8407 "take that same concept and apply it to film.</quote> Steven Spielberg is "
8408 "quoted as saying, <quote>If anyone can create a way to bring old films to "
8409 "new audiences, it is Mike.</quote>"
8412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8413 #: freeculture.xml:5835
8415 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
8416 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
8417 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
8418 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
8419 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
8420 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
8421 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
8422 "famous—and presumably rich."
8425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8426 #: freeculture.xml:5845
8428 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
8429 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of <quote>fair "
8430 "use.</quote> Much of <quote>sampling</quote> should be considered "
8431 "<quote>fair use.</quote> But few would rely upon so weak a doctrine to "
8432 "create. That leads to the second reason that the privilege is reserved for "
8433 "the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights for the creative reuse of "
8434 "content are astronomically high. These costs mirror the costs with fair "
8435 "use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair use rights or pay a lawyer "
8436 "to track down permissions so you don't have to rely upon fair use "
8437 "rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of paying "
8438 "lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the few."
8441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8442 #: freeculture.xml:5860
8443 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
8446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8447 #: freeculture.xml:5861 freeculture.xml:9201 freeculture.xml:11524 freeculture.xml:11769
8448 msgid "archives, digital"
8451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8452 #: freeculture.xml:5862 freeculture.xml:8488
8456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8457 #: freeculture.xml:5864
8459 "<emphasis role='strong'>In April 1996</emphasis>, millions of "
8460 "<quote>bots</quote>—computer codes designed to <quote>spider,</quote> "
8461 "or automatically search the Internet and copy content—began running "
8462 "across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied Internet-based information "
8463 "onto a small set of computers located in a basement in San Francisco's "
8464 "Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of the Internet, they started "
8465 "again. Over and over again, once every two months, these bits of code took "
8466 "copies of the Internet and stored them."
8469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8470 #: freeculture.xml:5874 freeculture.xml:5905 freeculture.xml:5967
8471 msgid "Way Back Machine"
8474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8475 #: freeculture.xml:5876
8477 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
8478 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
8479 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
8480 "technology called <quote>the Way Back Machine,</quote> you could enter a Web "
8481 "page, and see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those "
8485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8486 #: freeculture.xml:5883
8487 msgid "Orwell, George"
8490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8491 #: freeculture.xml:5885
8493 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
8494 "the dystopia described in <citetitle>1984</citetitle>, old newspapers were "
8495 "constantly updated to assure that the current view of the world, approved of "
8496 "by the government, was not contradicted by previous news reports."
8500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8501 #: freeculture.xml:5893
8503 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
8504 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
8505 "printed on the date published on the paper."
8508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8509 #: freeculture.xml:5898
8511 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
8512 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
8513 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
8514 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
8515 "updated, without any reliable memory."
8518 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8519 #: freeculture.xml:5914
8520 msgid "White House press releases"
8523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8524 #: freeculture.xml:5913
8526 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8527 "id=\"1\"/> The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the "
8528 "White House changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, "
8529 "press release stated, <quote>Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.</quote> "
8530 "That was later changed, without notice, to <quote>Major Combat Operations in "
8531 "Iraq Have Ended.</quote> E-mail from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
8534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8535 #: freeculture.xml:5907
8537 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
8538 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
8539 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
8540 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
8541 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8545 #: freeculture.xml:5922
8546 msgid "history, records of"
8549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8550 #: freeculture.xml:5924
8552 "<emphasis role='strong'>We take it</emphasis> for granted that we can go "
8553 "back to see what we remember reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted "
8554 "to study the reaction of your hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts "
8555 "in 1965, or to Bull Connor's water cannon in 1963, you could go to your "
8556 "public library and look at the newspapers. Those papers probably exist on "
8557 "microfiche. If you're lucky, they exist in paper, too. Either way, you are "
8558 "free, using a library, to go back and remember—not just what it is "
8559 "convenient to remember, but remember something close to the truth."
8562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8563 #: freeculture.xml:5935
8565 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
8566 "it. That's not quite correct. We <emphasis>all</emphasis> forget "
8567 "history. The key is whether we have a way to go back to rediscover what we "
8568 "forget. More directly, the key is whether an objective past can keep us "
8569 "honest. Libraries help do that, by collecting content and keeping it, for "
8570 "schoolchildren, for researchers, for grandma. A free society presumes this "
8575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8576 #: freeculture.xml:5944
8578 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
8579 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
8580 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
8581 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
8582 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
8583 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
8584 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
8587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8588 #: freeculture.xml:5955
8590 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
8591 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
8592 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
8593 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
8594 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
8595 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
8596 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
8597 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
8600 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8601 #: freeculture.xml:5964 freeculture.xml:6019 freeculture.xml:10444
8602 msgid "Library of Congress"
8605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8606 #: freeculture.xml:5965
8607 msgid "Television Archive"
8610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8611 #: freeculture.xml:5966
8612 msgid "Vanderbilt University"
8615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
8616 #: freeculture.xml:5968 freeculture.xml:11015 freeculture.xml:14075 freeculture.xml:14205 freeculture.xml:14241
8620 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8621 #: freeculture.xml:5968
8622 msgid "archival function of"
8625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8626 #: freeculture.xml:5971
8628 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
8629 "history. At the end of 2002, it held <quote>two hundred and thirty terabytes "
8630 "of material</quote>—and was <quote>ten times larger than the Library "
8631 "of Congress.</quote> And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle "
8632 "set out to build. In addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been "
8633 "constructing the Television Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more "
8634 "ephemeral than the Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was "
8635 "constructed through television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is "
8636 "available for anyone to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each "
8637 "evening by Vanderbilt University—thanks to a specific exemption in the "
8638 "copyright law. That content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a "
8639 "very low fee. <quote>But other than that, [television] is almost "
8640 "unavailable,</quote> Kahle told me. <quote>If you were Barbara Walters you "
8641 "could get access to [the archives], but if you are just a graduate "
8642 "student?</quote> As Kahle put it,"
8645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8646 #: freeculture.xml:5988
8650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8651 #: freeculture.xml:5989
8656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8657 #: freeculture.xml:5991
8659 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
8660 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
8661 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
8662 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
8663 "between the two, the <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> episode that came out "
8664 "after it … it would be almost impossible. … Those materials "
8665 "are almost unfindable. …"
8668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8669 #: freeculture.xml:6002
8673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8674 #: freeculture.xml:6002
8678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8679 #: freeculture.xml:6004
8681 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
8682 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
8683 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
8684 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
8685 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
8686 "media on twentieth-century America?"
8689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8690 #: freeculture.xml:6012
8692 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
8693 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
8694 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
8695 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
8696 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
8699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8700 #: freeculture.xml:6020 freeculture.xml:6064
8705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8706 #: freeculture.xml:6031
8708 "Doug Herrick, <quote>Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at "
8709 "the Library of Congress,</quote> <citetitle>Film Library "
8710 "Quarterly</citetitle> 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; Anthony Slide, "
8711 "<citetitle>Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United "
8712 "States</citetitle> (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
8715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8716 #: freeculture.xml:6022
8718 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
8719 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
8720 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
8721 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
8722 "more than 5,475 films deposited and <quote>borrowed back.</quote> Thus, when "
8723 "the copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The "
8724 "copy exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the "
8725 "film company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8729 #: freeculture.xml:6039
8731 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
8732 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
8733 "so there was no fear of <quote>theft.</quote> But as technology enabled "
8734 "capturing, broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required "
8735 "they make a copy of each broadcast for the work to be "
8736 "<quote>copyrighted.</quote> But those copies were simply kept by the "
8737 "broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't demand "
8738 "them. The content of this part of American culture is practically invisible "
8739 "to anyone who would look."
8743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8744 #: freeculture.xml:6051
8746 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
8747 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
8748 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
8749 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
8750 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
8751 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
8752 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
8755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8756 #: freeculture.xml:6061
8757 msgid "Movie Archive"
8760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8761 #: freeculture.xml:6062
8765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8766 #: freeculture.xml:6062 freeculture.xml:6065
8767 msgid "Internet Archive"
8770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8771 #: freeculture.xml:6066
8772 msgid "Duck and Cover film"
8775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8776 #: freeculture.xml:6067
8777 msgid "ephemeral films"
8780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8781 #: freeculture.xml:6068
8782 msgid "Prelinger, Rick"
8785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8786 #: freeculture.xml:6070
8788 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
8789 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 <quote>ephemeral films</quote> "
8790 "(meaning films other than Hollywood movies, films that were never "
8791 "copyrighted), Kahle established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle "
8792 "digitize 1,300 films in this archive and post those films on the Internet to "
8793 "be downloaded for free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies "
8794 "of these films as stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he "
8795 "made a significant chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
8796 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
8797 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
8798 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
8799 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
8800 "<quote>Duck and Cover</quote> film that instructed children how to save "
8801 "themselves in the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can "
8802 "download the film in a few minutes—for free."
8805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8806 #: freeculture.xml:6088
8808 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
8809 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
8810 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
8811 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
8812 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
8815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8816 #: freeculture.xml:6096
8818 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
8819 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
8820 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
8821 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
8822 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
8826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8827 #: freeculture.xml:6104
8829 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
8830 "creative property goes through different <quote>lives.</quote> In its first "
8831 "life, if the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the "
8832 "commercial market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of "
8833 "creative property doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For "
8834 "that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this "
8835 "commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
8838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8839 #: freeculture.xml:6116
8841 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
8842 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
8843 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
8844 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
8845 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
8846 "even if that information is no longer sold."
8849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8850 #: freeculture.xml:6129
8852 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Dave Barns, <quote>Fledgling "
8853 "Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter "
8854 "by Adopting Business,</quote> <citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 5 "
8855 "September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, "
8856 "only 2.2 percent were in print in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, <quote>The First "
8857 "Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
8858 "College Law Review</citetitle> 44 (2003): 593 n. 51."
8861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8862 #: freeculture.xml:6126
8864 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
8865 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
8866 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
8867 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
8868 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
8869 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
8870 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
8873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8874 #: freeculture.xml:6144
8876 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
8877 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
8878 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
8879 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
8880 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
8881 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
8882 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
8883 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
8887 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8888 #: freeculture.xml:6155
8890 "<emphasis role='strong'>For most of</emphasis> the twentieth century, it was "
8891 "economics that made this so. It would have been insanely expensive to "
8892 "collect and make accessible all television and film and music: The cost of "
8893 "analog copies is extraordinarily high. So even though the law in principle "
8894 "would have restricted the ability of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture "
8895 "generally, the real restriction was economics. The market made it impossibly "
8896 "difficult to do anything about this ephemeral culture; the law had little "
8900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8901 #: freeculture.xml:6167
8903 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
8904 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
8905 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
8906 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
8907 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
8908 "moving images and sound."
8911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8912 #: freeculture.xml:6175
8914 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
8915 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
8916 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
8920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><secondary>
8921 #: freeculture.xml:6181
8922 msgid "total number of"
8925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8926 #: freeculture.xml:6183
8928 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
8929 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
8930 "… and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the "
8931 "twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of "
8932 "books. All of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and "
8933 "be able to be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in "
8934 "our history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
8935 "different life, based on this, is … thrilling. It could be one of the "
8936 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
8937 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
8942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8943 #: freeculture.xml:6198
8945 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
8946 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
8947 "libraries or archives could be. <emphasis>When</emphasis> the commercial "
8948 "life of creative property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it "
8949 "does, Kahle and his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and "
8950 "culture, remains perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand "
8951 "it; some to criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create "
8952 "the past for the future. These technologies promise something that had "
8953 "become unimaginable for much of our past—a future "
8954 "<emphasis>for</emphasis> our past. The technology of digital arts could make "
8955 "the dream of the Library of Alexandria real again."
8958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8959 #: freeculture.xml:6213
8961 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
8962 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
8963 "these <quote>archives,</quote> as warm as the idea of a "
8964 "<quote>library</quote> might seem, the <quote>content</quote> that is "
8965 "collected in these digital spaces is also someone's <quote>property.</quote> "
8966 "And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and others would "
8970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8971 #: freeculture.xml:6224
8972 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: <quote>Property</quote>"
8975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8976 #: freeculture.xml:6225
8977 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
8980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8981 #: freeculture.xml:6226 freeculture.xml:10203
8982 msgid "Kennedy, John F."
8985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8986 #: freeculture.xml:6228
8988 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jack Valenti</emphasis> has been the president of "
8989 "the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966. He first came to "
8990 "Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's administration—literally. The "
8991 "famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in on Air Force One after the "
8992 "assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in the background. In his "
8993 "almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has established himself as "
8994 "perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in Washington."
8997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8998 #: freeculture.xml:6238
8999 msgid "Sony Pictures Entertainment"
9002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9003 #: freeculture.xml:6239
9007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9008 #: freeculture.xml:6240
9009 msgid "Paramount Pictures"
9012 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9013 #: freeculture.xml:6241
9014 msgid "Twentieth Century Fox"
9017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9018 #: freeculture.xml:6242
9019 msgid "Universal Pictures"
9022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9023 #: freeculture.xml:6243 freeculture.xml:7859 freeculture.xml:8030
9024 msgid "Warner Brothers"
9027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9028 #: freeculture.xml:6245
9030 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
9031 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
9032 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
9033 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
9034 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
9035 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
9036 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
9037 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
9038 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers."
9042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9043 #: freeculture.xml:6258
9045 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
9046 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
9047 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
9048 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
9049 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
9050 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
9051 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
9052 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
9053 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
9056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9057 #: freeculture.xml:6270
9059 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
9060 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
9061 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
9062 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
9063 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
9064 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of "
9065 "<quote>creative property.</quote>"
9068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9069 #: freeculture.xml:6279
9070 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
9074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
9075 #: freeculture.xml:6293
9077 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
9078 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
9079 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
9080 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
9081 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
9084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
9085 #: freeculture.xml:6284
9087 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
9088 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
9089 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
9090 "animates this entire debate: <emphasis>Creative property owners must be "
9091 "accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property "
9092 "owners in the nation</emphasis>. That is the issue. That is the "
9093 "question. And that is the rostrum on which this entire hearing and the "
9094 "debates to follow must rest.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9099 #: freeculture.xml:6303
9101 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
9102 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
9103 "<quote>central theme</quote> to which <quote>reasonable men and "
9104 "women</quote> will return is this: <quote>Creative property owners must be "
9105 "accorded the same rights and protections resident in all other property "
9106 "owners in the nation.</quote> There are no second-class citizens, Valenti "
9107 "might have continued. There should be no second-class property owners."
9110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9111 #: freeculture.xml:6314
9113 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
9114 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
9115 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
9116 "made by <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> who is serious in this debate than this "
9117 "claim of Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is "
9118 "perhaps the nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and "
9119 "scope of <quote>creative property.</quote> His views have "
9120 "<emphasis>no</emphasis> reasonable connection to our actual legal tradition, "
9121 "even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly redefined that "
9122 "tradition, at least in Washington."
9126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9127 #: freeculture.xml:6329
9129 "Lawyers speak of <quote>property</quote> not as an absolute thing, but as a "
9130 "bundle of rights that are sometimes associated with a particular "
9131 "object. Thus, my <quote>property right</quote> to my car gives me the right "
9132 "to exclusive use, but not the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the "
9133 "best effort to connect the ordinary meaning of <quote>property</quote> to "
9134 "<quote>lawyer talk,</quote> see Bruce Ackerman, <citetitle>Private Property "
9135 "and the Constitution</citetitle> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), "
9139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9140 #: freeculture.xml:6326
9142 "While <quote>creative property</quote> is certainly <quote>property</quote> "
9143 "in a nerdy and precise sense that lawyers are trained to "
9144 "understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it has never been the "
9145 "case, nor should it be, that <quote>creative property owners</quote> have "
9146 "been <quote>accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other "
9147 "property owners.</quote> Indeed, if creative property owners were given the "
9148 "same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a radical, and "
9149 "radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
9152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9153 #: freeculture.xml:6344
9155 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
9156 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
9157 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
9158 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
9159 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
9163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9164 #: freeculture.xml:6352
9166 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
9167 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
9168 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
9169 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
9170 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
9171 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
9172 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
9173 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
9174 "creativity having less than perfect control."
9177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9178 #: freeculture.xml:6367
9180 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
9181 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
9182 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
9183 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
9184 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
9185 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
9189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9190 #: freeculture.xml:6376
9192 "<emphasis role='strong'>To get</emphasis> just a hint that there is "
9193 "something fundamentally wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further "
9194 "than the United States Constitution itself."
9197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9198 #: freeculture.xml:6381
9200 "The framers of our Constitution loved <quote>property.</quote> Indeed, so "
9201 "strongly did they love property that they built into the Constitution an "
9202 "important requirement. If the government takes your property—if it "
9203 "condemns your house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is "
9204 "required, under the Fifth Amendment's <quote>Takings Clause,</quote> to pay "
9205 "you <quote>just compensation</quote> for that taking. The Constitution thus "
9206 "guarantees that property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot "
9207 "<emphasis>ever</emphasis> be taken from the property owner unless the "
9208 "government pays for the privilege."
9212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9213 #: freeculture.xml:6392
9215 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
9216 "calls <quote>creative property.</quote> In the clause granting Congress the "
9217 "power to create <quote>creative property,</quote> the Constitution "
9218 "<emphasis>requires</emphasis> that after a <quote>limited time,</quote> "
9219 "Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set the "
9220 "<quote>creative property</quote> free to the public domain. Yet when "
9221 "Congress does this, when the expiration of a copyright term "
9222 "<quote>takes</quote> your copyright and turns it over to the public domain, "
9223 "Congress does not have any obligation to pay <quote>just "
9224 "compensation</quote> for this <quote>taking.</quote> Instead, the same "
9225 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
9226 "your <quote>creative property</quote> right without any compensation at all."
9229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9230 #: freeculture.xml:6407
9232 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
9233 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
9234 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
9235 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
9236 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
9237 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
9240 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9241 #: freeculture.xml:6417
9243 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
9244 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
9245 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
9246 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
9247 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
9248 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
9249 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
9250 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
9251 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
9254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9255 #: freeculture.xml:6429
9257 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
9258 "try to understand <emphasis>why</emphasis>. Why did the framers, fanatical "
9259 "property types that they were, reject the claim that creative property be "
9260 "given the same rights as all other property? Why did they require that for "
9261 "creative property there must be a public domain?"
9264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9265 #: freeculture.xml:6439
9267 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
9268 "these <quote>creative property</quote> rights, and the control that they "
9269 "enabled. Once we see clearly how differently these rights have been "
9270 "defined, we will be in a better position to ask the question that should be "
9271 "at the core of this war: Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> creative property "
9272 "should be protected, but how. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> we will "
9273 "enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but what the "
9274 "particular mix of rights ought to be. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> "
9275 "artists should be paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that "
9276 "artists get paid need also control how culture develops."
9279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
9280 #: freeculture.xml:6451
9281 msgid "four modalities of constraint on"
9284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9285 #: freeculture.xml:6452 freeculture.xml:6711 freeculture.xml:9778 freeculture.xml:9895
9289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
9290 #: freeculture.xml:6452
9291 msgid "four modalities of"
9294 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
9295 #: freeculture.xml:6453
9296 msgid "as ex post regulation modality"
9299 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9300 #: freeculture.xml:6454 freeculture.xml:6530 freeculture.xml:6665
9301 msgid "as constraint modality"
9305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9306 #: freeculture.xml:6458
9308 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
9309 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
9310 "narrow language of the law allows. In <citetitle>Code and Other Laws of "
9311 "Cyberspace</citetitle>, I used a simple model to capture this more general "
9312 "perspective. For any particular right or regulation, this model asks how "
9313 "four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the "
9314 "right or regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
9317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9318 #: freeculture.xml:6467
9320 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
9321 "the right or regulation."
9324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9325 #: freeculture.xml:6468 freeculture.xml:6661 freeculture.xml:7031
9327 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.svg\" align=\"center\" "
9328 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
9331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9332 #: freeculture.xml:6472
9334 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
9335 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
9336 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
9337 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
9338 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
9339 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
9340 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
9341 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
9342 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
9343 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
9344 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
9345 "by the state. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9349 #: freeculture.xml:6488 freeculture.xml:6550 freeculture.xml:6666
9350 msgid "norms, regulatory influence of"
9353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9354 #: freeculture.xml:6490
9356 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
9357 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
9358 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
9359 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
9360 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
9361 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
9362 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
9363 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
9366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9367 #: freeculture.xml:6500 freeculture.xml:6549 freeculture.xml:6642 freeculture.xml:6682 freeculture.xml:9787 freeculture.xml:10021
9368 msgid "market constraints"
9371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9372 #: freeculture.xml:6502
9374 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
9375 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
9376 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
9377 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
9378 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
9379 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
9380 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
9383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9384 #: freeculture.xml:6511 freeculture.xml:6548 freeculture.xml:6600 freeculture.xml:6641 freeculture.xml:6664
9385 msgid "architecture, constraint effected through"
9388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9389 #: freeculture.xml:6513
9391 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
9392 "<quote>architecture</quote>—the physical world as one finds "
9393 "it—is a constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your "
9394 "ability to get across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability "
9395 "of a community to integrate its social life. As with the market, "
9396 "architecture does not effect its constraint through ex post "
9397 "punishments. Instead, also as with the market, architecture effects its "
9398 "constraint through simultaneous conditions. These conditions are imposed not "
9399 "by courts enforcing contracts, or by police punishing theft, but by nature, "
9400 "by <quote>architecture.</quote> If a 500-pound boulder blocks your way, it "
9401 "is the law of gravity that enforces this constraint. If a $500 airplane "
9402 "ticket stands between you and a flight to New York, it is the market that "
9403 "enforces this constraint."
9407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9408 #: freeculture.xml:6534
9410 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
9411 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
9412 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
9415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9416 #: freeculture.xml:6540
9418 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
9419 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
9420 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
9421 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
9422 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
9423 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
9424 "particular interact."
9427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9428 #: freeculture.xml:6551
9429 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
9432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9433 #: freeculture.xml:6552
9434 msgid "speeding, constraints on"
9437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9438 #: freeculture.xml:6554
9440 "So, for example, consider the <quote>freedom</quote> to drive a car at a "
9441 "high speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that "
9442 "say how fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is "
9443 "in part restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most "
9444 "rational drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum "
9445 "rate at which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the "
9446 "market: Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
9447 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
9448 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
9449 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
9450 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
9454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9455 #: freeculture.xml:6572
9457 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
9458 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
9459 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
9460 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
9461 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>Code: And Other "
9462 "Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle> (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; "
9463 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>The New Chicago School,</quote> <citetitle>Journal "
9464 "of Legal Studies</citetitle>, June 1998."
9468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9469 #: freeculture.xml:6568
9471 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
9472 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
9473 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
9474 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
9475 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
9476 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
9477 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
9478 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
9479 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
9480 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
9481 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
9485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9486 #: freeculture.xml:6596
9487 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
9490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
9491 #: freeculture.xml:6597
9493 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.svg\" align=\"center\" "
9494 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
9497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9498 #: freeculture.xml:6639
9499 msgid "Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)"
9502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9503 #: freeculture.xml:6640
9504 msgid "Commons, John R."
9507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9508 #: freeculture.xml:6610
9510 "Some people object to this way of talking about <quote>liberty.</quote> They "
9511 "object because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at "
9512 "any particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the "
9513 "government. For instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think "
9514 "it is meaningless to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge "
9515 "has washed out, and it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk "
9516 "about this as a loss of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of "
9517 "politics with the vagaries of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value "
9518 "in this narrower view, which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, "
9519 "however, mean to argue against any insistence that this narrower view is the "
9520 "only proper view of liberty. As I argued in <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, we "
9521 "come from a long tradition of political thought with a broader focus than "
9522 "the narrow question of what the government did when. John Stuart Mill "
9523 "defended freedom of speech, for example, from the tyranny of narrow minds, "
9524 "not from the fear of government prosecution; John Stuart Mill, <citetitle>On "
9525 "Liberty</citetitle> (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. John "
9526 "R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from constraints "
9527 "imposed by the market; John R. Commons, <quote>The Right to Work,</quote> in "
9528 "Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., <citetitle>John R. Commons: "
9529 "Selected Essays</citetitle> (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans "
9530 "with Disabilities Act increases the liberty of people with physical "
9531 "disabilities by changing the architecture of certain public places, thereby "
9532 "making access to those places easier; 42 <citetitle>United States "
9533 "Code</citetitle>, section 12101 (2000). Each of these interventions to "
9534 "change existing conditions changes the liberty of a particular group. The "
9535 "effect of those interventions should be accounted for in order to understand "
9536 "the effective liberty that each of these groups might face. <placeholder "
9537 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
9538 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
9542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9543 #: freeculture.xml:6602
9545 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
9546 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
9547 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
9548 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
9549 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9554 #: freeculture.xml:6647
9555 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
9558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9559 #: freeculture.xml:6648 freeculture.xml:7021
9560 msgid "four regulatory modalities on"
9563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9564 #: freeculture.xml:6650
9566 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
9567 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
9568 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
9572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9573 #: freeculture.xml:6656
9574 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
9577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9578 #: freeculture.xml:6660 freeculture.xml:7030
9579 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
9583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9584 #: freeculture.xml:6669
9586 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
9587 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
9588 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
9589 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
9590 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
9591 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
9592 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
9593 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
9594 "this form of infringement."
9597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9598 #: freeculture.xml:6680
9599 msgid "copyright regulatory balance lost with"
9602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9603 #: freeculture.xml:6681
9604 msgid "regulatory balance lost in"
9607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9608 #: freeculture.xml:6683
9612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9613 #: freeculture.xml:6685
9615 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
9616 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
9617 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
9618 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
9619 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
9620 "of anarchy after the Internet."
9623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9624 #: freeculture.xml:6694 freeculture.xml:7538 freeculture.xml:7848
9628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9629 #: freeculture.xml:6694
9630 msgid "established industries threatened by changes in"
9634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9635 #: freeculture.xml:6696
9637 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
9638 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
9639 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
9640 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
9641 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
9645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9646 #: freeculture.xml:6706
9647 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
9650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9651 #: freeculture.xml:6707
9653 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.svg\" align=\"center\" "
9654 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
9657 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9658 #: freeculture.xml:6710
9659 msgid "Commerce, U.S. Department of"
9662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9663 #: freeculture.xml:6711 freeculture.xml:9778
9664 msgid "as establishment protectionism"
9667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9668 #: freeculture.xml:6713
9670 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
9671 "warriors. Indeed, in a <quote>White Paper</quote> prepared by the Commerce "
9672 "Department (one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this "
9673 "mix of regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
9674 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
9675 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
9676 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
9677 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
9678 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
9681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9682 #: freeculture.xml:6726 freeculture.xml:6866
9686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9687 #: freeculture.xml:6727
9688 msgid "steel industry"
9692 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9693 #: freeculture.xml:6729
9695 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
9696 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
9697 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
9698 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
9699 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
9700 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
9701 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
9702 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
9703 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
9704 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
9705 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
9706 "U.S. steel industry."
9709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9710 #: freeculture.xml:6749
9712 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
9713 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
9714 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
9715 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
9716 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
9717 "<quote>architecture of revenue.</quote>"
9720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9721 #: freeculture.xml:6762
9722 msgid "railroad industry"
9725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9726 #: freeculture.xml:6763
9727 msgid "remote channel changers"
9731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9732 #: freeculture.xml:6773
9734 "See Geoffrey Smith, <quote>Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a "
9735 "Bridge?</quote> BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
9736 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
9737 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, "
9738 "<quote>Can Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?</quote> Forbes.com, 6 October "
9739 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
9743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9744 #: freeculture.xml:6765
9746 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
9747 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
9748 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
9749 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
9750 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
9751 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
9752 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
9753 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
9754 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
9755 "trucks from roads <emphasis>for the purpose of</emphasis> protecting the "
9756 "railroads? Closer to the subject of this book, remote channel changers have "
9757 "weakened the <quote>stickiness</quote> of television advertising (if a "
9758 "boring commercial comes on the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf), and it "
9759 "may well be that this change has weakened the television advertising "
9760 "market. But does anyone believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce "
9761 "commercial television? (Maybe by limiting them to function only once a "
9762 "second, or to switch to only ten channels within an hour?)"
9765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9766 #: freeculture.xml:6794
9767 msgid "free market, technological changes in"
9770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
9771 #: freeculture.xml:6795 freeculture.xml:15469
9772 msgid "Brezhnev, Leonid"
9775 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9776 #: freeculture.xml:6798 freeculture.xml:13669
9780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9781 #: freeculture.xml:6799 freeculture.xml:7813
9782 msgid "market competition"
9786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9787 #: freeculture.xml:6812
9789 "Fred Warshofsky, <citetitle>The Patent Wars</citetitle> (New York: Wiley, "
9790 "1994), 170–71."
9793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9794 #: freeculture.xml:6802
9796 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
9797 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
9798 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
9799 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
9800 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
9801 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
9802 "patents, <quote>established companies have an interest in excluding future "
9803 "competitors.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative "
9804 "to a startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
9805 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
9806 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
9807 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
9808 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev."
9811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9812 #: freeculture.xml:6823
9814 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
9815 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
9816 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
9817 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
9818 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
9819 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
9820 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
9823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9824 #: freeculture.xml:6834
9825 msgid "speech, freedom of"
9828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9829 #: freeculture.xml:6834
9830 msgid "constitutional guarantee of"
9833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9834 #: freeculture.xml:6836
9836 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
9837 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
9838 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
9839 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
9840 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
9841 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
9842 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
9843 "Constitution: <quote>Congress shall make no law … abridging the "
9844 "freedom of speech.</quote> So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that "
9845 "would <quote>abridge</quote> the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
9846 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
9850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9851 #: freeculture.xml:6852
9853 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
9854 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are "
9855 "<quote>justified.</quote> My argument is about their effect. For before we "
9856 "get to the question of justification, a hard question that depends a great "
9857 "deal upon your values, we should first ask whether we understand the effect "
9858 "of the changes the content industry wants."
9861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9862 #: freeculture.xml:6861
9863 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
9866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9867 #: freeculture.xml:6863
9868 msgid "Müller, Paul Hermann"
9871 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9872 #: freeculture.xml:6864
9876 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9877 #: freeculture.xml:6865
9878 msgid "insecticide, environmental consequences of"
9881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9882 #: freeculture.xml:6868
9884 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
9885 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
9886 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
9887 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
9888 "increase farm production."
9891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9892 #: freeculture.xml:6875
9894 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
9895 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
9896 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
9899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9900 #: freeculture.xml:6879
9901 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
9904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9905 #: freeculture.xml:6880
9906 msgid "Silent Spring (Carson)"
9909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9910 #: freeculture.xml:6881
9911 msgid "environmentalism"
9914 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9915 #: freeculture.xml:6883
9917 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published <citetitle>Silent Spring</citetitle>, "
9918 "which argued that DDT, whatever its primary benefits, was also having "
9919 "unintended environmental consequences. Birds were losing the ability to "
9920 "reproduce. Whole chains of the ecology were being destroyed."
9923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9924 #: freeculture.xml:6889
9926 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
9927 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
9928 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
9929 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
9930 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
9931 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
9935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9936 #: freeculture.xml:6898
9937 msgid "Boyle, James"
9940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
9941 #: freeculture.xml:6899
9942 msgid "innovative freedom balanced with fair compensation in"
9946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9947 #: freeculture.xml:6905
9949 "See, for example, James Boyle, <quote>A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
9950 "Environmentalism for the Net?</quote> <citetitle>Duke Law "
9951 "Journal</citetitle> 47 (1997): 87."
9955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9956 #: freeculture.xml:6901
9958 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
9959 "appeals when he argues that we need an <quote>environmentalism</quote> for "
9960 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
9961 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
9962 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
9963 "that music should be given away <quote>for free.</quote> The point is that "
9964 "some of the ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended "
9965 "consequences for the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural "
9966 "environment. And just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria "
9967 "or an attack on farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of "
9968 "regulations protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack "
9969 "on authors. It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should "
9970 "be aware of our actions' effects on the environment."
9973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9974 #: freeculture.xml:6923
9976 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
9977 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
9978 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
9979 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
9980 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
9981 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
9982 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
9983 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
9987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9988 #: freeculture.xml:6935
9990 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
9991 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
9994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9995 #: freeculture.xml:6944
9999 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10000 #: freeculture.xml:6945
10001 msgid "on creative property"
10004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10005 #: freeculture.xml:6946 freeculture.xml:11434
10006 msgid "copyright purpose established in"
10009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10010 #: freeculture.xml:6947 freeculture.xml:11143
10011 msgid "Progress Clause of"
10014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10015 #: freeculture.xml:6948 freeculture.xml:11435
10016 msgid "constitutional purpose of"
10019 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10020 #: freeculture.xml:6950
10021 msgid "constitutional tradition on"
10024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
10025 #: freeculture.xml:6951 freeculture.xml:11144
10026 msgid "Progress Clause"
10029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10030 #: freeculture.xml:6954
10032 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
10033 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of <quote>creative "
10034 "property</quote> rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English "
10035 "aim to avoid overly powerful publishers."
10038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10039 #: freeculture.xml:6959
10040 msgid "in constitutional Progress Clause"
10043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10044 #: freeculture.xml:6961
10046 "The power to establish <quote>creative property</quote> rights is granted to "
10047 "Congress in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article "
10048 "I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
10052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10053 #: freeculture.xml:6966
10055 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
10056 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
10057 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
10058 "<quote>Progress Clause,</quote> for notice what this clause does not say. It "
10059 "does not say Congress has the power to grant <quote>creative property "
10060 "rights.</quote> It says that Congress has the power <emphasis>to promote "
10061 "progress</emphasis>. The grant of power is its purpose, and its purpose is a "
10062 "public one, not the purpose of enriching publishers, nor even primarily the "
10063 "purpose of rewarding authors."
10066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10067 #: freeculture.xml:6980
10068 msgid "history of American"
10071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10072 #: freeculture.xml:6982
10074 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
10075 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"founders\"/>, the "
10076 "English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a few would not "
10077 "exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
10078 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
10079 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
10080 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend <quote>to "
10081 "Authors</quote> only."
10084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10085 #: freeculture.xml:6991
10086 msgid "Senate, U.S."
10089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10090 #: freeculture.xml:6992
10091 msgid "structural checks and balances of"
10094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10095 #: freeculture.xml:6993
10096 msgid "electoral college"
10099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10100 #: freeculture.xml:6995
10102 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
10103 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
10104 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
10105 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
10106 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
10107 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
10108 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
10109 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
10110 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
10111 "select the president. In each case, a <emphasis>structure</emphasis> built "
10112 "checks and balances into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent "
10113 "otherwise inevitable concentrations of power."
10116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10117 #: freeculture.xml:7012
10119 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call "
10120 "<quote>copyright</quote> today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond "
10121 "anything they ever considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need "
10122 "to put our <quote>copyright</quote> in context: We need to see how it has "
10123 "changed in the 210 years since they first struck its design."
10127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10128 #: freeculture.xml:7023
10130 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
10131 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
10132 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
10135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10136 #: freeculture.xml:7034
10137 msgid "We will end here:"
10140 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10141 #: freeculture.xml:7037
10142 msgid "<quote>Copyright</quote> today."
10145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10146 #: freeculture.xml:7038
10148 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.svg\" align=\"center\" "
10149 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10154 #: freeculture.xml:7041
10155 msgid "Let me explain how."
10158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10159 #: freeculture.xml:7046
10160 msgid "Law: Duration"
10163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10164 #: freeculture.xml:7049 freeculture.xml:7341
10165 msgid "Copyright Act (1790)"
10168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10169 #: freeculture.xml:7050
10170 msgid "common law protections of"
10173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10174 #: freeculture.xml:7051
10175 msgid "balance of U.S. content in"
10178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10179 #: freeculture.xml:7067
10180 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
10183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10184 #: freeculture.xml:7061
10186 "William W. Crosskey, <citetitle>Politics and the Constitution in the History "
10187 "of the United States</citetitle> (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), "
10188 "vol. 1, 485–86: <quote>extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the "
10189 "supreme Law of the Land,' <emphasis>the perpetual rights which authors had, "
10190 "or were supposed by some to have, under the Common Law</emphasis></quote> "
10191 "(emphasis added). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10194 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10195 #: freeculture.xml:7053
10197 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
10198 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
10199 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
10200 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
10201 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
10202 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
10203 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
10204 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
10205 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
10206 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
10207 "to reprint and distribute works."
10210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10211 #: freeculture.xml:7077
10212 msgid "federal vs. state"
10215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10216 #: freeculture.xml:7079
10218 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
10219 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
10220 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
10221 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
10222 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
10226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10227 #: freeculture.xml:7088
10229 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
10230 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
10231 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
10232 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
10233 "work passed into the public domain."
10237 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10238 #: freeculture.xml:7104
10240 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
10241 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, <citetitle>A "
10242 "History of Book Publishing in the United States</citetitle>, vol. 1, "
10243 "<citetitle>The Creation of an Industry, 1630–1865</citetitle> (New "
10244 "York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints recorded before 1790, only "
10245 "twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; William J. Maher, "
10246 "<citetitle>Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright Law of "
10247 "1790 in Historical Context</citetitle>, 7–10 (2002), available at "
10248 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
10249 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
10250 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
10251 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
10252 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
10253 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
10256 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10257 #: freeculture.xml:7096
10259 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
10260 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
10261 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
10262 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
10263 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
10264 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
10265 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10270 #: freeculture.xml:7122
10272 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
10273 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
10274 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
10275 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
10276 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
10280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10281 #: freeculture.xml:7137
10283 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
10284 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
10285 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
10286 "<quote>Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Studies on "
10287 "Copyright</citetitle>, vol. 1 (New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), "
10288 "618. For a more recent and comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and "
10289 "Richard A. Posner, <quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> "
10290 "<citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 471, "
10291 "498–501, and accompanying figures."
10294 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10295 #: freeculture.xml:7131
10297 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
10298 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
10299 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
10300 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
10305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10306 #: freeculture.xml:7155
10307 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
10310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10311 #: freeculture.xml:7151
10313 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
10314 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
10315 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
10316 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
10317 "books are no longer <emphasis>effectively</emphasis> controlled by "
10318 "copyright. The only practical commercial use of the books at that time is to "
10319 "sell the books as used books; that use—because it does not involve "
10320 "publication—is effectively free."
10323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10324 #: freeculture.xml:7163 freeculture.xml:11081
10325 msgid "copyright terms extended by"
10328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10329 #: freeculture.xml:7164 freeculture.xml:11083
10330 msgid "term extensions in"
10333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10334 #: freeculture.xml:7166
10336 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
10337 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
10338 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
10339 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
10340 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
10341 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
10344 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
10345 #: freeculture.xml:7173 freeculture.xml:7208 freeculture.xml:11107 freeculture.xml:15387
10346 msgid "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) (1998)"
10349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10350 #: freeculture.xml:7174 freeculture.xml:11087
10351 msgid "future patents vs. future copyrights in"
10354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10355 #: freeculture.xml:7176
10357 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
10358 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
10359 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
10360 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
10361 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
10362 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
10363 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
10364 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
10367 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
10368 #: freeculture.xml:7185 freeculture.xml:11086 freeculture.xml:11087 freeculture.xml:13174 freeculture.xml:13655
10372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
10373 #: freeculture.xml:7185 freeculture.xml:11086
10374 msgid "in public domain"
10378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10379 #: freeculture.xml:7187
10381 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
10382 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
10383 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
10384 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
10385 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
10386 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
10390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10391 #: freeculture.xml:7199
10393 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
10394 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
10395 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
10396 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
10397 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
10398 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
10399 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
10402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10403 #: freeculture.xml:7209
10404 msgid "of natural authors vs. corporations"
10407 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
10408 #: freeculture.xml:7210 freeculture.xml:13328
10409 msgid "corporations"
10412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10413 #: freeculture.xml:7210
10414 msgid "copyright terms for"
10417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10418 #: freeculture.xml:7212
10420 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
10421 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
10422 "term. For <quote>natural</quote> authors, that term was life plus fifty "
10423 "years. For corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, "
10424 "Congress abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before "
10425 "1978. All works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term "
10426 "then available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
10429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10430 #: freeculture.xml:7222
10432 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
10433 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
10434 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
10435 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
10436 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be "
10437 "<quote>limited,</quote> we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
10441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10442 #: freeculture.xml:7241
10444 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
10445 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
10446 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
10447 "<quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> loc. cit."
10450 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10451 #: freeculture.xml:7233
10453 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
10454 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
10455 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
10456 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
10457 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
10458 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
10459 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10463 #: freeculture.xml:7255
10467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10468 #: freeculture.xml:7256 freeculture.xml:7475
10472 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10473 #: freeculture.xml:7258
10475 "The <quote>scope</quote> of a copyright is the range of rights granted by "
10476 "the law. The scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those "
10477 "changes are not necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the "
10478 "changes if we're to keep this debate in context."
10481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10482 #: freeculture.xml:7264
10483 msgid "historical shift in copyright coverage of"
10486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10487 #: freeculture.xml:7266
10489 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only <quote>maps, "
10490 "charts, and books.</quote> That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
10491 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
10492 "author the exclusive right to <quote>publish</quote> copyrighted works. That "
10493 "means someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work "
10494 "without the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a "
10495 "copyright was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not "
10496 "extend to what lawyers call <quote>derivative works.</quote> It would not, "
10497 "therefore, interfere with the right of someone other than the author to "
10498 "translate a copyrighted book, or to adapt the story to a different form "
10499 "(such as a drama based on a published book)."
10502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10503 #: freeculture.xml:7279
10505 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
10506 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
10507 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
10508 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
10509 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
10510 "<quote>publish</quote> the work, but also the exclusive right of control "
10511 "over any <quote>copies</quote> of that work. And most significant for our "
10512 "purposes here, the right gives the copyright owner control over not only his "
10513 "or her particular work, but also any <quote>derivative work</quote> that "
10514 "might grow out of the original work. In this way, the right covers more "
10515 "creative work, protects the creative work more broadly, and protects works "
10516 "that are based in a significant way on the initial creative work."
10519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10520 #: freeculture.xml:7293
10524 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10525 #: freeculture.xml:7294
10526 msgid "formalities"
10529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10530 #: freeculture.xml:7295
10531 msgid "registration requirement of"
10535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10536 #: freeculture.xml:7297
10538 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
10539 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
10540 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
10541 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
10542 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
10543 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
10544 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
10545 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis>. And for most of the history of American "
10546 "copyright law, there was a requirement that works be deposited with the "
10547 "government before a copyright could be secured."
10550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10551 #: freeculture.xml:7312
10553 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
10554 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
10555 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
10556 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
10557 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
10558 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
10559 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
10560 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
10561 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
10562 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
10566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10567 #: freeculture.xml:7325
10571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10572 #: freeculture.xml:7327
10574 "All of these <quote>formalities</quote> were abolished in the American "
10575 "system when we decided to follow European copyright law. There is no "
10576 "requirement that you register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now "
10577 "is automatic; the copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a "
10578 "©; and the copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy "
10579 "available for others to copy."
10582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10583 #: freeculture.xml:7338
10584 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
10588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10589 #: freeculture.xml:7350
10591 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, <quote>Poets, Pirates, and the "
10592 "Creation of American Literature,</quote> 29 <citetitle>New York University "
10593 "Journal of International Law and Politics</citetitle> 255 (1997), and James "
10594 "Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, 1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., "
10598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10599 #: freeculture.xml:7343
10601 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
10602 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
10603 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
10604 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
10605 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
10606 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
10607 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
10608 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
10612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10613 #: freeculture.xml:7365
10615 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
10616 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
10617 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
10618 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
10619 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
10620 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
10623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10624 #: freeculture.xml:7375
10626 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
10627 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
10628 "note to your spouse, every doodle, <emphasis>every</emphasis> creative act "
10629 "that's reduced to a tangible form—all of this is automatically "
10630 "copyrighted. There is no need to register or mark your work. The protection "
10631 "follows the creation, not the steps you take to protect it."
10634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10635 #: freeculture.xml:7384
10637 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
10638 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
10639 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
10642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10643 #: freeculture.xml:7389
10645 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
10646 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
10647 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of <quote>derivative "
10648 "rights.</quote> If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your "
10649 "book without permission. No one can translate it without permission. "
10650 "CliffsNotes can't make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of "
10651 "these derivative uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright "
10652 "holder. The copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to "
10653 "your writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large "
10654 "proportion of the writings inspired by them."
10657 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10658 #: freeculture.xml:7404
10660 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
10661 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
10662 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
10663 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
10664 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
10665 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
10666 "the verbatim original work."
10669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10670 #: freeculture.xml:7426
10672 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>The Copyright Cage,</quote> <citetitle>Legal "
10673 "Affairs</citetitle>, July/August 2003, available at <ulink "
10674 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>. <placeholder "
10675 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10679 #: freeculture.xml:7416
10681 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
10682 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
10683 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
10684 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
10685 "work. But whatever <emphasis>that</emphasis> wrong is, transforming someone "
10686 "else's work is a different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at "
10687 "all—they believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not "
10688 "protect derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10689 "Whether or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is "
10690 "involved is fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
10693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10694 #: freeculture.xml:7448
10695 msgid "Rubenfeld, Jeb"
10698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10699 #: freeculture.xml:7441
10701 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
10702 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
10703 "First Amendment) between mere <quote>copies</quote> and derivative "
10704 "works. See Jed Rubenfeld, <quote>The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's "
10705 "Constitutionality,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 112 "
10706 "(2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59). <placeholder "
10707 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10711 #: freeculture.xml:7436
10713 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
10714 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
10715 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
10716 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
10717 "my creative work are treated the same."
10720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10721 #: freeculture.xml:7456
10723 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
10724 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
10725 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called "
10726 "<quote>Mickey Mouse,</quote> why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse "
10727 "toys and be the one to trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
10730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10731 #: freeculture.xml:7464
10733 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
10734 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
10735 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
10736 "originally granted."
10739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10740 #: freeculture.xml:7473
10741 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
10744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10745 #: freeculture.xml:7474 freeculture.xml:7536 freeculture.xml:7749
10746 msgid "copies as core issue of"
10750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10751 #: freeculture.xml:7482
10753 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
10754 "regulates more than <quote>copies</quote>—a public performance of a "
10755 "copyrighted song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se "
10756 "doesn't make a copy; 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section "
10757 "106(4). And it certainly sometimes doesn't regulate a <quote>copy</quote>; "
10758 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 112(a). But the "
10759 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates <quote>copies;</quote> "
10760 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 102) is that if there "
10761 "is a copy, there is a right."
10764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10765 #: freeculture.xml:7477
10767 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
10768 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
10769 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
10770 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
10771 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10775 #: freeculture.xml:7493
10776 msgid "other property rights vs."
10780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10781 #: freeculture.xml:7496
10783 "<quote>Copies.</quote> That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for "
10784 "<emphasis>copy</emphasis>right law to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's "
10785 "argument at the start of this chapter, that <quote>creative property</quote> "
10786 "deserves the <quote>same rights</quote> as all other property, it is the "
10787 "<emphasis>obvious</emphasis> that we need to be most careful about. For "
10788 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
10789 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
10790 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should <emphasis>not</emphasis> "
10791 "be the trigger for copyright law. More precisely, they should not "
10792 "<emphasis>always</emphasis> be the trigger for copyright law."
10796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10797 #: freeculture.xml:7515
10799 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
10800 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
10801 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
10802 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
10805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10806 #: freeculture.xml:7510
10808 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
10809 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
10810 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
10811 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10812 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
10813 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
10817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10818 #: freeculture.xml:7528
10820 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
10824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10825 #: freeculture.xml:7532
10826 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
10829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10830 #: freeculture.xml:7533
10832 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.svg\" align=\"center\" "
10833 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10837 #: freeculture.xml:7535
10838 msgid "three types of uses of"
10841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10842 #: freeculture.xml:7537
10843 msgid "copyright applicability altered by technology of"
10846 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10847 #: freeculture.xml:7538
10848 msgid "copyright intent altered by"
10852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10853 #: freeculture.xml:7543
10855 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
10856 "its potential <emphasis>uses</emphasis>. Most of these uses are unregulated "
10857 "by copyright law, because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, "
10858 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, "
10859 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act "
10860 "is not regulated (copyright law expressly states that after the first sale "
10861 "of a book, the copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the "
10862 "disposition of the book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a "
10863 "lamp or let your puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright "
10864 "law, because those acts do not make a copy."
10867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10868 #: freeculture.xml:7556
10869 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
10872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10873 #: freeculture.xml:7557
10875 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.svg\" align=\"center\" "
10876 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10880 #: freeculture.xml:7560
10882 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
10883 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
10884 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
10885 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
10886 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
10887 "diagram on next page)."
10890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10891 #: freeculture.xml:7572
10893 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
10894 "remain unregulated because the law considers these <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10898 #: freeculture.xml:7577
10900 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
10901 "copyrighted work."
10904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10905 #: freeculture.xml:7578
10907 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\" align=\"center\" "
10908 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10912 #: freeculture.xml:7583
10914 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
10915 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
10916 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
10917 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
10918 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
10919 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
10920 "over such <quote>fair uses</quote> for public policy (and possibly First "
10921 "Amendment) reasons."
10924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10925 #: freeculture.xml:7593
10926 msgid "Unregulated copying considered <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10930 #: freeculture.xml:7594
10932 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\" align=\"center\" "
10933 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10937 #: freeculture.xml:7598
10939 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
10943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10944 #: freeculture.xml:7599
10946 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\" align=\"center\" "
10947 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
10951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10952 #: freeculture.xml:7604
10954 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
10955 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
10956 "are nonetheless deemed <quote>fair</quote> regardless of the copyright "
10960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10961 #: freeculture.xml:7609 freeculture.xml:7893 freeculture.xml:10157
10962 msgid "on Internet"
10965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10966 #: freeculture.xml:7611 freeculture.xml:7688
10967 msgid "Internet burdens on"
10971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10972 #: freeculture.xml:7616
10974 "I don't mean <quote>nature</quote> in the sense that it couldn't be "
10975 "different, but rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical "
10976 "networks need not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital "
10977 "network could be designed to delete anything it copies so that the same "
10978 "number of copies remain."
10981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10982 #: freeculture.xml:7613
10984 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
10985 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10986 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
10987 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
10988 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
10989 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
10990 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
10991 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
10992 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
10993 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
10994 "burden of this shift."
10998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10999 #: freeculture.xml:7636
11001 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
11002 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
11003 "plausible <emphasis>copyright</emphasis>-related argument that the copyright "
11004 "owner could make to control that use of her book. Copyright law would have "
11005 "nothing to say about whether you read the book once, ten times, or every "
11006 "night before you went to bed. None of those instances of "
11007 "use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because none of "
11008 "those uses produced a copy."
11011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11012 #: freeculture.xml:7647
11016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11017 #: freeculture.xml:7648
11018 msgid "technological developments and"
11021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11022 #: freeculture.xml:7650
11024 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
11025 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
11026 "only once a month, then <emphasis>copyright law</emphasis> would aid the "
11027 "copyright owner in exercising this degree of control, because of the "
11028 "accidental feature of copyright law that triggers its application upon there "
11029 "being a copy. Now if you read the book ten times and the license says you "
11030 "may read it only five times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion "
11031 "of it) beyond the fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to "
11032 "the copyright owner's wish."
11035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11036 #: freeculture.xml:7662
11038 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
11039 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
11040 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
11044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11045 #: freeculture.xml:7668
11047 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
11048 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
11049 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
11050 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
11051 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
11055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11056 #: freeculture.xml:7677
11058 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
11059 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
11060 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate "
11061 "<emphasis>any</emphasis> transformation you make of creative work using a "
11062 "machine. <quote>Copy and paste</quote> and <quote>cut and paste</quote> "
11063 "become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others exposes the "
11064 "tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However troubling the "
11065 "expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is extraordinarily "
11066 "troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative work."
11069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11070 #: freeculture.xml:7690
11071 msgid "fair use vs."
11075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11076 #: freeculture.xml:7692
11078 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
11079 "on category 3 (<quote>fair use</quote>) that fair use never before had to "
11080 "bear. If a copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read "
11081 "a book on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a "
11082 "violation of my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation "
11083 "about whether I have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, "
11084 "reading did not trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need "
11085 "for a fair use defense. The right to read was effectively protected before "
11086 "because reading was not regulated."
11089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11090 #: freeculture.xml:7711
11092 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
11093 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
11094 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
11095 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
11096 "when the vast majority of uses are <emphasis>unregulated</emphasis>. But "
11097 "when everything becomes presumptively regulated, then the protections of "
11098 "fair use are not enough."
11101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11102 #: freeculture.xml:7727
11103 msgid "Video Pipeline"
11106 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
11107 #: freeculture.xml:7729 freeculture.xml:15284
11108 msgid "film industry"
11111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11112 #: freeculture.xml:7729
11113 msgid "trailer advertisements of"
11116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11117 #: freeculture.xml:7731
11119 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
11120 "business of making <quote>trailer</quote> advertisements for movies "
11121 "available to video stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way "
11122 "to sell videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, "
11123 "put the trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
11126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
11127 #: freeculture.xml:7737 freeculture.xml:7812 freeculture.xml:14030
11131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11132 #: freeculture.xml:7739
11134 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
11135 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
11136 "idea was to expand their <quote>selling by sampling</quote> technique by "
11137 "giving on-line stores the same ability to enable <quote>browsing.</quote> "
11138 "Just as in a bookstore you can read a few pages of a book before you buy the "
11139 "book, so, too, you would be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line "
11140 "before you bought it."
11144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11145 #: freeculture.xml:7752
11147 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
11148 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
11149 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
11150 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
11151 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
11152 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
11153 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
11154 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
11155 "was within their <quote>fair use</quote> rights to distribute the clips as "
11156 "they had. So they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these "
11157 "rights were in fact their rights."
11160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11161 #: freeculture.xml:7769
11162 msgid "willful infringement findings in"
11165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11166 #: freeculture.xml:7770
11167 msgid "willful infringement"
11170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11171 #: freeculture.xml:7772
11173 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
11174 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had <quote>willfully "
11175 "infringed</quote> on Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of "
11176 "willful infringement, it can award damages not on the basis of the actual "
11177 "harm to the copyright owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the "
11178 "statute. Because Video Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of "
11179 "Disney movies to enable video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney "
11180 "was now suing Video Pipeline for $100 million."
11183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11184 #: freeculture.xml:7782
11186 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
11187 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
11188 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
11189 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
11190 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
11191 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
11192 "Disney's permission."
11195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11196 #: freeculture.xml:7790
11197 msgid "first-sale doctrine"
11200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11201 #: freeculture.xml:7792
11203 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
11204 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
11205 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
11206 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
11207 "<quote>first-sale doctrine</quote> would free the seller to use the video as "
11208 "he wished, including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of "
11209 "the entire movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for "
11210 "Disney to centralize control over access to this content. Because each use "
11211 "of the Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
11212 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
11213 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
11216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11217 #: freeculture.xml:7811
11218 msgid "Barnes & Noble"
11222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11223 #: freeculture.xml:7816
11225 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
11226 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
11227 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
11228 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
11229 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
11230 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
11231 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
11232 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
11233 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
11234 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
11235 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
11236 "are quite slight."
11239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11240 #: freeculture.xml:7831
11242 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
11243 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
11244 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
11245 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
11246 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
11247 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
11250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
11251 #: freeculture.xml:7840
11252 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
11255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11256 #: freeculture.xml:7842
11258 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
11259 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
11260 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
11261 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
11264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11265 #: freeculture.xml:7847
11266 msgid "technology as automatic enforcer of"
11269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11270 #: freeculture.xml:7848
11271 msgid "copyright enforcement controlled by"
11274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11275 #: freeculture.xml:7850
11277 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
11278 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
11279 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
11280 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
11281 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
11284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11285 #: freeculture.xml:7857
11289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11290 #: freeculture.xml:7858 freeculture.xml:8029
11291 msgid "Marx Brothers"
11295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11296 #: freeculture.xml:7869
11298 "See David Lange, <quote>Recognizing the Public Domain,</quote> "
11299 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 44 (1981): "
11303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11304 #: freeculture.xml:7861
11306 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
11307 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of "
11308 "<citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>. Warner Brothers objected. They wrote a "
11309 "nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them that there would be serious legal "
11310 "consequences if they went forward with their plan.<placeholder "
11311 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11315 #: freeculture.xml:7878
11317 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, "
11318 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 1–3."
11321 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11322 #: freeculture.xml:7874
11324 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
11325 "that the Marx Brothers <quote>were brothers long before you "
11326 "were.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers "
11327 "therefore owned the word <citetitle>brothers</citetitle>, and if Warner "
11328 "Brothers insisted on trying to control <citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>, "
11329 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over "
11330 "<citetitle>brothers</citetitle>."
11333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11334 #: freeculture.xml:7888
11336 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
11337 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
11338 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
11339 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
11342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11343 #: freeculture.xml:7895
11345 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
11346 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
11347 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
11348 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
11349 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
11350 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
11351 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
11354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11355 #: freeculture.xml:7907
11356 msgid "Adobe eBook Reader"
11359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11360 #: freeculture.xml:7909
11361 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
11364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11365 #: freeculture.xml:7912
11367 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
11368 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
11369 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
11370 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
11373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11374 #: freeculture.xml:7919
11375 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
11379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11380 #: freeculture.xml:7923
11382 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
11383 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
11384 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, for example, is in the public domain. "
11385 "Some of them reproduce content that is not in the public domain: My own book "
11386 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> is not yet within the public "
11387 "domain. Consider <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> first. If you click on "
11388 "my e-book copy of <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, you'll see a fancy "
11389 "cover, and then a button at the bottom called Permissions."
11392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11393 #: freeculture.xml:7936
11394 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
11397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11398 #: freeculture.xml:7937
11400 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\" align=\"center\" "
11401 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11405 #: freeculture.xml:7940
11407 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
11408 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
11411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11412 #: freeculture.xml:7944
11413 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
11416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11417 #: freeculture.xml:7945
11419 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\" align=\"center\" "
11420 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11425 #: freeculture.xml:7949
11427 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
11428 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
11429 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
11430 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
11431 "button to hear <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> read aloud through the "
11435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11436 #: freeculture.xml:7956
11440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11441 #: freeculture.xml:7957
11442 msgid "<citetitle>Politics</citetitle>, (Aristotle)"
11445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11446 #: freeculture.xml:7959
11448 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
11449 "translation): Aristotle's <citetitle>Politics</citetitle>."
11452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11453 #: freeculture.xml:7963
11454 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>"
11457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11458 #: freeculture.xml:7964
11460 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\" align=\"center\" "
11461 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11465 #: freeculture.xml:7967
11467 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
11468 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
11471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11472 #: freeculture.xml:7972
11473 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>."
11476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11477 #: freeculture.xml:7973
11479 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\" align=\"center\" "
11480 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11484 #: freeculture.xml:7975 freeculture.xml:9828
11485 msgid "Future of Ideas, The (Lessig)"
11488 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
11489 #: freeculture.xml:7976 freeculture.xml:9829 freeculture.xml:11145 freeculture.xml:11191 freeculture.xml:13484
11490 msgid "Lessig, Lawrence"
11493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11494 #: freeculture.xml:7978
11496 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
11497 "e-book version of my last book, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>:"
11500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11501 #: freeculture.xml:7984
11502 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>The Future of Ideas</quote>."
11505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11506 #: freeculture.xml:7985
11508 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\" align=\"center\" "
11509 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11513 #: freeculture.xml:7988
11514 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
11518 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11519 #: freeculture.xml:7998
11521 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
11522 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
11523 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
11524 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
11525 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
11526 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
11529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11530 #: freeculture.xml:7991
11532 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls "
11533 "<quote>permissions</quote>— as if the publisher has the power to "
11534 "control how you use these works. For works under copyright, the copyright "
11535 "owner certainly does have the power—up to the limits of the copyright "
11536 "law. But for work not under copyright, there is no such copyright "
11537 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of "
11538 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> says I have the permission to copy only "
11539 "ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means "
11540 "is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the "
11541 "book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable."
11544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11545 #: freeculture.xml:8013
11547 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
11548 "which the e-book <quote>lives.</quote> Though the e-book says that these are "
11549 "permissions, they are not the sort of <quote>permissions</quote> that most "
11550 "of us deal with. When a teenager gets <quote>permission</quote> to stay out "
11551 "till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out "
11552 "till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the "
11553 "Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text "
11554 "into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the "
11555 "computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: "
11556 "After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the "
11557 "same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud "
11558 "button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if "
11559 "you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine "
11560 "simply won't read aloud."
11564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11565 #: freeculture.xml:8033
11567 "These are <emphasis>controls</emphasis>, not permissions. Imagine a world "
11568 "where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried "
11569 "to type <quote>Warner Brothers,</quote> erased <quote>Brothers</quote> from "
11573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11574 #: freeculture.xml:8039
11576 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright "
11577 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> as copyright <emphasis>code</emphasis>. The "
11578 "controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by "
11579 "courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded "
11580 "by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are "
11581 "always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the "
11582 "technology have no similar built-in check."
11585 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11586 #: freeculture.xml:8048
11588 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
11589 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
11590 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
11591 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
11595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11596 #: freeculture.xml:8055
11598 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
11602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11603 #: freeculture.xml:8058
11604 msgid "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)"
11607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11608 #: freeculture.xml:8059
11609 msgid "e-book restrictions on"
11612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11613 #: freeculture.xml:8061
11615 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
11616 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
11617 "Adobe site was a copy of <citetitle>Alice's Adventures in "
11618 "Wonderland</citetitle>. This wonderful book is in the public domain. Yet "
11619 "when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the following report:"
11622 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11623 #: freeculture.xml:8069
11624 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</quote>."
11627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11628 #: freeculture.xml:8071
11630 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\" align=\"center\" "
11631 "width=\"50%\"></graphic>"
11634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11635 #: freeculture.xml:8075
11637 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
11638 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the "
11639 "<quote>permissions</quote> indicated, not allowed to <quote>read "
11643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11644 #: freeculture.xml:8080
11646 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
11647 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
11648 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
11649 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
11650 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
11654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11655 #: freeculture.xml:8088
11657 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
11658 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
11659 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
11660 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
11661 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
11662 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
11663 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
11664 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
11665 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
11666 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
11669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11670 #: freeculture.xml:8103
11672 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
11673 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
11674 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
11675 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
11676 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
11679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11680 #: freeculture.xml:8113
11682 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
11683 "of mine that makes the same point."
11686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11687 #: freeculture.xml:8116 freeculture.xml:8260 freeculture.xml:8325 freeculture.xml:8433
11688 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
11691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11692 #: freeculture.xml:8117 freeculture.xml:8261 freeculture.xml:8326 freeculture.xml:8434
11693 msgid "robotic dog"
11696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11697 #: freeculture.xml:8118 freeculture.xml:8262 freeculture.xml:8327 freeculture.xml:8435
11701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11702 #: freeculture.xml:8118 freeculture.xml:8262 freeculture.xml:8327 freeculture.xml:8435
11703 msgid "Aibo robotic dog produced by"
11706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11707 #: freeculture.xml:8120
11709 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named <quote>Aibo.</quote> The Aibo "
11710 "learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and "
11711 "that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
11715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11716 #: freeculture.xml:8125
11718 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
11719 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
11720 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set up aibopet.com "
11721 "(and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site), and on that site he "
11722 "provided information about how to teach an Aibo to do tricks in addition to "
11723 "the ones Sony had taught it."
11726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11727 #: freeculture.xml:8134
11729 "<quote>Teach</quote> here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute "
11730 "computers. You teach a computer how to do something by programming it "
11731 "differently. So to say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to "
11732 "teach the dog to do new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving "
11733 "information to users of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer "
11734 "<quote>dog</quote> to make it do new tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
11737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11738 #: freeculture.xml:8141
11742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11743 #: freeculture.xml:8143
11745 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word "
11746 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> has a particularly unfriendly "
11747 "connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror "
11748 "movies do even worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, "
11749 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> is a much more positive "
11750 "term. <citetitle>Hack</citetitle> just means code that enables the program "
11751 "to do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy a "
11752 "new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer doesn't "
11753 "run, or <quote>drive,</quote> the printer. If you discovered that, you'd "
11754 "later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a "
11755 "driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought."
11758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11759 #: freeculture.xml:8157
11761 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
11762 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
11763 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11764 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11769 #: freeculture.xml:8164
11771 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
11772 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
11773 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
11774 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
11779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11780 #: freeculture.xml:8174
11782 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
11783 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
11784 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
11785 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
11786 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
11787 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
11788 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
11789 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
11790 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, <emphasis>What possible problem could "
11791 "there be with teaching a robot dog to dance?</emphasis>"
11794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11795 #: freeculture.xml:8189
11796 msgid "government case against"
11799 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11800 #: freeculture.xml:8191
11802 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
11803 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
11804 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
11805 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
11806 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
11807 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
11808 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
11809 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
11813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11814 #: freeculture.xml:8214 freeculture.xml:10783
11815 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
11818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11819 #: freeculture.xml:8204
11821 "See Pamela Samuelson, <quote>Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to "
11822 "Science,</quote> <citetitle>Science</citetitle> 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan "
11823 "I. Koerner, <quote>Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog "
11824 "New Tricks,</quote> <citetitle>American Prospect</citetitle>, January 2002; "
11825 "<quote>Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,</quote> "
11826 "<citetitle>Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter</citetitle>, 11 "
11827 "December 2001; Bill Holland, <quote>Copyright Act Raising Free-Speech "
11828 "Concerns,</quote> <citetitle>Billboard</citetitle>, May 2001; Janelle Brown, "
11829 "<quote>Is the RIAA Running Scared?</quote> Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic "
11830 "Frontier Foundation, <quote>Frequently Asked Questions about "
11831 "<citetitle>Felten and USENIX</citetitle> v. <citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> "
11832 "Legal Case,</quote> available at <ulink "
11833 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #27</ulink>. <placeholder "
11834 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11838 #: freeculture.xml:8202
11840 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
11841 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
11842 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
11843 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
11844 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
11847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11848 #: freeculture.xml:8222
11850 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
11851 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
11852 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
11853 "standard that would allow the content owner to say <quote>this music cannot "
11854 "be copied,</quote> and have a computer respect that command. The technology "
11855 "was to be part of a <quote>trusted system</quote> of control that would get "
11856 "content owners to trust the system of the Internet much more."
11859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11860 #: freeculture.xml:8232
11862 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
11863 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
11864 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
11865 "problems to the consortium."
11869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11870 #: freeculture.xml:8239
11872 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
11873 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
11874 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
11875 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
11878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11879 #: freeculture.xml:8245
11881 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
11882 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
11883 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
11884 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
11885 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
11886 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
11889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11890 #: freeculture.xml:8253
11892 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
11893 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
11894 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
11895 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
11896 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
11899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11900 #: freeculture.xml:8264
11902 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
11903 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
11904 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
11907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11908 #: freeculture.xml:8271
11910 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
11911 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
11912 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
11915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11916 #: freeculture.xml:8280
11918 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
11919 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
11920 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
11924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11925 #: freeculture.xml:8286
11927 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
11928 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
11929 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
11930 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<quote>DMCA</quote>)."
11933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11934 #: freeculture.xml:8294
11936 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
11937 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
11938 "information an offense."
11941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11942 #: freeculture.xml:8299
11944 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
11945 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
11946 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
11947 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
11948 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
11949 "were designed as <emphasis>code</emphasis> to modify the original "
11950 "<emphasis>code</emphasis> of the Internet, to reestablish some protection "
11951 "for copyright owners."
11954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11955 #: freeculture.xml:8310
11957 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
11958 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, "
11959 "<emphasis>legal code</emphasis> intended to buttress <emphasis>software "
11960 "code</emphasis> which itself was intended to support the <emphasis>legal "
11961 "code of copyright</emphasis>."
11964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11965 #: freeculture.xml:8317
11967 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
11968 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
11969 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
11970 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
11971 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
11972 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
11976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11977 #: freeculture.xml:8329
11979 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
11980 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
11981 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
11982 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
11983 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
11984 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
11985 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
11986 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
11987 "system was circumvented."
11990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11991 #: freeculture.xml:8341
11993 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
11994 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
11995 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
11996 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
11997 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
11998 "others to infringe others' copyright."
12001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12002 #: freeculture.xml:8348 freeculture.xml:8383
12003 msgid "Rogers, Fred"
12006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12007 #: freeculture.xml:8359 freeculture.xml:8396 freeculture.xml:8422
12008 msgid "Conrad, Paul"
12011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12012 #: freeculture.xml:8351
12014 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
12015 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
12016 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
12017 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
12018 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
12019 "<quote><citetitle>Mr. Rogers</citetitle>,</quote> for example, had testified "
12020 "in that case that he wanted people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' "
12021 "Neighborhood. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12025 #: freeculture.xml:8378
12027 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <citetitle>Sony Corporation of "
12028 "America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>., "
12029 "464 U.S. 417, 455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the "
12030 "VCR. See James Lardner, <citetitle>Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, "
12031 "and the Onslaught of the VCR</citetitle> (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), "
12032 "270–71. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
12035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12036 #: freeculture.xml:8363
12038 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
12039 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> at hours when some children cannot use it. I "
12040 "think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such "
12041 "programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with "
12042 "the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "
12043 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "
12044 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> because that's what I produce, that they then "
12045 "become much more active in the programming of their family's television "
12046 "life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My "
12047 "whole approach in broadcasting has always been <quote>You are an important "
12048 "person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.</quote> Maybe "
12049 "I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to "
12050 "be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is "
12051 "important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12056 #: freeculture.xml:8389
12058 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
12059 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
12063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12064 #: freeculture.xml:8394
12066 "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA. "
12067 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12071 #: freeculture.xml:8399
12072 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
12075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12076 #: freeculture.xml:8402
12078 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
12079 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
12080 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
12081 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
12082 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
12083 "use—a good end."
12086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12087 #: freeculture.xml:8409
12092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12093 #: freeculture.xml:8411
12095 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
12096 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
12097 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
12098 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
12101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
12102 #: freeculture.xml:8419
12103 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
12106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
12107 #: freeculture.xml:8420
12109 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\" align=\"center\" "
12110 "width=\"70%\"></graphic>"
12113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12114 #: freeculture.xml:8424
12116 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
12117 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
12118 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: <emphasis>No one ever died from copyright "
12119 "circumvention</emphasis>. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies "
12120 "absolutely, despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits "
12121 "guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do."
12124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12125 #: freeculture.xml:8437
12127 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
12128 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
12129 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
12130 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
12131 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
12135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12136 #: freeculture.xml:8445
12138 "This is how <emphasis>code</emphasis> becomes <emphasis>law</emphasis>. The "
12139 "controls built into the technology of copy and access protection become "
12140 "rules the violation of which is also a violation of the law. In this way, "
12141 "the code extends the law—increasing its regulation, even if the "
12142 "subject it regulates (activities that would otherwise plainly constitute "
12143 "fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code becomes law; code extends the "
12144 "law; code thus extends the control that copyright owners effect—at "
12145 "least for those copyright holders with the lawyers who can write the nasty "
12146 "letters that Felten and aibopet.com received."
12149 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12150 #: freeculture.xml:8457
12152 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
12153 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
12154 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
12155 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
12156 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
12157 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
12158 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
12159 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
12160 "violate the rules."
12164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12165 #: freeculture.xml:8476
12167 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, <quote>Legal "
12168 "Fictions, Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,</quote> "
12169 "<citetitle>Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal</citetitle> 17 "
12173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12174 #: freeculture.xml:8470
12176 "For example, imagine you were part of a <citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> fan "
12177 "club. You gathered every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of "
12178 "fan fiction about the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain "
12179 "Kirk. The characters would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply "
12180 "continue it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12184 #: freeculture.xml:8482
12186 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
12187 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
12188 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
12189 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
12190 "wished without fear of legal control."
12193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12194 #: freeculture.xml:8490
12196 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
12197 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
12198 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
12199 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
12200 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
12201 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
12202 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
12206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12207 #: freeculture.xml:8500
12209 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
12210 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
12211 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
12212 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
12213 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
12214 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
12217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12218 #: freeculture.xml:8509
12219 msgid "Market: Concentration"
12223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12224 #: freeculture.xml:8511
12226 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
12227 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
12228 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
12229 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
12230 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
12231 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
12232 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
12233 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
12234 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
12235 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
12236 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
12237 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
12238 "to copyright's control."
12241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12242 #: freeculture.xml:8529
12244 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
12245 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
12246 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
12247 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
12248 "about all the other changes I have described."
12251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12252 #: freeculture.xml:8536
12254 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
12255 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
12256 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
12257 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
12258 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
12259 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
12260 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
12261 "three companies control more than 85 percent of the media."
12264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12265 #: freeculture.xml:8547
12266 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
12269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12270 #: freeculture.xml:8551
12274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12275 #: freeculture.xml:8552 freeculture.xml:9938
12279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12280 #: freeculture.xml:8553
12281 msgid "McCain, John"
12284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12285 #: freeculture.xml:8554 freeculture.xml:9945
12286 msgid "Universal Music Group"
12289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12290 #: freeculture.xml:8555
12291 msgid "Warner Music Group"
12295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12296 #: freeculture.xml:8561
12298 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
12299 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
12300 "of Senator John McCain)."
12304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12305 #: freeculture.xml:8568
12307 "Lynette Holloway, <quote>Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to "
12308 "Slide,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 23 December 2002."
12312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12313 #: freeculture.xml:8574
12315 "Molly Ivins, <quote>Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,</quote> "
12316 "<citetitle>Charleston Gazette</citetitle>, 31 May 2003."
12319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12320 #: freeculture.xml:8557
12322 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
12323 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, "
12324 "<quote>five companies control 85 percent of our media "
12325 "sources.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording "
12326 "labels of Universal Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music "
12327 "Group, and EMI control 84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder "
12328 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The <quote>five largest cable companies pipe "
12329 "programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers "
12330 "nationwide.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
12334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12335 #: freeculture.xml:8579
12337 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
12338 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
12339 "seventy-five stations. Today <emphasis>one</emphasis> company owns more than "
12340 "1,200 stations. During that period of consolidation, the total number of "
12341 "radio owners dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest "
12342 "broadcasters control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just "
12343 "four companies control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising "
12347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12348 #: freeculture.xml:8591
12350 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
12351 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
12352 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
12353 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
12354 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
12355 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
12356 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
12357 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
12361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12362 #: freeculture.xml:8601 freeculture.xml:8622
12363 msgid "Fallows, James"
12366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12367 #: freeculture.xml:8603
12369 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
12370 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
12371 "article about Rupert Murdoch,"
12374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12375 #: freeculture.xml:8620
12377 "James Fallows, <quote>The Age of Murdoch,</quote> <citetitle>Atlantic "
12378 "Monthly</citetitle> (September 2003): 89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12383 #: freeculture.xml:8609
12385 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
12386 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies … Fox TV shows "
12387 "… Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They "
12388 "sell the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on "
12389 "the broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
12390 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
12391 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
12392 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
12393 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
12394 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12398 #: freeculture.xml:8627
12400 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
12401 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
12402 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
12403 "thousand words could do:"
12406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
12407 #: freeculture.xml:8633
12408 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
12411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
12412 #: freeculture.xml:8634
12414 "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\" align=\"center\" "
12415 "width=\"90%\"></graphic>"
12419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12420 #: freeculture.xml:8638
12422 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
12423 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
12427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12428 #: freeculture.xml:8643
12430 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
12431 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
12432 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
12433 "beginning to change my mind."
12436 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12437 #: freeculture.xml:8649
12439 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
12443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12444 #: freeculture.xml:8652
12445 msgid "Lear, Norman"
12448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12449 #: freeculture.xml:8654 freeculture.xml:8717
12450 msgid "All in the Family"
12453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12454 #: freeculture.xml:8656
12456 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for <citetitle>All in the "
12457 "Family</citetitle>. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It "
12458 "was too edgy, they told Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more "
12459 "edgy than the first. ABC was exasperated. You're missing the point, they "
12460 "told Lear. We wanted less edgy, not more."
12464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12465 #: freeculture.xml:8668
12467 "Leonard Hill, <quote>The Axis of Access,</quote> remarks before Weidenbaum "
12468 "Center Forum, <quote>Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,</quote> "
12469 "St. Louis, Missouri, 3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available "
12470 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the "
12471 "Lear story, not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
12472 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
12475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12476 #: freeculture.xml:8663
12478 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
12479 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
12480 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
12481 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12486 #: freeculture.xml:8679
12488 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
12489 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
12490 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
12491 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
12492 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
12493 "<quote>independent</quote> of the networks."
12497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12498 #: freeculture.xml:8698
12500 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
12501 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
12502 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
12503 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
12504 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
12505 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
12506 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
12509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12510 #: freeculture.xml:8688
12512 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
12513 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
12514 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
12515 "independent television studios remained. <quote>In 1992, only 15 percent of "
12516 "new series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last "
12517 "year, the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
12518 "quintupled to 77 percent.</quote> <quote>In 1992, 16 new series were "
12519 "produced independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
12520 "one.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of "
12521 "prime time television was owned by the networks that ran it. <quote>In the "
12522 "ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television "
12523 "hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the "
12524 "number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent "
12525 "studios decreased 63%.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
12528 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12529 #: freeculture.xml:8719
12531 "Today, another Norman Lear with another <citetitle>All in the "
12532 "Family</citetitle> would find that he had the choice either to make the show "
12533 "less edgy or to be fired: The content of any show developed for a network is "
12534 "increasingly owned by the network."
12537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12538 #: freeculture.xml:8724
12539 msgid "Diller, Barry"
12542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12543 #: freeculture.xml:8725
12544 msgid "Moyers, Bill"
12547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12548 #: freeculture.xml:8727
12550 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
12551 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
12552 "Diller said to Bill Moyers,"
12556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12557 #: freeculture.xml:8742
12559 "<quote>Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,</quote> <citetitle>Now with "
12560 "Bill Moyers</citetitle>, Bill Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript "
12561 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
12564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12565 #: freeculture.xml:8733
12567 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
12568 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
12569 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
12570 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
12571 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
12572 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12576 #: freeculture.xml:8749
12578 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
12579 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
12580 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
12581 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
12582 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
12583 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
12584 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
12585 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
12586 "the environment for a democracy."
12589 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12590 #: freeculture.xml:8760
12591 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
12595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12596 #: freeculture.xml:8769
12598 "Clayton M. Christensen, <citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The "
12599 "Revolutionary National Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do "
12600 "Business</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, "
12601 "1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first suggested by Dean "
12602 "Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, <quote>The Interaction of Design Hierarchies "
12603 "and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,</quote> <citetitle>Research "
12604 "Policy</citetitle> 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see "
12605 "Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, <citetitle>Creative Destruction: Why "
12606 "Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to "
12607 "Successfully Transform Them</citetitle> (New York: Currency/Doubleday, "
12611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12612 #: freeculture.xml:8762
12614 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
12615 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the "
12616 "<quote>Innovator's Dilemma</quote>: the fact that large traditional firms "
12617 "find it rational to ignore new, breakthrough technologies that compete with "
12618 "their core business. The same analysis could help explain why large, "
12619 "traditional media companies would find it rational to ignore new cultural "
12620 "trends.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only "
12621 "don't, but should not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, "
12622 "there will be far too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12627 #: freeculture.xml:8786
12629 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
12630 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
12631 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
12634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12635 #: freeculture.xml:8792
12637 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
12641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12642 #: freeculture.xml:8796
12644 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
12645 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
12646 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
12650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12651 #: freeculture.xml:8801
12653 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
12654 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
12655 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
12656 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
12657 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
12658 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
12659 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
12660 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
12661 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
12662 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
12663 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
12664 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
12665 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
12668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12669 #: freeculture.xml:8820
12671 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
12672 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
12673 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
12676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12677 #: freeculture.xml:8828
12678 msgid "Nick and Norm anti-drug campaign"
12681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12682 #: freeculture.xml:8830
12684 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
12685 "media campaign as part of the <quote>war on drugs.</quote> The campaign "
12686 "produced scores of short film clips about issues related to illegal "
12687 "drugs. In one series (the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, "
12688 "discussing the idea of legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the "
12689 "collateral damage from the war. One advances an argument in favor of drug "
12690 "legalization. The other responds in a powerful and effective way against the "
12691 "argument of the first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
12692 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
12696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12697 #: freeculture.xml:8842
12699 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
12700 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
12703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12704 #: freeculture.xml:8846
12706 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
12707 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
12708 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
12709 "war. Can you do it?"
12713 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12714 #: freeculture.xml:8852
12716 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
12717 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
12718 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
12722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
12723 #: freeculture.xml:8860
12724 msgid "on television advertising bans"
12727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
12728 #: freeculture.xml:8861
12729 msgid "controversy avoided by"
12732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12733 #: freeculture.xml:8874
12737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12738 #: freeculture.xml:8875
12739 msgid "Marijuana Policy Project"
12742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12743 #: freeculture.xml:8876
12747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12748 #: freeculture.xml:8877
12752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12753 #: freeculture.xml:8878
12757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12758 #: freeculture.xml:8873
12760 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12761 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
12762 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> "
12763 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12764 "id=\"6\"/> The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place "
12765 "ads that directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within "
12766 "the Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as <quote>against "
12767 "[their] policy.</quote> The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads "
12768 "without reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to "
12769 "run the ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the "
12770 "ads and returned the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October "
12771 "2003. These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, "
12772 "for example, Nat Ives, <quote>On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet "
12773 "with Rejection from TV Networks,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
12774 "Times</citetitle>, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time "
12775 "there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to even "
12776 "the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, <quote>Ad Hoc "
12777 "Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and "
12778 "Radio,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law and Policy Review</citetitle> 6 (1988): "
12779 "449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the "
12780 "courts, see <citetitle>Radio-Television News Directors "
12781 "Association</citetitle> v. <citetitle>FCC</citetitle>, 184 F. 3d 872 "
12782 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
12783 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
12784 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
12785 "Matier and Andrew Ross, <quote>Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects "
12786 "Ad,</quote> SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12787 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
12788 "the criticism was <quote>too controversial.</quote>"
12791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12792 #: freeculture.xml:8863
12794 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
12795 "<quote>controversial</quote> ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
12796 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
12797 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
12798 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
12799 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
12800 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
12801 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
12802 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12806 #: freeculture.xml:8912
12808 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
12809 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
12810 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
12811 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
12812 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
12813 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
12814 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
12815 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
12818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12819 #: freeculture.xml:8925
12823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12824 #: freeculture.xml:8927
12826 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
12827 "warriors that the government should <quote>protect my property.</quote> In "
12828 "the abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No "
12829 "sane sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
12833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12834 #: freeculture.xml:8933
12836 "But when we see how dramatically this <quote>property</quote> has "
12837 "changed— when we recognize how it might now interact with both "
12838 "technology and markets to mean that the effective constraint on the liberty "
12839 "to cultivate our culture is dramatically different—the claim begins to "
12840 "seem less innocent and obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to "
12841 "supplement the law's control, and (2) the power of concentrated markets to "
12842 "weaken the opportunity for dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively "
12843 "expanded <quote>property</quote> rights granted by copyright fundamentally "
12844 "changes the freedom within this culture to cultivate and build upon our "
12845 "past, then we have to ask whether this property should be redefined."
12848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12849 #: freeculture.xml:8949
12851 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
12852 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
12853 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
12857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12858 #: freeculture.xml:8955
12860 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
12861 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
12862 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
12863 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
12864 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
12865 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
12866 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
12867 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
12868 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
12871 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12872 #: freeculture.xml:8967
12874 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
12875 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
12876 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
12877 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
12878 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
12879 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
12880 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be "
12881 "<emphasis>reductions</emphasis> in the scope of copyright, in response to "
12882 "the extraordinary increase in control that technology and the market enable."
12886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12887 #: freeculture.xml:8979
12889 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
12890 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
12891 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
12892 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: <emphasis>Never in our "
12893 "history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of "
12894 "our culture than now</emphasis>."
12897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12898 #: freeculture.xml:9003
12900 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a "
12901 "similar point in his <quote>four surrenders</quote> of copyright law in the "
12902 "digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60."
12905 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12906 #: freeculture.xml:8988
12908 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
12909 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
12910 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
12911 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
12912 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
12913 "networks. <emphasis>Never</emphasis> has copyright protected such a wide "
12914 "range of rights, against as broad a range of actors, for a term that was "
12915 "remotely as long. This form of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny "
12916 "part of the creative energy of a nation at the founding—is now a "
12917 "massive regulation of the overall creative process. Law plus technology plus "
12918 "the market now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the "
12919 "most significant regulation of culture that our free society has "
12920 "known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12924 #: freeculture.xml:9009
12926 "<emphasis role='strong'>This has been</emphasis> a long chapter. Its point "
12927 "can now be briefly stated."
12930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12931 #: freeculture.xml:9013
12933 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
12934 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
12935 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
12936 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
12937 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
12940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12941 #: freeculture.xml:9025 freeculture.xml:9062
12945 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12946 #: freeculture.xml:9026 freeculture.xml:9063 freeculture.xml:9101 freeculture.xml:9133
12950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12951 #: freeculture.xml:9031 freeculture.xml:9068 freeculture.xml:9106 freeculture.xml:9138
12955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12956 #: freeculture.xml:9032 freeculture.xml:9069 freeculture.xml:9070 freeculture.xml:9107 freeculture.xml:9108 freeculture.xml:9139 freeculture.xml:9140 freeculture.xml:9144 freeculture.xml:9145
12960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12961 #: freeculture.xml:9033 freeculture.xml:9037 freeculture.xml:9038 freeculture.xml:9074 freeculture.xml:9075 freeculture.xml:9113
12965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12966 #: freeculture.xml:9036 freeculture.xml:9073 freeculture.xml:9111 freeculture.xml:9143
12967 msgid "Noncommercial"
12971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12972 #: freeculture.xml:9045
12974 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
12975 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
12976 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
12977 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
12981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12982 #: freeculture.xml:9054
12983 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
12986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12987 #: freeculture.xml:9082
12989 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
12990 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
12991 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
12992 "essentially free."
12995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12996 #: freeculture.xml:9088
12998 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
12999 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
13000 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
13001 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
13005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
13006 #: freeculture.xml:9100 freeculture.xml:9132
13010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
13011 #: freeculture.xml:9112
13012 msgid "©/Free"
13015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13016 #: freeculture.xml:9120
13018 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
13019 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
13020 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
13021 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
13026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13027 #: freeculture.xml:9152
13029 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
13030 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
13031 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
13032 "commercial publishers."
13035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13036 #: freeculture.xml:9160
13038 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
13039 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
13040 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
13041 "actually does any good."
13044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13045 #: freeculture.xml:9166
13047 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
13048 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
13049 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
13050 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
13051 "chapters <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/> and "
13052 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"transformers\"/>, one "
13053 "might well wonder whether it does more harm than good for commercial "
13054 "transformation. More commercial transformative work would be created if "
13055 "derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
13058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13059 #: freeculture.xml:9184
13060 msgid "legal realist movement"
13063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13064 #: freeculture.xml:9184
13066 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> It was the single most important "
13067 "contribution of the legal realist movement to demonstrate that all property "
13068 "rights are always crafted to balance public and private interests. See "
13069 "Thomas C. Grey, <quote>The Disintegration of Property,</quote> in "
13070 "<citetitle>Nomos XXII: Property</citetitle>, J. Roland Pennock and John W. "
13071 "Chapman, eds. (New York: New York University Press, 1980)."
13074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13075 #: freeculture.xml:9178
13077 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
13078 "copyright is a kind of <quote>property,</quote> and of course, as with any "
13079 "property, the state ought to protect it. But first impressions "
13080 "notwithstanding, historically, this property right (as with all property "
13081 "rights<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to "
13082 "balance the important need to give authors and artists incentives with the "
13083 "equally important need to assure access to creative work. This balance has "
13084 "always been struck in light of new technologies. And for almost half of our "
13085 "tradition, the <quote>copyright</quote> did not control <emphasis>at "
13086 "all</emphasis> the freedom of others to build upon or transform a creative "
13087 "work. American culture was born free, and for almost 180 years our country "
13088 "consistently protected a vibrant and rich free culture."
13092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13093 #: freeculture.xml:9203
13095 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
13096 "the scope of the interests protected by <quote>property.</quote> The very "
13097 "birth of <quote>copyright</quote> as a statutory right recognized those "
13098 "limits, by granting copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the "
13099 "story of chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13100 "linkend=\"founders\"/>). The tradition of <quote>fair use</quote> is "
13101 "animated by a similar concern that is increasingly under strain as the costs "
13102 "of exercising any fair use right become unavoidably high (the story of "
13103 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13104 "linkend=\"recorders\"/>). Adding statutory rights where markets might stifle "
13105 "innovation is another familiar limit on the property right that copyright is "
13106 "(chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13107 "linkend=\"transformers\"/>). And granting archives and libraries a broad "
13108 "freedom to collect, claims of property notwithstanding, is a crucial part of "
13109 "guaranteeing the soul of a culture (chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
13110 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>). Free cultures, like free markets, "
13111 "are built with property. But the nature of the property that builds a free "
13112 "culture is very different from the extremist vision that dominates the "
13116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13117 #: freeculture.xml:9226
13119 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
13120 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
13121 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
13122 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
13123 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
13124 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
13125 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
13126 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
13127 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
13131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
13132 #: freeculture.xml:9243
13136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
13137 #: freeculture.xml:9247
13138 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
13141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13142 #: freeculture.xml:9248
13146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13147 #: freeculture.xml:9249
13148 msgid "Wells, H. G."
13151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13152 #: freeculture.xml:9250
13153 msgid "<quote>Country of the Blind, The</quote> (Wells)"
13157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
13158 #: freeculture.xml:9258
13160 "H. G. Wells, <quote>The Country of the Blind</quote> (1904, 1911). See "
13161 "H. G. Wells, <citetitle>The Country of the Blind and Other "
13162 "Stories</citetitle>, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: Oxford University "
13166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13167 #: freeculture.xml:9253
13169 "<emphasis role='strong'>In a well-known</emphasis> short story by "
13170 "H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez trips (literally, down an ice "
13171 "slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in the Peruvian "
13172 "Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
13173 "extraordinarily beautiful, with <quote>sweet water, pasture, an even "
13174 "climate, slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an "
13175 "excellent fruit.</quote> But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this "
13176 "as an opportunity. <quote>In the Country of the Blind,</quote> he tells "
13177 "himself, <quote>the One-Eyed Man is King.</quote> So he resolves to live "
13178 "with the villagers to explore life as a king."
13181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13182 #: freeculture.xml:9270
13184 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
13185 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are "
13186 "<quote>blind.</quote> They don't have the word "
13187 "<citetitle>blind</citetitle>. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
13188 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
13189 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
13190 "becomes increasingly frustrated. <quote>`You don't understand,' he cried, in "
13191 "a voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
13192 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'</quote>"
13196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13197 #: freeculture.xml:9282
13199 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
13200 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
13201 "a young woman who to him seems <quote>the most beautiful thing in the whole "
13202 "of creation,</quote> understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of "
13203 "what he sees <quote>seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she "
13204 "listened to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet "
13205 "white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.</quote> <quote>She "
13206 "did not believe,</quote> Wells tells us, and <quote>she could only half "
13207 "understand, but she was mysteriously delighted.</quote>"
13210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13211 #: freeculture.xml:9293
13213 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his <quote>mysteriously "
13214 "delighted</quote> love, the father and the village object. <quote>You see, "
13215 "my dear,</quote> her father instructs, <quote>he's an idiot. He has "
13216 "delusions. He can't do anything right.</quote> They take Nunez to the "
13220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13221 #: freeculture.xml:9299
13223 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. <quote>His brain "
13224 "is affected,</quote> he reports."
13227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13228 #: freeculture.xml:9303
13230 "<quote>What affects it?</quote> the father asks. <quote>Those queer things "
13231 "that are called the eyes … are diseased … in such a way as to "
13232 "affect his brain.</quote>"
13235 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13236 #: freeculture.xml:9308
13238 "The doctor continues: <quote>I think I may say with reasonable certainty "
13239 "that in order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and "
13240 "easy surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
13244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13245 #: freeculture.xml:9314
13247 "<quote>Thank Heaven for science!</quote> says the father to the doctor. They "
13248 "inform Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. "
13249 "(You'll have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I "
13250 "believe in free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.)"
13254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13255 #: freeculture.xml:9320
13257 "<emphasis role='strong'>It sometimes</emphasis> happens that the eggs of "
13258 "twins fuse in the mother's womb. That fusion produces a "
13259 "<quote>chimera.</quote> A chimera is a single creature with two sets of "
13260 "DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different from the DNA of "
13261 "the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder "
13262 "mysteries. <quote>But the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was "
13263 "not the person whose blood was at the scene. …</quote>"
13266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13267 #: freeculture.xml:9334
13269 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
13270 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
13271 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
13272 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
13273 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a <quote>person</quote> should "
13274 "reflect this reality."
13277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13278 #: freeculture.xml:9342
13280 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
13281 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
13282 "enough, <quote>the copyright wars,</quote> the more I think we're dealing "
13283 "with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question <quote>What is "
13284 "p2p file sharing?</quote> both sides have it right, and both sides have it "
13285 "wrong. One side says, <quote>File sharing is just like two kids taping each "
13286 "others' records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty "
13287 "years without any question at all.</quote> That's true, at least in "
13288 "part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but "
13289 "rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all "
13290 "relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company "
13291 "no doubt did as a kid: sharing music."
13294 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13295 #: freeculture.xml:9356
13297 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
13298 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
13299 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "
13300 "<quote>friends</quote> beyond recognition to say <quote>my ten thousand best "
13301 "friends</quote> can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best "
13302 "friend is what <quote>we have always been allowed to do,</quote> we have not "
13303 "always been allowed to share music with <quote>our ten thousand best "
13307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13308 #: freeculture.xml:9365
13310 "Likewise, when the other side says, <quote>File sharing is just like walking "
13311 "into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with "
13312 "it,</quote> that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) "
13313 "releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free "
13314 "copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower. "
13315 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13320 #: freeculture.xml:9376
13322 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
13323 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
13324 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
13325 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
13326 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
13327 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
13328 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
13331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13332 #: freeculture.xml:9386
13334 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
13335 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
13336 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
13337 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
13338 "rules should govern it?"
13341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13342 #: freeculture.xml:9402 freeculture.xml:9689 freeculture.xml:10784
13343 msgid "ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by"
13346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13347 #: freeculture.xml:9433
13348 msgid "Conyers, John, Jr."
13351 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13352 #: freeculture.xml:9434 freeculture.xml:10181
13353 msgid "Berman, Howard L."
13356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
13357 #: freeculture.xml:9402
13359 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For an excellent summary, see the "
13360 "report prepared by GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society "
13361 "at Harvard Law School, <quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
13362 "World,</quote> 27 June 2003, available at <ulink "
13363 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John Conyers "
13364 "Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill that "
13365 "would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
13366 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
13367 "<quote>House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
13368 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 17 July 2003, available at <ulink "
13369 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #34</ulink>. Civil penalties are "
13370 "currently set at $150,000 per copied song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) "
13371 "legal challenge to the RIAA's demand that an ISP reveal the identity of a "
13372 "user accused of sharing more than 600 songs through a family computer, see "
13373 "<citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Verizon Internet Services (In "
13374 "re. Verizon Internet Services)</citetitle>, 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 "
13375 "(D.D.C. 2003). Such a user could face liability ranging as high as $90 "
13376 "million. Such astronomical figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal "
13377 "in its prosecution of file sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to "
13378 "$17,500 for four students accused of heavy file sharing on university "
13379 "networks must have seemed a mere pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA "
13380 "could seek should the matter proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, "
13381 "<quote>Downloading Could Lead to Fines,</quote> redandblack.com, August "
13382 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13383 "#35</ulink>. For an example of the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, "
13384 "and of the subpoenas issued to universities to reveal student file-sharer "
13385 "identities, see James Collins, <quote>RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to "
13386 "Name Students,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 8 August 2003, "
13387 "D3, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13388 "#36</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
13389 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
13392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13393 #: freeculture.xml:9393
13395 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
13396 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
13397 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
13398 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
13399 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
13400 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
13401 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13406 #: freeculture.xml:9440
13408 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
13409 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
13410 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
13411 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
13412 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
13415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13416 #: freeculture.xml:9447
13418 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
13419 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
13420 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
13421 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
13422 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
13423 "<emphasis>either</emphasis> extreme would be worse than a reasonable "
13424 "alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse "
13425 "of the two extremes."
13429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13430 #: freeculture.xml:9459
13432 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
13433 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
13434 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
13435 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
13436 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
13440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13441 #: freeculture.xml:9467
13443 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to <quote>steal</quote> "
13444 "music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this "
13445 "war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so "
13446 "broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation "
13447 "that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing "
13448 "of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The "
13449 "law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public "
13450 "policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing "
13451 "the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,"
13454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
13455 #: freeculture.xml:9480
13457 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
13458 "and we want to protect those rights."
13461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
13462 #: freeculture.xml:9484
13464 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
13465 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
13466 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
13467 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
13472 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13473 #: freeculture.xml:9501
13475 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
13476 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
13477 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
13478 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
13479 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
13480 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
13483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
13484 #: freeculture.xml:9491
13486 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
13487 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
13488 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
13489 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
13490 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
13491 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
13492 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
13493 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13497 #: freeculture.xml:9515 freeculture.xml:9889
13498 msgid "Vivendi Universal"
13501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13502 #: freeculture.xml:9512
13504 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "
13505 "<quote>the major labels.</quote> Its position on these matters has now "
13506 "changed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13510 #: freeculture.xml:9518
13512 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
13513 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
13514 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
13517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
13518 #: freeculture.xml:9526
13519 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
13522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13523 #: freeculture.xml:9528
13525 "<emphasis role='strong'>To fight</emphasis> <quote>piracy,</quote> to "
13526 "protect <quote>property,</quote> the content industry has launched a "
13527 "war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought the "
13528 "government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both direct "
13529 "and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages will be "
13530 "suffered most by our own people."
13533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13534 #: freeculture.xml:9536
13536 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
13537 "particular, the consequences for <quote>free culture.</quote> But my aim now "
13538 "is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
13542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13543 #: freeculture.xml:9542
13545 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
13546 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
13547 "the property called <quote>intellectual property</quote> is at its greatest "
13551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13552 #: freeculture.xml:9550
13554 "Yet <quote>common sense</quote> does not see it this way. Common sense is "
13555 "still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme "
13556 "claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical "
13557 "rejection of <quote>piracy</quote> still has play."
13561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13562 #: freeculture.xml:9558
13564 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
13565 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
13566 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
13567 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
13568 "today's monopolists of culture."
13571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13572 #: freeculture.xml:9565
13573 msgid "Constraining Creators"
13576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13577 #: freeculture.xml:9567
13579 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
13580 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
13581 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
13582 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
13583 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
13584 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
13585 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
13586 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
13587 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
13588 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
13589 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
13590 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
13593 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13594 #: freeculture.xml:9582
13596 "This digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> is in part an extension of "
13597 "the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and "
13598 "in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it "
13599 "explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of "
13600 "digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> promises a world of "
13601 "extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly "
13602 "shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a "
13603 "broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and "
13604 "contribute to the culture all around."
13608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13609 #: freeculture.xml:9593
13611 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
13612 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
13613 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
13614 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
13615 "across the globe."
13618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13619 #: freeculture.xml:9603
13621 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
13622 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
13623 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
13624 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
13625 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
13626 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
13627 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
13628 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
13629 "presumptively illegal."
13632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13633 #: freeculture.xml:9613 freeculture.xml:9637
13637 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13638 #: freeculture.xml:9616
13639 msgid "doctors malpractice claims against"
13642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13643 #: freeculture.xml:9632
13645 "See Lynne W. Jeter, <citetitle>Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at "
13646 "WorldCom</citetitle> (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; "
13647 "for details of the settlement, see MCI press release, <quote>MCI Wins "
13648 "U.S. District Court Approval for SEC Settlement</quote> (7 July 2003), "
13649 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>. "
13650 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13654 #: freeculture.xml:9653
13655 msgid "Bush, George W."
13658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13659 #: freeculture.xml:9644
13661 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
13662 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
13663 "overview, see Tanya Albert, <quote>Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be "
13664 "Back,' Say Tort Reformers,</quote> amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at "
13665 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and "
13666 "<quote>Senate Turns Back Malpractice Caps,</quote> CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, "
13667 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13668 "#39</ulink>. President Bush has continued to urge tort reform in recent "
13669 "months. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13673 #: freeculture.xml:9619
13675 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
13676 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
13677 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
13678 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
13679 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA (Jesse Jordan of chapter <xref "
13680 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"catalogs\"/> was just one) were "
13681 "threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search engines that "
13682 "permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which defrauded investors "
13683 "of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in market capitalization of "
13684 "over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere $750 million.<placeholder "
13685 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation being pushed in Congress "
13686 "right now, a doctor who negligently removes the wrong leg in an operation "
13687 "would be liable for no more than $250,000 in damages for pain and "
13688 "suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can common sense "
13689 "recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for downloading "
13690 "two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's negligently "
13691 "butchering a patient?"
13694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13695 #: freeculture.xml:9659
13696 msgid "art, underground"
13700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13701 #: freeculture.xml:9680
13703 "See Danit Lidor, <quote>Artists Just Wanna Be Free,</quote> "
13704 "<citetitle>Wired</citetitle>, 7 July 2003, available at <ulink "
13705 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #40</ulink>. For an overview of "
13706 "the exhibition, see <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13711 #: freeculture.xml:9661
13713 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
13714 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
13715 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
13716 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys "
13717 "<quote>pirates.</quote> We make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a "
13718 "public domain, because the boundaries of the public domain are designed to "
13719 "be unclear. It never pays to do anything except pay for the right to create, "
13720 "and hence only those who can pay are allowed to create. As was the case in "
13721 "the Soviet Union, though for very different reasons, we will begin to see a "
13722 "world of underground art—not because the message is necessarily "
13723 "political, or because the subject is controversial, but because the very act "
13724 "of creating the art is legally fraught. Already, exhibits of <quote>illegal "
13725 "art</quote> tour the United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
13726 "In what does their <quote>illegality</quote> consist? In the act of mixing "
13727 "the culture around us with an expression that is critical or reflective."
13730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13731 #: freeculture.xml:9691
13733 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
13734 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
13735 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>. But an even bigger part has to do "
13736 "with the increasing ease with which infractions can be tracked. As users of "
13737 "file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a trivial matter for "
13738 "copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service providers to reveal "
13739 "who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape player transmitted a "
13740 "list of the songs that you played in the privacy of your own home that "
13741 "anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
13744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13745 #: freeculture.xml:9704
13747 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
13748 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
13749 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
13750 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
13751 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
13752 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
13753 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
13754 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
13755 "them is not similarly free."
13758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13759 #: freeculture.xml:9715
13761 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
13762 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/>, "
13763 "in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, I have been "
13764 "lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was fair use, and "
13765 "hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
13769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13770 #: freeculture.xml:9726
13772 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
13773 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
13774 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
13775 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
13776 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
13777 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
13778 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
13779 "on the rule of law."
13782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13783 #: freeculture.xml:9736
13785 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
13786 "<quote>breathing room</quote> between regulation by the law and the access "
13787 "the law should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal "
13788 "system has become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that "
13789 "publishers impose upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon "
13790 "filmmakers, the rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these "
13791 "are the real laws governing creativity. And these rules have little "
13792 "relationship to the <quote>law</quote> with which judges comfort themselves."
13795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13796 #: freeculture.xml:9747
13798 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
13799 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
13800 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
13801 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
13802 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
13803 "that pass under the name <quote>copyright</quote> silence speech and "
13804 "creativity. And in that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to "
13805 "continue to believe they live in a culture that is free."
13808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13809 #: freeculture.xml:9758
13810 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
13814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13815 #: freeculture.xml:9762
13817 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
13818 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
13819 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
13820 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made … you're not going to "
13821 "get it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note "
13822 "from a lawyer saying, <quote>This has been cleared.</quote> You're not even "
13823 "going to get it on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at "
13824 "which they control it."
13827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13828 #: freeculture.xml:9775
13829 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
13832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13833 #: freeculture.xml:9776
13834 msgid "innovation hampered by"
13837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13838 #: freeculture.xml:9777
13839 msgid "industry establishment opposed to"
13842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13843 #: freeculture.xml:9780
13845 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
13846 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
13847 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
13848 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
13849 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
13853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13854 #: freeculture.xml:9789
13856 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
13857 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
13858 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, "
13859 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: pagenumber\" linkend=\"innovators\"/> pages into a "
13860 "book like this), then you can see this other aspect by substituting "
13861 "<quote>free market</quote> every place I've spoken of <quote>free "
13862 "culture.</quote> The point is the same, even if the interests affecting "
13863 "culture are more fundamental."
13866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13867 #: freeculture.xml:9800
13869 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
13870 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
13871 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
13872 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
13873 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
13874 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
13875 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
13876 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
13877 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
13878 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
13881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13882 #: freeculture.xml:9813 freeculture.xml:9934 freeculture.xml:9940
13883 msgid "Barry, Hank"
13886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13887 #: freeculture.xml:9814 freeculture.xml:9946
13888 msgid "venture capitalists"
13892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13893 #: freeculture.xml:9816
13895 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
13896 "that I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13897 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>. The consequence of this massive threat of "
13898 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
13899 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
13900 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
13901 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
13902 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
13903 "Barry calls a <quote>nuclear pall</quote> that has fallen over the "
13904 "Valley—has been learned."
13907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13908 #: freeculture.xml:9831
13910 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
13911 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> and which has progressed in a way "
13912 "that even I (pessimist extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
13915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13916 #: freeculture.xml:9835
13920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13921 #: freeculture.xml:9836
13925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13926 #: freeculture.xml:9837
13927 msgid "Roberts, Michael"
13930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13931 #: freeculture.xml:9839
13933 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
13934 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
13935 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
13936 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
13937 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
13941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13942 #: freeculture.xml:9847
13943 msgid "preference data on"
13946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13947 #: freeculture.xml:9849
13949 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
13950 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
13951 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
13952 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
13956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13957 #: freeculture.xml:9856
13959 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
13960 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
13961 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
13962 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
13963 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
13964 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
13965 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
13966 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
13967 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
13971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13972 #: freeculture.xml:9868
13974 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
13975 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
13976 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
13977 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
13981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13982 #: freeculture.xml:9878
13984 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
13985 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
13986 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
13987 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
13988 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
13989 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
13990 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
13991 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
13992 "something they had already bought."
13995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13996 #: freeculture.xml:9890 freeculture.xml:9935
13997 msgid "distribution technology targeted in"
14000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14001 #: freeculture.xml:9895
14002 msgid "outsize penalties of"
14005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14006 #: freeculture.xml:9897
14008 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
14009 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
14010 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
14011 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
14012 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
14013 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
14014 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
14017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14018 #: freeculture.xml:9907
14019 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
14022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14023 #: freeculture.xml:9910
14025 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
14026 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
14027 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
14028 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
14029 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
14030 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
14031 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
14035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14036 #: freeculture.xml:9921
14038 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
14039 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
14040 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
14041 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
14042 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
14043 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
14044 "cost you and your firm dearly."
14047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14048 #: freeculture.xml:9936
14052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14053 #: freeculture.xml:9937
14054 msgid "cars, MP3 sound systems in"
14057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14058 #: freeculture.xml:9939
14059 msgid "Hummer, John"
14062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14063 #: freeculture.xml:9941
14064 msgid "Hummer Winblad"
14067 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14068 #: freeculture.xml:9942
14069 msgid "MP3 players"
14072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14073 #: freeculture.xml:9943
14074 msgid "venture capital for"
14077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14078 #: freeculture.xml:9944 freeculture.xml:9990
14079 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
14083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14084 #: freeculture.xml:9954
14086 "See Joseph Menn, <quote>Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,</quote> "
14087 "<citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 23 April 2003. For a parallel "
14088 "argument about the effects on innovation in the distribution of music, see "
14089 "Janelle Brown, <quote>The Music Revolution Will Not Be Digitized,</quote> "
14090 "Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
14091 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
14092 "Healey, <quote>Online Music Services Besieged,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
14093 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 28 May 2001."
14096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14097 #: freeculture.xml:9948
14099 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
14100 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
14101 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
14102 "cofounder (John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
14103 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
14104 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
14105 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
14106 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
14107 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
14108 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
14109 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
14110 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
14111 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
14112 "that touch content. In an article in <citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, "
14113 "Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW:"
14116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
14117 #: freeculture.xml:9986
14119 "Rafe Needleman, <quote>Driving in Cars with MP3s,</quote> "
14120 "<citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
14121 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #43</ulink>. I am grateful to "
14122 "Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14127 #: freeculture.xml:9977
14129 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
14130 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
14131 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
14132 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
14133 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
14134 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. … <placeholder "
14135 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14139 #: freeculture.xml:9998
14141 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with <quote>your money or your "
14142 "life</quote> offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats "
14143 "that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that "
14144 "will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to "
14145 "start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly "
14146 "threatened by litigation."
14150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14151 #: freeculture.xml:10008
14153 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
14154 "enterprises. The point is the definition of <quote>illegal.</quote> The law "
14155 "is a mess of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to "
14156 "new technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and "
14157 "by embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, "
14158 "that uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
14159 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
14160 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
14161 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
14162 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
14163 "and much less creativity."
14166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14167 #: freeculture.xml:10023
14169 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
14170 "use. Whatever the <quote>real</quote> law is, realism about the effect of "
14171 "law in both contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation "
14172 "will systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
14173 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
14174 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
14175 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
14176 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
14177 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulated-regulated market."
14181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14182 #: freeculture.xml:10035
14184 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
14185 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
14186 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
14187 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
14188 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
14189 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
14190 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
14191 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
14192 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
14193 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
14194 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
14195 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
14196 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
14197 "justifying to justify that result."
14200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14201 #: freeculture.xml:10054
14203 "<emphasis role='strong'>The uncertainty</emphasis> of the law is one burden "
14204 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
14205 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
14206 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
14210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14211 #: freeculture.xml:10061
14213 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
14214 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
14215 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
14216 "<quote>bug.</quote> The efficient spread of content means that content "
14217 "distributors have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. "
14218 "One obvious response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less "
14219 "efficient. If the Internet enables <quote>piracy,</quote> then, this "
14220 "response says, we should break the kneecaps of the Internet."
14224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14225 #: freeculture.xml:10076
14227 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> "
14228 "GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law "
14229 "School (2003), 33–35, available at <ulink "
14230 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
14234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14235 #: freeculture.xml:10089
14236 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
14239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14240 #: freeculture.xml:10072
14242 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
14243 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
14244 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
14245 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
14246 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
14247 "explore a mandatory <quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would be required on "
14248 "any device capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and "
14249 "that would disable the copying of any content that is marked with a "
14250 "broadcast flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content "
14251 "providers from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt "
14252 "down copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
14253 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
14257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14258 #: freeculture.xml:10093
14260 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
14261 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
14262 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
14263 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
14264 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
14267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14268 #: freeculture.xml:10102 freeculture.xml:12012
14273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14274 #: freeculture.xml:10108
14276 "See David McGuire, <quote>Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,</quote> "
14277 "Newsbytes, February 2002 (Entertainment)."
14280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14281 #: freeculture.xml:10104
14283 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
14284 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
14285 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
14286 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
14287 "any protection should not do more harm than good."
14290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14291 #: freeculture.xml:10116
14293 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is one</emphasis> more obvious way in which "
14294 "this war has harmed innovation—again, a story that will be quite "
14295 "familiar to the free market crowd."
14298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14299 #: freeculture.xml:10121
14301 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
14302 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
14303 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
14304 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
14307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14308 #: freeculture.xml:10139
14309 msgid "Digital Copyright (Litman)"
14312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14313 #: freeculture.xml:10137
14315 "Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (Amherst, N.Y.: "
14316 "Prometheus Books, 2001). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
14317 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
14320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14321 #: freeculture.xml:10131
14323 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
14324 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, despite this feature of copyright as regulation, "
14325 "and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica Litman in her "
14326 "book <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle>,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14327 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter <xref "
14328 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/> details, when new "
14329 "technologies have come along, Congress has struck a balance to assure that "
14330 "the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or statutory, licenses have "
14331 "been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the case of the VCR) has "
14335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14336 #: freeculture.xml:10150
14338 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
14339 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
14340 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
14341 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
14342 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
14345 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14346 #: freeculture.xml:10156
14350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14351 #: freeculture.xml:10161
14352 msgid "Grokster, Ltd."
14355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14356 #: freeculture.xml:10161
14358 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The only circuit court exception "
14359 "is found in <citetitle>Recording Industry Association of America "
14360 "(RIAA)</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Diamond Multimedia Systems</citetitle>, 180 "
14361 "F. 3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999). There the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit "
14362 "reasoned that makers of a portable MP3 player were not liable for "
14363 "contributory copyright infringement for a device that is unable to record or "
14364 "redistribute music (a device whose only copying function is to render "
14365 "portable a music file already stored on a user's hard drive). At the "
14366 "district court level, the only exception is found in "
14367 "<citetitle>Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, "
14368 "Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Grokster, Ltd</citetitle>., 259 F. Supp. 2d "
14369 "1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the link between the "
14370 "distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to make the "
14371 "distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement liability."
14374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14375 #: freeculture.xml:10180
14376 msgid "Tauzin, Billy"
14379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14380 #: freeculture.xml:10182
14381 msgid "Hollings, Fritz"
14384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14385 #: freeculture.xml:10180
14387 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14388 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
14389 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> For example, in July 2002, Representative "
14390 "Howard Berman introduced the Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention Act (H.R. 5211), "
14391 "which would immunize copyright holders from liability for damage done to "
14392 "computers when the copyright holders use technology to stop copyright "
14393 "infringement. In August 2002, Representative Billy Tauzin introduced a bill "
14394 "to mandate that technologies capable of rebroadcasting digital copies of "
14395 "films broadcast on TV (i.e., computers) respect a <quote>broadcast "
14396 "flag</quote> that would disable copying of that content. And in March of the "
14397 "same year, Senator Fritz Hollings introduced the Consumer Broadband and "
14398 "Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandated copyright protection "
14399 "technology in all digital media devices. See GartnerG2, <quote>Copyright and "
14400 "Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> 27 June 2003, 33–34, "
14401 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
14404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14405 #: freeculture.xml:10159
14407 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
14408 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
14409 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
14410 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
14411 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
14412 "demise of Internet radio."
14416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14417 #: freeculture.xml:10207
14419 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
14420 "linkend=\"pirates\"/>, when a radio station plays a song, the recording "
14421 "artist doesn't get paid for that <quote>radio performance</quote> unless he "
14422 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
14423 "a version of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote>—to memorialize her famous "
14424 "performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then "
14425 "whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current copyright "
14426 "owners of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> would get some money, whereas "
14427 "Marilyn Monroe would not."
14430 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14431 #: freeculture.xml:10218
14433 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
14434 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
14435 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
14436 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
14437 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
14438 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
14439 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
14440 "compensation to the recording artists."
14443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14444 #: freeculture.xml:10229
14446 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
14447 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
14448 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
14449 "<quote>tune in</quote> to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting "
14450 "in San Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular "
14451 "radio station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
14454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14455 #: freeculture.xml:10238
14457 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
14458 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
14459 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
14460 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
14461 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
14462 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
14463 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
14464 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
14465 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
14466 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
14470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14471 #: freeculture.xml:10254
14473 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
14474 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
14475 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
14476 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
14477 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
14478 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
14482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
14483 #: freeculture.xml:10278
14484 msgid "Lessing, 239."
14487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14488 #: freeculture.xml:10264
14490 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
14491 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
14492 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
14493 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
14494 "restrictions. … Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
14495 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
14496 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
14497 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
14498 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
14499 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
14500 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
14501 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14506 #: freeculture.xml:10288
14507 msgid "Ibid., 229."
14510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14511 #: freeculture.xml:10283
14513 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
14514 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
14515 "<quote>vested interests, habits, customs and legislation</quote><placeholder "
14516 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
14520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14521 #: freeculture.xml:10293
14523 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
14524 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
14525 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
14526 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
14527 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
14530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14531 #: freeculture.xml:10302
14535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14536 #: freeculture.xml:10306
14537 msgid "Internet radio hampered by"
14540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14541 #: freeculture.xml:10307 freeculture.xml:10460
14542 msgid "on Internet radio fees"
14546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14547 #: freeculture.xml:10310
14549 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
14550 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
14551 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
14552 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
14553 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
14554 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
14555 "it plays her hypothetical recording of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> on the "
14556 "air, <emphasis>Internet radio does</emphasis>. Not only is the law not "
14557 "neutral toward Internet radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio "
14558 "more than it burdens terrestrial radio."
14561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14562 #: freeculture.xml:10349
14563 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
14566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14567 #: freeculture.xml:10332
14569 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
14570 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
14571 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
14572 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
14573 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
14574 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
14575 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
14576 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
14577 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>Copyright as "
14578 "Entry Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,</quote> <citetitle>Antitrust "
14579 "Bulletin</citetitle> (Summer/Fall 2002): 461: <quote>This was not confusion, "
14580 "these are just old-fashioned entry barriers. Analog radio stations are "
14581 "protected from digital entrants, reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, "
14582 "this is done in the name of getting royalties to copyright holders, but, "
14583 "absent the play of powerful interests, that could have been done in a "
14584 "media-neutral way.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
14585 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
14588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14589 #: freeculture.xml:10325
14591 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
14592 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
14593 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
14594 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
14595 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
14596 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
14599 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14600 #: freeculture.xml:10361
14602 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
14603 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
14604 "would have to collect the following data from <emphasis>every listening "
14605 "transaction</emphasis>:"
14608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14609 #: freeculture.xml:10369
14610 msgid "name of the service;"
14613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14614 #: freeculture.xml:10372
14615 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
14618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14619 #: freeculture.xml:10375
14620 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
14623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14624 #: freeculture.xml:10378
14625 msgid "date of transmission;"
14628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14629 #: freeculture.xml:10381
14630 msgid "time of transmission;"
14633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14634 #: freeculture.xml:10384
14635 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
14638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14639 #: freeculture.xml:10387
14640 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
14643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14644 #: freeculture.xml:10390
14645 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
14648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14649 #: freeculture.xml:10393
14650 msgid "sound recording title;"
14653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14654 #: freeculture.xml:10396
14655 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
14658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14659 #: freeculture.xml:10399
14661 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
14662 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
14666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14667 #: freeculture.xml:10402
14668 msgid "featured recording artist;"
14671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14672 #: freeculture.xml:10405
14673 msgid "retail album title;"
14676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14677 #: freeculture.xml:10408
14678 msgid "recording label;"
14681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14682 #: freeculture.xml:10411
14683 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
14686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14687 #: freeculture.xml:10414
14688 msgid "catalog number;"
14691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14692 #: freeculture.xml:10417
14693 msgid "copyright owner information;"
14696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14697 #: freeculture.xml:10420
14698 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
14701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14702 #: freeculture.xml:10423
14703 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
14706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14707 #: freeculture.xml:10426
14708 msgid "channel or program;"
14711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14712 #: freeculture.xml:10429
14713 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
14716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14717 #: freeculture.xml:10432
14718 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
14721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14722 #: freeculture.xml:10435
14723 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
14726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14727 #: freeculture.xml:10438
14728 msgid "unique user identifier;"
14731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14732 #: freeculture.xml:10441
14733 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
14736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14737 #: freeculture.xml:10446
14739 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
14740 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
14741 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
14742 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
14743 "pay a <emphasis>type of copyright fee</emphasis> that terrestrial radio does "
14747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14748 #: freeculture.xml:10454
14750 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
14751 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
14752 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
14755 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
14756 #: freeculture.xml:10458 freeculture.xml:15263
14757 msgid "Real Networks"
14760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14761 #: freeculture.xml:10464
14763 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
14764 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
14765 "Real Networks, told me,"
14769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14770 #: freeculture.xml:10470
14772 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
14773 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
14774 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
14775 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
14776 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, … <quote>How do you come "
14777 "up with a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? "
14778 "Because here we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, "
14779 "and that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, "
14780 "you're going to drive the small webcasters out of business. …</quote>"
14783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14784 #: freeculture.xml:10486
14786 "And the RIAA experts said, <quote>Well, we don't really model this as an "
14787 "industry with thousands of webcasters, <emphasis>we think it should be an "
14788 "industry with, you know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate "
14789 "and it's a stable, predictable market</emphasis>.</quote> (Emphasis added.)"
14792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14793 #: freeculture.xml:10498
14795 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
14796 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
14797 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
14798 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
14799 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
14800 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
14803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
14804 #: freeculture.xml:10514
14805 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
14808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14809 #: freeculture.xml:10516
14811 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
14812 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
14813 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
14816 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14817 #: freeculture.xml:10522
14819 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
14820 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
14821 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
14825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14826 #: freeculture.xml:10531
14828 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, <quote>The Music Downloading Deluge,</quote> "
14829 "Pew Internet and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
14830 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
14831 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
14832 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
14836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14837 #: freeculture.xml:10527
14839 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
14840 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
14841 "of citizens. According to <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, 43 "
14842 "million Americans downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder "
14843 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 "
14844 "million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 "
14845 "percent of America into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not "
14846 "only the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, but against students building "
14847 "search engines, and increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, "
14848 "the technologies for sharing will advance to further protect and hide "
14849 "illegal use. It is an arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one "
14850 "side inviting a more extreme response by the other."
14854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14855 #: freeculture.xml:10565
14857 "Alex Pham, <quote>The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA "
14858 "Case,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, "
14862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14863 #: freeculture.xml:10552
14865 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
14866 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
14867 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
14868 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
14869 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
14870 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
14871 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
14872 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
14873 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
14874 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
14875 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
14876 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
14877 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
14878 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
14879 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
14880 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
14881 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
14884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14885 #: freeculture.xml:10576
14886 msgid "alcohol prohibition"
14890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14891 #: freeculture.xml:10588
14893 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, <quote>Alcohol Consumption During "
14894 "Prohibition,</quote> <citetitle>American Economic Review</citetitle> 81, "
14895 "no. 2 (1991): 242."
14899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14900 #: freeculture.xml:10596
14902 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
14903 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
14904 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
14908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14909 #: freeculture.xml:10606
14911 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, <quote>Tax "
14912 "Compliance,</quote> <citetitle>Journal of Economic Literature</citetitle> 36 "
14913 "(1998): 818 (survey of compliance literature)."
14916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14917 #: freeculture.xml:10578
14919 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
14920 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
14921 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
14922 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
14923 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
14924 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
14925 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
14926 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
14927 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
14928 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14929 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
14930 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
14931 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
14932 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
14933 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our <quote>free "
14934 "society,</quote> but an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated "
14935 "within our society. And as a result, a huge proportion of Americans "
14936 "regularly violate at least some law."
14939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14940 #: freeculture.xml:10614
14941 msgid "law schools"
14944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14945 #: freeculture.xml:10616
14947 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
14948 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
14949 "about the importance of <quote>ethics.</quote> As my colleague Charlie "
14950 "Nesson told a class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of "
14951 "students who have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and "
14952 "sometimes drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven "
14953 "cars. These are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the "
14954 "norm. And then we, as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to "
14955 "behave ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds "
14956 "separate, or honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your "
14957 "case is over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some "
14958 "parts of America than in others, but still, everywhere in America "
14959 "today—can't live their lives both normally and legally, since "
14960 "<quote>normally</quote> entails a certain degree of illegality."
14963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14964 #: freeculture.xml:10633
14966 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
14967 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
14968 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
14969 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
14970 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
14971 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
14972 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
14973 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
14977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14978 #: freeculture.xml:10646
14980 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
14981 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
14982 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
14983 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
14984 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
14987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14988 #: freeculture.xml:10653
14990 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
14991 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
14992 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
14993 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
14994 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
14995 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
14996 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
14997 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
14998 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
14999 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of "
15000 "<quote>sharing.</quote> We need to be able to call these twenty million "
15001 "Americans <quote>citizens,</quote> not <quote>felons.</quote>"
15004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15005 #: freeculture.xml:10667
15007 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
15008 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
15009 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
15010 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
15011 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
15012 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
15013 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
15014 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
15015 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
15018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15019 #: freeculture.xml:10679
15020 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
15024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15025 #: freeculture.xml:10682
15027 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
15028 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
15029 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
15030 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
15031 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That <quote>use</quote> of the "
15032 "recordings is free."
15035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15036 #: freeculture.xml:10693
15038 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
15039 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
15040 "copy-protection technologies, I am <quote>free</quote> to copy, or "
15041 "<quote>rip,</quote> music from my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, "
15042 "Apple Corporation went so far as to suggest that <quote>freedom</quote> was "
15043 "a right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the <quote>Rip, Mix, "
15044 "Burn</quote> capacities of digital technologies."
15047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
15048 #: freeculture.xml:10701
15052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
15053 #: freeculture.xml:10702
15054 msgid "mix technology and"
15057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15058 #: freeculture.xml:10704
15060 "This <quote>use</quote> of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a "
15061 "large process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing "
15062 "them in one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program "
15063 "called Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, "
15064 "Baroque, Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
15065 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
15066 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
15067 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
15071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15072 #: freeculture.xml:10715
15074 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
15075 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
15076 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
15077 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
15078 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
15079 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
15080 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
15084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15085 #: freeculture.xml:10725
15087 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
15088 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
15089 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
15090 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
15091 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
15092 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
15093 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
15094 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
15095 "part of a massively complex <quote>digital rights management</quote> system."
15098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15099 #: freeculture.xml:10740
15101 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
15102 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
15103 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
15104 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
15105 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
15106 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
15110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15111 #: freeculture.xml:10749
15113 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
15114 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
15115 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
15116 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
15117 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
15118 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
15119 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
15120 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
15123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15124 #: freeculture.xml:10760
15126 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
15127 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
15128 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
15129 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
15130 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
15131 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
15132 "horse-drawn buggy."
15135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15136 #: freeculture.xml:10769
15138 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
15139 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
15140 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
15141 "as criminals and their own survival."
15145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15146 #: freeculture.xml:10775
15148 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
15149 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
15150 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
15151 "important as our tradition of free culture."
15154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15155 #: freeculture.xml:10786
15157 "<emphasis role='strong'>There's one more</emphasis> aspect to this "
15158 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
15159 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
15160 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the <quote>collateral "
15161 "damage</quote> that <quote>arises whenever you turn a very large percentage "
15162 "of the population into criminals.</quote> This is the collateral damage to "
15163 "civil liberties generally."
15166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
15167 #: freeculture.xml:10794 freeculture.xml:10894
15168 msgid "von Lohmann, Fred"
15171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15172 #: freeculture.xml:10796
15174 "<quote>If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,</quote> von "
15175 "Lohmann explains,"
15178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
15179 #: freeculture.xml:10801
15181 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
15182 "one degree or another. … If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
15183 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
15184 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
15185 "continue to receive Internet access? … Our sensibilities change as "
15186 "soon as we think, <quote>Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a "
15187 "lawbreaker.</quote> Well, what this campaign against file sharing has done "
15188 "is turn a remarkable percentage of the American Internet-using population "
15189 "into <quote>lawbreakers.</quote>"
15192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15193 #: freeculture.xml:10813
15195 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
15196 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
15197 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
15200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15201 #: freeculture.xml:10818
15203 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
15204 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
15205 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
15206 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
15207 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
15208 "user is revealed."
15212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
15213 #: freeculture.xml:10836
15215 "See Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single "
15216 "Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> "
15217 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, "
15218 "<quote>Worried Parents Pull Plug on File `Stealing'; With the Music Industry "
15219 "Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents are Yanking Software from Home PCs "
15220 "to Avoid Being Sued,</quote> <citetitle>Orlando Sentinel "
15221 "Tribune</citetitle>, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, <quote>Recording "
15222 "Industry Sues Parents,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 15 "
15223 "September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, <quote>She Says She's No Music Pirate. No "
15224 "Snoop Fan, Either,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 25 "
15225 "September 2003, C1; Margo Varadi, <quote>Is Brianna a Criminal?</quote> "
15226 "<citetitle>Toronto Star</citetitle>, 18 September 2003, P7."
15229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15230 #: freeculture.xml:10827
15232 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
15233 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
15234 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
15235 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
15236 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
15237 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
15238 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
15239 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
15244 #: freeculture.xml:10854
15246 "See <quote>Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses "
15247 "Some Methods Used,</quote> CNN.com, available at <ulink "
15248 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
15251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15252 #: freeculture.xml:10850
15254 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
15255 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
15256 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
15257 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
15258 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
15259 "MP3s will have the same <quote>fingerprint.</quote>"
15263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
15264 #: freeculture.xml:10875
15266 "See Jeff Adler, <quote>Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not "
15267 "Penitent,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 18 May 2003, City "
15268 "Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, <quote>Four Students Sued over Music Sites; "
15269 "Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,</quote> "
15270 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth "
15271 "Armstrong, <quote>Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at Their Own Risk,</quote> "
15272 "<citetitle>Christian Science Monitor</citetitle>, 2 September 2003, 20; "
15273 "Robert Becker and Angela Rozas, <quote>Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; "
15274 "Two Students Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,</quote> "
15275 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 16 July 2003, 1C; Beth Cox, "
15276 "<quote>RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,</quote> "
15277 "<citetitle>Internet News</citetitle>, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
15278 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
15279 "<quote>Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include "
15280 "Record Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,</quote> <citetitle>San "
15281 "Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 11 August 2003, E11; <quote>Raid, Letters "
15282 "Are Weapons at Universities,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 26 "
15283 "September 2000, 3D."
15286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15287 #: freeculture.xml:10863
15289 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
15290 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
15291 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
15292 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
15293 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
15294 "if the college network is <quote>cooperating</quote> with the RIAA's "
15295 "espionage, and she hasn't properly protected her content from the network "
15296 "(do you know how to do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to "
15297 "identify your daughter as a <quote>criminal.</quote> And under the rules "
15298 "that universities are beginning to deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15299 "id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer "
15300 "network. She can, in some cases, be expelled."
15304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15305 #: freeculture.xml:10896
15307 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
15308 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
15309 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
15310 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
15311 "university might not believe her. It might treat this "
15312 "<quote>contraband</quote> as presumptive of guilt. And as any number of "
15313 "college students have already learned, our presumptions about innocence "
15314 "disappear in the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different. "
15315 "Says von Lohmann,"
15318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
15319 #: freeculture.xml:10911
15321 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
15322 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
15323 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
15324 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
15325 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
15326 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
15327 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
15328 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
15329 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
15330 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
15331 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
15332 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
15333 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. … If forty to "
15334 "sixty million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a "
15335 "slippery slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty "
15339 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
15340 #: freeculture.xml:10931
15342 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered "
15343 "<quote>criminals</quote> under the law, and when the law could achieve the "
15344 "same objective— securing rights to authors—without these "
15345 "millions being considered <quote>criminals,</quote> who is the villain? "
15346 "Americans or the law? Which is American, a constant war on our own people or "
15347 "a concerted effort through our democracy to change our law?"
15350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
15351 #: freeculture.xml:10944
15355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15356 #: freeculture.xml:10949
15358 "<emphasis role='strong'>So here's</emphasis> the picture: You're standing at "
15359 "the side of the road. Your car is on fire. You are angry and upset because "
15360 "in part you helped start the fire. Now you don't know how to put it "
15361 "out. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline "
15362 "won't put the fire out."
15365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15366 #: freeculture.xml:10956
15368 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
15369 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
15370 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
15371 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
15372 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
15375 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15376 #: freeculture.xml:10964
15378 "<emphasis role='strong'>A war</emphasis> about copyright rages all "
15379 "around—and we're all focusing on the wrong thing. No doubt, current "
15380 "technologies threaten existing businesses. No doubt they may threaten "
15381 "artists. But technologies change. The industry and technologists have "
15382 "plenty of ways to use technology to protect themselves against the current "
15383 "threats of the Internet. This is a fire that if let alone would burn itself "
15388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15389 #: freeculture.xml:10974
15391 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
15392 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
15393 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
15394 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
15395 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
15398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15399 #: freeculture.xml:10982
15401 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
15402 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
15406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15407 #: freeculture.xml:10987
15409 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
15410 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
15411 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
15412 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
15415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
15416 #: freeculture.xml:10993
15418 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
15419 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
15420 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
15421 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
15424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
15425 #: freeculture.xml:11003
15426 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
15429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15430 #: freeculture.xml:11004
15431 msgid "Eldred, Eric"
15434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15435 #: freeculture.xml:11005
15436 msgid "Hawthorne, Nathaniel"
15439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15440 #: freeculture.xml:11007
15442 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1995</emphasis>, a father was frustrated that his "
15443 "daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one "
15444 "such father, but at least one did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired "
15445 "computer programmer living in New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the "
15446 "Web. An electronic version, Eldred thought, with links to pictures and "
15447 "explanatory text, would make this nineteenth-century author's work come "
15451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15452 #: freeculture.xml:11015
15453 msgid "of public-domain literature"
15456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15457 #: freeculture.xml:11016
15458 msgid "library of works derived from"
15461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15462 #: freeculture.xml:11018
15464 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
15465 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
15466 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
15467 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
15471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15472 #: freeculture.xml:11027
15474 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
15475 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
15476 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
15477 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
15478 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
15479 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
15480 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
15483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15484 #: freeculture.xml:11037
15485 msgid "Scarlet Letter, The (Hawthorne)"
15488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15489 #: freeculture.xml:11039
15491 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
15492 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's <citetitle>Scarlet Letter</citetitle> had passed "
15493 "into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the "
15494 "permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press "
15495 "and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed "
15496 "editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as "
15497 "Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes "
15498 "successfully (<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle>), sometimes not "
15499 "(<citetitle>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</citetitle>, <citetitle>Treasure "
15500 "Planet</citetitle>). These are all commercial publications of public domain "
15504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15505 #: freeculture.xml:11064 freeculture.xml:12111
15506 msgid "pornography"
15509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15510 #: freeculture.xml:11064
15512 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> There's a parallel here with "
15513 "pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but it's a strong one. One "
15514 "phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of noncommercial "
15515 "pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were not making "
15516 "money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a class didn't "
15517 "exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of distributing "
15518 "porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got special attention "
15519 "in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the Communications Decency "
15520 "Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on noncommercial speakers "
15521 "that the statute was found to exceed Congress's power. The same point could "
15522 "have been made about noncommercial publishers after the advent of the "
15523 "Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the Internet were extremely "
15524 "few. Yet one would think it at least as important to protect the Eldreds of "
15525 "the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
15528 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15529 #: freeculture.xml:11053
15531 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
15532 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
15533 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
15534 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
15535 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the "
15536 "<quote>noncommercial publishing industry,</quote> which before the Internet "
15537 "was limited to people with large egos or with political or social "
15538 "causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and "
15539 "groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.<placeholder "
15540 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15544 #: freeculture.xml:11084
15545 msgid "Frost, Robert"
15548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15549 #: freeculture.xml:11085
15550 msgid "New Hampshire (Frost)"
15553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15554 #: freeculture.xml:11089
15556 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
15557 "of poems <citetitle>New Hampshire</citetitle> was slated to pass into the "
15558 "public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public "
15559 "library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter <xref "
15560 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, in 1998, for the "
15561 "eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing "
15562 "copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add "
15563 "any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no "
15564 "copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not "
15565 "even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same "
15566 "period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain."
15569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
15570 #: freeculture.xml:11104 freeculture.xml:11116
15574 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
15575 #: freeculture.xml:11105 freeculture.xml:11117
15576 msgid "Bono, Sonny"
15579 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15580 #: freeculture.xml:11116
15582 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
15583 "id=\"1\"/> The full text is: <quote>Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of "
15584 "copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a "
15585 "change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me "
15586 "to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you "
15587 "know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less "
15588 "one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,</quote> 144 "
15589 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
15592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15593 #: freeculture.xml:11111
15595 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
15596 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
15597 "Mary Bono, says, believed that <quote>copyrights should be "
15598 "forever.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15602 #: freeculture.xml:11128
15603 msgid "felony punishment for infringement of"
15606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15607 #: freeculture.xml:11129
15608 msgid "NET (No Electronic Theft) Act (1998)"
15611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15612 #: freeculture.xml:11130
15613 msgid "No Electronic Theft (NET) Act (1998)"
15616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15617 #: freeculture.xml:11131
15618 msgid "felony punishments for"
15621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15622 #: freeculture.xml:11133
15624 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
15625 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
15626 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
15627 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
15628 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
15629 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
15632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15633 #: freeculture.xml:11142 freeculture.xml:12079
15634 msgid "constitutional powers of"
15637 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15638 #: freeculture.xml:11145 freeculture.xml:11191
15639 msgid "Eldred case involvement of"
15642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15643 #: freeculture.xml:11147
15645 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
15646 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
15647 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
15648 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
15649 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
15652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15653 #: freeculture.xml:11158
15655 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science … by "
15656 "securing for limited Times to Authors … exclusive Right to their "
15657 "… Writings. …"
15660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15661 #: freeculture.xml:11165
15663 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
15664 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
15665 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
15666 "example, to regulate <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> or "
15667 "<quote>declare War.</quote> But here, the <quote>something</quote> is "
15668 "something quite specific—to <quote>promote … "
15669 "Progress</quote>—through means that are also specific— by "
15670 "<quote>securing</quote> <quote>exclusive Rights</quote> (i.e., copyrights) "
15671 "<quote>for limited Times.</quote>"
15674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15675 #: freeculture.xml:11177 freeculture.xml:12673
15676 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
15680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15681 #: freeculture.xml:11179
15683 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
15684 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
15685 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
15686 "requirement that terms be <quote>limited</quote> will have no practical "
15687 "effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power "
15688 "to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
15689 "forbids—perpetual terms <quote>on the installment plan,</quote> as "
15690 "Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it."
15693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15694 #: freeculture.xml:11193
15696 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
15697 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
15698 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
15699 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
15700 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
15701 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
15702 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
15703 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
15706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15707 #: freeculture.xml:11204
15709 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
15710 "government. <quote>Corruption</quote> not in the sense that representatives "
15711 "are bribed. Rather, <quote>corruption</quote> in the sense that the system "
15712 "induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to "
15713 "Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so "
15714 "much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must "
15715 "do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
15718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15719 #: freeculture.xml:11213
15721 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
15722 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
15723 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
15724 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
15725 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
15726 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
15727 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
15730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15731 #: freeculture.xml:11223
15733 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
15734 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
15735 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
15736 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
15740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15741 #: freeculture.xml:11230
15743 "<quote>Next year,</quote> the adviser announces, <quote>our copyrights in "
15744 "works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no "
15745 "longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers "
15746 "of those works.</quote>"
15749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15750 #: freeculture.xml:11238
15752 "<quote>There's a proposal in Congress, however,</quote> she continues, "
15753 "<quote>that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to "
15754 "extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be "
15755 "extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.</quote>"
15758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15759 #: freeculture.xml:11244
15761 "<quote>Hope?</quote> a fellow board member says. <quote>Can't we be doing "
15762 "something about it?</quote>"
15765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15766 #: freeculture.xml:11248
15768 "<quote>Well, obviously, yes,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>We could "
15769 "contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure "
15770 "that they support the bill.</quote>"
15773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15774 #: freeculture.xml:11253
15776 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
15777 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. <quote>How much would we get "
15778 "if this extension were passed?</quote> you ask the adviser. <quote>How much "
15779 "is it worth?</quote>"
15782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15783 #: freeculture.xml:11259
15785 "<quote>Well,</quote> the adviser says, <quote>if you're confident that you "
15786 "will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you "
15787 "use the `discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 "
15788 "percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.</quote>"
15791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15792 #: freeculture.xml:11265
15794 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
15798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15799 #: freeculture.xml:11269
15801 "<quote>So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than "
15802 "$1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those "
15803 "contributions would assure that the bill was passed?</quote>"
15806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15807 #: freeculture.xml:11275
15809 "<quote>Absolutely,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>It is worth it to "
15810 "you to contribute up to the `present value' of the income you expect from "
15811 "these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.</quote>"
15815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15816 #: freeculture.xml:11281
15818 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
15819 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
15820 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
15821 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
15822 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
15823 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
15827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15828 #: freeculture.xml:11292
15830 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
15831 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
15832 "buy further extensions of copyright."
15836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15837 #: freeculture.xml:11304
15839 "Associated Press, <quote>Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey "
15840 "Mouse Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,</quote> "
15841 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 17 October 1998, 22."
15845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15846 #: freeculture.xml:11311
15848 "See Nick Brown, <quote>Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information "
15849 "Age,</quote> available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15855 #: freeculture.xml:11319
15857 "Alan K. Ota, <quote>Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,</quote> "
15858 "<citetitle>Congressional Quarterly This Week</citetitle>, 8 August 1990, "
15859 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
15862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15863 #: freeculture.xml:11297
15865 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
15866 "Extension Act, this <quote>theory</quote> about incentives was proved "
15867 "real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received "
15868 "the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the "
15869 "Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder "
15870 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have "
15871 "spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out "
15872 "more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15873 "id=\"1\"/> Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to "
15874 "reelection campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
15877 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15878 #: freeculture.xml:11326
15880 "<emphasis role='strong'>Constitutional law</emphasis> is not oblivious to "
15881 "the obvious. Or at least, it need not be. So when I was considering Eldred's "
15882 "complaint, this reality about the never-ending incentives to increase the "
15883 "copyright term was central to my thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court "
15884 "committed to interpreting and applying the Constitution of our framers would "
15885 "see that if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then there "
15886 "would be no effective constitutional requirement that terms be "
15887 "<quote>limited.</quote> If they could extend it once, they would extend it "
15888 "again and again and again."
15892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15893 #: freeculture.xml:11341
15895 "It was also my judgment that <emphasis>this</emphasis> Supreme Court would "
15896 "not allow Congress to extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme "
15897 "Court's work knows, this Court has increasingly restricted the power of "
15898 "Congress when it has viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power "
15899 "granted to it by the Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most "
15900 "famous example of this trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to "
15901 "strike down a law that banned the possession of guns near schools."
15904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15905 #: freeculture.xml:11354
15907 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
15908 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
15909 "only <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> (aka <quote>interstate "
15910 "commerce</quote>), the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include "
15911 "the power to regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
15914 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15915 #: freeculture.xml:11364
15917 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
15918 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
15919 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
15920 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
15924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15925 #: freeculture.xml:11370 freeculture.xml:12160
15926 msgid "Rehnquist, William H."
15929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15930 #: freeculture.xml:11372
15932 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
15933 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The "
15934 "government had argued that possessing guns near schools affected interstate "
15935 "commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, crime lowers property values, "
15936 "and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief Justice asked the government "
15937 "whether there was any activity that would not affect interstate commerce "
15938 "under the reasoning the government advanced. The government said there was "
15939 "not; if Congress says an activity affects interstate commerce, then that "
15940 "activity affects interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, the government "
15941 "said, was not in the position to second-guess Congress."
15945 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15946 #: freeculture.xml:11387
15948 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>, 514 "
15949 "U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
15953 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15954 #: freeculture.xml:11394
15956 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>, 529 "
15960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15961 #: freeculture.xml:11385
15963 "<quote>We pause to consider the implications of the government's "
15964 "arguments,</quote> the Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15965 "id=\"0\"/> If anything Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore "
15966 "be considered interstate commerce, then there would be no limit to "
15967 "Congress's power. The decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> was "
15968 "reaffirmed five years later in <citetitle>United States</citetitle> "
15969 "v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
15973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15974 #: freeculture.xml:11401
15976 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
15977 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
15978 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
15979 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
15980 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
15981 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
15982 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
15983 "copyrights—the limitation to <quote>limited times</quote> "
15988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15989 #: freeculture.xml:11398
15991 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
15992 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15993 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
15994 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
15995 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no "
15996 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power over terms, though the "
15997 "Constitution expressly states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same "
15998 "principle applied to the power to grant copyrights should entail that "
15999 "Congress is not allowed to extend the term of existing copyrights."
16002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16003 #: freeculture.xml:11422
16005 "<emphasis>If</emphasis>, that is, the principle announced in "
16006 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for a principle. Many believed the "
16007 "decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for politics—a "
16008 "conservative Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its "
16009 "power over Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I "
16010 "rejected that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after "
16011 "the decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the <quote>fidelity</quote> "
16012 "in such an interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme "
16013 "Court decides cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily "
16014 "boring. I was not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if "
16015 "these nine Justices were going to be petty politicians."
16018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16019 #: freeculture.xml:11439
16021 "<emphasis role='strong'>Now let's pause</emphasis> for a moment to make sure "
16022 "we understand what the argument in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was not "
16023 "about. By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously "
16024 "Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was "
16025 "fighting a kind of piracy—piracy of the public domain. When Robert "
16026 "Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum "
16027 "copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost "
16028 "and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their "
16029 "work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution "
16030 "envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they "
16031 "created new work. But now these entities were using their "
16032 "power—expressed through the power of lobbyists' money—to get "
16033 "another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be "
16034 "taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects "
16038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16039 #: freeculture.xml:11456
16040 msgid "Nashville Songwriters Association"
16044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16045 #: freeculture.xml:11464
16047 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, "
16048 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. "
16049 "186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
16050 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
16053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16054 #: freeculture.xml:11458
16056 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
16057 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
16058 "domain is nothing more than <quote>legal piracy.</quote><placeholder "
16059 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; "
16060 "and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
16061 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
16062 "pirate's charter."
16065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16066 #: freeculture.xml:11474
16068 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
16069 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
16070 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
16071 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
16072 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
16073 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
16074 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
16077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16078 #: freeculture.xml:11486
16080 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is valuable</emphasis> copyrights that are "
16081 "responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and <quote>Rhapsody in "
16082 "Blue.</quote> These works are too valuable for copyright owners to "
16083 "ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not "
16084 "that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert "
16085 "Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing "
16086 "commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these "
16087 "famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not "
16088 "commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
16092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16093 #: freeculture.xml:11504
16095 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
16096 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
16097 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16098 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 7, available at <ulink "
16099 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
16102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16103 #: freeculture.xml:11498
16105 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
16106 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
16107 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
16108 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
16109 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
16110 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
16114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16115 #: freeculture.xml:11513
16117 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
16118 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
16119 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
16120 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
16121 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
16125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16126 #: freeculture.xml:11526
16128 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
16129 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
16130 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
16131 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
16132 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
16136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16137 #: freeculture.xml:11534
16139 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
16140 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
16143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16144 #: freeculture.xml:11538
16146 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
16147 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
16148 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
16151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16152 #: freeculture.xml:11545
16154 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
16155 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
16156 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
16157 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
16158 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
16161 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16162 #: freeculture.xml:11554
16164 "<quote>But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,</quote> the "
16165 "apologists for the system respond. <quote>Why should there be a list of "
16166 "copyright owners?</quote>"
16169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16170 #: freeculture.xml:11559
16172 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there <emphasis>are</emphasis> plenty "
16173 "of lists of who owns what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles "
16174 "to cars. And where there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty "
16175 "good at suggesting who the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in "
16176 "your backyard is probably yours.) So formally or informally, we have a "
16177 "pretty good way to know who owns what tangible property."
16181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16182 #: freeculture.xml:11568
16184 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
16185 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
16186 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
16187 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
16188 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
16189 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
16190 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
16191 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
16192 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
16195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16196 #: freeculture.xml:11583
16198 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
16199 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
16200 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
16201 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
16202 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
16203 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
16204 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
16205 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
16209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16210 #: freeculture.xml:11595
16212 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
16213 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
16214 "creative works is much more dire."
16217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16218 #: freeculture.xml:11600
16219 msgid "Agee, Michael"
16222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16223 #: freeculture.xml:11601 freeculture.xml:12036
16224 msgid "Hal Roach Studios"
16227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16228 #: freeculture.xml:11602
16229 msgid "Laurel and Hardy Films"
16232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16233 #: freeculture.xml:11603
16234 msgid "Lucky Dog, The"
16238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16239 #: freeculture.xml:11616
16241 "See David G. Savage, <quote>High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright "
16242 "Law,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 6 October 2002; David "
16243 "Streitfeld, <quote>Classic Movies, Songs, Books at Stake; Supreme Court "
16244 "Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down Copyright Extension,</quote> "
16245 "<citetitle>Orlando Sentinel Tribune</citetitle>, 9 October 2002."
16248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16249 #: freeculture.xml:11605
16251 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
16252 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
16253 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
16254 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, <citetitle>The Lucky "
16255 "Dog</citetitle>, is currently out of copyright. But for the CTEA, films made "
16256 "after 1923 would have begun entering the public domain. Because Agee "
16257 "controls the exclusive rights for these popular films, he makes a great deal "
16258 "of money. According to one estimate, <quote>Roach has sold about 60,000 "
16259 "videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's silent "
16260 "films.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
16263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16264 #: freeculture.xml:11623
16266 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
16267 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
16268 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
16269 "a whole generation of American film."
16273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16274 #: freeculture.xml:11629
16276 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
16277 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
16278 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
16279 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
16280 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
16281 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
16285 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16286 #: freeculture.xml:11647
16288 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
16289 "Petitoners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16290 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), "
16291 "12. See also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the "
16292 "Internet Archive, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16293 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
16294 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
16297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16298 #: freeculture.xml:11640
16300 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
16301 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
16302 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
16303 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
16304 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of 8 mm film.<placeholder "
16305 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
16308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16309 #: freeculture.xml:11657
16311 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
16312 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
16313 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
16314 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
16315 "locate the copyright owner."
16318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16319 #: freeculture.xml:11665
16321 "Or more accurately, <emphasis>owners</emphasis>. As we've seen, there isn't "
16322 "only a single copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't "
16323 "a single person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as "
16324 "many as can hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large "
16325 "number. Thus the costs of clearing the rights to these films is "
16326 "exceptionally high."
16329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16330 #: freeculture.xml:11673
16332 "<quote>But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
16333 "copyright owner when she shows up?</quote> Sure, if you want to commit a "
16334 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
16335 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
16336 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
16337 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
16338 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
16339 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
16340 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
16344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16345 #: freeculture.xml:11684
16347 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
16348 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
16349 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
16350 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
16354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16355 #: freeculture.xml:11695
16357 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
16358 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
16359 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
16360 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
16363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16364 #: freeculture.xml:11703
16366 "<emphasis role='strong'>Of all the</emphasis> creative work produced by "
16367 "humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that "
16368 "tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that "
16369 "tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute "
16370 "the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "
16371 "<quote>engine of free expression.</quote>"
16374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16375 #: freeculture.xml:11711
16377 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
16378 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
16379 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
16380 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
16381 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
16382 "commercial life ends."
16385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16386 #: freeculture.xml:11721
16388 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
16389 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
16390 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
16391 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
16392 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
16393 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
16394 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
16395 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
16399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16400 #: freeculture.xml:11734
16402 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
16403 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
16404 "context do no good."
16407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16408 #: freeculture.xml:11741
16410 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
16411 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
16412 "<emphasis>copyright-related use</emphasis> that would be inhibited by an "
16413 "exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a "
16414 "publisher. But you could still buy it from a used book store, and when a "
16415 "used book store sells it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the "
16416 "copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its "
16417 "commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law."
16420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16421 #: freeculture.xml:11752
16423 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
16424 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
16425 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
16426 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
16427 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
16428 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
16431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16432 #: freeculture.xml:11761
16434 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
16435 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
16436 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
16437 "interfered with anything."
16440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16441 #: freeculture.xml:11767
16442 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
16445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16446 #: freeculture.xml:11771
16448 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
16449 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
16450 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
16451 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
16452 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
16453 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
16454 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
16455 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
16456 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
16460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16461 #: freeculture.xml:11784
16463 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
16464 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
16465 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
16466 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
16467 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
16468 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
16469 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
16470 "radically different context."
16473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16474 #: freeculture.xml:11794
16476 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
16477 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
16478 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful "
16479 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis> purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to "
16480 "enable the commercial market that spreads culture. No, we are talking about "
16481 "culture after it has lived its commercial life. In this context, copyright "
16482 "is serving no purpose <emphasis>at all</emphasis> related to the spread of "
16483 "knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
16484 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
16487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16488 #: freeculture.xml:11805
16490 "You may well ask, <quote>But if digital technologies lower the costs for "
16491 "Brewster Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So "
16492 "won't Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture "
16496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16497 #: freeculture.xml:11811
16499 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
16500 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
16501 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
16502 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
16503 "what <quote>the market</quote> would demand. But if you think the role of a "
16504 "library is bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive "
16505 "culture, whether there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or "
16506 "not—then we can't count on the commercial market to do our library "
16511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16512 #: freeculture.xml:11835
16514 "Jason Schultz, <quote>The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,</quote> "
16515 "20 December 2002, available at <ulink "
16516 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
16519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16520 #: freeculture.xml:11823
16522 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
16523 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
16524 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
16525 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
16526 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
16527 "films, books, and music produced between 1923 and 1946 is not commercially "
16528 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
16529 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
16530 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
16533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16534 #: freeculture.xml:11842
16536 "<emphasis role='strong'>In January 1999</emphasis>, we filed a lawsuit on "
16537 "Eric Eldred's behalf in federal district court in Washington, D.C., asking "
16538 "the court to declare the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act "
16539 "unconstitutional. The two central claims that we made were (1) that "
16540 "extending existing terms violated the Constitution's <quote>limited "
16541 "Times</quote> requirement, and (2) that extending terms by another twenty "
16542 "years violated the First Amendment."
16545 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16546 #: freeculture.xml:11851
16548 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
16549 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
16550 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
16551 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
16552 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
16555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16556 #: freeculture.xml:11858
16558 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
16559 "be for <quote>limited Times</quote> only. His argument was as elegant as it "
16560 "was simple: If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no "
16561 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power under the Copyright "
16562 "Clause. The power to extend existing terms means Congress is not required to "
16563 "grant terms that are <quote>limited.</quote> Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, "
16564 "the court had to interpret the term <quote>limited Times</quote> to give it "
16565 "meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle argued, would be to "
16566 "deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
16569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16570 #: freeculture.xml:11869
16572 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
16573 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
16574 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
16575 "the court will sit <quote>en banc</quote> to hear the case."
16578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16579 #: freeculture.xml:11874
16580 msgid "Tatel, David"
16584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16585 #: freeculture.xml:11876
16587 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
16588 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
16589 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
16590 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
16594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16595 #: freeculture.xml:11885
16597 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
16598 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
16599 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
16600 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
16601 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
16604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16605 #: freeculture.xml:11892
16607 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
16608 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
16609 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
16612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16613 #: freeculture.xml:11898
16615 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is over</emphasis> a year later as I write these "
16616 "words. It is still astonishingly hard. If you know anything at all about "
16617 "this story, you know that we lost the appeal. And if you know something more "
16618 "than just the minimum, you probably think there was no way this case could "
16619 "have been won. After our defeat, I received literally thousands of missives "
16620 "by well-wishers and supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this "
16621 "noble but doomed cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me "
16622 "than the e-mail from my client, Eric Eldred."
16625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16626 #: freeculture.xml:11909
16628 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
16629 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
16630 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
16633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16634 #: freeculture.xml:11914 freeculture.xml:11928
16635 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
16639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16640 #: freeculture.xml:11916
16642 "<emphasis role='strong'>The mistake</emphasis> was made early, though it "
16643 "became obvious only at the very end. Our case had been supported from the "
16644 "very beginning by an extraordinary lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law "
16645 "firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great "
16646 "deal of heat from its copyright-protectionist clients for supporting "
16647 "us. They ignored this pressure (something that few law firms today would "
16648 "ever do), and throughout the case, they gave it everything they could."
16651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16652 #: freeculture.xml:11926 freeculture.xml:12289 freeculture.xml:12305 freeculture.xml:12402 freeculture.xml:12622 freeculture.xml:12653 freeculture.xml:12751
16656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16657 #: freeculture.xml:11927
16658 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
16661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16662 #: freeculture.xml:11930
16664 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
16665 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
16666 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
16667 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
16668 "make the issue seem <quote>important</quote> to the Supreme Court. It had to "
16669 "seem as if dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; "
16670 "otherwise, they would never vote against <quote>the most powerful media "
16671 "companies in the world.</quote>"
16674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16675 #: freeculture.xml:11940
16677 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
16678 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
16679 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
16680 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be "
16681 "<quote>right</quote> as in <quote>true,</quote> I thought, but it is "
16682 "<quote>wrong</quote> as in <quote>it just shouldn't be that way.</quote> As "
16683 "I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the framers of our "
16684 "Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
16685 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
16686 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
16687 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
16688 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
16689 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
16690 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
16691 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
16692 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
16693 "put in the Constitution."
16696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16697 #: freeculture.xml:11961
16699 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
16700 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
16701 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
16702 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
16703 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
16707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16708 #: freeculture.xml:11969
16710 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
16711 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
16712 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
16713 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
16714 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
16715 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
16716 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
16717 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
16718 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
16719 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in "
16720 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> and not politics, then, we tried to gather the "
16721 "widest range of credible critics—credible not because they were rich "
16722 "and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law "
16723 "was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics."
16726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16727 #: freeculture.xml:11987 freeculture.xml:12014
16728 msgid "Eagle Forum"
16731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16732 #: freeculture.xml:11988
16733 msgid "Schlafly, Phyllis"
16736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16737 #: freeculture.xml:11990
16739 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
16740 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
16741 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
16742 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
16743 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, <quote>Do you sometimes wonder why "
16744 "bills that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide "
16745 "easily through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit "
16746 "the general public seem to get bogged down?</quote> The answer, as the "
16747 "editorial documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
16748 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
16749 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
16753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16754 #: freeculture.xml:12004
16756 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
16757 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
16758 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
16759 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
16760 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
16764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16765 #: freeculture.xml:12016
16767 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
16768 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
16769 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/Linux possible). They "
16770 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
16771 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
16772 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
16773 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
16774 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments."
16777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16778 #: freeculture.xml:12028
16779 msgid "American Association of Law Libraries"
16782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16783 #: freeculture.xml:12029
16784 msgid "National Writers Union"
16787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16788 #: freeculture.xml:12031
16790 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
16791 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
16792 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
16793 "National Writers Union."
16796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16797 #: freeculture.xml:12038
16799 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
16800 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
16801 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
16802 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
16805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16806 #: freeculture.xml:12044
16807 msgid "Akerlof, George"
16810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16811 #: freeculture.xml:12045
16812 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
16815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16816 #: freeculture.xml:12046
16817 msgid "Buchanan, James"
16820 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16821 #: freeculture.xml:12047
16822 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
16825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16826 #: freeculture.xml:12048
16827 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
16830 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16831 #: freeculture.xml:12050
16833 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
16834 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
16835 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
16836 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
16837 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
16838 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
16839 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than "
16840 "<quote>rent-seeking</quote>—the fancy term economists use to describe "
16841 "special-interest legislation gone wild."
16844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16845 #: freeculture.xml:12060 freeculture.xml:12078 freeculture.xml:12291 freeculture.xml:12654
16846 msgid "Fried, Charles"
16849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16850 #: freeculture.xml:12061
16851 msgid "Morrison, Alan"
16854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16855 #: freeculture.xml:12062
16856 msgid "Public Citizen"
16859 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16860 #: freeculture.xml:12063 freeculture.xml:12290 freeculture.xml:13439
16861 msgid "Reagan, Ronald"
16865 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16866 #: freeculture.xml:12065
16868 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
16869 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
16870 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
16871 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
16872 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
16873 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
16874 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
16875 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
16876 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried."
16879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
16880 #: freeculture.xml:12080
16881 msgid "Commerce Clause of"
16884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16885 #: freeculture.xml:12082
16887 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
16888 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
16889 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
16890 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
16891 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
16892 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
16893 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
16894 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
16895 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument."
16898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16899 #: freeculture.xml:12094
16901 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
16902 "well. Significantly, however, none of these <quote>friends</quote> included "
16903 "historians or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were "
16904 "written exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright "
16908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16909 #: freeculture.xml:12101
16911 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
16912 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
16913 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
16914 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
16915 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
16916 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
16919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16920 #: freeculture.xml:12109
16921 msgid "Gershwin, George"
16924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16925 #: freeculture.xml:12110
16926 msgid "Porgy and Bess"
16930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16931 #: freeculture.xml:12120
16933 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16934 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. (2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
16938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16939 #: freeculture.xml:12128
16941 "Dinitia Smith, <quote>Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse "
16942 "Joins the Fray,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 28 March "
16947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16948 #: freeculture.xml:12113
16950 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
16951 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
16952 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
16953 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to "
16954 "<quote>glorify drugs or to create pornography.</quote><placeholder "
16955 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That was also the motive of the Gershwin "
16956 "estate, which defended its <quote>protection</quote> of the work of George "
16957 "Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to license <citetitle>Porgy and "
16958 "Bess</citetitle> to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
16959 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
16960 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
16961 "help them effect that control."
16964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16965 #: freeculture.xml:12137
16967 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
16968 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
16969 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
16970 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
16971 "Congress and say, <quote>Give us twenty years to control the speech about "
16972 "these icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone "
16973 "else.</quote> Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by "
16974 "giving them what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive "
16975 "right to speak in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is "
16976 "traditionally meant to block."
16979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16980 #: freeculture.xml:12149
16982 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
16983 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
16984 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
16985 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
16986 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak."
16989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16990 #: freeculture.xml:12156
16992 "<emphasis role='strong'>Between February</emphasis> and October, there was "
16993 "little I did beyond preparing for this case. Early on, as I said, I set the "
16997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16998 #: freeculture.xml:12161 freeculture.xml:12347
16999 msgid "O'Connor, Sandra Day"
17002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17003 #: freeculture.xml:12163
17005 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
17006 "<quote>the Conservatives.</quote> The other we called <quote>the "
17007 "Rest.</quote> The Conservatives included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice "
17008 "O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five "
17009 "had been the most consistent in limiting Congress's power. They were the "
17010 "five who had supported the <citetitle>Lopez/Morrison</citetitle> line of "
17011 "cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to assure "
17012 "that Congress's powers had limits."
17015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17016 #: freeculture.xml:12172 freeculture.xml:12197 freeculture.xml:12549 freeculture.xml:12561
17017 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
17020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17021 #: freeculture.xml:12173 freeculture.xml:12513
17022 msgid "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader"
17026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17027 #: freeculture.xml:12175
17029 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
17030 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
17031 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
17032 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
17033 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
17034 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
17035 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
17036 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
17039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17040 #: freeculture.xml:12187
17042 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
17043 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
17044 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
17045 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
17046 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
17047 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
17048 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
17049 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
17052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17053 #: freeculture.xml:12199
17055 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
17056 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
17057 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
17058 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
17059 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
17062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17063 #: freeculture.xml:12208
17065 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
17066 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
17067 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
17068 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
17069 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
17070 "confident he would recognize limits here."
17073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17074 #: freeculture.xml:12216
17076 "This analysis of <quote>the Rest</quote> showed most clearly where our focus "
17077 "had to be: on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open "
17078 "these five and get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single "
17079 "overriding argument that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' "
17080 "most important jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge "
17081 "Sentelle had relied upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must "
17082 "be interpreted so that its enumerated powers have limits."
17086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17087 #: freeculture.xml:12226
17089 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
17090 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the "
17091 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, under the government's argument here, "
17092 "Congress would always have unlimited power to extend existing terms. If "
17093 "anything was plain about Congress's power under the Progress Clause, it was "
17094 "that this power was supposed to be <quote>limited.</quote> Our aim would be "
17095 "to get the Court to reconcile <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> with "
17096 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was "
17097 "limited, then so, too, must Congress's power to regulate copyright be "
17101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17102 #: freeculture.xml:12240
17104 "<emphasis role='strong'>The argument</emphasis> on the government's side "
17105 "came down to this: Congress has done it before. It should be allowed to do "
17106 "it again. The government claimed that from the very beginning, Congress has "
17107 "been extending the term of existing copyrights. So, the government argued, "
17108 "the Court should not now say that practice is unconstitutional."
17111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17112 #: freeculture.xml:12248
17114 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
17115 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in 1831 and in 1909. And of "
17116 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
17117 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
17120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17121 #: freeculture.xml:12255
17123 "But this <quote>consistency</quote> should be kept in perspective. Congress "
17124 "extended existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It "
17125 "then extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare "
17126 "extensions are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
17127 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
17128 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
17129 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
17130 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
17131 "couldn't intervene here."
17135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17136 #: freeculture.xml:12270
17138 "<emphasis role='strong'>Oral argument</emphasis> was scheduled for the first "
17139 "week in October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During "
17140 "those two weeks, I was repeatedly <quote>mooted</quote> by lawyers who had "
17141 "volunteered to help in the case. Such <quote>moots</quote> are basically "
17142 "practice rounds, where wannabe justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
17145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17146 #: freeculture.xml:12280
17148 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
17149 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
17150 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
17151 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
17152 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
17153 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
17156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17157 #: freeculture.xml:12293
17159 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
17160 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
17161 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
17162 "of the moot, he let his concern speak:"
17165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17166 #: freeculture.xml:12299
17168 "<quote>I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
17169 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
17170 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
17171 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
17172 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.</quote>"
17175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17176 #: freeculture.xml:12307
17178 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
17179 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
17180 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
17181 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
17182 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
17183 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
17184 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
17185 "politicians learn to see that it was also good."
17189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17190 #: freeculture.xml:12317
17192 "<emphasis role='strong'>The night before</emphasis> the argument, a line of "
17193 "people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The case had become a "
17194 "focus of the press and of the movement to free culture. Hundreds stood in "
17195 "line for the chance to see the proceedings. Scores spent the night on the "
17196 "Supreme Court steps so that they would be assured a seat."
17199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17200 #: freeculture.xml:12327
17202 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
17203 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
17204 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
17205 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
17206 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
17207 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
17208 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
17209 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
17210 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
17211 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
17212 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
17215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17216 #: freeculture.xml:12342
17218 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
17219 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
17220 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
17221 "powers had any limit."
17224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17225 #: freeculture.xml:12349
17227 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
17228 "was bothering her."
17231 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17232 #: freeculture.xml:12354
17234 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
17235 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
17236 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
17240 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17241 #: freeculture.xml:12361
17243 "She was quite willing to concede <quote>that this flies directly in the face "
17244 "of what the framers had in mind.</quote> But my response again and again was "
17245 "to emphasize limits on Congress's power."
17249 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17250 #: freeculture.xml:12367
17252 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
17253 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
17254 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
17257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17258 #: freeculture.xml:12375
17260 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
17261 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
17264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17265 #: freeculture.xml:12381
17267 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
17268 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
17269 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
17270 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
17271 "evidence for that."
17274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17275 #: freeculture.xml:12389
17277 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
17281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17282 #: freeculture.xml:12395
17284 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
17285 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
17286 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
17287 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
17288 "under the copyright laws."
17291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17292 #: freeculture.xml:12404
17294 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
17295 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
17296 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
17297 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
17298 "was a swing and a miss."
17301 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17302 #: freeculture.xml:12411
17304 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
17305 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
17306 "ruling, and we hoped that he would see this case as its second cousin."
17310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17311 #: freeculture.xml:12416
17313 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
17314 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
17317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17318 #: freeculture.xml:12423
17320 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
17321 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
17324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17325 #: freeculture.xml:12427
17327 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
17328 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
17329 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
17330 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
17333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17334 #: freeculture.xml:12435
17335 msgid "Olson, Theodore B."
17338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17339 #: freeculture.xml:12437
17341 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
17342 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
17346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17347 #: freeculture.xml:12443
17349 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
17350 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
17351 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
17352 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
17355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17356 #: freeculture.xml:12451
17358 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
17359 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
17360 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
17361 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
17362 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
17363 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
17364 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
17365 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
17366 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
17367 "Court to my side."
17371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17372 #: freeculture.xml:12464
17374 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I left</emphasis> the court that day, I knew "
17375 "there were a hundred points I wished I could remake. There were a hundred "
17376 "questions I wished I had answered differently. But one way of thinking about "
17377 "this case left me optimistic."
17380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17381 #: freeculture.xml:12473
17383 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
17384 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
17385 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
17386 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
17387 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
17388 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
17389 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
17390 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
17391 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
17392 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
17393 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
17394 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
17397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17398 #: freeculture.xml:12488
17400 "<emphasis role='strong'>The morning</emphasis> of January 15, 2003, I was "
17401 "five minutes late to the office and missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the "
17402 "Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the message, I could tell in an instant "
17403 "that she had bad news to report.The Supreme Court had affirmed the decision "
17404 "of the Court of Appeals. Seven justices had voted in the majority. There "
17405 "were two dissents."
17408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17409 #: freeculture.xml:12496
17411 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
17412 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
17413 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
17416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17417 #: freeculture.xml:12501
17419 "My <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. Here was a case that pitted all the money "
17420 "in the world against <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. And here was the last "
17421 "naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."
17424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17425 #: freeculture.xml:12507
17427 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
17428 "principle in this case from the principle in "
17429 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The argument was nowhere to be found. The case "
17430 "was not even cited. The argument that was the core argument of our case did "
17431 "not even appear in the Court's opinion."
17435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17436 #: freeculture.xml:12517
17438 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
17439 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
17440 "Congress's power not limited here."
17443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17444 #: freeculture.xml:12522
17446 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
17447 "Souter. Neither believes in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. It would be too "
17448 "much to expect them to write an opinion that recognized, much less "
17449 "explained, the doctrine they had worked so hard to defeat."
17452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17453 #: freeculture.xml:12528
17455 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
17456 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
17457 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
17458 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
17459 "simply <emphasis>by not addressing the argument</emphasis>. There was no "
17460 "inconsistency because they would not talk about the two together. There was "
17461 "therefore no principle that followed from the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
17462 "case: In that context, Congress's power would be limited, but in this "
17463 "context it would not."
17466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17467 #: freeculture.xml:12539
17469 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
17470 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
17471 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
17472 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
17473 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
17474 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
17475 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
17476 "will respect, that is the system we have."
17479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17480 #: freeculture.xml:12551
17482 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
17483 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
17484 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
17485 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
17486 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
17487 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
17488 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
17489 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
17490 "charge go unanswered."
17494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17495 #: freeculture.xml:12564
17497 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
17498 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
17499 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
17500 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
17501 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
17502 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
17503 "Constitution said a term had to be <quote>limited,</quote> and the existing "
17504 "term was so long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was "
17505 "unconstitutional."
17508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17509 #: freeculture.xml:12575
17511 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
17512 "neither believed in the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, neither was "
17513 "willing to push it as a reason to reject this extension. The case was "
17514 "decided without anyone having addressed the argument that we had carried "
17515 "from Judge Sentelle. It was <citetitle>Hamlet</citetitle> without the "
17519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17520 #: freeculture.xml:12582
17522 "<emphasis role='strong'>Defeat brings depression</emphasis>. They say it is "
17523 "a sign of health when depression gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, "
17524 "but it didn't cure the depression. This anger was of two sorts."
17527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17528 #: freeculture.xml:12587
17529 msgid "originalism"
17532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17533 #: freeculture.xml:12589
17535 "It was first anger with the five <quote>Conservatives.</quote> It would have "
17536 "been one thing for them to have explained why the principle of "
17537 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> didn't apply in this case. That wouldn't have "
17538 "been a very convincing argument, I don't believe, having read it made by "
17539 "others, and having tried to make it myself. But it at least would have been "
17540 "an act of integrity. These justices in particular have repeatedly said that "
17541 "the proper mode of interpreting the Constitution is "
17542 "<quote>originalism</quote>—to first understand the framers' text, "
17543 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
17544 "Constitution. That method had produced <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> and many "
17545 "other <quote>originalist</quote> rulings. Where was their "
17546 "<quote>originalism</quote> now?"
17550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17551 #: freeculture.xml:12602
17553 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
17554 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
17555 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
17556 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
17557 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
17558 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
17559 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
17560 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
17561 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
17562 "consistent with their own principles."
17565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17566 #: freeculture.xml:12617
17568 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
17569 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
17573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17574 #: freeculture.xml:12624
17576 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
17577 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
17578 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
17579 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
17580 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
17581 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
17582 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
17583 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
17588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17589 #: freeculture.xml:12635
17591 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
17592 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
17593 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
17594 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
17595 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
17596 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
17597 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
17598 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
17599 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
17600 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
17601 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
17602 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
17603 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
17604 "on which a court should decide the issue."
17607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17608 #: freeculture.xml:12656
17610 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
17611 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
17615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17616 #: freeculture.xml:12661
17618 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
17619 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
17620 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
17621 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
17624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17625 #: freeculture.xml:12667
17627 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
17628 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
17629 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
17630 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
17634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17635 #: freeculture.xml:12675
17637 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
17638 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
17639 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
17640 "was a mistake. <quote>The Court is not ready,</quote> Peter Jaszi said; this "
17641 "issue should not be raised until it is."
17644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17645 #: freeculture.xml:12682
17647 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
17648 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
17649 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
17650 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
17651 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
17652 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
17653 "had made four years before—was wrong."
17657 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17658 #: freeculture.xml:12691
17660 "<emphasis role='strong'>While the reaction</emphasis> to the Sonny Bono Act "
17661 "itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's decision "
17662 "was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that extending the "
17663 "term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over ideas. Where "
17664 "the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had been skeptical "
17665 "of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good thing, even if "
17666 "it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was attacked, it was "
17667 "attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful law. <citetitle>The "
17668 "New York Times</citetitle> wrote in its editorial,"
17671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
17672 #: freeculture.xml:12706
17674 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
17675 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
17676 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
17677 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
17678 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
17679 "creative ferment."
17682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><indexterm><primary>
17683 #: freeculture.xml:12720 freeculture.xml:12725
17684 msgid "Bolling, Ruben"
17687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17688 #: freeculture.xml:12715
17690 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
17691 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
17692 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page (<xref "
17693 "linkend=\"fig-18\"/>). The <quote>powerful and wealthy</quote> line is a bit "
17694 "unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like that. <placeholder "
17695 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
17699 #: freeculture.xml:12723
17700 msgid "Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon"
17703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
17704 #: freeculture.xml:12724
17706 "<graphic fileref=\"images/18.png\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\"></graphic> "
17707 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17711 #: freeculture.xml:12728
17713 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
17714 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>. That <quote>grand "
17715 "experiment</quote> we call the <quote>public domain</quote> is over? When I "
17716 "can make light of it, I think, <quote>Honey, I shrunk the "
17717 "Constitution.</quote> But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
17718 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
17719 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
17720 "have made them see differently."
17723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
17724 #: freeculture.xml:12739
17725 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
17728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17729 #: freeculture.xml:12741
17731 "<emphasis role='strong'>The day</emphasis> <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
17732 "decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The "
17733 "day the rehearing petition in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
17734 "denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have "
17735 "it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a "
17736 "particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city "
17737 "from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and "
17738 "wrote an op-ed piece."
17741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17742 #: freeculture.xml:12753
17744 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
17745 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
17746 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
17747 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: "
17748 "<quote>For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the "
17749 "useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.</quote> And "
17750 "so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I "
17751 "turned to an argument of politics."
17755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17756 #: freeculture.xml:12763
17758 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> published the piece. In it, I "
17759 "proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the "
17760 "copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small "
17761 "fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of "
17762 "copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain."
17765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17766 #: freeculture.xml:12771
17768 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
17769 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
17770 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
17773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17774 #: freeculture.xml:12776
17776 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
17777 "the <quote>Public Domain Enhancement Act</quote> or the <quote>Copyright "
17778 "Term Deregulation Act.</quote> Either way, the essence of the idea is clear "
17779 "and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking "
17780 "access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows "
17781 "for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let "
17785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17786 #: freeculture.xml:12784 freeculture.xml:12985
17787 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
17790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17791 #: freeculture.xml:12786
17793 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
17794 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
17795 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
17796 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
17797 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
17798 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
17799 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
17800 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
17801 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
17804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17805 #: freeculture.xml:12798
17807 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
17808 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
17809 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
17810 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
17811 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
17812 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
17813 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
17814 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
17817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17818 #: freeculture.xml:12808
17819 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
17822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17823 #: freeculture.xml:12809 freeculture.xml:12850
17824 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
17827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
17828 #: freeculture.xml:12817
17829 msgid "German copyright law"
17832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17833 #: freeculture.xml:12817
17835 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the "
17836 "Berne Convention, national copyright legislation sometimes made protection "
17837 "depend upon compliance with formalities such as registration, deposit, and "
17838 "affixation of notice of the author's claim of copyright. However, starting "
17839 "with the 1908 act, every text of the Convention has provided that <quote>the "
17840 "enjoyment and the exercise</quote> of rights guaranteed by the Convention "
17841 "<quote>shall not be subject to any formality.</quote> The prohibition "
17842 "against formalities is presently embodied in Article 5(2) of the Paris Text "
17843 "of the Berne Convention. Many countries continue to impose some form of "
17844 "deposit or registration requirement, albeit not as a condition of "
17845 "copyright. French law, for example, requires the deposit of copies of works "
17846 "in national repositories, principally the National Museum. Copies of books "
17847 "published in the United Kingdom must be deposited in the British "
17848 "Library. The German Copyright Act provides for a Registrar of Authors where "
17849 "the author's true name can be filed in the case of anonymous or pseudonymous "
17850 "works. Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>International Intellectual Property Law, "
17851 "Cases and Materials</citetitle> (New York: Foundation Press, 2001), "
17855 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17856 #: freeculture.xml:12812
17858 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
17859 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, "
17860 "when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement "
17861 "before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
17862 "Europeans are said to view copyright as a <quote>natural right.</quote> "
17863 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
17864 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
17865 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
17866 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
17867 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
17870 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17871 #: freeculture.xml:12844
17873 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
17874 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
17875 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread <quote>Walt "
17876 "Disney creativity</quote> is destroyed when there is no simple way to know "
17877 "what's protected and what's not."
17880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17881 #: freeculture.xml:12852
17883 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
17884 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
17885 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
17886 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
17887 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
17888 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an "
17889 "<citetitle>i</citetitle> or cross a <citetitle>t</citetitle> resulted in the "
17890 "loss of widows' only income."
17893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17894 #: freeculture.xml:12862
17896 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
17897 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
17898 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
17899 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
17900 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
17904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17905 #: freeculture.xml:12870
17907 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
17908 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
17909 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
17910 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
17911 "imposed upon creators."
17915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17916 #: freeculture.xml:12878
17918 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
17919 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
17920 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
17921 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
17922 "a property right over the table <quote>naturally,</quote> and he can assert "
17923 "that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has "
17924 "informed the government of his ownership of the table."
17927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17928 #: freeculture.xml:12890
17930 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
17931 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
17932 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
17933 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
17934 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
17935 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
17938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17939 #: freeculture.xml:12899
17941 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
17942 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
17943 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
17944 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
17945 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
17946 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
17947 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
17948 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
17949 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
17950 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
17951 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
17952 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
17953 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
17956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17957 #: freeculture.xml:12915
17959 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
17960 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
17961 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
17962 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
17963 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
17964 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
17965 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
17966 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
17967 "formalities. Complex, expensive, <emphasis>lawyer</emphasis> transactions "
17968 "take their place. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17972 #: freeculture.xml:12930
17974 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
17975 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't "
17976 "<quote>get.</quote> Because we live in a system without formalities, there "
17977 "is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright "
17978 "terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, <quote>short,</quote> then "
17979 "this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a "
17980 "work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be "
17981 "presumptively uncontrolled."
17984 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17985 #: freeculture.xml:12940
17987 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
17988 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
17989 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
17990 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
17991 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
17992 "in a way that has never been seen before <emphasis>because there are no "
17993 "formalities</emphasis>."
17996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17997 #: freeculture.xml:12949
17999 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
18000 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
18001 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
18002 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
18003 "extended copyright term."
18006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18007 #: freeculture.xml:12956
18009 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
18010 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
18011 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
18012 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
18013 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
18016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18017 #: freeculture.xml:12963
18019 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
18020 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
18021 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
18025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18026 #: freeculture.xml:12969
18028 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
18029 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
18030 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
18031 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
18032 "the real problem of <emphasis>governments</emphasis> standing at the core of "
18033 "any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That "
18034 "solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was "
18035 "Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click "
18036 "registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration "
18037 "fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that "
18038 "system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that "
18039 "no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty "
18040 "years. What do you think?"
18043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18044 #: freeculture.xml:12987
18046 "<emphasis role='strong'>When Steve Forbes</emphasis> endorsed the idea, some "
18047 "in Washington began to pay attention. Many people contacted me pointing to "
18048 "representatives who might be willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had "
18049 "a few who directly suggested that they might be willing to take the first "
18053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18054 #: freeculture.xml:12993
18055 msgid "Lofgren, Zoe"
18058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18059 #: freeculture.xml:12995
18061 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
18062 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
18063 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
18064 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
18065 "the Eldred Act blog, <quote>we are close.</quote> There was a general "
18066 "reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here."
18069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18070 #: freeculture.xml:13004
18072 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
18073 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
18074 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
18075 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
18076 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
18077 "about what this debate is really about."
18081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18082 #: freeculture.xml:13012
18084 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had <quote>firmly rejected the central "
18085 "concept in the proposed bill</quote>—that copyrights be renewed. That "
18086 "was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's <quote>firm rejection</quote> had "
18087 "occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. "
18088 "Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright "
18089 "owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they "
18090 "argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would "
18091 "encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of "
18092 "work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again "
18093 "this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term "
18094 "unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would "
18095 "impose <quote>enormous</quote> costs, since a registration system is not "
18096 "free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of "
18097 "clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they "
18098 "worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were "
18099 "to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the "
18100 "public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use."
18103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18104 #: freeculture.xml:13033
18106 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
18107 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
18108 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
18109 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
18110 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
18114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18115 #: freeculture.xml:13041
18117 "<emphasis role='strong'>At the beginning</emphasis> of this book, I told two "
18118 "stories about the law reacting to changes in technology. In the one, common "
18119 "sense prevailed. In the other, common sense was delayed. The difference "
18120 "between the two stories was the power of the opposition—the power of "
18121 "the side that fought to defend the status quo. In both cases, a new "
18122 "technology threatened old interests. But in only one case did those "
18123 "interest's have the power to protect themselves against this new competitive "
18127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18128 #: freeculture.xml:13051
18130 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
18131 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
18132 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
18133 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
18137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18138 #: freeculture.xml:13060
18140 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
18141 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
18142 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
18143 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
18144 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
18145 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
18146 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
18147 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
18151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18152 #: freeculture.xml:13070
18153 msgid "Kelly, Kevin"
18156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18157 #: freeculture.xml:13072
18159 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
18160 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
18161 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
18162 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
18163 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
18164 "what Kevin Kelly calls the <quote>Dark Content</quote> that fills archives "
18165 "around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should "
18166 "ask one simple question:"
18169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18170 #: freeculture.xml:13082
18171 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
18174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18175 #: freeculture.xml:13085
18177 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
18178 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
18179 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an "
18180 "effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is "
18181 "another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there "
18182 "will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that "
18183 "there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require "
18184 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> permission first."
18187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18188 #: freeculture.xml:13096
18190 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
18191 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
18192 "the protection of <quote>property</quote> but the rejection of a tradition. "
18193 "Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. <emphasis>Their aim is to "
18194 "assure that all there is is what is theirs</emphasis>."
18198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18199 #: freeculture.xml:13104
18201 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
18202 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
18203 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
18204 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
18205 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
18209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18210 #: freeculture.xml:13116
18212 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
18213 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
18214 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
18215 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
18219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
18220 #: freeculture.xml:13123
18222 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
18223 "<quote>property</quote> in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, "
18224 "and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of "
18225 "the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing <quote>permission "
18226 "society.</quote> The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the "
18227 "owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be "
18228 "controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
18231 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
18232 #: freeculture.xml:13135
18236 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18237 #: freeculture.xml:13136
18238 msgid "Africa, medications for HIV patients in"
18241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18242 #: freeculture.xml:13137
18243 msgid "AIDS medications"
18246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18247 #: freeculture.xml:13138
18248 msgid "antiretroviral drugs"
18251 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18252 #: freeculture.xml:13139
18253 msgid "developing countries, foreign patent costs in"
18256 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18257 #: freeculture.xml:13140 freeculture.xml:13653
18261 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18262 #: freeculture.xml:13140 freeculture.xml:13653
18263 msgid "pharmaceutical"
18266 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18267 #: freeculture.xml:13141
18268 msgid "HIV/AIDS therapies"
18271 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18272 #: freeculture.xml:13143
18274 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are more</emphasis> than 35 million people "
18275 "with the AIDS virus worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in "
18276 "sub-Saharan Africa. Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million "
18277 "Africans is proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More "
18278 "importantly, it is seventeen million Africans."
18281 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18282 #: freeculture.xml:13150
18284 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
18285 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
18286 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
18287 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
18288 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
18292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18293 #: freeculture.xml:13165
18295 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, <quote>Final Report: Integrating "
18296 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy</quote> (London, 2002), "
18297 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
18298 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
18299 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
18300 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
18303 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18304 #: freeculture.xml:13158
18306 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
18307 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
18308 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
18309 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
18310 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
18311 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
18315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18316 #: freeculture.xml:13174 freeculture.xml:13655
18317 msgid "on pharmaceuticals"
18320 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18321 #: freeculture.xml:13175
18322 msgid "pharmaceutical patents"
18326 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18327 #: freeculture.xml:13178
18329 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
18330 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
18331 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
18332 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
18333 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
18334 "used to keep the prices high."
18337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18338 #: freeculture.xml:13186
18340 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
18341 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
18342 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
18343 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
18344 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
18345 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
18346 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
18347 "it, at least without other changes."
18350 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18351 #: freeculture.xml:13197
18353 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
18354 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
18355 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
18356 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
18360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18361 #: freeculture.xml:13203
18362 msgid "international law"
18365 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18366 #: freeculture.xml:13204
18367 msgid "parallel importation"
18370 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18371 #: freeculture.xml:13205
18372 msgid "South Africa, Republic of, pharmaceutical imports by"
18375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18376 #: freeculture.xml:13218 freeculture.xml:13711
18377 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
18380 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18381 #: freeculture.xml:13216
18383 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism: "
18384 "Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New Press, 2003), "
18385 "37. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
18386 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18389 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18390 #: freeculture.xml:13207
18392 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
18393 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
18394 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
18395 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
18396 "called <quote>parallel importation,</quote> and it is generally permitted "
18397 "under international trade law and is specifically permitted within the "
18398 "European Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
18401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18402 #: freeculture.xml:13222
18403 msgid "United States Trade Representative (USTR)"
18407 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18408 #: freeculture.xml:13230
18410 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
18411 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
18412 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
18413 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 14, available at <ulink "
18414 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #56</ulink>. For a firsthand "
18415 "account of the struggle over South Africa, see Hearing Before the "
18416 "Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, House "
18417 "Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., Ser. No. 106-126 (22 "
18418 "July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
18422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18423 #: freeculture.xml:13257
18425 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
18426 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
18427 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
18428 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 15."
18431 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18432 #: freeculture.xml:13224
18434 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
18435 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
18436 "characterized it, <quote>The U.S. government pressured South Africa … "
18437 "not to permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.</quote><placeholder "
18438 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
18439 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
18440 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
18441 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
18442 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
18443 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
18444 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
18445 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
18446 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
18447 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
18448 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
18449 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
18450 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
18451 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
18454 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18455 #: freeculture.xml:13264
18457 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
18458 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
18459 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
18460 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
18461 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
18462 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
18463 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
18466 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18467 #: freeculture.xml:13274
18469 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
18470 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
18471 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
18472 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
18473 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
18474 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
18477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18478 #: freeculture.xml:13282
18480 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
18481 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
18482 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
18483 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
18484 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
18485 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
18491 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18492 #: freeculture.xml:13297
18494 "See Sabin Russell, <quote>New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's "
18495 "Needs at Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
18496 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 May 1999, A1, available at <ulink "
18497 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> (<quote>compulsory "
18498 "licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system of intellectual "
18499 "property protection</quote>); Robert Weissman, <quote>AIDS and Developing "
18500 "Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,</quote> "
18501 "<citetitle>Foreign Policy in Focus</citetitle> 4:23 (August 1999), available "
18502 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
18503 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, <quote>TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and "
18504 "the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual "
18505 "Property Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,</quote> <citetitle>Widener Law "
18506 "Symposium Journal</citetitle> (Spring 2001): 175."
18509 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18510 #: freeculture.xml:13291
18512 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
18513 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
18514 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
18515 "because <quote>intellectual property</quote> would be violated that these "
18516 "drugs should not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance "
18517 "of <quote>intellectual property</quote> that led these government actors to "
18518 "intervene against the South African response to AIDS."
18521 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18522 #: freeculture.xml:13319
18524 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
18525 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
18526 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
18527 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
18528 "would be to uphold the <quote>sanctity</quote> of an idea? What possible "
18529 "justification could there ever be for a policy that results in so many "
18530 "deaths? What exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for "
18531 "such an abstraction?"
18534 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18535 #: freeculture.xml:13328
18536 msgid "in pharmaceutical industry"
18539 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18540 #: freeculture.xml:13330
18542 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
18543 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
18544 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
18545 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
18546 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
18547 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
18550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18551 #: freeculture.xml:13338
18553 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
18554 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
18555 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
18556 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
18557 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
18558 "could be overcome."
18561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18562 #: freeculture.xml:13345
18563 msgid "of drug patents"
18567 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18568 #: freeculture.xml:13347
18570 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
18571 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
18572 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, <quote>How is it you can sell "
18573 "this HIV drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an "
18574 "American $1,500?</quote> Because there is no <quote>sound bite</quote> "
18575 "answer to that question, its effect would be to induce regulation of prices "
18576 "in America. The drug companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first "
18577 "step. They reinforce the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a "
18578 "rational strategy in an irrational context, with the unintended consequence "
18579 "that perhaps millions die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in "
18580 "terms of this ideal—the sanctity of an idea called <quote>intellectual "
18581 "property.</quote>"
18584 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18585 #: freeculture.xml:13369
18587 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
18588 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
18589 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
18592 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18593 #: freeculture.xml:13375
18595 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
18596 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
18597 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
18598 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
18599 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
18600 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
18601 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
18602 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
18603 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
18606 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18607 #: freeculture.xml:13390
18609 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
18610 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
18611 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
18612 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
18613 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
18614 "decision that we as a democracy will make."
18618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18619 #: freeculture.xml:13399
18621 "<emphasis role='strong'>A simple idea</emphasis> blinds us, and under the "
18622 "cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us "
18623 "looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we "
18624 "don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are "
18625 "dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in "
18626 "culture that we don't even question when the control of that property "
18627 "removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture "
18628 "democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for "
18629 "anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way "
18630 "to make this common sense open its eyes."
18633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18634 #: freeculture.xml:13413
18636 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
18637 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
18638 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
18639 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight <quote>piracy,</quote> "
18640 "and devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of "
18641 "<quote>creative property,</quote> while transforming real creators into "
18642 "modern-day sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should "
18643 "be balanced, even though each of the major players in this content war was "
18644 "itself a beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a "
18645 "city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, "
18646 "complex issues, and MTV attention spans produce the <quote>perfect "
18647 "storm</quote> for free culture."
18650 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18651 #: freeculture.xml:13426 freeculture.xml:14196
18652 msgid "academic journals"
18655 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18656 #: freeculture.xml:13427 freeculture.xml:13440
18657 msgid "biomedical research"
18660 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18661 #: freeculture.xml:13428 freeculture.xml:13598
18662 msgid "international organization on issues of"
18665 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18666 #: freeculture.xml:13430 freeculture.xml:13547 freeculture.xml:14115
18670 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18671 #: freeculture.xml:13431 freeculture.xml:14262
18672 msgid "PLoS (Public Library of Science)"
18675 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18676 #: freeculture.xml:13432 freeculture.xml:14263
18677 msgid "Public Library of Science (PLoS)"
18680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18681 #: freeculture.xml:13433
18682 msgid "public projects in"
18685 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18686 #: freeculture.xml:13434
18687 msgid "single nucleotied polymorphisms (SNPs)"
18690 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18691 #: freeculture.xml:13435
18692 msgid "Wellcome Trust"
18695 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18696 #: freeculture.xml:13436 freeculture.xml:13599
18697 msgid "World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)"
18700 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18701 #: freeculture.xml:13437
18702 msgid "World Wide Web"
18705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18706 #: freeculture.xml:13438
18707 msgid "Global Positioning System"
18711 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18712 #: freeculture.xml:13445
18714 "Jonathan Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> "
18715 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, August 2003, E1, available at <ulink "
18716 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #59</ulink>; William New, "
18717 "<quote>Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir,</quote> "
18718 "<citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 August 2003, "
18719 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; "
18720 "William New, <quote>U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at "
18721 "WIPO,</quote> <citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 "
18722 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
18727 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18728 #: freeculture.xml:13442
18730 "<emphasis role='strong'>In August 2003</emphasis>, a fight broke out in the "
18731 "United States about a decision by the World Intellectual Property "
18732 "Organization to cancel a meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
18733 "At the request of a wide range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a "
18734 "meeting to discuss <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
18735 "goods.</quote> These are projects that have been successful in producing "
18736 "public goods without relying exclusively upon a proprietary use of "
18737 "intellectual property. Examples include the Internet and the World Wide Web, "
18738 "both of which were developed on the basis of protocols in the public "
18739 "domain. It included an emerging trend to support open academic journals, "
18740 "including the Public Library of Science project that I describe in chapter "
18741 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"c-afterword\"/>. It "
18742 "included a project to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which "
18743 "are thought to have great significance in biomedical research. (That "
18744 "nonprofit project comprised a consortium of the Wellcome Trust and "
18745 "pharmaceutical and technological companies, including Amersham Biosciences, "
18746 "AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La Roche, "
18747 "Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It included "
18748 "the Global Positioning System, which Ronald Reagan set free in the early "
18749 "1980s. And it included <quote>open source and free software.</quote>"
18752 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18753 #: freeculture.xml:13478
18755 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
18756 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
18757 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
18758 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
18759 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
18762 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18763 #: freeculture.xml:13484
18764 msgid "in international debate on intellectual property"
18768 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18769 #: freeculture.xml:13487
18771 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
18775 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18776 #: freeculture.xml:13486
18778 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
18779 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
18780 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
18781 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
18782 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
18783 "with intellectual property issues."
18786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18787 #: freeculture.xml:13496 freeculture.xml:13652
18788 msgid "World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)"
18792 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18793 #: freeculture.xml:13498
18795 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
18796 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
18797 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
18798 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
18799 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
18800 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
18801 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
18802 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
18803 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
18804 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
18805 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
18806 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
18807 "no way to talk about an <quote>Information Society</quote> unless one also "
18808 "talked about the range of information and culture that would be free. My "
18809 "talk did not make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt "
18810 "correct that the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily "
18811 "the stuff of WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a "
18812 "conversation about how much intellectual property is needed, since in my "
18813 "view, the very idea of balance in intellectual property had been lost."
18816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18817 #: freeculture.xml:13522
18819 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
18820 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
18821 "meeting about <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
18822 "goods</quote> seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
18825 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18826 #: freeculture.xml:13531 freeculture.xml:15261
18827 msgid "Apple Corporation"
18830 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18831 #: freeculture.xml:13532
18832 msgid "on free software"
18835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18836 #: freeculture.xml:13534
18838 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
18839 "least among lobbyists. That project is <quote>open source and free "
18840 "software.</quote> Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the "
18841 "subject. From its perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free "
18842 "software would be like a conference to discuss Apple's operating "
18843 "system. Both open source and free software compete with Microsoft's "
18844 "software. And internationally, many governments have begun to explore "
18845 "requirements that they use open source or free software, rather than "
18846 "<quote>proprietary software,</quote> for their own internal uses."
18849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18850 #: freeculture.xml:13544
18851 msgid "<quote>copyleft</quote> licenses"
18855 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18856 #: freeculture.xml:13560
18858 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
18859 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with "
18860 "<quote>open source</quote> software or software in the public "
18861 "domain. Microsoft's principal opposition is to <quote>free software</quote> "
18862 "licensed under a <quote>copyleft</quote> license, meaning a license that "
18863 "requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any derivative work. See "
18864 "Bradford L. Smith, <quote>The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace "
18865 "to Decide,</quote> <citetitle>Government Policy Toward Open Source "
18866 "Software</citetitle> (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for "
18867 "Regulatory Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy "
18868 "Research, 2002), 69, available at <ulink "
18869 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #62</ulink>. See also Craig "
18870 "Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, <citetitle>The Commercial Software "
18871 "Model</citetitle>, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
18872 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
18873 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
18876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18877 #: freeculture.xml:13549
18879 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
18880 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
18881 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
18882 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
18883 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
18884 "famous bit of <quote>free software</quote>—and IBM is emphatically a "
18885 "commercial entity. Thus, to support <quote>open source and free "
18886 "software</quote> is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to "
18887 "support a mode of software development that is different from "
18888 "Microsoft's.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
18891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18892 #: freeculture.xml:13578
18893 msgid "General Public License (GPL)"
18896 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18897 #: freeculture.xml:13579
18898 msgid "GPL (General Public License)"
18902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18903 #: freeculture.xml:13581
18905 "More important for our purposes, to support <quote>open source and free "
18906 "software</quote> is not to oppose copyright. <quote>Open source and free "
18907 "software</quote> is not software in the public domain. Instead, like "
18908 "Microsoft's software, the copyright owners of free and open source software "
18909 "insist quite strongly that the terms of their software license be respected "
18910 "by adopters of free and open source software. The terms of that license are "
18911 "no doubt different from the terms of a proprietary software license. Free "
18912 "software licensed under the General Public License (GPL), for example, "
18913 "requires that the source code for the software be made available by anyone "
18914 "who modifies and redistributes the software. But that requirement is "
18915 "effective only if copyright governs software. If copyright did not govern "
18916 "software, then free software could not impose the same kind of requirements "
18917 "on its adopters. It thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does."
18920 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18921 #: freeculture.xml:13600
18922 msgid "Krim, Jonathan"
18925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18926 #: freeculture.xml:13601
18927 msgid "WIPO meeting opposed by"
18931 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18932 #: freeculture.xml:13611
18934 "Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> available at <ulink "
18935 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
18938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18939 #: freeculture.xml:13603
18941 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
18942 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
18943 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
18944 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
18945 "to Jonathan Krim of the <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, Microsoft's "
18946 "lobbyists succeeded in getting the United States government to veto the "
18947 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, "
18948 "the meeting was canceled."
18951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18952 #: freeculture.xml:13617
18954 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
18955 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
18956 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
18957 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
18958 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
18961 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18962 #: freeculture.xml:13625 freeculture.xml:13683
18963 msgid "Boland, Lois"
18966 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18967 #: freeculture.xml:13627
18969 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
18970 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
18971 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
18972 "that <quote>open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which "
18973 "is to promote intellectual-property rights.</quote> She is quoted as saying, "
18974 "<quote>To hold a meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such "
18975 "rights seems to us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.</quote>"
18978 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18979 #: freeculture.xml:13638
18980 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
18983 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18984 #: freeculture.xml:13643
18986 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
18987 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
18988 "<quote>copyright</quote>. Without it, restrictions imposed by those "
18989 "licenses wouldn't work. Thus, to say it <quote>runs counter</quote> to the "
18990 "mission of promoting intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary "
18991 "gap in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a "
18992 "first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official "
18993 "dealing with intellectual property issues."
18996 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18997 #: freeculture.xml:13654
18998 msgid "generic drugs"
19001 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19002 #: freeculture.xml:13657
19004 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to "
19005 "<quote>promote</quote> intellectual property maximally? As I had been "
19006 "scolded at the preparatory conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only "
19007 "how best to protect intellectual property, but also what the best balance of "
19008 "intellectual property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard "
19009 "question in intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that "
19010 "there should be limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask "
19011 "Ms. Boland, are generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has "
19012 "expired) contrary to the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken "
19013 "intellectual property? Would it have been better if the protocols of the "
19014 "Internet had been patented?"
19017 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19018 #: freeculture.xml:13671
19020 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
19021 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
19022 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
19023 "those rights because, again, they are <emphasis>their</emphasis> rights. If "
19024 "they want to <quote>waive</quote> or <quote>disclaim</quote> their rights, "
19025 "that is, within our tradition, totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives "
19026 "away more than $20 billion to do good in the world, that is not inconsistent "
19027 "with the objectives of the property system. That is, on the contrary, just "
19028 "what a property system is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right "
19029 "to decide what to do with <emphasis>their</emphasis> property."
19033 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19034 #: freeculture.xml:13685
19036 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting "
19037 "<quote>which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,</quote> "
19038 "she's saying that WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of "
19039 "the individuals who own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's "
19040 "objective should be to stop an individual from <quote>waiving</quote> or "
19041 "<quote>disclaiming</quote> an intellectual property right. That the interest "
19042 "of WIPO is not just that intellectual property rights be maximized, but that "
19043 "they also should be exercised in the most extreme and restrictive way "
19047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19048 #: freeculture.xml:13696
19049 msgid "feudal system"
19052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
19053 #: freeculture.xml:13697
19054 msgid "feudal system of"
19057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19058 #: freeculture.xml:13699
19060 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
19061 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called <quote>feudalism.</quote> Under "
19062 "feudalism, not only was property held by a relatively small number of "
19063 "individuals and entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that "
19064 "property powerful and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest "
19065 "in assuring that property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by "
19066 "liberating people or property within their control to the free "
19067 "market. Feudalism depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought "
19068 "any freedom that might interfere with that control."
19071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19072 #: freeculture.xml:13716
19074 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism</citetitle>, "
19075 "210–20. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19079 #: freeculture.xml:13713
19081 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
19082 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19083 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
19084 "only choice now is whether that information society will be "
19085 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> or <emphasis>feudal</emphasis>. The trend is "
19086 "toward the feudal."
19089 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19090 #: freeculture.xml:13727
19092 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
19093 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
19094 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
19095 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
19099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
19100 #: freeculture.xml:13736
19102 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
19103 "should be (<quote>the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should "
19104 "be to promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply "
19105 "to promote intellectual property rights</quote>), not as it is. If we were "
19106 "talking about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
19107 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
19108 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
19112 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19113 #: freeculture.xml:13748
19115 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
19116 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
19117 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
19118 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
19119 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
19120 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
19121 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
19125 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19126 #: freeculture.xml:13759
19128 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
19129 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the "
19130 "<quote>goal</quote> of a government should be <quote>to promote the right "
19131 "balance</quote> of intellectual property. That was obviously silly to "
19132 "him. And it obviously betrayed, he believed, my own silly "
19133 "utopianism. <quote>Typical for an academic,</quote> the poster might well "
19137 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19138 #: freeculture.xml:13767
19140 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
19141 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
19142 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
19145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19146 #: freeculture.xml:13773
19148 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
19149 "should be to <quote>seek balance,</quote> then count me with the silly, for "
19150 "that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be "
19151 "obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the "
19152 "government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea "
19153 "of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea "
19154 "of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just "
19155 "naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, "
19160 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19161 #: freeculture.xml:13784
19163 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
19164 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
19165 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
19166 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
19167 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
19170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19171 #: freeculture.xml:13792
19172 msgid "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon."
19175 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19176 #: freeculture.xml:13796
19177 msgid "Turner, Ted"
19180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19181 #: freeculture.xml:13798
19183 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are moments</emphasis> of hope in this "
19184 "struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was considering relaxing "
19185 "ownership rules, which would thereby further increase the concentration in "
19186 "media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition formed to fight this "
19187 "change. For perhaps the first time in history, interests as diverse as the "
19188 "NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted Turner, and CodePink Women "
19189 "for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC policy. An astonishing "
19190 "700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more hearings and a "
19191 "different result."
19194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19195 #: freeculture.xml:13809
19197 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
19198 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
19199 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
19200 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
19201 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
19204 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19205 #: freeculture.xml:13817
19207 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
19208 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
19209 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
19210 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
19211 "hamburger from somewhere else."
19214 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19215 #: freeculture.xml:13824
19217 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
19218 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
19219 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
19220 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
19221 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
19222 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
19223 "their bigness bad."
19226 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19227 #: freeculture.xml:13834
19229 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
19230 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
19231 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
19232 "history of fighting <quote>big,</quote> wisely or not. That we could be "
19233 "motivated to fight <quote>big</quote> again is not something new."
19236 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19237 #: freeculture.xml:13841
19239 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
19240 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
19241 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote> Not because balance is alien to our "
19242 "tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the "
19243 "muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "
19244 "<quote>property</quote> is not well exercised within this tradition anymore."
19247 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19248 #: freeculture.xml:13849
19250 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
19254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19255 #: freeculture.xml:13852
19260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19261 #: freeculture.xml:13858
19263 "John Borland, <quote>RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,</quote> CNET News.com, "
19264 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
19265 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, "
19266 "<quote>Music Industry Sues Swappers,</quote> CNN/Money, 8 September 2003, "
19267 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; "
19268 "Soni Sangha and Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, <quote>Sued for a Song, "
19269 "N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among 261 Cited as Sharers,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
19270 "Daily News</citetitle>, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's "
19271 "Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl "
19272 "in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 "
19273 "September 2003, E1; Katie Dean, <quote>Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,</quote> "
19274 "<citetitle>Wired News</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, available at <ulink "
19275 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
19279 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19280 #: freeculture.xml:13876
19282 "Jon Wiederhorn, <quote>Eminem Gets Sued … by a Little Old "
19283 "Lady,</quote> mtv.com, 17 September 2003, available at <ulink "
19284 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
19289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19290 #: freeculture.xml:13883
19292 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, <quote>Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for "
19293 "Dylan Songs,</quote> Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
19294 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
19297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19298 #: freeculture.xml:13854
19300 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I write</emphasis> these final words, the news is "
19301 "filled with stories about the RIAA lawsuits against almost three hundred "
19302 "individuals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been "
19303 "sued for <quote>sampling</quote> someone else's music.<placeholder "
19304 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The story about Bob Dylan "
19305 "<quote>stealing</quote> from a Japanese author has just finished making the "
19306 "rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> An insider from "
19307 "Hollywood—who insists he must remain anonymous—reports <quote>an "
19308 "amazing conversation with these studio guys. They've got extraordinary [old] "
19309 "content that they'd love to use but can't because they can't begin to clear "
19310 "the rights. They've got scores of kids who could do amazing things with the "
19311 "content, but it would take scores of lawyers to clean it first.</quote> "
19312 "Congressmen are talking about deputizing computer viruses to bring down "
19313 "computers thought to violate the law. Universities are threatening expulsion "
19314 "for kids who use a computer to share content."
19317 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19318 #: freeculture.xml:13900
19322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19323 #: freeculture.xml:13901
19324 msgid "Brazil, free culture in"
19327 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19328 #: freeculture.xml:13902 freeculture.xml:14293
19329 msgid "Creative Commons"
19332 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
19333 #: freeculture.xml:13903
19334 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
19337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
19338 #: freeculture.xml:13904
19339 msgid "public creative archive in"
19343 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19344 #: freeculture.xml:13909
19346 "<quote>BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,</quote> BBC press "
19347 "release, 24 August 2003, available at <ulink "
19348 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #70</ulink>."
19352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
19353 #: freeculture.xml:13918
19355 "<quote>Creative Commons and Brazil,</quote> Creative Commons Weblog, 6 "
19356 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
19361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19362 #: freeculture.xml:13906
19364 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
19365 "will build a <quote>Creative Archive,</quote> from which British citizens "
19366 "can download BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder "
19367 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto "
19368 "Gil, himself a folk hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative "
19369 "Commons to release content and free licenses in that Latin American "
19370 "country.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark "
19371 "story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new "
19372 "freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean "
19373 "anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without "
19374 "artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being "
19375 "destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take "
19376 "some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys."
19380 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19381 #: freeculture.xml:13932
19383 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
19384 "potential is ever to be realized."
19387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
19388 #: freeculture.xml:13940
19393 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19394 #: freeculture.xml:13944
19396 "<emphasis role='strong'>At least some</emphasis> who have read this far will "
19397 "agree with me that something must be done to change where we are "
19398 "heading. The balance of this book maps what might be done."
19401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19402 #: freeculture.xml:13949
19404 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
19405 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
19406 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
19407 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
19410 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19411 #: freeculture.xml:13955
19413 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
19414 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
19415 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
19416 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
19419 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19420 #: freeculture.xml:13962
19422 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
19423 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
19424 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
19425 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
19426 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
19429 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
19430 #: freeculture.xml:13971
19434 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19435 #: freeculture.xml:13973
19437 "<emphasis role='strong'>Common sense</emphasis> is with the copyright "
19438 "warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes—as "
19439 "a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or "
19440 "artists won't be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors "
19444 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19445 #: freeculture.xml:13980
19447 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
19448 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
19449 "believe in maximal copyright—<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote>— "
19450 "and those who reject copyright—<quote>No Rights Reserved.</quote> The "
19451 "<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe that you should ask "
19452 "permission before you <quote>use</quote> a copyrighted work in any way. The "
19453 "<quote>No Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe you should be able to do "
19454 "with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not."
19457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
19458 #: freeculture.xml:13990
19459 msgid "initial free character of"
19463 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19464 #: freeculture.xml:13992
19466 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
19467 "tilted in the <quote>no rights reserved</quote> direction. Content could be "
19468 "copied perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
19469 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
19470 "original design of the Internet was <quote>no rights reserved.</quote> "
19471 "Content was <quote>taken</quote> regardless of the rights. Any rights were "
19472 "effectively unprotected."
19475 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19476 #: freeculture.xml:14004
19478 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
19479 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
19480 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
19481 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
19482 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
19483 "default <quote>no rights reserved,</quote> the future architecture will make "
19484 "the effective default <quote>all rights reserved.</quote> The architecture "
19485 "and law that surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an "
19486 "environment where all use of content requires permission. The <quote>cut "
19487 "and paste</quote> world that defines the Internet today will become a "
19488 "<quote>get permission to cut and paste</quote> world that is a creator's "
19492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19493 #: freeculture.xml:14020
19495 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither "
19496 "<quote>all rights reserved</quote> nor <quote>no rights reserved</quote> but "
19497 "<quote>some rights reserved</quote>— and thus a way to respect "
19498 "copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other "
19499 "words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take "
19500 "for granted before."
19503 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19504 #: freeculture.xml:14028
19505 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
19508 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19509 #: freeculture.xml:14029
19510 msgid "restoration efforts on previous aspects of"
19513 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19514 #: freeculture.xml:14031
19515 msgid "privacy rights"
19518 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19519 #: freeculture.xml:14033
19521 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
19522 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
19523 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
19524 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
19525 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
19526 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The "
19527 "<quote>privacy</quote> of your browsing habits was assured."
19530 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19531 #: freeculture.xml:14043
19532 msgid "What made it assured?"
19535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19536 #: freeculture.xml:14047
19538 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter <xref "
19539 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, your privacy was "
19540 "assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering data and hence "
19541 "a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather that data. If you "
19542 "were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, no doubt your "
19543 "privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA would (we hope) "
19544 "find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to track you. But "
19545 "for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The highly "
19546 "inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly robust "
19547 "amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not by law "
19548 "(there is no law protecting <quote>privacy</quote> in public places), and in "
19549 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
19550 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
19553 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19554 #: freeculture.xml:14062
19558 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19559 #: freeculture.xml:14063
19560 msgid "cookies, Internet"
19563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19564 #: freeculture.xml:14064
19565 msgid "privacy protection on"
19568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19569 #: freeculture.xml:14066
19571 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
19572 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
19573 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
19574 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of <quote>recently "
19575 "viewed</quote> pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the "
19576 "function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than "
19577 "not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any <quote>privacy</quote> "
19578 "protected by the friction disappears, too."
19581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19582 #: freeculture.xml:14075
19583 msgid "privacy rights in use of"
19586 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19587 #: freeculture.xml:14077
19589 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
19590 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
19591 "should have the <quote>right</quote> to browse in a library without the "
19592 "government knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), "
19593 "then this change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it "
19594 "becomes simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then "
19595 "the friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
19599 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19600 #: freeculture.xml:14095
19602 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, <quote>Fair Information Practices and the "
19603 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),</quote> "
19604 "<citetitle>Stanford Technology Law Review</citetitle> 1 (2001): "
19605 "par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
19606 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
19607 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, "
19608 "<citetitle>The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious "
19609 "Age</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between "
19610 "technology and privacy)."
19614 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19615 #: freeculture.xml:14089
19617 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define "
19618 "<quote>privacy</quote> on the Internet. It is the recognition that "
19619 "technology can remove what friction before gave us that leads many to push "
19620 "for laws to do what friction did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
19621 "And whether you're in favor of those laws or not, it is the pattern that is "
19622 "important here. We must take affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom "
19623 "that was passively provided before. A change in technology now forces those "
19624 "who believe in privacy to affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given "
19628 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19629 #: freeculture.xml:14114
19630 msgid "Data General"
19633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19634 #: freeculture.xml:14118
19636 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
19637 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
19638 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
19639 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
19640 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
19641 "about controlling their software."
19644 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19645 #: freeculture.xml:14125
19646 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
19649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19650 #: freeculture.xml:14127
19652 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
19653 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
19654 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
19655 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
19656 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
19659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19660 #: freeculture.xml:14135
19662 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
19663 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
19664 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
19665 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
19666 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
19667 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
19668 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
19669 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
19673 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19674 #: freeculture.xml:14146
19675 msgid "proprietary code"
19678 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19679 #: freeculture.xml:14148
19681 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
19682 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
19683 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
19684 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
19685 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
19686 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
19687 "market than it was for you."
19691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19692 #: freeculture.xml:14157
19694 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
19695 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
19696 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
19697 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
19698 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
19701 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19702 #: freeculture.xml:14166
19703 msgid "Torvalds, Linus"
19706 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19707 #: freeculture.xml:14168
19709 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
19710 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
19711 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's "
19712 "<quote>Linux</quote> kernel was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating "
19713 "system. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
19714 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
19717 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19718 #: freeculture.xml:14176
19720 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
19721 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
19722 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
19723 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
19724 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
19725 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
19726 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
19727 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
19730 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19731 #: freeculture.xml:14187
19733 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
19734 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
19735 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
19736 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
19737 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
19738 "passively guaranteed."
19741 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19742 #: freeculture.xml:14197
19743 msgid "scientific journals"
19746 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19747 #: freeculture.xml:14199
19749 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
19750 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
19751 "journals are produced."
19754 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19755 #: freeculture.xml:14203
19756 msgid "Lexis and Westlaw"
19759 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19760 #: freeculture.xml:14205 freeculture.xml:14241
19761 msgid "journals in"
19764 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19765 #: freeculture.xml:14206
19766 msgid "access to opinions of"
19770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19771 #: freeculture.xml:14208
19773 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
19774 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
19775 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
19776 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
19777 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
19778 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
19779 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
19780 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
19781 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
19782 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
19783 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
19784 "opinion through their respective services."
19787 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19788 #: freeculture.xml:14223
19789 msgid "access fees for material in"
19792 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19793 #: freeculture.xml:14224
19794 msgid "license system for rebuilding of"
19797 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19798 #: freeculture.xml:14226
19800 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
19801 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
19802 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
19803 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
19804 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
19805 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
19806 "the public domain."
19809 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19810 #: freeculture.xml:14237
19812 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
19813 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
19814 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
19817 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19818 #: freeculture.xml:14243
19820 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
19821 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
19822 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
19823 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
19824 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
19825 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
19826 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
19827 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
19828 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
19832 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19833 #: freeculture.xml:14255
19835 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
19836 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
19837 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
19838 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
19839 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
19843 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19844 #: freeculture.xml:14265
19846 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
19847 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
19848 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
19849 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
19850 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
19851 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
19852 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
19853 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
19854 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free."
19857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19858 #: freeculture.xml:14279
19860 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
19861 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
19862 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
19863 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
19864 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
19865 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
19868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19869 #: freeculture.xml:14292
19870 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
19873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19874 #: freeculture.xml:14295
19876 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
19877 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
19880 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19881 #: freeculture.xml:14298
19882 msgid "Stanford University"
19885 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19886 #: freeculture.xml:14300
19888 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
19889 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
19890 "aim is to build a layer of <emphasis>reasonable</emphasis> copyright on top "
19891 "of the extremes that now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to "
19892 "build upon other people's work, by making it simple for creators to express "
19893 "the freedom for others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied "
19894 "to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
19899 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19900 #: freeculture.xml:14311
19902 "<emphasis>Simple</emphasis>—which means without a middleman, or "
19903 "without a lawyer. By developing a free set of licenses that people can "
19904 "attach to their content, Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content "
19905 "that can easily, and reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to "
19906 "machine-readable versions of the license that enable computers automatically "
19907 "to identify content that can easily be shared. These three expressions "
19908 "together—a legal license, a human-readable description, and "
19909 "machine-readable tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A "
19910 "Creative Commons license constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who "
19911 "accesses the license, and more importantly, an expression of the ideal that "
19912 "the person associated with the license believes in something different than "
19913 "the <quote>All</quote> or <quote>No</quote> extremes. Content is marked with "
19914 "the CC mark, which does not mean that copyright is waived, but that certain "
19915 "freedoms are given."
19918 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19919 #: freeculture.xml:14329
19921 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
19922 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
19923 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
19924 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
19925 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
19926 "uses (<quote>share and share alike</quote>). Or any use so long as no "
19927 "derivative use is made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any "
19928 "sampling use, so long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any "
19932 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19933 #: freeculture.xml:14340
19935 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
19936 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
19937 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
19938 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
19939 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
19940 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
19941 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
19942 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
19945 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19946 #: freeculture.xml:14350
19947 msgid "Garlick, Mia"
19951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19952 #: freeculture.xml:14352
19954 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
19955 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
19956 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
19957 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
19958 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
19959 "movement of consumers and producers of content (<quote>content "
19960 "conducers,</quote> as attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the "
19961 "public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the importance of the public "
19962 "domain to other creativity."
19965 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19966 #: freeculture.xml:14365
19968 "The aim is not to fight the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts. The "
19969 "aim is to complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a "
19970 "culture are produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written "
19971 "centuries ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have "
19972 "imagined. The rules may well have made sense against a background of "
19973 "technologies from centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the "
19974 "background of digital technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, "
19975 "expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use them—are "
19976 "needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively to begin to build "
19980 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19981 #: freeculture.xml:14378
19983 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
19984 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
19985 "fiction author. His first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
19986 "Kingdom</citetitle>, was released on-line and for free, under a Creative "
19987 "Commons license, on the same day that it went on sale in bookstores."
19990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19991 #: freeculture.xml:14385
19993 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
19994 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
19995 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
19996 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
19997 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
19998 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
19999 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
20000 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
20001 "will probably <emphasis>increase</emphasis> sales of Cory's book."
20004 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20005 #: freeculture.xml:14397
20007 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
20008 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
20009 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
20012 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20013 #: freeculture.xml:14402
20014 msgid "Free for All (Wayner)"
20017 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20018 #: freeculture.xml:14403
20019 msgid "Wayner, Peter"
20023 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20024 #: freeculture.xml:14405
20026 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
20027 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
20028 "book about the free software movement titled <citetitle>Free for "
20029 "All</citetitle>, made an electronic version of his book free on-line under a "
20030 "Creative Commons license after the book went out of print. He then monitored "
20031 "used book store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of "
20032 "downloads increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well."
20035 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20036 #: freeculture.xml:14416
20037 msgid "Public Enemy"
20040 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20041 #: freeculture.xml:14417
20045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20046 #: freeculture.xml:14418
20047 msgid "Leaphart, Walter"
20051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20052 #: freeculture.xml:14435
20054 "<citetitle>Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real "
20055 "Culture Wars</citetitle> (2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg "
20056 "Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre production, available at <ulink "
20057 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink>."
20060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20061 #: freeculture.xml:14420
20063 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
20064 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
20065 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
20066 "the <quote>sampling license</quote> do so because anything else would be "
20067 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
20068 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
20069 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
20070 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
20071 "others. Because the <emphasis>legal</emphasis> costs of sampling are so high "
20072 "(Walter Leaphart, manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born "
20073 "sampling the music of others, has stated that he does not "
20074 "<quote>allow</quote> Public Enemy to sample anymore, because the legal costs "
20075 "are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), these artists release "
20076 "into the creative environment content that others can build upon, so that "
20077 "their form of creativity might grow."
20080 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20081 #: freeculture.xml:14444
20083 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
20084 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
20085 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
20086 "are effectively saying you believe in the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> "
20087 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
20088 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
20089 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
20090 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of <quote>Some Rights "
20091 "Reserved,</quote> and gives many the chance to say it to others."
20095 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20096 #: freeculture.xml:14456
20098 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
20099 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
20100 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
20101 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
20102 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
20103 "build content based upon content set free."
20106 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20107 #: freeculture.xml:14466
20109 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
20110 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
20111 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
20112 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
20113 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
20117 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20118 #: freeculture.xml:14474
20120 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
20121 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
20122 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
20123 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
20124 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
20125 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
20128 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
20129 #: freeculture.xml:14488
20133 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
20134 #: freeculture.xml:14490
20136 "<emphasis role='strong'>We will</emphasis> not reclaim a free culture by "
20137 "individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We "
20138 "have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and "
20139 "implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build "
20140 "awareness around the changes that we need."
20143 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
20144 #: freeculture.xml:14497
20146 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
20147 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
20148 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
20152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20153 #: freeculture.xml:14504
20154 msgid "1. More Formalities"
20157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20158 #: freeculture.xml:14506
20160 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
20161 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
20162 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
20163 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
20167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20168 #: freeculture.xml:14513
20170 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
20171 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
20174 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20175 #: freeculture.xml:14518
20177 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
20178 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
20179 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
20180 "and <quote>formalities</quote> are banished."
20183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20184 #: freeculture.xml:14524
20188 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20189 #: freeculture.xml:14527
20191 "As I suggested in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
20192 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, the motivation to abolish formalities was a good "
20193 "one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a burden "
20194 "on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when the "
20195 "law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
20196 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
20199 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20200 #: freeculture.xml:14536
20202 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
20203 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
20204 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
20205 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
20206 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
20207 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
20208 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
20209 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the <emphasis>lack</emphasis> "
20210 "of formalities forces many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
20214 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20215 #: freeculture.xml:14550
20217 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
20218 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
20219 "by other countries as well."
20222 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20223 #: freeculture.xml:14548
20225 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
20226 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
20227 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
20228 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
20229 "these formalities."
20232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20233 #: freeculture.xml:14558
20235 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
20236 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
20237 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
20238 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
20239 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
20240 "approving standards developed by others."
20243 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
20244 #: freeculture.xml:14570
20245 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
20248 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20249 #: freeculture.xml:14572
20251 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
20252 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
20253 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
20254 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
20255 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
20256 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
20257 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
20258 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
20259 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
20260 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
20263 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20264 #: freeculture.xml:14585
20266 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
20267 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
20268 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
20269 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
20270 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
20271 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
20272 "that the government sets."
20275 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20276 #: freeculture.xml:14594
20278 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
20279 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
20280 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
20281 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
20282 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
20283 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
20284 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
20288 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20289 #: freeculture.xml:14604
20291 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
20292 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
20293 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
20294 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
20295 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
20296 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
20297 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
20298 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
20299 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
20302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
20303 #: freeculture.xml:14619
20307 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20308 #: freeculture.xml:14621
20310 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
20311 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
20312 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
20313 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
20314 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
20315 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
20316 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
20319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20320 #: freeculture.xml:14631
20322 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
20323 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
20324 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
20327 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20328 #: freeculture.xml:14637
20330 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
20331 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
20332 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
20333 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
20334 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
20335 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
20336 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
20337 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
20341 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20342 #: freeculture.xml:14654
20344 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
20345 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
20346 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
20350 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20351 #: freeculture.xml:14647
20353 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
20354 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
20355 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
20356 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
20357 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
20358 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
20359 "unmarked work would therefore be <quote>use unless someone "
20360 "complains.</quote> If someone does complain, then the obligation would be to "
20361 "stop using the work in any new work from then on though no penalty would "
20362 "attach for existing uses. This would create a strong incentive for "
20363 "copyright owners to mark their work."
20366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20367 #: freeculture.xml:14667
20369 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
20370 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
20371 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
20372 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
20376 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20377 #: freeculture.xml:14673
20378 msgid "copyright marking of"
20381 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20382 #: freeculture.xml:14675
20384 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
20385 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
20386 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
20387 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
20388 "and it would base that choice <emphasis>solely</emphasis> upon the "
20389 "consideration of which method could best be integrated into the registration "
20390 "and renewal system. We would not count on the government to innovate; but we "
20391 "would count on the government to keep the product of innovation in line with "
20392 "its other important functions."
20395 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20396 #: freeculture.xml:14687
20398 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
20399 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
20400 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
20401 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
20402 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
20406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20407 #: freeculture.xml:14695
20409 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
20410 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
20414 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
20415 #: freeculture.xml:14700
20417 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
20418 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
20419 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
20420 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
20421 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
20422 "the appropriate time."
20425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20426 #: freeculture.xml:14712
20427 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
20430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20431 #: freeculture.xml:14714
20433 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
20434 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
20439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20440 #: freeculture.xml:14727
20442 "<quote>A Radical Rethink,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 366:8308 "
20443 "(25 January 2003): 15, available at <ulink "
20444 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
20447 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20448 #: freeculture.xml:14719
20450 "In <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>, I proposed a "
20451 "seventy-five-year term, granted in five-year increments with a requirement "
20452 "of renewal every five years. That seemed radical enough at the time. But "
20453 "after we lost <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
20454 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, the proposals became even more "
20455 "radical. <citetitle>The Economist</citetitle> endorsed a proposal for a "
20456 "fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
20457 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
20460 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20461 #: freeculture.xml:14734
20463 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
20464 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
20465 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
20469 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20470 #: freeculture.xml:14742
20472 "<emphasis>Keep it short:</emphasis> The term should be as long as necessary "
20473 "to give incentives to create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong "
20474 "protections for authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from "
20475 "publishers), rights to the same work (not derivative works) might be "
20476 "extended further. The key is not to tie the work up with legal regulations "
20477 "when it no longer benefits an author."
20482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20483 #: freeculture.xml:14751
20485 "<emphasis>Keep it simple:</emphasis> The line between the public domain and "
20486 "protected content must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of "
20487 "<quote>fair use,</quote> and the distinction between <quote>ideas</quote> "
20488 "and <quote>expression.</quote> That kind of law gives them lots of work. But "
20489 "our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected versus unprotected. The "
20490 "value of short terms is that there is little need to build exceptions into "
20491 "copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active "
20492 "<quote>lawyer-free zone</quote> makes the complexities of <quote>fair "
20493 "use</quote> and <quote>idea/expression</quote> less necessary to navigate."
20496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
20497 #: freeculture.xml:14763
20498 msgid "veterans' pensions"
20502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
20503 #: freeculture.xml:14774
20505 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
20506 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
20507 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
20510 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20511 #: freeculture.xml:14766
20513 "<emphasis>Keep it alive:</emphasis> Copyright should have to be renewed. "
20514 "Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be "
20515 "required to signal periodically that he wants the protection continued. This "
20516 "need not be an onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly "
20517 "protection has to be granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes "
20518 "for a veteran to apply for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
20519 "id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we "
20520 "couldn't require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a "
20525 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20526 #: freeculture.xml:14785
20528 "<emphasis>Keep it prospective:</emphasis> Whatever the term of copyright "
20529 "should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once "
20530 "given should not be extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the "
20531 "law to offer authors only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's "
20532 "possible. If it was a mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer "
20533 "authors to create in 1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct "
20534 "that mistake today by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we "
20535 "will not increase the number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can "
20536 "increase the reward that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase "
20537 "the copyright burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But "
20538 "increasing their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's "
20539 "not done is not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
20542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20543 #: freeculture.xml:14801
20545 "These changes together should produce an <emphasis>average</emphasis> "
20546 "copyright term that is much shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the "
20547 "average term was just 32.2 years. We should be aiming for the same."
20550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20551 #: freeculture.xml:14807
20553 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas <quote>radical.</quote> (After "
20554 "all, I call them <quote>extremists.</quote>) But again, the term I "
20555 "recommended was longer than the term under Richard Nixon. How "
20556 "<quote>radical</quote> can it be to ask for a more generous copyright law "
20557 "than Richard Nixon presided over?"
20560 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20561 #: freeculture.xml:14817
20562 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
20565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20566 #: freeculture.xml:14821
20568 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
20569 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
20570 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
20571 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
20572 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
20576 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20577 #: freeculture.xml:14829
20579 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors <quote>exclusive "
20580 "right</quote> to <quote>their writings.</quote> Congress has given authors "
20581 "an exclusive right to <quote>their writings</quote> plus any derivative "
20582 "writings (made by others) that are sufficiently close to the author's "
20583 "original work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I "
20584 "have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even though that "
20585 "movie is not <quote>my writing.</quote>"
20588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20589 #: freeculture.xml:14837
20590 msgid "Kaplan, Benjamin"
20594 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20595 #: freeculture.xml:14843
20597 "Benjamin Kaplan, <citetitle>An Unhurried View of Copyright</citetitle> (New "
20598 "York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 32."
20601 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20602 #: freeculture.xml:14839
20604 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
20605 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
20606 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
20607 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
20608 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
20609 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan."
20613 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
20614 #: freeculture.xml:14856
20618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para>
20619 #: freeculture.xml:14852
20621 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
20622 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
20623 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
20624 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20627 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20628 #: freeculture.xml:14861
20630 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
20631 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
20632 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
20633 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
20634 "each limitation in turn."
20637 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20638 #: freeculture.xml:14868
20640 "<emphasis>Term:</emphasis> If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, "
20641 "then that right should be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect "
20642 "John Grisham's right to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at "
20643 "least I'm willing to assume it does); but it does not make sense for that "
20644 "right to run for the same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative "
20645 "right could be important in inducing creativity; it is not important long "
20646 "after the creative work is done. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
20649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20650 #: freeculture.xml:14881
20652 "<emphasis>Scope:</emphasis> Likewise should the scope of derivative rights "
20653 "be narrowed. Again, there are some cases in which derivative rights are "
20654 "important. Those should be specified. But the law should draw clear lines "
20655 "around regulated and unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all "
20656 "<quote>reuse</quote> of creative material was within the control of "
20657 "businesses, perhaps it made sense to require lawyers to negotiate the "
20658 "lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers to negotiate the lines. Think "
20659 "about all the creative possibilities that digital technologies enable; now "
20660 "imagine pouring molasses into the machines. That's what this general "
20661 "requirement of permission does to the creative process. Smothers it."
20664 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20665 #: freeculture.xml:14895
20667 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
20668 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
20669 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
20670 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
20671 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
20674 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
20675 #: freeculture.xml:14911
20676 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
20679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20680 #: freeculture.xml:14909
20682 "Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the "
20683 "Celestial Jukebox</citetitle> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), "
20684 "187–216. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
20687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20688 #: freeculture.xml:14903
20690 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
20691 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
20692 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
20693 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
20694 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
20697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20698 #: freeculture.xml:14917
20700 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
20701 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
20702 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
20703 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
20704 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
20708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20709 #: freeculture.xml:14924
20711 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
20712 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
20713 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
20714 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
20715 "would earn artists more income."
20718 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20719 #: freeculture.xml:14934
20720 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
20723 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20724 #: freeculture.xml:14936
20726 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
20727 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
20728 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
20729 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
20733 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20734 #: freeculture.xml:14943
20736 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
20737 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
20738 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
20739 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
20740 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
20741 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
20744 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20745 #: freeculture.xml:14952
20747 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
20748 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
20749 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
20750 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
20751 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
20754 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20755 #: freeculture.xml:14959
20757 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
20758 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
20759 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter <xref "
20760 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"piracy\"/>, they enable four "
20761 "different kinds of sharing:"
20765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20766 #: freeculture.xml:14968
20768 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
20773 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20774 #: freeculture.xml:14973
20776 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
20782 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20783 #: freeculture.xml:14979
20785 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
20786 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
20787 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
20791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20792 #: freeculture.xml:14985
20794 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
20795 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
20799 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20800 #: freeculture.xml:14993
20802 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
20803 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
20804 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
20805 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
20806 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
20810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20811 #: freeculture.xml:15001
20813 "As I said in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
20814 "linkend=\"piracy\"/>, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
20815 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
20816 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
20817 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
20820 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20821 #: freeculture.xml:15009
20823 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
20824 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
20828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20829 #: freeculture.xml:15014
20831 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
20832 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
20833 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
20834 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
20835 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
20836 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
20837 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
20838 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
20839 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
20843 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20844 #: freeculture.xml:15026
20846 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
20847 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
20848 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
20849 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
20850 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
20851 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
20852 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
20853 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
20854 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
20855 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
20856 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
20859 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20860 #: freeculture.xml:15040
20861 msgid "cell phones, music streamed over"
20865 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20866 #: freeculture.xml:15060
20868 "See, for example, <quote>Music Media Watch,</quote> The J@pan "
20869 "Inc. Newsletter, 3 April 2002, available at <ulink "
20870 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #76</ulink>."
20873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20874 #: freeculture.xml:15042
20876 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
20877 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
20878 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
20879 "point: When it is <emphasis>extremely</emphasis> easy to connect to services "
20880 "that give access to content, it will be <emphasis>easier</emphasis> to "
20881 "connect to services that give you access to content than it will be to "
20882 "download and store content <emphasis>on the many devices you will have for "
20883 "playing content</emphasis>. It will be easier, in other words, to subscribe "
20884 "than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
20885 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
20886 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
20887 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
20888 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
20889 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
20890 "<quote>free</quote> content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
20891 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20895 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20896 #: freeculture.xml:15067
20898 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
20899 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The <quote>problem</quote> with file "
20900 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
20901 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
20902 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
20903 "to be <quote>solving</quote> this problem in light of a technology that will "
20904 "be gone tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet "
20905 "to eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The "
20906 "question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
20907 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
20908 "twenty-first-century technologies."
20911 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20912 #: freeculture.xml:15083
20914 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different "
20915 "<quote>problems</quote> here to solve. Let's start with type D "
20916 "content—uncopyrighted content or copyrighted content that the artist "
20917 "wants shared. The <quote>problem</quote> with this content is to make sure "
20918 "that the technology that would enable this kind of sharing is not rendered "
20919 "illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones are used to deliver ransom "
20920 "demands, no doubt. But there are many who need to use pay phones who have "
20921 "nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to ban pay phones in order to "
20922 "eliminate kidnapping."
20925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20926 #: freeculture.xml:15094
20928 "Type C content raises a different <quote>problem.</quote> This is content "
20929 "that was, at one time, published and is no longer available. It may be "
20930 "unavailable because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record "
20931 "label he signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the "
20932 "work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate "
20933 "the access to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the "
20937 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20938 #: freeculture.xml:15105
20940 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
20941 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
20942 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
20943 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
20944 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
20945 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this "
20946 "<quote>sharing</quote> of his content without his being compensated is less "
20950 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20951 #: freeculture.xml:15115
20953 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
20954 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
20955 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
20956 "be free, under this rule, to <quote>share</quote> that content, even though "
20957 "the sharing involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the "
20958 "trade; in a context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music "
20959 "should be as free as trading books."
20963 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20964 #: freeculture.xml:15126
20966 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
20967 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
20968 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
20969 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
20970 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
20971 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
20972 "artists would benefit from this trade."
20975 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20976 #: freeculture.xml:15136
20978 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
20979 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
20980 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
20981 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
20982 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
20983 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
20984 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
20988 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20989 #: freeculture.xml:15146
20991 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
20992 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
20993 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
20994 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
20995 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
20999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21000 #: freeculture.xml:15154
21002 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
21003 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
21006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21007 #: freeculture.xml:15158
21009 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
21010 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
21011 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
21012 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
21013 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
21014 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
21015 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
21020 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21021 #: freeculture.xml:15169
21023 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
21024 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
21025 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
21026 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
21027 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
21028 "compensate those who are harmed."
21031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
21032 #: freeculture.xml:15176 freeculture.xml:15218
21033 msgid "Promises to Keep (Fisher)"
21036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
21037 #: freeculture.xml:15216
21038 msgid "Fisher, William"
21041 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
21042 #: freeculture.xml:15182
21044 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> William Fisher, "
21045 "<citetitle>Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities</citetitle> (last "
21046 "revised: 10 October 2000), available at <ulink "
21047 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
21048 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of "
21049 "Entertainment</citetitle> (forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University "
21050 "Press, 2004), ch. 6, available at <ulink "
21051 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor Netanel "
21052 "has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing from the "
21053 "reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to balance "
21054 "any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, <quote>Impose a Noncommercial Use Levy "
21055 "to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,</quote> available at <ulink "
21056 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
21057 "see Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Who's Holding Back Broadband?</quote> "
21058 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 8 January 2002, A17; Philip "
21059 "S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter to Senator Joseph "
21060 "R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 "
21061 "February 2002, available at <ulink "
21062 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, "
21063 "<citetitle>A Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee "
21064 "(IPUF)</citetitle>, 3 March 2002, available at <ulink "
21065 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson Graham, "
21066 "<quote>Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,</quote> "
21067 "<citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 13 May 2002, available at <ulink "
21068 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, "
21069 "<quote>Getting Copyright Right,</quote> IEEE Spectrum Online, 1 July 2002, "
21070 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; "
21071 "Declan McCullagh, <quote>Verizon's Copyright Campaign,</quote> CNET "
21072 "News.com, 27 August 2002, available at <ulink "
21073 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's proposal "
21074 "is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike Fisher's, "
21075 "Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, though "
21076 "more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is typical "
21077 "with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
21078 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
21079 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
21080 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
21083 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21084 #: freeculture.xml:15178
21086 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
21087 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
21088 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
21089 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
21090 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
21091 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
21092 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
21093 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
21094 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
21095 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
21098 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21099 #: freeculture.xml:15232
21101 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
21102 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, "
21103 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep</citetitle>. The modification that I would make "
21104 "is relatively simple: Fisher imagines his proposal replacing the existing "
21105 "copyright system. I imagine it complementing the existing system. The aim "
21106 "of the proposal would be to facilitate compensation to the extent that harm "
21107 "could be shown. This compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating "
21108 "a transition between regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of "
21109 "years. If it continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, "
21110 "supported through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form "
21111 "of protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the "
21112 "old system of controlling access."
21116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21117 #: freeculture.xml:15249
21119 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
21120 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
21121 "supports the widest range of <quote>semiotic democracy</quote> possible. But "
21122 "the aims of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I "
21123 "described were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative "
21124 "uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden "
21125 "semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to "
21126 "do with the content itself."
21129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
21130 #: freeculture.xml:15262
21134 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
21135 #: freeculture.xml:15264
21139 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21140 #: freeculture.xml:15266
21142 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of "
21143 "<quote>harm</quote> to an industry. But the difficulty of making that "
21144 "calculation would be outweighed by the benefit of facilitating "
21145 "innovation. This background system to compensate would also not need to "
21146 "interfere with innovative proposals such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts "
21147 "predicted when Apple launched the MusicStore, it could beat "
21148 "<quote>free</quote> by being easier than free is. This has proven correct: "
21149 "Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price of 99 cents a "
21150 "song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song CD price, "
21151 "though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's move was "
21152 "countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no "
21153 "doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music "
21157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
21158 #: freeculture.xml:15281
21159 msgid "cable vs. broadcast"
21162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
21163 #: freeculture.xml:15284
21164 msgid "luxury theatres vs. video piracy in"
21167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21168 #: freeculture.xml:15286
21170 "This competition has already occurred against the background of "
21171 "<quote>free</quote> music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable "
21172 "television have known for thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for "
21173 "much more than that, there is nothing impossible at all about "
21174 "<quote>competing with free.</quote> Indeed, if anything, the competition "
21175 "spurs the competitors to offer new and better products. This is precisely "
21176 "what the competitive market was to be about. Thus in Singapore, though "
21177 "piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often luxurious—with "
21178 "<quote>first class</quote> seats, and meals served while you watch a "
21179 "movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
21180 "<quote>free.</quote>"
21183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21184 #: freeculture.xml:15298
21186 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
21187 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
21188 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
21189 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
21190 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
21191 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
21194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21195 #: freeculture.xml:15307
21196 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
21200 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21201 #: freeculture.xml:15312
21203 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
21204 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
21205 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
21206 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
21209 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21210 #: freeculture.xml:15319
21211 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
21215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
21216 #: freeculture.xml:15325
21217 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
21221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
21222 #: freeculture.xml:15329
21224 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
21225 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
21229 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
21230 #: freeculture.xml:15335
21232 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
21233 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
21236 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21237 #: freeculture.xml:15340
21239 "But what if <quote>piracy</quote> doesn't disappear? What if there is a "
21240 "competitive market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number "
21241 "of consumers continue to <quote>take</quote> content for nothing? Should the "
21242 "law do something then?"
21245 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21246 #: freeculture.xml:15346
21248 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
21249 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
21250 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
21251 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
21252 "percent secure and produces a market of size <citetitle>x</citetitle>, or "
21253 "(b) to have a technology that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of "
21254 "five times <citetitle>x</citetitle>? Less secure might produce more "
21255 "unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a much bigger market "
21256 "in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to assure artists' "
21257 "compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's assured, then it may "
21258 "well be appropriate to find ways to track down the petty pirates."
21262 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21263 #: freeculture.xml:15360
21265 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
21266 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
21267 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
21268 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
21269 "and creativity that the Internet is."
21272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
21273 #: freeculture.xml:15371
21274 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
21277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21278 #: freeculture.xml:15373
21280 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
21281 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
21282 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
21283 "the end that I would love to live."
21286 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21287 #: freeculture.xml:15379
21289 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
21290 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
21291 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
21292 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
21293 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
21296 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
21297 #: freeculture.xml:15386
21298 msgid "Nimmer, Melville"
21301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
21302 #: freeculture.xml:15387
21303 msgid "Supreme Court challenge of"
21307 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
21308 #: freeculture.xml:15398
21310 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Copyright's First Amendment</quote> (Melville "
21311 "B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture), <citetitle>UCLA Law Review</citetitle> 48 "
21312 "(2001): 1057, 1069–70."
21315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21316 #: freeculture.xml:15389
21318 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "
21319 "<quote>radical</quote> by many within the profession, yet the positions that "
21320 "I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and "
21321 "significant figures in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for "
21322 "example, thought crazy the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term "
21323 "Extension Act. Yet just thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and "
21324 "practitioner in the field of copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it "
21325 "obvious.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
21328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21329 #: freeculture.xml:15404
21331 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
21332 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
21333 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
21336 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
21337 #: freeculture.xml:15414
21339 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
21340 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
21341 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
21342 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
21343 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
21344 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network "
21345 "Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace</citetitle> (New "
21346 "York: Amacom, 2002), (reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) "
21347 "with Stan J. Liebowitz, <quote>Will MP3s Annihilate the Record "
21348 "Industry?</quote> working paper, June 2003, available at <ulink "
21349 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful "
21350 "analysis is extremely valuable in estimating the effect of file-sharing "
21351 "technology. In my view, however, he underestimates the costs of the legal "
21352 "system. See, for example, <citetitle>Rethinking</citetitle>, 174–76. "
21353 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
21356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21357 #: freeculture.xml:15409
21359 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
21360 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
21361 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
21362 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
21363 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
21364 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
21368 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21369 #: freeculture.xml:15438
21371 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
21372 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
21373 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
21374 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
21375 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
21378 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21379 #: freeculture.xml:15446
21381 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
21382 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
21383 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
21384 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
21385 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
21386 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
21387 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
21388 "and costly cases."
21391 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21392 #: freeculture.xml:15456
21394 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
21395 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
21396 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
21397 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
21398 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
21399 "and hence radically more just."
21402 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21403 #: freeculture.xml:15464
21405 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
21406 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
21407 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
21410 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21411 #: freeculture.xml:15471
21413 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
21414 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
21415 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
21416 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
21417 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
21418 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
21419 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
21423 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21424 #: freeculture.xml:15480
21426 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
21427 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
21428 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
21429 "question: <quote>Will it do good?</quote> When challenged about the "
21430 "expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, <quote>Why not?</quote>"
21433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
21434 #: freeculture.xml:15489
21436 "We should ask, <quote>Why?</quote> Show me why your regulation of culture is "
21437 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
21441 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
21442 #: freeculture.xml:15498
21446 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21447 #: freeculture.xml:15500
21449 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
21450 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
21451 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
21452 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
21453 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
21454 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
21455 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
21456 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
21460 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
21461 #: freeculture.xml:15519
21462 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
21465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21466 #: freeculture.xml:15521
21468 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
21469 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
21470 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
21471 "this book is dedicated."
21474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21475 #: freeculture.xml:15528
21477 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
21478 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
21479 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
21480 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
21481 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
21482 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
21483 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
21484 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
21485 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
21486 "her own critical eye on much of this."
21490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21491 #: freeculture.xml:15541
21493 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
21494 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
21495 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
21496 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
21497 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
21498 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
21499 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
21503 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21504 #: freeculture.xml:15552
21506 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
21507 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
21508 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
21509 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
21510 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
21511 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
21512 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
21513 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
21514 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
21515 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
21516 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
21517 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
21518 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
21519 "Williams, <quote>Wink,</quote> Roger Wood, <quote>Ximmbo da Jazz,</quote> "
21520 "and Richard Yanco. (I apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come "
21521 "glitches, and a crash of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great "
21525 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21526 #: freeculture.xml:15572
21528 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
21529 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
21530 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
21531 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
21532 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
21533 "places throughout this book."
21536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
21537 #: freeculture.xml:15581
21539 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
21540 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
21541 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
21542 "patience and love."
21545 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21546 #: freeculture.xml:15592
21548 "THE PENGUIN PRESS, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street "
21549 "New York, New York"
21552 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21553 #: freeculture.xml:15596
21554 msgid "Copyright © Lawrence Lessig. All rights reserved."
21557 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21558 #: freeculture.xml:15599
21560 "Excerpt from an editorial titled <quote>The Coming of Copyright "
21561 "Perpetuity,</quote> <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, January 16, "
21562 "2003. Copyright © 2003 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with "
21566 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21567 #: freeculture.xml:15604
21569 "Cartoon in <xref linkend=\"fig-1711-vcr-handgun-cartoonfig\"/> by Paul "
21570 "Conrad, copyright Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights "
21571 "reserved. Reprinted with permission."
21574 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21575 #: freeculture.xml:15608
21577 "Diagram in <xref linkend=\"fig-1761-pattern-modern-media-ownership\"/> "
21578 "courtesy of the office of FCC Commissioner, Michael J. Copps."
21581 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21582 #: freeculture.xml:15612
21583 msgid "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data"
21586 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21587 #: freeculture.xml:15615
21589 "Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture : how big media uses technology and the law "
21590 "to lock down culture and control creativity / Lawrence Lessig."
21593 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21594 #: freeculture.xml:15620
21598 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21599 #: freeculture.xml:15623
21600 msgid "Includes index."
21603 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21604 #: freeculture.xml:15626
21605 msgid "ISBN 1-59420-006-8 (hardcover)"
21608 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21609 #: freeculture.xml:15630
21611 "1. Intellectual property—United States. 2. Mass media—United "
21615 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21616 #: freeculture.xml:15633
21618 "3. Technological innovations—United States. 4. Art—United "
21619 "States. I. Title."
21622 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21623 #: freeculture.xml:15636
21627 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21628 #: freeculture.xml:15639
21629 msgid "343.7309'9—dc22"
21632 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21633 #: freeculture.xml:15642
21634 msgid "This book is printed on acid-free paper."
21637 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21638 #: freeculture.xml:15645
21639 msgid "Printed in the United States of America"
21642 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21643 #: freeculture.xml:15648
21644 msgid "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4"
21647 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21648 #: freeculture.xml:15651
21649 msgid "Designed by Marysarah Quinn"
21652 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21653 #: freeculture.xml:15655
21654 msgid "&translationblock;"
21657 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21658 #: freeculture.xml:15659
21660 "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this "
21661 "publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval "
21662 "system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, "
21663 "photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission "
21664 "of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book."
21667 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
21668 #: freeculture.xml:15667
21670 "The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or "
21671 "via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and "
21672 "punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and "
21673 "do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted "
21674 "materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."