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2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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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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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><colophon><para>
221 #: freeculture.xml:167
223 "THE PENGUIN PRESS, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street "
227 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
228 #: freeculture.xml:171
229 msgid "Copyright © Lawrence Lessig. All rights reserved."
232 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
233 #: freeculture.xml:174
235 "Excerpt from an editorial titled <quote>The Coming of Copyright "
236 "Perpetuity,</quote> <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, January 16, "
237 "2003. Copyright © 2003 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with "
241 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
242 #: freeculture.xml:179
244 "Cartoon in <xref linkend=\"fig-1711\"/> by Paul Conrad, copyright Tribune "
245 "Media Services, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission."
248 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
249 #: freeculture.xml:183
251 "Diagram in <xref linkend=\"fig-1761\"/> courtesy of the office of FCC "
252 "Commissioner, Michael J. Copps."
255 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
256 #: freeculture.xml:187
257 msgid "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data"
260 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
261 #: freeculture.xml:190
263 "Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture : how big media uses technology and the law "
264 "to lock down culture and control creativity / Lawrence Lessig."
267 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
268 #: freeculture.xml:195
272 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
273 #: freeculture.xml:198
274 msgid "Includes index."
277 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
278 #: freeculture.xml:201
279 msgid "ISBN 1-59420-006-8 (hardcover)"
282 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
283 #: freeculture.xml:205
285 "1. Intellectual property—United States. 2. Mass media—United "
289 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
290 #: freeculture.xml:208
292 "3. Technological innovations—United States. 4. Art—United "
296 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
297 #: freeculture.xml:211
301 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
302 #: freeculture.xml:214
303 msgid "343.7309'9—dc22"
306 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
307 #: freeculture.xml:217
308 msgid "This book is printed on acid-free paper."
311 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
312 #: freeculture.xml:220
313 msgid "Printed in the United States of America"
316 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
317 #: freeculture.xml:223
318 msgid "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4"
321 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
322 #: freeculture.xml:226
323 msgid "Designed by Marysarah Quinn"
326 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
327 #: freeculture.xml:230
328 msgid "&translationblock;"
331 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
332 #: freeculture.xml:234
334 "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this "
335 "publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval "
336 "system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, "
337 "photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission "
338 "of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book."
341 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
342 #: freeculture.xml:242
344 "The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or "
345 "via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and "
346 "punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and "
347 "do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted "
348 "materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."
351 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
352 #: freeculture.xml:254
354 "To Eric Eldred—whose work first drew me to this cause, and for whom it "
358 #. type: Content of: <book><lot><title>
359 #: freeculture.xml:262
360 msgid "List of figures"
363 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><title>
364 #: freeculture.xml:324
368 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
369 #: freeculture.xml:326
373 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
374 #: freeculture.xml:329
376 "<emphasis role=\"bold\">At the end</emphasis> of his review of my first "
377 "book, <citetitle>Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle>, David "
378 "Pogue, a brilliant writer and author of countless technical and "
379 "computer-related texts, wrote this:"
382 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
383 #: freeculture.xml:340
385 "David Pogue, <quote>Don't Just Chat, Do Something,</quote> <citetitle>New "
386 "York Times</citetitle>, 30 January 2000."
389 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
390 #: freeculture.xml:336
392 "Unlike actual law, Internet software has no capacity to punish. It doesn't "
393 "affect people who aren't online (and only a tiny minority of the world "
394 "population is). And if you don't like the Internet's system, you can always "
395 "flip off the modem.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
398 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
399 #: freeculture.xml:345
401 "Pogue was skeptical of the core argument of the book—that software, or "
402 "<quote>code,</quote> functioned as a kind of law—and his review "
403 "suggested the happy thought that if life in cyberspace got bad, we could "
404 "always <quote>drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome</quote>-like simply flip a "
405 "switch and be back home. Turn off the modem, unplug the computer, and any "
406 "troubles that exist in <emphasis>that</emphasis> space wouldn't "
407 "<quote>affect</quote> us anymore."
411 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
412 #: freeculture.xml:354
414 "Pogue might have been right in 1999—I'm skeptical, but maybe. But "
415 "even if he was right then, the point is not right now: <citetitle>Free "
416 "Culture</citetitle> is about the troubles the Internet causes even after the "
417 "modem is turned off. It is an argument about how the battles that now rage "
418 "regarding life on-line have fundamentally affected <quote>people who aren't "
419 "online.</quote> There is no switch that will insulate us from the Internet's "
423 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
424 #: freeculture.xml:365
426 "But unlike <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, the argument here is not much about "
427 "the Internet itself. It is instead about the consequence of the Internet to "
428 "a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this "
429 "is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important."
432 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para><footnote><para>
433 #: freeculture.xml:377
435 "Richard M. Stallman, <citetitle>Free Software, Free Societies</citetitle> 57 "
436 "(Joshua Gay, ed. 2002)."
439 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
440 #: freeculture.xml:372
442 "That tradition is the way our culture gets made. As I explain in the pages "
443 "that follow, we come from a tradition of <quote>free "
444 "culture</quote>—not <quote>free</quote> as in <quote>free beer</quote> "
445 "(to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free software "
446 "movement<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), but <quote>free</quote> "
447 "as in <quote>free speech,</quote> <quote>free markets,</quote> <quote>free "
448 "trade,</quote> <quote>free enterprise,</quote> <quote>free will,</quote> and "
449 "<quote>free elections.</quote> A free culture supports and protects creators "
450 "and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property "
451 "rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to "
452 "guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain <emphasis>as free as "
453 "possible</emphasis> from the control of the past. A free culture is not a "
454 "culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which "
455 "everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a <quote>permission "
456 "culture</quote>—a culture in which creators get to create only with "
457 "the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past."
460 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
461 #: freeculture.xml:392
463 "If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not "
464 "<quote>we</quote> on the Left or <quote>you</quote> on the Right, but we who "
465 "have no stake in the particular industries of culture that defined the "
466 "twentieth century. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, if you are in "
467 "this sense disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For "
468 "the changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political "
469 "culture deem fundamental."
472 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
473 #: freeculture.xml:400 freeculture.xml:13073
474 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
477 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
478 #: freeculture.xml:401
482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
483 #: freeculture.xml:412 freeculture.xml:422 freeculture.xml:13074
484 msgid "Safire, William"
487 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
488 #: freeculture.xml:403
490 "We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of 2003. As "
491 "the FCC considered changes in media ownership rules that would relax limits "
492 "on media concentration, an extraordinary coalition generated more than "
493 "700,000 letters to the FCC opposing the change. As William Safire described "
494 "marching <quote>uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the "
495 "National Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative "
496 "Ted Stevens,</quote> he formulated perhaps most simply just what was at "
497 "stake: the concentration of power. And as he asked, <placeholder "
498 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
501 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
502 #: freeculture.xml:420
504 "William Safire, <quote>The Great Media Gulp,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
505 "Times</citetitle>, 22 May 2003. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
508 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
509 #: freeculture.xml:416
511 "Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of "
512 "power—political, corporate, media, cultural—should be anathema "
513 "to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby "
514 "encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the "
515 "greatest expression of democracy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
518 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
519 #: freeculture.xml:427
521 "This idea is an element of the argument of <citetitle>Free "
522 "Culture</citetitle>, though my focus is not just on the concentration of "
523 "power produced by concentrations in ownership, but more importantly, if "
524 "because less visibly, on the concentration of power produced by a radical "
525 "change in the effective scope of the law. The law is changing; that change "
526 "is altering the way our culture gets made; that change should worry "
527 "you—whether or not you care about the Internet, and whether you're on "
528 "Safire's left or on his right. The inspiration for the title and for much "
529 "of the argument of this book comes from the work of Richard Stallman and the "
530 "Free Software Foundation. Indeed, as I reread Stallman's own work, "
531 "especially the essays in <citetitle>Free Software, Free Society</citetitle>, "
532 "I realize that all of the theoretical insights I develop here are insights "
533 "Stallman described decades ago. One could thus well argue that this work is "
534 "<quote>merely</quote> derivative."
538 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
539 #: freeculture.xml:443
541 "I accept that criticism, if indeed it is a criticism. The work of a lawyer "
542 "is always derivative, and I mean to do nothing more in this book than to "
543 "remind a culture about a tradition that has always been its own. Like "
544 "Stallman, I defend that tradition on the basis of values. Like Stallman, I "
545 "believe those are the values of freedom. And like Stallman, I believe those "
546 "are values of our past that will need to be defended in our future. A free "
547 "culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the "
548 "path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an "
549 "argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and "
550 "even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; "
551 "it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without "
552 "property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not "
553 "freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here."
556 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
557 #: freeculture.xml:461
559 "Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between "
560 "anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with "
561 "property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced "
562 "by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes "
563 "feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property "
564 "rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is "
565 "against that extremism that this book is written."
568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
569 #: freeculture.xml:476
573 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
574 #: freeculture.xml:478
575 msgid "air traffic, land ownership vs."
578 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
579 #: freeculture.xml:481 freeculture.xml:14063
580 msgid "land ownership, air traffic and"
583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
584 #: freeculture.xml:484 freeculture.xml:14065
585 msgid "property rights"
588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
589 #: freeculture.xml:485 freeculture.xml:14066
590 msgid "air traffic vs."
593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
594 #: freeculture.xml:487 freeculture.xml:583 freeculture.xml:1015
595 msgid "Wright brothers"
598 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
599 #: freeculture.xml:489
601 "On December 17, 1903, on a windy North Carolina beach for just shy of one "
602 "hundred seconds, the Wright brothers demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, "
603 "self-propelled vehicle could fly. The moment was electric and its importance "
604 "widely understood. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of interest in "
605 "this newfound technology of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began "
609 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
610 #: freeculture.xml:501
612 "St. George Tucker, <citetitle>Blackstone's Commentaries</citetitle> 3 (South "
613 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1969), 18."
616 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
617 #: freeculture.xml:497
619 "At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American law held "
620 "that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface of his land, "
621 "but all the land below, down to the center of the earth, and all the space "
622 "above, to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards.</quote><placeholder "
623 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> For many years, scholars had puzzled about how "
624 "best to interpret the idea that rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that "
625 "mean that you owned the stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful "
626 "and regular trespass?"
629 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
630 #: freeculture.xml:510
632 "Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American "
633 "law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged by "
634 "the most important legal thinkers of our past—mattered. If my land "
635 "reaches to the heavens, what happens when United flies over my field? Do I "
636 "have the right to banish it from my property? Am I allowed to enter into an "
637 "exclusive license with Delta Airlines? Could we set up an auction to decide "
638 "how much these rights are worth?"
641 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
642 #: freeculture.xml:518 freeculture.xml:531 freeculture.xml:562 freeculture.xml:581 freeculture.xml:996 freeculture.xml:1013 freeculture.xml:1060 freeculture.xml:9005 freeculture.xml:12449 freeculture.xml:13177
643 msgid "Causby, Thomas Lee"
646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
647 #: freeculture.xml:519 freeculture.xml:532 freeculture.xml:563 freeculture.xml:582 freeculture.xml:997 freeculture.xml:1014 freeculture.xml:1061 freeculture.xml:9006 freeculture.xml:12450 freeculture.xml:13178
648 msgid "Causby, Tinie"
651 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
652 #: freeculture.xml:521
654 "In 1945, these questions became a federal case. When North Carolina farmers "
655 "Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby started losing chickens because of low-flying "
656 "military aircraft (the terrified chickens apparently flew into the barn "
657 "walls and died), the Causbys filed a lawsuit saying that the government was "
658 "trespassing on their land. The airplanes, of course, never touched the "
659 "surface of the Causbys' land. But if, as Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had "
660 "said, their land reached to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards,</quote> "
661 "then the government was trespassing on their property, and the Causbys "
665 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
666 #: freeculture.xml:534
668 "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had declared "
669 "the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the heavens, "
670 "then Congress's declaration could well have been an unconstitutional "
671 "<quote>taking</quote> of property without compensation. The Court "
672 "acknowledged that <quote>it is ancient doctrine that common law ownership of "
673 "the land extended to the periphery of the universe.</quote> But Justice "
674 "Douglas had no patience for ancient doctrine. In a single paragraph, "
675 "hundreds of years of property law were erased. As he wrote for the Court,"
678 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
679 #: freeculture.xml:554
681 "United States v. Causby, U.S. 328 (1946): 256, 261. The Court did find that "
682 "there could be a <quote>taking</quote> if the government's use of its land "
683 "effectively destroyed the value of the Causbys' land. This example was "
684 "suggested to me by Keith Aoki's wonderful piece, <quote>(Intellectual) "
685 "Property and Sovereignty: Notes Toward a Cultural Geography of "
686 "Authorship,</quote> <citetitle>Stanford Law Review</citetitle> 48 (1996): "
687 "1293, 1333. See also Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Real Property</citetitle> "
688 "(Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1984), 1112–13. <placeholder "
689 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
692 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
693 #: freeculture.xml:545
695 "[The] doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public "
696 "highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every "
697 "transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass "
698 "suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to "
699 "the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their "
700 "control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private "
701 "ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.<placeholder "
702 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
706 #: freeculture.xml:568
707 msgid "<quote>Common sense revolts at the idea.</quote>"
711 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
712 #: freeculture.xml:571
714 "This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, "
715 "but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to "
716 "dither. Other justices would have blathered on for pages to reach the "
717 "conclusion that Douglas holds in a single line: <quote>Common sense revolts "
718 "at the idea.</quote> But whether it takes pages or a few words, it is the "
719 "special genius of a common law system, as ours is, that the law adjusts to "
720 "the technologies of the time. And as it adjusts, it changes. Ideas that were "
721 "as solid as rock in one age crumble in another."
724 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
725 #: freeculture.xml:585
727 "Or at least, this is how things happen when there's no one powerful on the "
728 "other side of the change. The Causbys were just farmers. And though there "
729 "were no doubt many like them who were upset by the growing traffic in the "
730 "air (though one hopes not many chickens flew themselves into walls), the "
731 "Causbys of the world would find it very hard to unite and stop the idea, and "
732 "the technology, that the Wright brothers had birthed. The Wright brothers "
733 "spat airplanes into the technological meme pool; the idea then spread like a "
734 "virus in a chicken coop; farmers like the Causbys found themselves "
735 "surrounded by <quote>what seemed reasonable</quote> given the technology "
736 "that the Wrights had produced. They could stand on their farms, dead "
737 "chickens in hand, and shake their fists at these newfangled technologies all "
738 "they wanted. They could call their representatives or even file a "
739 "lawsuit. But in the end, the force of what seems <quote>obvious</quote> to "
740 "everyone else—the power of <quote>common sense</quote>—would "
741 "prevail. Their <quote>private interest</quote> would not be allowed to "
742 "defeat an obvious public gain."
745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
746 #: freeculture.xml:606 freeculture.xml:9013 freeculture.xml:9663
747 msgid "Armstrong, Edwin Howard"
750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
751 #: freeculture.xml:620
752 msgid "Bell, Alexander Graham"
755 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
756 #: freeculture.xml:621
757 msgid "Edison, Thomas"
760 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
761 #: freeculture.xml:622
762 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
766 #: freeculture.xml:609
768 "<emphasis role='strong'>Edwin Howard Armstrong</emphasis> is one of "
769 "America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American "
770 "inventor scene just after the titans Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham "
771 "Bell. But his work in the area of radio technology was perhaps the most "
772 "important of any single inventor in the first fifty years of radio. He was "
773 "better educated than Michael Faraday, who as a bookbinder's apprentice had "
774 "discovered electric induction in 1831. But he had the same intuition about "
775 "how the world of radio worked, and on at least three occasions, Armstrong "
776 "invented profoundly important technologies that advanced our understanding "
777 "of radio. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
778 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
782 #: freeculture.xml:625
784 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
785 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
786 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
787 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
788 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
789 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
790 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
793 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
794 #: freeculture.xml:635
796 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
797 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
798 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
799 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
800 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
801 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
802 "of an announcer's voice: <quote>This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
803 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.</quote>"
806 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
807 #: freeculture.xml:646
808 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
811 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
812 #: freeculture.xml:657
814 "Lawrence Lessing, <citetitle>Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard "
815 "Armstrong</citetitle> (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
819 #: freeculture.xml:650
821 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
822 "like a glass of water being poured. … A paper was crumpled and torn; "
823 "it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. … Sousa "
824 "marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
825 "performed. … The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
826 "heard before from a radio <quote>music box.</quote><placeholder "
827 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
831 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
832 #: freeculture.xml:663
834 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
835 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
836 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
837 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
838 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
843 #: freeculture.xml:677 freeculture.xml:700
844 msgid "Sarnoff, David"
847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
848 #: freeculture.xml:672
850 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
851 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
852 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
853 "from <quote>radio.</quote> But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, "
854 "Sarnoff was not pleased. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
858 #: freeculture.xml:684
860 "See <quote>Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,</quote> "
861 "First Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, "
862 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
865 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
866 #: freeculture.xml:681
868 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
869 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
870 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
874 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
875 #: freeculture.xml:693
876 msgid "Lessing, Lawrence"
879 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
880 #: freeculture.xml:696
882 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
883 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
884 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described, <placeholder "
885 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
888 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
889 #: freeculture.xml:709
890 msgid "Lessing, 226."
893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
894 #: freeculture.xml:704
896 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
897 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
898 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
899 "posed … a complete reordering of radio power … and the "
900 "eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had "
901 "grown to power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
904 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
905 #: freeculture.xml:714
907 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
908 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
909 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
910 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
911 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
912 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
913 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
914 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
915 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
916 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
917 "Lessing described it,"
920 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
921 #: freeculture.xml:733
922 msgid "Lessing, 256."
925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
926 #: freeculture.xml:729
928 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
929 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
930 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
931 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
935 #: freeculture.xml:738
939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
940 #: freeculture.xml:740
942 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
943 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
944 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
945 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
946 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
947 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
948 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
952 #: freeculture.xml:750
954 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
955 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
956 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
957 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
958 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
959 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
960 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
961 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
962 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
966 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
967 #: freeculture.xml:763
969 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
970 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
971 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
972 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
973 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
974 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
975 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
976 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
977 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
978 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
979 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
982 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
983 #: freeculture.xml:785
985 "Amanda Lenhart, <quote>The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
986 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,</quote> Pew Internet and American "
987 "Life Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
988 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
991 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
992 #: freeculture.xml:779
994 "There's no single inventor of the Internet. Nor is there any good date upon "
995 "which to mark its birth. Yet in a very short time, the Internet has become "
996 "part of ordinary American life. According to the Pew Internet and American "
997 "Life Project, 58 percent of Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up "
998 "from 49 percent two years before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
999 "That number could well exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
1002 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1003 #: freeculture.xml:794
1005 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
1006 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
1007 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
1008 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
1009 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
1010 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
1011 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
1012 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
1013 "is not a book about the Internet."
1016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1017 #: freeculture.xml:805
1019 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
1020 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
1021 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
1022 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
1023 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
1024 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
1027 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
1028 #: freeculture.xml:824
1029 msgid "Barlow, Joel"
1032 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
1033 #: freeculture.xml:825
1034 msgid "Webster, Noah"
1037 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1038 #: freeculture.xml:814
1040 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
1041 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
1042 "<quote>commercial culture</quote> I mean that part of our culture that is "
1043 "produced and sold or produced to be sold. By <quote>noncommercial "
1044 "culture</quote> I mean all the rest. When old men sat around parks or on "
1045 "street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was "
1046 "noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his "
1047 "<quote>Reader,</quote> or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial "
1048 "culture. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1049 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1053 #: freeculture.xml:828
1055 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
1056 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
1057 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
1058 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
1059 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture "
1060 "<quote>free.</quote> The ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared "
1061 "and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from "
1062 "plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making "
1063 "tapes—were left alone by the law."
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:853 freeculture.xml:1887 freeculture.xml:1898
1068 msgid "Brandeis, Louis D."
1071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1072 #: freeculture.xml:845
1074 "This is not the only purpose of copyright, though it is the overwhelmingly "
1075 "primary purpose of the copyright established in the federal constitution. "
1076 "State copyright law historically protected not just the commercial interest "
1077 "in publication, but also a privacy interest. By granting authors the "
1078 "exclusive right to first publication, state copyright law gave authors the "
1079 "power to control the spread of facts about them. See Samuel D. Warren and "
1080 "Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> Harvard Law Review 4 "
1081 "(1890): 193, 198–200. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1084 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1085 #: freeculture.xml:839
1087 "The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly, then "
1088 "quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by granting "
1089 "them exclusive rights to their creative work, so that they could sell those "
1090 "exclusive rights in a commercial marketplace.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
1091 "id=\"0\"/> This is also, of course, an important part of creativity and "
1092 "culture, and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in "
1093 "no sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one part, "
1094 "a controlled part, balanced with the free."
1097 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1098 #: freeculture.xml:865 freeculture.xml:9554
1099 msgid "Litman, Jessica"
1102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1103 #: freeculture.xml:863
1105 "See Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (New York: "
1106 "Prometheus Books, 2001), ch. 13. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1109 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1110 #: freeculture.xml:861
1112 "This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been "
1113 "erased.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Internet has set the "
1114 "stage for this erasure and, pushed by big media, the law has now affected "
1115 "it. For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which "
1116 "individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation "
1117 "of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of "
1118 "culture and creativity that it never reached before. The technology that "
1119 "preserved the balance of our history—between uses of our culture that "
1120 "were free and uses of our culture that were only upon permission—has "
1121 "been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free culture, "
1122 "more and more a permission culture."
1125 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1126 #: freeculture.xml:880
1128 "This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial creativity. "
1129 "And indeed, protectionism is precisely its motivation. But the protectionism "
1130 "that justifies the changes that I will describe below is not the limited and "
1131 "balanced sort that has defined the law in the past. This is not a "
1132 "protectionism to protect artists. It is instead a protectionism to protect "
1133 "certain forms of business. Corporations threatened by the potential of the "
1134 "Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are "
1135 "made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect "
1136 "them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the Causbys."
1139 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1140 #: freeculture.xml:893
1142 "For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to "
1143 "participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that "
1144 "reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace "
1145 "for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn "
1146 "threatens established content industries. The Internet is thus to the "
1147 "industries that built and distributed content in the twentieth century what "
1148 "FM radio was to AM radio, or what the truck was to the railroad industry of "
1149 "the nineteenth century: the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial "
1150 "transformation. Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a "
1151 "vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating "
1152 "culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of "
1153 "creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant "
1154 "range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those "
1155 "creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do "
1156 "today—all so long as the RCAs of our day don't use the law to protect "
1157 "themselves against this competition."
1160 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1161 #: freeculture.xml:912
1163 "Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is "
1164 "happening in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early "
1165 "twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their "
1166 "power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient, more "
1167 "vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in their plan "
1168 "to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."
1171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1172 #: freeculture.xml:929
1174 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Black Hawk Download: Moving Beyond Music, Pirates Use New "
1175 "Tools to Turn the Net into an Illicit Video Club,</quote> <citetitle>New "
1176 "York Times</citetitle>, 17 January 2002."
1179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1180 #: freeculture.xml:921
1182 "It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the "
1183 "Internet seem remote to most. To the few who follow them, they seem mainly "
1184 "about a much simpler brace of questions—whether <quote>piracy</quote> "
1185 "will be permitted, and whether <quote>property</quote> will be "
1186 "protected. The <quote>war</quote> that has been waged against the "
1187 "technologies of the Internet—what Motion Picture Association of "
1188 "America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti calls his <quote>own terrorist "
1189 "war</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—has been framed "
1190 "as a battle about the rule of law and respect for property. To know which "
1191 "side to take in this war, most think that we need only decide whether we're "
1192 "for property or against it."
1195 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1196 #: freeculture.xml:938
1198 "If those really were the choices, then I would be with Jack Valenti and the "
1199 "content industry. I, too, am a believer in property, and especially in the "
1200 "importance of what Mr. Valenti nicely calls <quote>creative "
1201 "property.</quote> I believe that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that "
1202 "the law, properly tuned, should punish <quote>piracy,</quote> whether on or "
1206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1207 #: freeculture.xml:946
1209 "But those simple beliefs mask a much more fundamental question and a much "
1210 "more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see this change, the "
1211 "war to rid the world of Internet <quote>pirates</quote> will also rid our "
1212 "culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start."
1215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1216 #: freeculture.xml:960 freeculture.xml:14463
1217 msgid "Netanel, Neil Weinstock"
1220 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1221 #: freeculture.xml:958
1223 "Neil W. Netanel, <quote>Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society,</quote> "
1224 "<citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 106 (1996): 283. <placeholder "
1225 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1229 #: freeculture.xml:952
1231 "These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of our "
1232 "Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their past, and "
1233 "protected creators and innovators from either state or private control. The "
1234 "First Amendment protected creators against state control. And as Professor "
1235 "Neil Netanel powerfully argues,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1236 "copyright law, properly balanced, protected creators against private "
1237 "control. Our tradition was thus neither Soviet nor the tradition of "
1238 "patrons. It instead carved out a wide berth within which creators could "
1239 "cultivate and extend our culture."
1242 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1243 #: freeculture.xml:968
1245 "Yet the law's response to the Internet, when tied to changes in the "
1246 "technology of the Internet itself, has massively increased the effective "
1247 "regulation of creativity in America. To build upon or critique the culture "
1248 "around us one must ask, Oliver Twist–like, for permission first. "
1249 "Permission is, of course, often granted—but it is not often granted to "
1250 "the critical or the independent. We have built a kind of cultural nobility; "
1251 "those within the noble class live easily; those outside it don't. But it is "
1252 "nobility of any form that is alien to our tradition."
1255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1256 #: freeculture.xml:980
1258 "The story that follows is about this war. Is it not about the "
1259 "<quote>centrality of technology</quote> to ordinary life. I don't believe in "
1260 "gods, digital or otherwise. Nor is it an effort to demonize any individual "
1261 "or group, for neither do I believe in a devil, corporate or otherwise. It is "
1262 "not a morality tale. Nor is it a call to jihad against an industry."
1265 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1266 #: freeculture.xml:988
1268 "It is instead an effort to understand a hopelessly destructive war inspired "
1269 "by the technologies of the Internet but reaching far beyond its code. And by "
1270 "understanding this battle, it is an effort to map peace. There is no good "
1271 "reason for the current struggle around Internet technologies to "
1272 "continue. There will be great harm to our tradition and culture if it is "
1273 "allowed to continue unchecked. We must come to understand the source of this "
1274 "war. We must resolve it soon."
1277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1278 #: freeculture.xml:999
1280 "Like the Causbys' battle, this war is, in part, about "
1281 "<quote>property.</quote> The property of this war is not as tangible as the "
1282 "Causbys', and no innocent chicken has yet to lose its life. Yet the ideas "
1283 "surrounding this <quote>property</quote> are as obvious to most as the "
1284 "Causbys' claim about the sacredness of their farm was to them. We are the "
1285 "Causbys. Most of us take for granted the extraordinarily powerful claims "
1286 "that the owners of <quote>intellectual property</quote> now assert. Most of "
1287 "us, like the Causbys, treat these claims as obvious. And hence we, like the "
1288 "Causbys, object when a new technology interferes with this property. It is "
1289 "as plain to us as it was to them that the new technologies of the Internet "
1290 "are <quote>trespassing</quote> upon legitimate claims of "
1291 "<quote>property.</quote> It is as plain to us as it was to them that the law "
1292 "should intervene to stop this trespass."
1296 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1297 #: freeculture.xml:1017
1299 "And thus, when geeks and technologists defend their Armstrong or Wright "
1300 "brothers technology, most of us are simply unsympathetic. Common sense does "
1301 "not revolt. Unlike in the case of the unlucky Causbys, common sense is on "
1302 "the side of the property owners in this war. Unlike the lucky Wright "
1303 "brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution on its side."
1306 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1307 #: freeculture.xml:1027
1309 "My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly "
1310 "amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more "
1311 "importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and "
1312 "citizens. There has never been a time in our history when more of our "
1313 "<quote>culture</quote> was as <quote>owned</quote> as it is now. And yet "
1314 "there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the "
1315 "<emphasis>uses</emphasis> of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as "
1319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1320 #: freeculture.xml:1037
1322 "The puzzle is, Why? Is it because we have come to understand a truth about "
1323 "the value and importance of absolute property over ideas and culture? Is it "
1324 "because we have discovered that our tradition of rejecting such an absolute "
1328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1329 #: freeculture.xml:1043
1331 "Or is it because the idea of absolute property over ideas and culture "
1332 "benefits the RCAs of our time and fits our own unreflective intuitions?"
1335 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1336 #: freeculture.xml:1047
1338 "Is the radical shift away from our tradition of free culture an instance of "
1339 "America correcting a mistake from its past, as we did after a bloody war "
1340 "with slavery, and as we are slowly doing with inequality? Or is the radical "
1341 "shift away from our tradition of free culture yet another example of a "
1342 "political system captured by a few powerful special interests?"
1345 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1346 #: freeculture.xml:1054
1348 "Does common sense lead to the extremes on this question because common sense "
1349 "actually believes in these extremes? Or does common sense stand silent in "
1350 "the face of these extremes because, as with Armstrong versus RCA, the more "
1351 "powerful side has ensured that it has the more powerful view?"
1355 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1356 #: freeculture.xml:1063
1358 "I don't mean to be mysterious. My own views are resolved. I believe it was "
1359 "right for common sense to revolt against the extremism of the Causbys. I "
1360 "believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme "
1361 "claims made today on behalf of <quote>intellectual property.</quote> What "
1362 "the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an "
1363 "airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much "
1367 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1368 #: freeculture.xml:1073
1370 "The struggle that rages just now centers on two ideas: <quote>piracy</quote> "
1371 "and <quote>property.</quote> My aim in this book's next two parts is to "
1372 "explore these two ideas."
1375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1376 #: freeculture.xml:1078
1378 "My method is not the usual method of an academic. I don't want to plunge you "
1379 "into a complex argument, buttressed with references to obscure French "
1380 "theorists—however natural that is for the weird sort we academics have "
1381 "become. Instead I begin in each part with a collection of stories that set a "
1382 "context within which these apparently simple ideas can be more fully "
1386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1387 #: freeculture.xml:1086
1389 "The two sections set up the core claim of this book: that while the Internet "
1390 "has indeed produced something fantastic and new, our government, pushed by "
1391 "big media to respond to this <quote>something new,</quote> is destroying "
1392 "something very old. Rather than understanding the changes the Internet might "
1393 "permit, and rather than taking time to let <quote>common sense</quote> "
1394 "resolve how best to respond, we are allowing those most threatened by the "
1395 "changes to use their power to change the law—and more importantly, to "
1396 "use their power to change something fundamental about who we have always "
1400 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1401 #: freeculture.xml:1097
1403 "We allow this, I believe, not because it is right, and not because most of "
1404 "us really believe in these changes. We allow it because the interests most "
1405 "threatened are among the most powerful players in our depressingly "
1406 "compromised process of making law. This book is the story of one more "
1407 "consequence of this form of corruption—a consequence to which most of "
1408 "us remain oblivious."
1411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
1412 #: freeculture.xml:1107
1413 msgid "<quote>PIRACY</quote>"
1416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1417 #: freeculture.xml:1111 freeculture.xml:4820
1418 msgid "Mansfield, William Murray, Lord"
1421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1422 #: freeculture.xml:1114
1424 "Since the inception of the law regulating creative property, there has been "
1425 "a war against <quote>piracy.</quote> The precise contours of this concept, "
1426 "<quote>piracy,</quote> are hard to sketch, but the animating injustice is "
1427 "easy to capture. As Lord Mansfield wrote in a case that extended the reach "
1428 "of English copyright law to include sheet music,"
1432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1433 #: freeculture.xml:1126
1435 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
1436 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield)."
1439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1440 #: freeculture.xml:1122
1442 "A person may use the copy by playing it, but he has no right to rob the "
1443 "author of the profit, by multiplying copies and disposing of them for his "
1444 "own use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1449 #: freeculture.xml:1132
1451 "Today we are in the middle of another <quote>war</quote> against "
1452 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The Internet has provoked this war. The Internet "
1453 "makes possible the efficient spread of content. Peer-to-peer (p2p) file "
1454 "sharing is among the most efficient of the efficient technologies the "
1455 "Internet enables. Using distributed intelligence, p2p systems facilitate the "
1456 "easy spread of content in a way unimagined a generation ago."
1459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1460 #: freeculture.xml:1141
1462 "This efficiency does not respect the traditional lines of copyright. The "
1463 "network doesn't discriminate between the sharing of copyrighted and "
1464 "uncopyrighted content. Thus has there been a vast amount of sharing of "
1465 "copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the war, as copyright "
1466 "owners fear the sharing will <quote>rob the author of the profit.</quote>"
1469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1470 #: freeculture.xml:1149
1472 "The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and "
1473 "increasingly to technology to defend their <quote>property</quote> against "
1474 "this <quote>piracy.</quote> A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is "
1475 "being raised to believe that <quote>property</quote> should be "
1476 "<quote>free.</quote> Forget tattoos, never mind body piercing—our kids "
1477 "are becoming <emphasis>thieves</emphasis>!"
1480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1481 #: freeculture.xml:1157
1483 "There's no doubt that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that pirates "
1484 "should be punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put "
1485 "this notion of <quote>piracy</quote> in some context. For as the concept is "
1486 "increasingly used, at its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost "
1490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1491 #: freeculture.xml:1163
1492 msgid "The idea goes something like this:"
1495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1496 #: freeculture.xml:1167
1498 "Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative "
1499 "work of others, I am taking from them something of value. Whenever I take "
1500 "something of value from someone else, I should have their permission. The "
1501 "taking of something of value from someone else without permission is "
1502 "wrong. It is a form of piracy."
1505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1506 #: freeculture.xml:1175
1507 msgid "Dreyfuss, Rochelle"
1510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1511 #: freeculture.xml:1177 freeculture.xml:2851
1512 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory"
1516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1517 #: freeculture.xml:1184
1519 "See Rochelle Dreyfuss, <quote>Expressive Genericity: Trademarks as Language "
1520 "in the Pepsi Generation,</quote> <citetitle>Notre Dame Law "
1521 "Review</citetitle> 65 (1990): 397."
1524 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1525 #: freeculture.xml:1197 freeculture.xml:6962
1526 msgid "Zittrain, Jonathan"
1529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1530 #: freeculture.xml:1192
1532 "Lisa Bannon, <quote>The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay "
1533 "Up,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 21 August 1996, "
1534 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; "
1535 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of "
1536 "Property vs. Free Speech, No One Wins,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
1537 "Globe</citetitle>, 24 November 2002. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1542 #: freeculture.xml:1180
1544 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1545 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1546 "theory of creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1547 "—if there is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It "
1548 "is the perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue "
1549 "the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1550 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1551 "<quote>value</quote> (the songs) so there must have been a "
1552 "<quote>right</quote>—even against the Girl Scouts."
1555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1556 #: freeculture.xml:1202
1561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1562 #: freeculture.xml:1204
1564 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1565 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1566 "protecting creative property. But the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1567 "theory of creative property has never been America's theory of creative "
1568 "property. It has never taken hold within our law."
1571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1572 #: freeculture.xml:1213
1574 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1575 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1576 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1577 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1582 #: freeculture.xml:1220
1584 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1585 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1586 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1587 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1588 "copyright law today regulates both."
1591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1592 #: freeculture.xml:1227
1594 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1595 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1596 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1597 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1598 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1602 #: freeculture.xml:1234 freeculture.xml:1265
1603 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1607 #: freeculture.xml:1235 freeculture.xml:1266
1608 msgid "Rise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)"
1611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1612 #: freeculture.xml:1257
1614 "In <citetitle>The Rise of the Creative Class</citetitle> (New York: Basic "
1615 "Books, 2002), Richard Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor "
1616 "toward a labor of creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address "
1617 "the legal conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I "
1618 "certainly agree with him about the importance and significance of this "
1619 "change, but I also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are "
1620 "much more tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1621 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1625 #: freeculture.xml:1237
1627 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1628 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1629 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1630 "matter much if copyright law regulated only <quote>copying,</quote> when the "
1631 "law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1632 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1633 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1634 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1635 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1636 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1637 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1638 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1639 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1640 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1641 "writes, the <quote>Rise of the Creative Class.</quote><placeholder "
1642 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an "
1643 "extraordinary rise of regulation of this creative class."
1646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1647 #: freeculture.xml:1272
1649 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1650 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1651 "context the current battles about behavior labeled <quote>piracy.</quote>"
1654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
1655 #: freeculture.xml:1280
1656 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1660 #: freeculture.xml:1282
1661 msgid "animated cartoons"
1664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1665 #: freeculture.xml:1285
1667 "In 1928, a cartoon character was born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut "
1668 "in May of that year, in a silent flop called <citetitle>Plane "
1669 "Crazy</citetitle>. In November, in New York City's Colony Theater, in the "
1670 "first widely distributed cartoon synchronized with sound, "
1671 "<citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle> brought to life the character that "
1672 "would become Mickey Mouse."
1675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1676 #: freeculture.xml:1292
1678 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1679 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle>. That success led Walt Disney to copy "
1680 "the technique and mix sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work "
1681 "or, if it did work, whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a "
1682 "test in the summer of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney "
1683 "describes that first experiment,"
1687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1688 #: freeculture.xml:1301
1690 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1691 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1692 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1693 "going to see the picture."
1696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1697 #: freeculture.xml:1308
1699 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1700 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1701 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1702 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1707 #: freeculture.xml:1321
1709 "Leonard Maltin, <citetitle>Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated "
1710 "Cartoons</citetitle> (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1713 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1714 #: freeculture.xml:1315
1716 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1717 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1718 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1719 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1720 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
1724 #: freeculture.xml:1330
1728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1729 #: freeculture.xml:1327
1731 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1732 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: <quote>I have never been so thrilled in my "
1733 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.</quote> <placeholder "
1734 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1738 #: freeculture.xml:1333
1740 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
1741 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
1742 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
1743 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
1744 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
1745 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
1749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1750 #: freeculture.xml:1342
1752 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
1753 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
1754 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
1755 "Buster Keaton. The film was <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>."
1758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1759 #: freeculture.xml:1348
1761 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
1762 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
1763 "laughter from his audience. <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. was a "
1764 "classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. "
1765 "The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its "
1770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1771 #: freeculture.xml:1362
1773 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
1774 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
1775 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
1776 "five songs in <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle>: <quote>Steamboat "
1777 "Bill,</quote> <quote>The Simpleton</quote> (Delille), <quote>Mischief "
1778 "Makers</quote> (Carbonara), <quote>Joyful Hurry No. 1</quote> (Baron), and "
1779 "<quote>Gawky Rube</quote> (Lakay). A sixth song, <quote>The Turkey in the "
1780 "Straw,</quote> was already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to "
1781 "Harry Surden, 10 July 2003, on file with author."
1784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1785 #: freeculture.xml:1356
1787 "<citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. appeared before Disney's cartoon "
1788 "Steamboat Willie. The coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat "
1789 "Willie is a direct cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder "
1790 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and both are built upon a common song as a "
1791 "source. It is not just from the invention of synchronized sound in "
1792 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle> that we get <citetitle>Steamboat "
1793 "Willie</citetitle>. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat "
1794 "Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song <quote>Steamboat Bill,</quote> that "
1795 "we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
1799 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1800 #: freeculture.xml:1383
1802 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, <quote>The Mouse "
1803 "that Ate the Public Domain,</quote> Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
1804 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
1807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1808 #: freeculture.xml:1379
1810 "This <quote>borrowing</quote> was nothing unique, either for Disney or for "
1811 "the industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream "
1812 "films of his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many "
1813 "others. Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on "
1814 "winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the "
1815 "brilliance of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his "
1816 "animation its spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the "
1817 "production-line cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were "
1818 "built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others "
1819 "before him, creating something new out of something just barely old."
1822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1823 #: freeculture.xml:1398
1825 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
1826 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
1827 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
1828 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
1829 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
1830 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
1831 "bedtime or anytime."
1835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1836 #: freeculture.xml:1407
1838 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
1839 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
1840 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
1841 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
1842 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
1843 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
1844 "together: <citetitle>Snow White</citetitle> (1937), "
1845 "<citetitle>Fantasia</citetitle> (1940), <citetitle>Pinocchio</citetitle> "
1846 "(1940), <citetitle>Dumbo</citetitle> (1941), <citetitle>Bambi</citetitle> "
1847 "(1942), <citetitle>Song of the South</citetitle> (1946), "
1848 "<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle> (1950), <citetitle>Alice in "
1849 "Wonderland</citetitle> (1951), <citetitle>Robin Hood</citetitle> (1952), "
1850 "<citetitle>Peter Pan</citetitle> (1953), <citetitle>Lady and the "
1851 "Tramp</citetitle> (1955), <citetitle>Mulan</citetitle> (1998), "
1852 "<citetitle>Sleeping Beauty</citetitle> (1959), <citetitle>101 "
1853 "Dalmatians</citetitle> (1961), <citetitle>The Sword in the Stone</citetitle> "
1854 "(1963), and <citetitle>The Jungle Book</citetitle> (1967)—not to "
1855 "mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, "
1856 "<citetitle>Treasure Planet</citetitle> (2003). In all of these cases, Disney "
1857 "(or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that "
1858 "creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into "
1859 "the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
1862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1863 #: freeculture.xml:1430
1865 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
1866 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
1867 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
1868 "could call this <quote>Disney creativity,</quote> though that would be a bit "
1869 "misleading. It is, more precisely, <quote>Walt Disney "
1870 "creativity</quote>—a form of expression and genius that builds upon "
1871 "the culture around us and makes it something different."
1875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1876 #: freeculture.xml:1444
1878 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
1879 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the "
1880 "<quote>average</quote> term by determining the weighted average of total "
1881 "registrations for any particular year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if "
1882 "100 copyrights are registered in year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the "
1883 "renewal term is 28 years, then the average term is 32.2 years. For the "
1884 "renewal data and other relevant data, see the Web site associated with this "
1885 "book, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
1889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1890 #: freeculture.xml:1438
1892 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
1893 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
1894 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
1895 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
1896 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
1897 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
1898 "work had an <quote>exclusive right</quote> to control certain uses of the "
1899 "work. To use this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission "
1900 "of the copyright owner."
1903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1904 #: freeculture.xml:1461
1906 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
1907 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
1908 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a <quote>lawyer-free zone.</quote> "
1909 "Thus, most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to "
1910 "use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected "
1911 "or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build "
1916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1917 #: freeculture.xml:1470
1919 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
1920 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
1921 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
1922 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
1923 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
1924 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
1925 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
1926 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
1929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1930 #: freeculture.xml:1483
1932 "Of course, Walt Disney had no monopoly on <quote>Walt Disney "
1933 "creativity.</quote> Nor does America. The norm of free culture has, until "
1934 "recently, and except within totalitarian nations, been broadly exploited and "
1938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1939 #: freeculture.xml:1489
1941 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
1942 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: "
1943 "<citetitle>manga</citetitle>, or comics. The Japanese are fanatics about "
1944 "comics. Some 40 percent of publications are comics, and 30 percent of "
1945 "publication revenue derives from comics. They are everywhere in Japanese "
1946 "society, at every magazine stand, carried by a large proportion of commuters "
1947 "on Japan's extraordinary system of public transportation."
1950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1951 #: freeculture.xml:1498
1953 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
1954 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
1955 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
1956 "that these <quote>graphic novels</quote> tell. For the Japanese, manga cover "
1957 "every aspect of social life. For us, comics are <quote>men in "
1958 "tights.</quote> And anyway, it's not as if the New York subways are filled "
1959 "with readers of Joyce or even Hemingway. People of different cultures "
1960 "distract themselves in different ways, the Japanese in this interestingly "
1964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1965 #: freeculture.xml:1509
1967 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
1968 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
1969 "perspective is quite familiar."
1973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1974 #: freeculture.xml:1514
1976 "This is the phenomenon of <citetitle>doujinshi</citetitle>. Doujinshi are "
1977 "also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the "
1978 "creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is "
1979 "<emphasis>just</emphasis> a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the "
1980 "art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
1981 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
1982 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
1983 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
1984 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently <quote>different.</quote> But they "
1985 "must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there "
1986 "are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject "
1987 "any copycat comic that is merely a copy."
1990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1991 #: freeculture.xml:1529
1993 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
1994 "huge. More than 33,000 <quote>circles</quote> of creators from across Japan "
1995 "produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese "
1996 "come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, "
1997 "to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
1998 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
1999 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
2000 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
2001 "competition and despite the law."
2004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2005 #: freeculture.xml:1540
2007 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
2008 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
2009 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
2010 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
2011 "<quote>derivative works.</quote> There is no general practice by doujinshi "
2012 "artists of securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the "
2013 "practice is simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt "
2014 "Disney did with <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. Under both "
2015 "Japanese and American law, that <quote>taking</quote> without the permission "
2016 "of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an infringement of the "
2017 "original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work without the original "
2018 "copyright owner's permission."
2021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2022 #: freeculture.xml:1554
2023 msgid "Winick, Judd"
2027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2028 #: freeculture.xml:1567
2030 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, <citetitle>Reinventing "
2031 "Comics</citetitle> (New York: Perennial, 2000)."
2034 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2035 #: freeculture.xml:1557
2037 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
2038 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
2039 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, <quote>The "
2040 "early days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
2041 "now. … American comics were born out of copying each other. … "
2042 "That's how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and "
2043 "not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them</quote> and building "
2044 "from them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2048 #: freeculture.xml:1571
2049 msgid "Superman comics"
2052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2053 #: freeculture.xml:1573
2055 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
2056 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
2057 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, <quote>there are these rules "
2058 "and you have to stick to them.</quote> There are things Superman "
2059 "<quote>cannot</quote> do. <quote>As a creator, it's frustrating having to "
2060 "stick to some parameters which are fifty years old.</quote>"
2064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2065 #: freeculture.xml:1590
2067 "See Salil K. Mehra, <quote>Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain "
2068 "Why All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?</quote> "
2069 "<citetitle>Rutgers Law Review</citetitle> 55 (2002): 155, "
2070 "182. <quote>[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that would "
2071 "lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
2072 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
2073 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
2074 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
2078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2079 #: freeculture.xml:1582
2081 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
2082 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
2083 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
2084 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
2085 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
2086 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
2087 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2091 #: freeculture.xml:1601
2093 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
2094 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
2095 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
2096 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
2097 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
2098 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
2099 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this "
2100 "<quote>free taking</quote> by the doujinshi culture?"
2103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2104 #: freeculture.xml:1612
2106 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
2107 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
2108 "a major Japanese law firm. <quote>We don't have enough lawyers,</quote> he "
2109 "told me one afternoon. There <quote>just aren't enough resources to "
2110 "prosecute cases like this.</quote>"
2114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2115 #: freeculture.xml:1619
2117 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
2118 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
2119 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
2120 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
2121 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
2122 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
2123 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
2124 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them? Let's pause "
2128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2129 #: freeculture.xml:1632
2131 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
2132 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
2133 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
2136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2137 #: freeculture.xml:1649 freeculture.xml:2871 freeculture.xml:4527 freeculture.xml:4750 freeculture.xml:7348 freeculture.xml:8467
2138 msgid "Vaidhyanathan, Siva"
2141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2142 #: freeculture.xml:1642
2144 "The term <citetitle>intellectual property</citetitle> is of relatively "
2145 "recent origin. See Siva Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and "
2146 "Copywrongs</citetitle>, 11 (New York: New York University Press, 2001). See "
2147 "also Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> (New York: "
2148 "Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term accurately describes a set of "
2149 "<quote>property</quote> rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and "
2150 "trade-secret—but the nature of those rights is very different. "
2151 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2155 #: freeculture.xml:1637
2157 "We live in a world that celebrates <quote>property.</quote> I am one of "
2158 "those celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
2159 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
2160 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2161 "id=\"0\"/> A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a "
2162 "large, diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual "
2166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2167 #: freeculture.xml:1656
2169 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
2170 "value out there that <quote>property</quote> doesn't capture. I don't mean "
2171 "<quote>money can't buy you love,</quote> but rather, value that is plainly "
2172 "part of a process of production, including commercial as well as "
2173 "noncommercial production. If Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils "
2174 "to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd have no hesitation in condemning that taking "
2175 "as wrong— even though trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was "
2176 "nothing wrong, at least under the law of the day, with Disney's taking from "
2177 "Buster Keaton or from the Brothers Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the "
2178 "taking from Keaton because Disney's use would have been considered "
2179 "<quote>fair.</quote> There was nothing wrong with the taking from the Grimms "
2180 "because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
2184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2185 #: freeculture.xml:1671
2187 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
2188 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
2189 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
2190 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
2193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2194 #: freeculture.xml:1680
2196 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
2197 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
2198 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
2199 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
2200 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
2201 "whether large or small."
2204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2205 #: freeculture.xml:1688
2207 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
2208 "the copycat comic artists are <quote>stealing.</quote> This form of Walt "
2209 "Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular "
2210 "find it hard to say why."
2213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2214 #: freeculture.xml:1694
2216 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
2217 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
2218 "or paying for the privilege. (<quote>Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may "
2219 "I have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were "
2220 "wrong about quantum physics?</quote>) Acting companies perform adaptations "
2221 "of the works of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does "
2222 "<emphasis>anyone</emphasis> believe Shakespeare would be better spread "
2223 "within our culture if there were a central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse "
2224 "that all productions of Shakespeare must appeal to first?) And Hollywood "
2225 "goes through cycles with a certain kind of movie: five asteroid films in the "
2226 "late 1990s; two volcano disaster films in 1997."
2230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2231 #: freeculture.xml:1708
2233 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2234 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2235 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2236 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2237 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2238 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2239 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2240 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2244 #: freeculture.xml:1719
2246 "The hard question is therefore not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> a culture is "
2247 "free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is "
2248 "<quote><emphasis>How</emphasis> free is this culture?</quote> How much, and "
2249 "how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that "
2250 "freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top "
2251 "ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread "
2252 "broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To "
2253 "musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether "
2254 "affiliated with a studio or not?"
2257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2258 #: freeculture.xml:1731
2260 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2261 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2262 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
2266 #: freeculture.xml:1739
2267 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: <quote>Mere Copyists</quote>"
2270 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2271 #: freeculture.xml:1741
2275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2276 #: freeculture.xml:1751
2277 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2281 #: freeculture.xml:1744
2283 "In 1839, Louis Daguerre invented the first practical technology for "
2284 "producing what we would call <quote>photographs.</quote> Appropriately "
2285 "enough, they were called <quote>daguerreotypes.</quote> The process was "
2286 "complicated and expensive, and the field was thus limited to professionals "
2287 "and a few zealous and wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre "
2288 "Association that helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, "
2289 "by keeping competition down so as to keep prices up.) <placeholder "
2290 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2294 #: freeculture.xml:1763
2295 msgid "Talbot, William"
2298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2299 #: freeculture.xml:1754
2301 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2302 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make <quote>automatic "
2303 "pictures.</quote> William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2304 "<quote>negatives.</quote> But because the negatives were glass, and had to "
2305 "be kept wet, the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the "
2306 "1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of "
2307 "a picture from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it "
2308 "was still not a process within reach of most amateurs. <placeholder "
2309 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2313 #: freeculture.xml:1766
2314 msgid "Eastman, George"
2318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2319 #: freeculture.xml:1769
2321 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2322 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2323 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2324 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2325 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2326 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2327 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2328 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2333 #: freeculture.xml:1786
2335 "Reese V. Jenkins, <citetitle>Images and Enterprise</citetitle> (Baltimore: "
2336 "Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 112."
2339 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2340 #: freeculture.xml:1788
2341 msgid "Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)"
2344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2345 #: freeculture.xml:1781
2347 "Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed rolls of "
2348 "it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was marketed on the basis "
2349 "of its simplicity. <quote>You press the button and we do the "
2350 "rest.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As he described in "
2351 "<citetitle>The Kodak Primer</citetitle>: <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
2355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2356 #: freeculture.xml:1805 freeculture.xml:1828
2360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2361 #: freeculture.xml:1803
2363 "Brian Coe, <citetitle>The Birth of Photography</citetitle> (New York: "
2364 "Taplinger Publishing, 1977), 53. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2368 #: freeculture.xml:1792
2370 "The principle of the Kodak system is the separation of the work that any "
2371 "person whomsoever can do in making a photograph, from the work that only an "
2372 "expert can do. … We furnish anybody, man, woman or child, who has "
2373 "sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an "
2374 "instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the "
2375 "necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of "
2376 "the art. It can be employed without preliminary study, without a darkroom "
2377 "and without chemicals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2382 #: freeculture.xml:1821
2383 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2388 #: freeculture.xml:1825
2389 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2393 #: freeculture.xml:1810
2395 "For $25, anyone could make pictures. The camera came preloaded with film, "
2396 "and when it had been used, the camera was returned to an Eastman factory, "
2397 "where the film was developed. Over time, of course, the cost of the camera "
2398 "and the ease with which it could be used both improved. Roll film thus "
2399 "became the basis for the explosive growth of popular photography. Eastman's "
2400 "camera first went on sale in 1888; one year later, Kodak was printing more "
2401 "than six thousand negatives a day. From 1888 through 1909, while industrial "
2402 "production was rising by 4.7 percent, photographic equipment and material "
2403 "sales increased by 11 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
2404 "Eastman Kodak's sales during the same period experienced an average annual "
2405 "increase of over 17 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2410 #: freeculture.xml:1843
2414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2415 #: freeculture.xml:1832
2417 "The real significance of Eastman's invention, however, was not economic. It "
2418 "was social. Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places "
2419 "they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to "
2420 "record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before. As "
2421 "author Brian Coe notes, <quote>For the first time the snapshot album "
2422 "provided the man on the street with a permanent record of his family and its "
2423 "activities. … For the first time in history there exists an authentic "
2424 "visual record of the appearance and activities of the common man made "
2425 "without [literary] interpretation or bias.</quote><placeholder "
2426 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2430 #: freeculture.xml:1847
2432 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2433 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2434 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2435 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2436 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2437 "its <quote>quality</quote>; professionals would discount it as "
2438 "irrelevant. But watch a child study how best to frame a picture and you get "
2439 "a sense of the experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic "
2440 "tools gave ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any "
2441 "tools could have before."
2445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2446 #: freeculture.xml:1869
2448 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, <citetitle>Pavesich</citetitle> "
2449 "v. <citetitle>N.E. Life Ins. Co</citetitle>., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); "
2450 "<citetitle>Foster-Milburn Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Chinn</citetitle>, "
2451 "123090 S.W. 364, 366 (Ky. 1909); <citetitle>Corliss</citetitle> "
2452 "v. <citetitle>Walker</citetitle>, 64 F. 280 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1894)."
2455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2456 #: freeculture.xml:1860
2458 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2459 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2460 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2461 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2462 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2463 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2464 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2465 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2470 #: freeculture.xml:1877
2472 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2473 "familiar. The photographer was <quote>taking</quote> something from the "
2474 "person or building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of "
2475 "value. Some even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was "
2476 "not free to take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, "
2477 "too, should these photographers not be free to take images that they thought "
2481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2482 #: freeculture.xml:1899
2483 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2487 #: freeculture.xml:1896
2489 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> "
2490 "<citetitle>Harvard Law Review</citetitle> 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder "
2491 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2495 #: freeculture.xml:1889
2497 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2498 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2499 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2500 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2501 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2502 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2503 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from <citetitle>Steamboat "
2504 "Bill, Jr</citetitle>. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free "
2505 "to capture an image without compensating the source."
2508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2509 #: freeculture.xml:1905 freeculture.xml:9155
2510 msgid "images, ownership of"
2514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2515 #: freeculture.xml:1917
2517 "See Melville B. Nimmer, <quote>The Right of Publicity,</quote> "
2518 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 19 (1954): 203; William "
2519 "L. Prosser, <quote>Privacy,</quote> <citetitle>California Law "
2520 "Review</citetitle> 48 (1960) 398–407; <citetitle>White</citetitle> "
2521 "v. <citetitle>Samsung Electronics America, Inc</citetitle>., 971 F. 2d 1395 "
2522 "(9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2526 #: freeculture.xml:1907
2528 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2529 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2530 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2531 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2532 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2533 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2534 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2535 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2536 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2540 #: freeculture.xml:1925
2542 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2543 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2544 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2545 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2546 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2547 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2548 "<quote>theft</quote> committed by the photographer. Just as Napster "
2549 "benefited from the copyright infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak "
2550 "would be benefiting from the <quote>image-right</quote> infringement of its "
2551 "photographers. We could imagine the law then requiring that some form of "
2552 "permission be demonstrated before a company developed pictures. We could "
2553 "imagine a system developing to demonstrate that permission."
2557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2558 #: freeculture.xml:1942
2560 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2561 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2562 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2563 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2564 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2565 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2566 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2567 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2568 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2569 "of expression would have been realized. If you drive through San "
2570 "Francisco's Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted "
2571 "over with colorful and striking images, and the logo <quote>Just "
2572 "Think!</quote> in place of the name of a school. But there's little that's "
2573 "<quote>just</quote> cerebral in the projects that these busses enable. "
2574 "These buses are filled with technologies that teach kids to tinker with "
2575 "film. Not the film of Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the "
2576 "<quote>film</quote> of digital cameras. Just Think! is a project that "
2577 "enables kids to make films, as a way to understand and critique the filmed "
2578 "culture that they find all around them. Each year, these busses travel to "
2579 "more than thirty schools and enable three hundred to five hundred children "
2580 "to learn something about media by doing something with media. By doing, "
2581 "they think. By tinkering, they learn."
2585 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2586 #: freeculture.xml:1975
2588 "H. Edward Goldberg, <quote>Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and "
2589 "Software You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,</quote> "
2590 "cadalyst, February 2002, available at <ulink "
2591 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #7</ulink>."
2594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2595 #: freeculture.xml:1969
2597 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
2598 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
2599 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, <quote>Five years ago, a good "
2600 "real-time digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get "
2601 "professional quality for $595.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2602 "id=\"0\"/> These buses are filled with technology that would have cost "
2603 "hundreds of thousands just ten years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine "
2604 "not just buses like this, but classrooms across the country where kids are "
2605 "learning more and more of something teachers call <quote>media "
2609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2610 #: freeculture.xml:1992
2611 msgid "Yanofsky, Dave"
2614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2615 #: freeculture.xml:1987
2617 "<quote>Media literacy,</quote> as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of "
2618 "Just Think!, puts it, <quote>is the ability … to understand, analyze, "
2619 "and deconstruct media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the "
2620 "way media works, the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the "
2621 "way people access it.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2625 #: freeculture.xml:1995
2627 "This may seem like an odd way to think about <quote>literacy.</quote> For "
2628 "most people, literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway "
2629 "and noticing split infinitives are the things that <quote>literate</quote> "
2630 "people know about."
2633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2634 #: freeculture.xml:2000 freeculture.xml:2499 freeculture.xml:6382 freeculture.xml:7212 freeculture.xml:8298 freeculture.xml:8370
2639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2640 #: freeculture.xml:2006
2642 "Judith Van Evra, <citetitle>Television and Child Development</citetitle> "
2643 "(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990); <quote>Findings on "
2644 "Family and TV Study,</quote> <citetitle>Denver Post</citetitle>, 25 May "
2648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2649 #: freeculture.xml:2002
2651 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
2652 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
2653 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
2654 "important to understand the <quote>grammar</quote> of media. For just as "
2655 "there is a grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for "
2656 "media. And just as kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible "
2657 "prose, kids learn how to write media by constructing lots of (at least at "
2658 "first) terrible media."
2661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2662 #: freeculture.xml:2017
2664 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
2665 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
2666 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
2667 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
2668 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
2669 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
2670 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
2674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2675 #: freeculture.xml:2027
2677 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
2678 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
2679 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
2680 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
2681 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
2682 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
2685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2686 #: freeculture.xml:2034
2687 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
2690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2691 #: freeculture.xml:2048 freeculture.xml:2108 freeculture.xml:2115 freeculture.xml:2562
2692 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
2695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2696 #: freeculture.xml:2049
2697 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
2700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2701 #: freeculture.xml:2046
2703 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
2704 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
2709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2710 #: freeculture.xml:2060
2712 "See Scott Steinberg, <quote>Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,</quote> E!online, "
2713 "4 November 2000, available at <ulink "
2714 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #8</ulink>; "
2715 "<quote>Timeline,</quote> 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
2716 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
2719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2720 #: freeculture.xml:2036
2722 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
2723 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
2724 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
2725 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about <quote>the "
2726 "placement of objects, color, … rhythm, pacing, and "
2727 "texture.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers "
2728 "open up an interactive space where a story is <quote>played</quote> as well "
2729 "as experienced, that grammar changes. The simple control of narrative is "
2730 "lost, and so other techniques are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had "
2731 "mastered the narrative of science fiction. But when he tried to design a "
2732 "computer game based on one of his works, it was a new craft he had to "
2733 "learn. How to lead people through a game without their feeling they have "
2734 "been led was not obvious, even to a wildly successful author.<placeholder "
2735 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2738 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2739 #: freeculture.xml:2067
2740 msgid "computer games"
2743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2744 #: freeculture.xml:2069
2746 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
2747 "<quote>people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t "
2748 "is perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If "
2749 "a filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.</quote> If you know "
2750 "you were led through a film, the film has failed."
2753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2754 #: freeculture.xml:2076
2756 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
2757 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
2758 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
2759 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
2762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2763 #: freeculture.xml:2083
2765 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
2766 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
2767 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
2768 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
2771 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2772 #: freeculture.xml:2091
2774 "<quote>Read-only.</quote> Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. "
2775 "Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth "
2779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2780 #: freeculture.xml:2107
2781 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
2786 #: freeculture.xml:2112 freeculture.xml:3888 freeculture.xml:4939 freeculture.xml:8186
2790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2791 #: freeculture.xml:2096
2793 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
2794 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
2795 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
2796 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
2797 "literacy in particular, is to <quote>empower people to choose the "
2798 "appropriate language for what they need to create or "
2799 "express.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable "
2800 "students <quote>to communicate in the language of the twenty-first "
2801 "century.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2805 #: freeculture.xml:2117
2807 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
2808 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
2809 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
2810 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
2811 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
2812 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
2813 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
2814 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
2815 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
2818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2819 #: freeculture.xml:2129
2821 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
2822 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
2823 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The "
2824 "<quote>kids were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,</quote> "
2825 "said Barish. They were working harder than in any other class to do what "
2826 "education should be about—learning how to express themselves."
2829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2830 #: freeculture.xml:2137
2832 "Using whatever <quote>free web stuff they could find,</quote> and relatively "
2833 "simple tools to enable the kids to mix <quote>image, sound, and "
2834 "text,</quote> Barish said this class produced a series of projects that "
2835 "showed something about gun violence that few would otherwise "
2836 "understand. This was an issue close to the lives of these students. The "
2837 "project <quote>gave them a tool and empowered them to be able to both "
2838 "understand it and talk about it,</quote> Barish explained. That tool "
2839 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
2840 "than could have been created using only text. <quote>If you had said to "
2841 "these students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their "
2842 "hands up and gone and done something else,</quote> Barish described, in "
2843 "part, no doubt, because expressing themselves in text is not something these "
2844 "students can do well. Yet neither is text a form in which "
2845 "<emphasis>these</emphasis> ideas can be expressed well. The power of this "
2846 "message depended upon its connection to this form of expression."
2850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2851 #: freeculture.xml:2156
2853 "<quote>But isn't education about teaching kids to write?</quote> I asked. In "
2854 "part, of course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, "
2855 "Daley explained, is about giving students a way of <quote>constructing "
2856 "meaning.</quote> To say that that means just writing is like saying teaching "
2857 "writing is only about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and "
2858 "increasingly, not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As "
2859 "Daley explained in the most moving part of our interview,"
2862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2863 #: freeculture.xml:2167
2865 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
2866 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
2867 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
2868 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
2869 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
2870 "comes to school and you say, <quote>Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you "
2871 "can do matters.</quote> Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss "
2872 "you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to "
2873 "dismiss you. [But i]nstead, if you say, <quote>Well, with all these things "
2874 "that you can do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you "
2875 "think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw "
2876 "for me something that reflects that.</quote> Not by giving a kid a video "
2877 "camera and … saying, <quote>Let's go have fun with the video camera "
2878 "and make a little movie.</quote> But instead, really help you take these "
2879 "elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning "
2880 "about the topic.…"
2883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2884 #: freeculture.xml:2186
2886 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
2887 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, "
2888 "<quote>I need to explain this and I really need to write something.</quote> "
2889 "And as one of the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, "
2890 "6, 7, 8 times, till they got it right."
2894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2895 #: freeculture.xml:2193
2897 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
2898 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
2899 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
2900 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language."
2903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2904 #: freeculture.xml:2203
2905 msgid "World Trade Center"
2908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2909 #: freeculture.xml:2205
2911 "When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, another into the "
2912 "Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field, all media around the world "
2913 "shifted to this news. Every moment of just about every day for that week, "
2914 "and for weeks after, television in particular, and media generally, retold "
2915 "the story of the events we had just witnessed. The telling was a retelling, "
2916 "because we had seen the events that were described. The genius of this awful "
2917 "act of terrorism was that the delayed second attack was perfectly timed to "
2918 "assure that the whole world would be watching."
2921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2922 #: freeculture.xml:2216
2924 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
2925 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
2926 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was <quote>balance,</quote> "
2927 "and seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
2928 "come to expect it, <quote>news as entertainment,</quote> even if the "
2929 "entertainment is tragedy."
2932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2933 #: freeculture.xml:2223 freeculture.xml:8125 freeculture.xml:8364
2937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2938 #: freeculture.xml:2224
2942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2943 #: freeculture.xml:2226
2945 "But in addition to this produced news about the <quote>tragedy of September "
2946 "11,</quote> those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different "
2947 "production as well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same "
2948 "events. Yet these Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people "
2949 "constructed photo pages that captured images from around the world and "
2950 "presented them as slide shows with text. Some offered open letters. There "
2951 "were sound recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts "
2952 "to provide context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn "
2953 "raising, in the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book <citetitle>Cyber "
2954 "Rights</citetitle>, around a news event that had captured the attention of "
2955 "the world. There was ABC and CBS, but there was also the Internet."
2959 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2960 #: freeculture.xml:2240
2962 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
2963 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
2964 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
2965 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
2966 "on the <quote>Just Think!</quote> bus, the visual images could be mixed with "
2970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2971 #: freeculture.xml:2250
2973 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
2974 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
2975 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
2976 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
2977 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
2978 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
2979 "practically instantaneously."
2982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2983 #: freeculture.xml:2259
2985 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
2986 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
2987 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
2988 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
2989 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
2990 "public way—it's a kind of electronic <citetitle>Jerry "
2991 "Springer</citetitle>, available anywhere in the world."
2994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2995 #: freeculture.xml:2268
2997 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
2998 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
2999 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
3000 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
3001 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
3002 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
3003 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
3004 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
3005 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
3006 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
3007 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
3011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3012 #: freeculture.xml:2282
3014 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
3015 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
3016 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
3017 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
3018 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
3019 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
3020 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
3023 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3024 #: freeculture.xml:2292
3025 msgid "Tocqueville, Alexis de"
3029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3030 #: freeculture.xml:2309
3032 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, <citetitle>Democracy in "
3033 "America</citetitle>, bk. 1, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, "
3037 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3038 #: freeculture.xml:2294
3040 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
3041 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
3042 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
3043 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
3044 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
3045 "early <quote>Democracy in America.</quote> It wasn't popular elections that "
3046 "fascinated him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary "
3047 "people the right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most "
3048 "fascinating for him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome "
3049 "they would impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the "
3050 "<quote>right</quote> result; they tried to persuade each other of the "
3051 "<quote>right</quote> result, and in criminal cases at least, they had to "
3052 "agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come to an end.<placeholder "
3053 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3058 #: freeculture.xml:2318
3060 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, <quote>Deliberation Day,</quote> "
3061 "<citetitle>Journal of Political Philosophy</citetitle> 10 (2) (2002): 129."
3064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3065 #: freeculture.xml:2314
3067 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
3068 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
3069 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3070 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
3071 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
3072 "for <quote>democratic deliberation</quote> to occur."
3076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3077 #: freeculture.xml:2333
3079 "Cass Sunstein, <citetitle>Republic.com</citetitle> (Princeton: Princeton "
3080 "University Press, 2001), 65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
3083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3084 #: freeculture.xml:2326
3086 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
3087 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
3088 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
3089 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
3090 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
3091 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
3092 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
3096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3097 #: freeculture.xml:2339
3099 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
3100 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
3101 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
3102 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
3103 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
3104 "needing to gather in a single public place."
3107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3108 #: freeculture.xml:2350
3110 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
3111 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
3112 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
3113 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
3114 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
3115 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
3118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
3119 #: freeculture.xml:2362
3120 msgid "Dean, Howard"
3123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3124 #: freeculture.xml:2358
3126 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
3127 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
3128 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
3129 "effect. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3133 #: freeculture.xml:2364
3134 msgid "Thurmond, Strom"
3138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3139 #: freeculture.xml:2377
3141 "Noah Shachtman, <quote>With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the "
3142 "Pot,</quote> New York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
3145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
3146 #: freeculture.xml:2380
3150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3151 #: freeculture.xml:2366
3153 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
3154 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
3155 "<quote>misspoke</quote> at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially "
3156 "praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that "
3157 "this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight "
3158 "hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The "
3159 "bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of "
3160 "the same <quote>misspeaking</quote> emerged. Finally, the story broke back "
3161 "into the mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate "
3162 "majority leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
3163 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
3166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3167 #: freeculture.xml:2383
3169 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
3170 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
3171 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
3172 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
3175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3176 #: freeculture.xml:2390
3178 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
3179 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
3180 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
3181 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
3182 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
3183 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
3186 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3187 #: freeculture.xml:2399
3192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3193 #: freeculture.xml:2402
3195 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
3196 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
3197 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
3198 "absence of a financial <quote>conflict of interest.</quote> <quote>I think "
3199 "you have to take the conflict of interest</quote> out of journalism, Winer "
3200 "told me. <quote>An amateur journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of "
3201 "interest, or the conflict of interest is so easily disclosed that you know "
3202 "you can sort of get it out of the way.</quote>"
3205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3206 #: freeculture.xml:2412 freeculture.xml:2458
3210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3211 #: freeculture.xml:2413 freeculture.xml:2459 freeculture.xml:5587
3216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3217 #: freeculture.xml:2421
3218 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
3221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3222 #: freeculture.xml:2415
3224 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
3225 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
3226 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
3227 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
3228 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
3229 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
3230 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
3231 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
3232 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
3233 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
3234 "warranted, they told her that <emphasis>they</emphasis> were writing "
3235 "<quote>the story.</quote>)"
3239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3240 #: freeculture.xml:2439
3242 "John Schwartz, <quote>Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of "
3243 "Information Online,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 2 "
3244 "February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, <quote>Shuttle Disaster Coverage Mixed, "
3245 "but Strong Overall,</quote> Online Journalism Review, 2 February 2003, "
3246 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
3249 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3250 #: freeculture.xml:2431
3252 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the "
3253 "debate—<quote>amateur</quote> not in the sense of inexperienced, but "
3254 "in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning not paid by anyone to give their "
3255 "reports. It allows for a much broader range of input into a story, as "
3256 "reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when hundreds from across the "
3257 "southwest United States turned to the Internet to retell what they had "
3258 "seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it drives readers to read "
3259 "across the range of accounts and <quote>triangulate,</quote> as Winer puts "
3260 "it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are <quote>communicating directly with our "
3261 "constituency, and the middle man is out of it</quote>—with all the "
3262 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
3265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3266 #: freeculture.xml:2460
3267 msgid "Olafson, Steve"
3270 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3271 #: freeculture.xml:2458
3273 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3274 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> See Michael Falcone, "
3275 "<quote>Does an Editor's Pencil Ruin a Web Log?</quote> <citetitle>New York "
3276 "Times</citetitle>, 29 September 2003, C4. (<quote>Not all news organizations "
3277 "have been as accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN "
3278 "correspondent in Iraq who started a blog about his reporting of the war on "
3279 "March 9, stopped posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year "
3280 "Steve Olafson, a <citetitle>Houston Chronicle</citetitle> reporter, was "
3281 "fired for keeping a personal Web log, published under a pseudonym, that "
3282 "dealt with some of the issues and people he was covering.</quote>)"
3286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3287 #: freeculture.xml:2451
3289 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
3290 "blogs. <quote>It's going to become an essential skill,</quote> Winer "
3291 "predicts, for public figures and increasingly for private figures as "
3292 "well. It's not clear that <quote>journalism</quote> is happy about "
3293 "this—some journalists have been told to curtail their "
3294 "blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is clear that we "
3295 "are still in transition. <quote>A lot of what we are doing now is warm-up "
3296 "exercises,</quote> Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature before "
3297 "this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in this "
3298 "space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing on "
3299 "copyright), Winer said, <quote>we will be the last thing that gets shut "
3303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3304 #: freeculture.xml:2480
3306 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because <quote>you "
3307 "don't have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.</quote> "
3308 "That is true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and "
3309 "more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will "
3310 "change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
3311 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
3312 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
3313 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
3314 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
3315 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
3316 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
3317 "something extraordinary to report."
3320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3321 #: freeculture.xml:2496
3322 msgid "Brown, John Seely"
3325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3326 #: freeculture.xml:2502
3328 "John Seely Brown is the chief scientist of the Xerox Corporation. His work, "
3329 "as his Web site describes it, is <quote>human learning and … the "
3330 "creation of knowledge ecologies for creating … innovation.</quote>"
3333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3334 #: freeculture.xml:2507
3336 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3337 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3338 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3339 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3344 #: freeculture.xml:2514
3346 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When <quote>a lot of us grew "
3347 "up,</quote> he explains, that tinkering was done <quote>on motorcycle "
3348 "engines, lawnmower engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.</quote> But "
3349 "digital technologies enable a different kind of tinkering—with "
3350 "abstract ideas though in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only "
3351 "think about how a commercial portrays a politician; using digital "
3352 "technology, they can take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker "
3353 "with it to see how it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind "
3354 "of bricolage, or <quote>free collage,</quote> as Brown calls it. Many get to "
3355 "add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3359 #: freeculture.xml:2527
3361 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3362 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3363 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3364 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3365 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3369 #: freeculture.xml:2534
3371 "This opportunity creates a <quote>completely new kind of learning "
3372 "platform,</quote> as Brown describes. <quote>As soon as you start doing "
3373 "that, you … unleash a free collage on the community, so that other "
3374 "people can start looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, "
3375 "seeing if they can improve it.</quote> Each effort is a kind of "
3376 "apprenticeship. <quote>Open source becomes a major apprenticeship "
3380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3381 #: freeculture.xml:2542
3383 "In this process, <quote>the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. "
3384 "They are code.</quote> Kids are <quote>shifting to the ability to tinker in "
3385 "the abstract, and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that "
3386 "you're doing in your garage. You are tinkering with a community "
3387 "platform. … You are tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you "
3388 "tinker the more you improve.</quote> The more you improve, the more you "
3392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3393 #: freeculture.xml:2551
3395 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3396 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3397 "<quote>the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3398 "intelligence.</quote> Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3399 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3400 "text. <quote>The Web … says if you are musical, if you are artistic, "
3401 "if you are visual, if you are interested in film … [then] there is a "
3402 "lot you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3403 "multiple forms of intelligence.</quote>"
3407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3408 #: freeculture.xml:2564
3410 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3411 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3412 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3417 #: freeculture.xml:2572
3419 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3420 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3421 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3422 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3423 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3424 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3425 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3430 #: freeculture.xml:2588
3432 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, <quote>Technological "
3433 "Access Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,</quote> "
3434 "<citetitle>Communications of the Association for Computer "
3435 "Machinery</citetitle> 43 (2000): 9."
3438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3439 #: freeculture.xml:2581
3441 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3442 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter <xref "
3443 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>) has developed a "
3444 "powerful argument in favor of the <quote>right to tinker</quote> as it "
3445 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3446 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3447 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3448 "because of the law."
3451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3452 #: freeculture.xml:2596
3454 "<quote>This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,</quote> "
3455 "Brown explains. We need to <quote>understand how kids who grow up digital "
3456 "think and want to learn.</quote>"
3459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3460 #: freeculture.xml:2601
3462 "<quote>Yet,</quote> as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will "
3463 "evince, <quote>we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the "
3464 "natural tendencies of today's digital kids. … We're building an "
3465 "architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system "
3466 "that closes down that part of the brain.</quote>"
3469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3470 #: freeculture.xml:2609
3472 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3473 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3474 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3479 #: freeculture.xml:2615
3481 "<quote>No way to run a culture,</quote> as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet "
3482 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>, "
3483 "quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3487 #: freeculture.xml:2622
3488 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3491 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3492 #: freeculture.xml:2623
3496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3497 #: freeculture.xml:2623 freeculture.xml:2625
3498 msgid "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)"
3501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3502 #: freeculture.xml:2628
3504 "In the fall of 2002, Jesse Jordan of Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a "
3505 "freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. His major "
3506 "at RPI was information technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October "
3507 "Jesse decided to begin to tinker with search engine technology that was "
3508 "available on the RPI network."
3511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3512 #: freeculture.xml:2635
3514 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
3515 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
3516 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
3517 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
3518 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
3519 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
3522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3523 #: freeculture.xml:2643
3525 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
3526 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
3527 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
3528 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
3529 "access to other members of the RPI community."
3533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3534 #: freeculture.xml:2650
3536 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
3537 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
3538 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
3539 "idea of <quote>intranet</quote> search engines, search engines that search "
3540 "within the network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that "
3541 "institution with better access to material from that institution. "
3542 "Businesses do this all the time, enabling employees to have access to "
3543 "material that people outside the business can't get. Universities do it as "
3547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3548 #: freeculture.xml:2662
3550 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
3551 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
3552 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
3553 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
3554 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
3555 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
3558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3559 #: freeculture.xml:2671
3561 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
3562 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
3563 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
3564 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
3565 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
3566 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
3567 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
3568 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
3569 "file was still on-line."
3572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3573 #: freeculture.xml:2683
3575 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
3576 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
3577 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
3578 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
3583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3584 #: freeculture.xml:2690
3586 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
3587 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
3588 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
3589 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
3590 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
3593 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3594 #: freeculture.xml:2699
3596 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
3597 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
3598 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
3599 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
3600 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
3601 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
3602 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
3603 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
3604 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
3605 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
3606 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
3610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3611 #: freeculture.xml:2714
3613 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
3614 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
3615 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
3616 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
3617 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
3618 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
3621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3622 #: freeculture.xml:2723
3624 "<quote>It was absurd,</quote> he told me. <quote>I don't think I did "
3625 "anything wrong. … I don't think there's anything wrong with the "
3626 "search engine that I ran or … what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't "
3627 "modified it in any way that promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just "
3628 "modified the search engine in a way that would make it easier to "
3629 "use</quote>—again, a <emphasis>search engine</emphasis>, which Jesse "
3630 "had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, which Jesse had "
3631 "not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to get access to "
3632 "content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and the vast "
3633 "majority of which had nothing to do with music."
3636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3637 #: freeculture.xml:2735
3638 msgid "statutory damages"
3642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3643 #: freeculture.xml:2737
3645 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
3646 "had therefore <quote>willfully</quote> violated copyright laws. They "
3647 "demanded that he pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of "
3648 "<quote>willful infringement,</quote> the Copyright Act specifies something "
3649 "lawyers call <quote>statutory damages.</quote> These damages permit a "
3650 "copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement. As the RIAA alleged more "
3651 "than one hundred specific copyright infringements, they therefore demanded "
3652 "that Jesse pay them at least $15,000,000."
3655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3656 #: freeculture.xml:2747
3657 msgid "Princeton University"
3660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3661 #: freeculture.xml:2748
3662 msgid "Michigan Technical University"
3666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3667 #: freeculture.xml:2762
3669 "Tim Goral, <quote>Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
3670 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,</quote> <citetitle>Professional Media "
3671 "Group LCC</citetitle> 6 (2003): 5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
3674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3675 #: freeculture.xml:2750
3677 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
3678 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
3679 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
3680 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
3681 "demands for <quote>damages</quote> that the RIAA claimed it was entitled "
3682 "to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in "
3683 "the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 "
3684 "<emphasis>billion</emphasis>—six times the <emphasis>total</emphasis> "
3685 "profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3690 #: freeculture.xml:2769
3692 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
3693 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
3694 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
3695 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
3698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3699 #: freeculture.xml:2775
3700 msgid "Oppenheimer, Matt"
3703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3704 #: freeculture.xml:2777
3706 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
3707 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
3708 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
3709 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
3710 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
3711 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, <quote>You don't want to "
3712 "pay another visit to a dentist like me.</quote>) And throughout, the RIAA "
3713 "insisted it would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had "
3718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3719 #: freeculture.xml:2788
3721 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
3722 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
3723 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
3724 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
3725 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
3726 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
3730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3731 #: freeculture.xml:2798
3733 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
3734 "$12,000 and a settlement."
3737 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
3738 #: freeculture.xml:2802 freeculture.xml:3161 freeculture.xml:4084 freeculture.xml:5187 freeculture.xml:5238 freeculture.xml:9613 freeculture.xml:9714 freeculture.xml:9888 freeculture.xml:14426 freeculture.xml:14494
3742 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
3743 #: freeculture.xml:2803 freeculture.xml:3162 freeculture.xml:4085 freeculture.xml:9614 freeculture.xml:9715 freeculture.xml:9889 freeculture.xml:14427 freeculture.xml:14495
3744 msgid "recording industry payments to"
3748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3749 #: freeculture.xml:2814
3751 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
3752 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
3753 "the Arts, <citetitle>More Than One in a Blue Moon</citetitle> (2000)."
3757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3758 #: freeculture.xml:2822
3760 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in <quote>KaZaA and "
3761 "Punishment,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 10 September "
3765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3766 #: freeculture.xml:2806
3768 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
3769 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
3770 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
3771 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
3772 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
3773 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
3774 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
3775 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
3776 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3780 #: freeculture.xml:2827
3782 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
3783 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
3784 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
3787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3788 #: freeculture.xml:2834
3790 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
3791 "activist. … [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
3792 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
3796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3797 #: freeculture.xml:2841
3799 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
3800 "father told me, Jesse <quote>considers himself very conservative, and so do "
3801 "I. … He's not a tree hugger. … I think it's bizarre that they "
3802 "would pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the "
3803 "wrong message. And he wants to correct the record.</quote>"
3806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3807 #: freeculture.xml:2850
3808 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: <quote>Pirates</quote>"
3811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3812 #: freeculture.xml:2853
3814 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">If <quote>piracy</quote> means</emphasis> using "
3815 "the creative property of others without their permission—if <quote>if "
3816 "value, then right</quote> is true—then the history of the content "
3817 "industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of <quote>big "
3818 "media</quote> today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
3819 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
3820 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
3823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
3824 #: freeculture.xml:2864
3828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3829 #: freeculture.xml:2868
3831 "I am grateful to Peter DiMauro for pointing me to this extraordinary "
3832 "history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and "
3833 "Copywrongs</citetitle>, 87–93, which details Edison's "
3834 "<quote>adventures</quote> with copyright and patent. <placeholder "
3835 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3839 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3840 #: freeculture.xml:2866
3842 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
3843 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
3844 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
3845 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
3846 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "
3847 "<quote>trust,</quote> the Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on "
3848 "Thomas Edison's creative property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to "
3849 "exercise the rights this creative property gave him, and the MPPC was "
3850 "serious about the control it demanded."
3853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3854 #: freeculture.xml:2884
3855 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
3858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
3859 #: freeculture.xml:2888
3861 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
3862 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
3863 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
3864 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
3865 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
3866 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
3869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3870 #: freeculture.xml:2919 freeculture.xml:4297 freeculture.xml:9489 freeculture.xml:9607
3871 msgid "broadcast flag"
3874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3875 #: freeculture.xml:2908
3877 "J. A. Aberdeen, <citetitle>Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent "
3878 "Motion Picture Producers</citetitle> (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and "
3879 "expanded texts posted at <quote>The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion "
3880 "Picture Patents Company vs. the Independent Outlaws,</quote> available at "
3881 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a "
3882 "discussion of the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits "
3883 "imposed by Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison "
3884 "to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the "
3885 "Propertization of Copyright</quote> (September 2002), University of Chicago "
3886 "Law School, James M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper "
3887 "No. 159. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
3891 #: freeculture.xml:2921
3892 msgid "Fox, William"
3895 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
3896 #: freeculture.xml:2922
3897 msgid "General Film Company"
3900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3901 #: freeculture.xml:2923 freeculture.xml:3181 freeculture.xml:4298 freeculture.xml:9758
3902 msgid "Picker, Randal C."
3905 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
3906 #: freeculture.xml:2897
3908 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
3909 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
3910 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
3911 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
3912 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
3913 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
3914 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
3915 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
3916 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
3917 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
3918 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3924 #: freeculture.xml:2933
3926 "Marc Wanamaker, <quote>The First Studios,</quote> <citetitle>The Silents "
3927 "Majority</citetitle>, archived at <ulink "
3928 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
3931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3932 #: freeculture.xml:2927
3934 "The Napsters of those days, the <quote>independents,</quote> were companies "
3935 "like Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously "
3936 "resisted. <quote>Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and "
3937 "`accidents' resulting in loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and "
3938 "sometimes life and limb frequently occurred.</quote><placeholder "
3939 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the independents to flee the East "
3940 "Coast. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers "
3941 "there could pirate his inventions without fear of the law. And the leaders "
3942 "of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most prominently, did just that."
3946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3947 #: freeculture.xml:2943
3949 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
3950 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
3951 "truly <quote>limited</quote> monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), "
3952 "by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new "
3953 "industry had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative "
3957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
3958 #: freeculture.xml:2954
3959 msgid "Recorded Music"
3962 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3963 #: freeculture.xml:2956
3965 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
3966 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
3969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
3970 #: freeculture.xml:2960
3971 msgid "Fourneaux, Henri"
3974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
3975 #: freeculture.xml:2962
3976 msgid "Russel, Phil"
3979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3980 #: freeculture.xml:2964
3982 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
3983 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
3984 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
3985 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
3986 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit <quote>Happy "
3987 "Mose,</quote> the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy "
3988 "of the musical score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform "
3992 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
3993 #: freeculture.xml:2973 freeculture.xml:3122
3997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
3998 #: freeculture.xml:2975
4000 "But what if I wanted to record <quote>Happy Mose,</quote> using Edison's "
4001 "phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear "
4002 "enough that I would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I "
4003 "performed in making this recording. And it was clear enough that I would "
4004 "have to pay for any public performance of the work I was recording. But it "
4005 "wasn't totally clear that I would have to pay for a <quote>public "
4006 "performance</quote> if I recorded the song in my own house (even today, you "
4007 "don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing their songs in the shower), or if "
4008 "I recorded the song from memory (copies in your brain are "
4009 "not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I simply sang the "
4010 "song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, it wasn't clear "
4011 "that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it wasn't clear "
4012 "whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those "
4013 "recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
4014 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
4017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4018 #: freeculture.xml:2998 freeculture.xml:3015
4019 msgid "Kittredge, Alfred"
4022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4023 #: freeculture.xml:2994
4025 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
4026 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it, <placeholder "
4027 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4030 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4031 #: freeculture.xml:3009
4033 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
4034 "and H.R. 19853 Before the ( Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
4035 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
4036 "chairman), reprinted in <citetitle>Legislative History of the Copyright "
4037 "Act</citetitle>, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South "
4038 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4043 #: freeculture.xml:3002
4045 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
4046 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
4047 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
4048 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
4049 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4054 #: freeculture.xml:3019
4055 msgid "Sousa, John Philip"
4059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4060 #: freeculture.xml:3025
4062 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
4063 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4067 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4068 #: freeculture.xml:3031
4070 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
4071 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4076 #: freeculture.xml:3038
4078 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
4079 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
4082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4083 #: freeculture.xml:3021
4085 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
4086 "were <quote>sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of "
4087 "American composers,</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the "
4088 "<quote>music publishing industry</quote> was thereby <quote>at the complete "
4089 "mercy of this one pirate.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4090 "As John Philip Sousa put it, in as direct a way as possible, <quote>When "
4091 "they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it.</quote><placeholder "
4092 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4097 #: freeculture.xml:3051
4099 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
4100 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
4101 "Company of New York)."
4105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4106 #: freeculture.xml:3062
4108 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
4109 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
4110 "Graphophone Company Association)."
4113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4114 #: freeculture.xml:3066
4115 msgid "American Graphophone Company"
4118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4119 #: freeculture.xml:3043
4121 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
4122 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
4123 "argued that <quote>it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
4124 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
4125 "before their introduction.</quote> Rather, the machines increased the sales "
4126 "of sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
4127 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was <quote>to consider first the "
4128 "interest of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they "
4129 "are.</quote> <quote>All talk about `theft,'</quote> the general counsel of "
4130 "the American Graphophone Company wrote, <quote>is the merest claptrap, for "
4131 "there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as "
4132 "defined by statute.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4133 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
4137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4138 #: freeculture.xml:3069
4140 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer "
4141 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> the recording artist. Congress amended the law to "
4142 "make sure that composers would be paid for the <quote>mechanical "
4143 "reproductions</quote> of their music. But rather than simply granting the "
4144 "composer complete control over the right to make mechanical reproductions, "
4145 "Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set "
4146 "by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the "
4147 "part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer "
4148 "authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, "
4149 "so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law."
4152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4153 #: freeculture.xml:3084
4155 "American law ordinarily calls this a <quote>compulsory license,</quote> but "
4156 "I will refer to it as a <quote>statutory license.</quote> A statutory "
4157 "license is a license whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's "
4158 "amendment of the Copyright Act in 1909, record companies were free to "
4159 "distribute copies of recordings so long as they paid the composer (or "
4160 "copyright holder) the fee set by the statute."
4163 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4164 #: freeculture.xml:3099 freeculture.xml:14126
4165 msgid "Grisham, John"
4168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4169 #: freeculture.xml:3092
4171 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
4172 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
4173 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
4174 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
4175 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
4176 "work except with permission of Grisham. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4182 #: freeculture.xml:3116
4184 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
4185 "H.R. 11794 Before the ( Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
4186 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
4187 "<citetitle>Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act</citetitle>, "
4188 "E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman "
4192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4193 #: freeculture.xml:3102
4195 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
4196 "effect, the law <emphasis>subsidizes</emphasis> the recording industry "
4197 "through a kind of piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right "
4198 "than it otherwise gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over "
4199 "their creative work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less "
4200 "control are the recording industry and the public. The recording industry "
4201 "gets something of value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public "
4202 "gets access to a much wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress "
4203 "was quite explicit about its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was "
4204 "the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle "
4205 "follow-on creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4206 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4210 #: freeculture.xml:3125
4212 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
4213 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
4214 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
4218 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4219 #: freeculture.xml:3147
4221 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
4222 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
4223 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
4226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4227 #: freeculture.xml:3132
4229 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
4230 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
4231 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
4232 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
4233 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
4234 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
4235 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
4236 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
4237 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
4238 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
4239 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
4240 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4244 #: freeculture.xml:3154
4246 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
4247 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
4250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4251 #: freeculture.xml:3159 freeculture.xml:4262
4255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4256 #: freeculture.xml:3165
4257 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
4260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4261 #: freeculture.xml:3180
4262 msgid "Hand, Learned"
4265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4266 #: freeculture.xml:3171
4268 "See 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, sections 106 and 110. At "
4269 "the beginning, record companies printed <quote>Not Licensed for Radio "
4270 "Broadcast</quote> and other messages purporting to restrict the ability to "
4271 "play a record on a radio station. Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument "
4272 "that a warning attached to a record might restrict the rights of the radio "
4273 "station. See <citetitle>RCA Manufacturing "
4274 "Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Whiteman</citetitle>, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd "
4275 "Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison to the Broadcast "
4276 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
4277 "Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> "
4278 "70 (2003): 281. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4279 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4283 #: freeculture.xml:3168
4285 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a "
4286 "<quote>public performance</quote> of the composer's work.<placeholder "
4287 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the "
4288 "composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of "
4289 "his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money for that "
4293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4294 #: freeculture.xml:3198 freeculture.xml:8830 freeculture.xml:9294 freeculture.xml:12264
4295 msgid "Lovett, Lyle"
4299 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4300 #: freeculture.xml:3188
4302 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
4303 "of the <emphasis>composer's</emphasis> work. The radio station is also "
4304 "performing a copy of the <emphasis>recording artist's</emphasis> work. It's "
4305 "one thing to have <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> sung on the radio by the "
4306 "local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung by the Rolling "
4307 "Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the "
4308 "composition performed on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly "
4309 "consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording artist for his "
4310 "work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work. <placeholder "
4311 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4315 #: freeculture.xml:3203
4317 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
4318 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
4319 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
4320 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
4321 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
4324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4325 #: freeculture.xml:3211 freeculture.xml:3720 freeculture.xml:6135
4329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4330 #: freeculture.xml:3214
4332 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
4333 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
4334 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
4335 "she has to get your permission."
4338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4339 #: freeculture.xml:3220
4341 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
4342 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
4343 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
4344 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
4345 "public performance of her recording is not a <quote>protected</quote> "
4346 "right. The radio station thus gets to <emphasis>pirate</emphasis> the value "
4347 "of Madonna's work without paying her anything."
4350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4351 #: freeculture.xml:3231
4353 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
4354 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
4355 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
4356 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
4357 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
4361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4362 #: freeculture.xml:3241 freeculture.xml:4268
4366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4367 #: freeculture.xml:3244
4368 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
4372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4373 #: freeculture.xml:3247
4375 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
4376 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
4377 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
4378 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
4379 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
4380 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
4381 "the content it enabled others to give away."
4384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4385 #: freeculture.xml:3257
4386 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
4389 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4390 #: freeculture.xml:3258
4391 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
4394 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4395 #: freeculture.xml:3259 freeculture.xml:3270
4396 msgid "Hyde, Rosel H."
4399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4400 #: freeculture.xml:3265
4402 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
4403 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
4404 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
4405 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission). <placeholder "
4406 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4411 #: freeculture.xml:3277
4413 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
4414 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
4417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4418 #: freeculture.xml:3261
4420 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
4421 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of <quote>unfair "
4422 "and potentially destructive competition.</quote><placeholder "
4423 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There may have been a <quote>public "
4424 "interest</quote> in spreading the reach of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, "
4425 "general counsel to the National Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator "
4426 "Quentin Burdick during testimony, <quote>Does public interest dictate that "
4427 "you use somebody else's property?</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4428 "id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster put it,"
4432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4433 #: freeculture.xml:3288
4435 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
4436 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
4439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4440 #: freeculture.xml:3284
4442 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
4443 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
4444 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4448 #: freeculture.xml:3294
4449 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
4453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4454 #: freeculture.xml:3303
4456 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
4457 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
4458 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
4461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4462 #: freeculture.xml:3298
4464 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
4465 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
4466 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
4467 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4471 #: freeculture.xml:3309 freeculture.xml:3317
4472 msgid "Heston, Charlton"
4475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4476 #: freeculture.xml:3315
4478 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
4479 "president of the Screen Actors Guild). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4484 #: freeculture.xml:3311
4486 "These were <quote>free-ride[rs],</quote> Screen Actor's Guild president "
4487 "Charlton Heston said, who were <quote>depriving actors of "
4488 "compensation.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4491 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4492 #: freeculture.xml:3322
4494 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
4495 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
4498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
4499 #: freeculture.xml:3338 freeculture.xml:3340
4500 msgid "Zimmerman, Edwin"
4503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4504 #: freeculture.xml:3336
4506 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
4507 "acting assistant attorney general). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4512 #: freeculture.xml:3327
4514 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
4515 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
4516 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
4517 "extend that monopoly. … The question here is how much compensation "
4518 "they should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
4519 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4520 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4524 #: freeculture.xml:3344
4526 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
4527 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
4530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4531 #: freeculture.xml:3348
4533 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
4534 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they "
4535 "<quote>pirated.</quote> In the end, Congress resolved this question in the "
4536 "same way that it resolved the question about record players and player "
4537 "pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they "
4538 "broadcast; but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright "
4539 "owner. The price was set by law, so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise "
4540 "veto power over the emerging technologies of cable. Cable companies thus "
4541 "built their empire in part upon a <quote>piracy</quote> of the value created "
4542 "by broadcasters' content."
4546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4547 #: freeculture.xml:3365
4549 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, <citetitle>The "
4550 "Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free "
4551 "Information</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
4552 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #13</ulink>. <quote>The threat of "
4553 "piracy—the use of someone else's creative work without permission or "
4554 "compensation—has grown with the Internet.</quote>"
4557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4558 #: freeculture.xml:3360
4560 "These separate stories sing a common theme. If <quote>piracy</quote> means "
4561 "using value from someone else's creative property without permission from "
4562 "that creator—as it is increasingly described today<placeholder "
4563 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> — then <emphasis>every</emphasis> "
4564 "industry affected by copyright today is the product and beneficiary of a "
4565 "certain kind of piracy. Film, records, radio, cable TV. … The list is "
4566 "long and could well be expanded. Every generation welcomes the pirates from "
4567 "the last. Every generation—until now."
4570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4571 #: freeculture.xml:3382
4572 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: <quote>Piracy</quote>"
4575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4576 #: freeculture.xml:3384
4578 "There is piracy of copyrighted material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in "
4579 "many forms. The most significant is commercial piracy, the unauthorized "
4580 "taking of other people's content within a commercial context. Despite the "
4581 "many justifications that are offered in its defense, this taking is "
4582 "wrong. No one should condone it, and the law should stop it."
4586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4587 #: freeculture.xml:3392
4589 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of "
4590 "<quote>taking</quote> that is more directly related to the Internet. That "
4591 "taking, too, seems wrong to many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before "
4592 "we paint this taking <quote>piracy,</quote> however, we should understand "
4593 "its nature a bit more. For the harm of this taking is significantly more "
4594 "ambiguous than outright copying, and the law should account for that "
4595 "ambiguity, as it has so often done in the past."
4598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4599 #: freeculture.xml:3402
4603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4604 #: freeculture.xml:3403 freeculture.xml:3482 freeculture.xml:3531 freeculture.xml:14526
4605 msgid "Asia, commercial piracy in"
4609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4610 #: freeculture.xml:3411
4612 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), "
4613 "<citetitle>The Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003</citetitle>, "
4614 "July 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
4615 "#14</ulink>. See also Ben Hunt, <quote>Companies Warned on Music Piracy "
4616 "Risk,</quote> <citetitle>Financial Times</citetitle>, 14 February 2003, 11."
4619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4620 #: freeculture.xml:3405
4622 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
4623 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
4624 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
4625 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
4626 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
4627 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
4628 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
4631 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4632 #: freeculture.xml:3421
4634 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
4635 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
4636 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
4639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4640 #: freeculture.xml:3427
4642 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
4643 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
4644 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
4645 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
4646 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
4647 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
4651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4652 #: freeculture.xml:3436
4654 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
4655 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
4656 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
4657 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
4658 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
4659 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
4660 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
4661 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
4662 "legal wrong as well."
4665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4666 #: freeculture.xml:3447
4668 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
4669 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose <beginpage "
4670 "pagenum=\"77\"/> not to protect copyright internationally. We may have been "
4671 "born a pirate nation, but we will not allow any other nation to have a "
4672 "similar childhood."
4675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4676 #: freeculture.xml:3475
4677 msgid "agricultural patents"
4680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4681 #: freeculture.xml:3476 freeculture.xml:12553 freeculture.xml:12997 freeculture.xml:13004
4682 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
4685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4686 #: freeculture.xml:3460
4688 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: "
4689 "<citetitle>Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New "
4690 "Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual "
4691 "Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement obligates member nations to create "
4692 "administrative and enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights, "
4693 "a costly proposition for developing countries. Additionally, patent rights "
4694 "may lead to higher prices for staple industries such as agriculture. Critics "
4695 "of TRIPS question the disparity between burdens imposed upon developing "
4696 "countries and benefits conferred to industrialized nations. TRIPS does "
4697 "permit governments to use patents for public, noncommercial uses without "
4698 "first obtaining the patent holder's permission. Developing nations may be "
4699 "able to use this to gain the benefits of foreign patents at lower "
4700 "prices. This is a promising strategy for developing nations within the TRIPS "
4701 "framework. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4702 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4706 #: freeculture.xml:3455
4708 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
4709 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
4710 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
4711 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
4712 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
4713 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
4714 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
4717 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4718 #: freeculture.xml:3497 freeculture.xml:3767 freeculture.xml:14670
4719 msgid "Liebowitz, Stan"
4722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4723 #: freeculture.xml:3490
4725 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
4726 "Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle> (New York: "
4727 "Amacom, 2002), 144–90. <quote>In some instances … the impact of "
4728 "piracy on the copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the "
4729 "work will be negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the "
4730 "individual engaging in pirating would not have purchased an original even if "
4731 "pirating were not an option.</quote> Ibid., 149. <placeholder "
4732 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4736 #: freeculture.xml:3484
4738 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
4739 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
4740 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
4741 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
4742 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4746 #: freeculture.xml:3501
4748 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
4749 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
4750 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
4751 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, <quote>You wouldn't go into "
4752 "Barnes & Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why "
4753 "should it be any different with on-line music?</quote> The difference is, of "
4754 "course, that when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less "
4755 "book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, "
4756 "there is not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the "
4757 "intangible are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
4761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4762 #: freeculture.xml:3514
4764 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
4765 "right of a very special sort, it <emphasis>is</emphasis> a property "
4766 "right. Like all property rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to "
4767 "decide the terms under which content is shared. If the copyright owner "
4768 "doesn't want to sell, she doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important "
4769 "statutory licenses that apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish "
4770 "of the copyright owner. Those licenses give people the right to "
4771 "<quote>take</quote> copyrighted content whether or not the copyright owner "
4772 "wants to sell. But where the law does not give people the right to take "
4773 "content, it is wrong to take that content even if the wrong does no harm. If "
4774 "we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the "
4775 "technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the "
4776 "permission of a property owner. That is exactly what <quote>property</quote> "
4780 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4781 #: freeculture.xml:3544 freeculture.xml:3572 freeculture.xml:11385 freeculture.xml:12878 freeculture.xml:13433
4782 msgid "GNU/Linux operating system"
4785 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4786 #: freeculture.xml:3545 freeculture.xml:3575 freeculture.xml:11387 freeculture.xml:12879 freeculture.xml:13434
4787 msgid "Linux operating system"
4790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4791 #: freeculture.xml:3547 freeculture.xml:5178
4795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><secondary>
4796 #: freeculture.xml:3548
4797 msgid "Windows operating system of"
4800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4801 #: freeculture.xml:3550
4805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4806 #: freeculture.xml:3533
4808 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
4809 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese "
4810 "<quote>steal</quote> Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on "
4811 "Microsoft. Microsoft loses the value of the software that was taken. But it "
4812 "gains users who are used to life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the "
4813 "nation grows more wealthy, more and more people will buy software rather "
4814 "than steal it. And hence over time, because that buying will benefit "
4815 "Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from the piracy. If instead of pirating "
4816 "Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system, "
4817 "then these Chinese users would not eventually be buying Microsoft. Without "
4818 "piracy, then, Microsoft would lose. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4819 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
4820 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
4823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4824 #: freeculture.xml:3553
4826 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
4827 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
4828 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
4829 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
4830 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
4831 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
4834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4835 #: freeculture.xml:3573
4836 msgid "Internet Explorer"
4839 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4840 #: freeculture.xml:3574
4844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4845 #: freeculture.xml:3561
4847 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
4848 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
4849 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
4850 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
4851 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
4852 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
4853 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
4854 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
4855 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
4856 "access, then violating the law is still wrong. <placeholder "
4857 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
4858 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4864 #: freeculture.xml:3579
4866 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
4867 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
4868 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
4869 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
4870 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
4871 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
4872 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
4875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4876 #: freeculture.xml:3589
4878 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
4879 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all <quote>piracy</quote> "
4880 "is. Or at least, not all <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong if that term is "
4881 "understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of "
4882 "<quote>piracy</quote> are useful and productive, to produce either new "
4883 "content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any "
4884 "tradition has ever banned all <quote>piracy</quote> in that sense of the "
4888 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4889 #: freeculture.xml:3598
4891 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
4892 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
4893 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
4894 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
4897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4898 #: freeculture.xml:3604
4900 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
4901 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
4902 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
4903 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
4906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4907 #: freeculture.xml:3610
4909 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
4910 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
4913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4914 #: freeculture.xml:3616
4919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4920 #: freeculture.xml:3621
4922 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
4923 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
4927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4928 #: freeculture.xml:3618
4930 "The key to the <quote>piracy</quote> that the law aims to quash is a use "
4931 "that <quote>rob[s] the author of [his] profit.</quote><placeholder "
4932 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This means we must determine whether and how "
4933 "much p2p sharing harms before we know how strongly the law should seek to "
4934 "either prevent it or find an alternative to assure the author of his profit."
4937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4938 #: freeculture.xml:3629 freeculture.xml:3636
4942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4943 #: freeculture.xml:3646 freeculture.xml:8255
4944 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
4947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4948 #: freeculture.xml:3636
4950 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Clayton M. Christensen, "
4951 "<citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller "
4952 "That Changed the Way We Do Business</citetitle> (New York: HarperBusiness, "
4953 "2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that give rise to and "
4954 "dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up with the most "
4955 "creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This job usually "
4956 "falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology in inventive "
4957 "ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence Lessig, "
4958 "<citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 89–92, 139. <placeholder "
4959 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4962 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4963 #: freeculture.xml:3649
4964 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
4967 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4968 #: freeculture.xml:3631
4970 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
4971 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
4972 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
4973 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
4974 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
4975 "independently. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4980 #: freeculture.xml:3657
4982 "See Carolyn Lochhead, <quote>Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood "
4983 "Nightmare,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 "
4984 "September 2002, A1; <quote>Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,</quote> <citetitle>New "
4985 "Scientist</citetitle>, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, <quote>Napster "
4986 "Names CEO, Secures New Financing,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
4987 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 23 May 2003, C1; <quote>Napster's Wake-Up "
4988 "Call,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 24 June 2000, 23; John "
4989 "Naughton, <quote>Hollywood at War with the Internet</quote> (London) "
4990 "<citetitle>Times</citetitle>, 26 July 2002, 18."
4993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4994 #: freeculture.xml:3652
4996 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
4997 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
4998 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
4999 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
5000 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
5001 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
5002 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
5003 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
5004 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
5005 "or your 20,000 best friends."
5009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5010 #: freeculture.xml:3679
5012 "See Ipsos-Insight, <citetitle>TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music "
5013 "Distribution</citetitle> (September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of "
5014 "Americans aged twelve and older have downloaded music off of the Internet "
5015 "and 30 percent have listened to digital music files stored on their "
5020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5021 #: freeculture.xml:3688
5023 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,</quote> "
5024 "<citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 6 June 2003, A1."
5027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5028 #: freeculture.xml:3673
5030 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
5031 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
5032 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
5033 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
5034 "by the NPD group quoted in <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> "
5035 "estimated that 43 million citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange "
5036 "content in May 2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast "
5037 "majority of these are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive "
5038 "quantity of content is being <quote>taken</quote> on these networks. The "
5039 "ease and inexpensiveness of file-sharing networks have inspired millions to "
5040 "enjoy music in a way that they hadn't before."
5043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5044 #: freeculture.xml:3697
5046 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
5047 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
5048 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
5049 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
5050 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
5051 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
5055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5056 #: freeculture.xml:3707
5058 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
5059 "kinds into four types."
5062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5063 #: freeculture.xml:3713
5065 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
5066 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
5067 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
5068 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
5069 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
5070 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
5071 "of purchasing. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5076 #: freeculture.xml:3724
5078 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
5079 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
5080 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
5081 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
5082 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
5083 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
5084 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
5088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5089 #: freeculture.xml:3735
5091 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
5092 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
5093 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
5094 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
5095 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
5096 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
5097 "solid weekend <quote>recalling</quote> old songs. She was astonished at the "
5098 "range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is "
5099 "still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright "
5100 "owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is "
5101 "zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s "
5102 "45-rpm records to a local collector."
5107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5108 #: freeculture.xml:3752
5110 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
5111 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
5114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5115 #: freeculture.xml:3758
5116 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
5119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5120 #: freeculture.xml:3766
5122 "See Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle>, "
5123 "148–49. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5127 #: freeculture.xml:3761
5129 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
5130 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
5131 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
5132 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
5133 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
5134 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is "
5135 "not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard "
5136 "question to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current "
5137 "rhetoric around the issue suggests."
5140 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5141 #: freeculture.xml:3777
5143 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
5144 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
5145 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
5146 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
5147 "type A sharing is a kind of <quote>theft</quote> that is "
5148 "<quote>devastating</quote> the industry."
5152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5153 #: freeculture.xml:3792
5155 "See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, <citetitle>Technology Evolution and the "
5156 "Music Industry's Business Model Crisis</citetitle> (2003), 3. This report "
5157 "describes the music industry's effort to stigmatize the budding practice of "
5158 "cassette taping in the 1970s, including an advertising campaign featuring a "
5159 "cassette-shape skull and the caption <quote>Home taping is killing "
5160 "music.</quote> At the time digital audio tape became a threat, the Office of "
5161 "Technical Assessment conducted a survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 "
5162 "percent of consumers older than ten had taped music to a cassette "
5163 "format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, "
5164 "<citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the "
5165 "Law</citetitle>, OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing "
5166 "Office, October 1989), 145–56."
5169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5170 #: freeculture.xml:3785
5172 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
5173 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
5174 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
5175 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "
5176 "<quote>Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels "
5177 "fought it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels "
5178 "claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales "
5179 "fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was "
5180 "proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was "
5185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5186 #: freeculture.xml:3818
5187 msgid "U.S. Congress, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying</citetitle>, 4."
5190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5191 #: freeculture.xml:3810
5193 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
5194 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record "
5195 "turnaround. <quote>In the end,</quote> Cap Gemini concludes, <quote>the "
5196 "`crisis' … was not the fault of the tapers—who did not [stop "
5197 "after MTV came into being]—but had to a large extent resulted from "
5198 "stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels.</quote><placeholder "
5199 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5202 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5203 #: freeculture.xml:3822
5205 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
5206 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
5207 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
5208 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
5209 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
5210 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also "
5211 "<emphasis>how</emphasis> harmful type A sharing is, and how beneficial the "
5212 "other types of sharing are."
5215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5216 #: freeculture.xml:3832
5218 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
5219 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
5220 "<quote>net harm</quote> to the industry as a whole is the amount by which "
5221 "type A sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records "
5222 "through sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks "
5223 "would actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
5224 "little <emphasis>static</emphasis> reason to resist them."
5227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5228 #: freeculture.xml:3843
5230 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
5231 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
5232 "it might be close."
5236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5237 #: freeculture.xml:3852
5239 "See Recording Industry Association of America, <citetitle>2002 Yearend "
5240 "Statistics</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5241 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #15</ulink>. A later report "
5242 "indicates even greater losses. See Recording Industry Association of "
5243 "America, <citetitle>Some Facts About Music Piracy</citetitle>, 25 June 2003, "
5244 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #16</ulink>: "
5245 "<quote>In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen "
5246 "by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 in the "
5247 "United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues are "
5248 "down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based on "
5249 "U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone from "
5250 "a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 (based "
5251 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments).</quote>"
5254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5255 #: freeculture.xml:3879
5259 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5260 #: freeculture.xml:3876
5262 "Jane Black, <quote>Big Music's Broken Record,</quote> BusinessWeek online, "
5263 "13 February 2003, available at <ulink "
5264 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #17</ulink>. <placeholder "
5265 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5269 #: freeculture.xml:3848
5271 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
5272 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
5273 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
5274 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
5275 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
5276 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
5277 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
5278 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. <quote>From 1999 to "
5279 "2001, the average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to "
5280 "$14.19.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from "
5281 "other forms of media could also account for some of the decline. As Jane "
5282 "Black of <citetitle>BusinessWeek</citetitle> notes, <quote>The soundtrack to "
5283 "the film <citetitle>High Fidelity</citetitle> has a list price of "
5284 "$18.98. You could get the whole movie [on DVD] for "
5285 "$19.99.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
5289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5290 #: freeculture.xml:3894
5292 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
5293 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
5294 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
5295 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
5296 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
5300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5301 #: freeculture.xml:3902
5303 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
5304 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
5305 "industry constantly asks, <quote>What's the difference between downloading a "
5306 "song and stealing a CD?</quote>—but their own numbers reveal the "
5307 "difference. If I steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking "
5308 "is a lost sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is "
5309 "absolutely clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download "
5310 "were a lost sale—if every use of Kazaa <quote>rob[bed] the author of "
5311 "[his] profit</quote>—then the industry would have suffered a 100 "
5312 "percent drop in sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the "
5313 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped "
5314 "by just 6.7 percent, then there is a huge difference between "
5315 "<quote>downloading a song and stealing a CD.</quote>"
5318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5319 #: freeculture.xml:3917
5321 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
5322 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
5323 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
5327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5328 #: freeculture.xml:3929
5330 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
5331 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
5332 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
5333 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
5334 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
5335 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
5338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5339 #: freeculture.xml:3923
5341 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
5342 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
5343 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
5344 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5345 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
5346 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
5347 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
5348 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
5349 "<emphasis>to the company</emphasis> to make it available."
5353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5354 #: freeculture.xml:3949
5356 "While there are not good estimates of the number of used record stores in "
5357 "existence, in 2002, there were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, "
5358 "an increase of 20 percent since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, <citetitle>The "
5359 "Quiet Revolution: The Expansion of the Used Book Market</citetitle> (2002), "
5360 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
5361 "#19</ulink>. Used records accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See "
5362 "National Association of Recording Merchandisers, <quote>2002 Annual Survey "
5363 "Results,</quote> available at <ulink "
5364 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
5367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5368 #: freeculture.xml:3943
5370 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
5371 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
5372 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
5373 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
5374 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
5375 "sell this content, <emphasis>even if the content is still under "
5376 "copyright</emphasis>, the copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and "
5377 "record stores are commercial entities; their owners make money from the "
5378 "content they sell; but as with cable companies before statutory licensing, "
5379 "they don't have to pay the copyright owner for the content they sell."
5382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5383 #: freeculture.xml:3969
5384 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
5387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5388 #: freeculture.xml:3971
5390 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
5391 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
5392 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
5393 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
5394 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
5395 "of Bernstein's <quote>Two Love Songs,</quote> I still have it. That "
5396 "difference would matter economically if the owner of the copyright were "
5397 "selling the record in competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the "
5398 "class of content that is not currently commercially available. The Internet "
5399 "is making it available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with "
5403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5404 #: freeculture.xml:3984
5406 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
5407 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
5408 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
5409 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
5410 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
5415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5416 #: freeculture.xml:3992
5418 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
5419 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
5420 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
5421 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
5422 "for example, released his first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
5423 "Kingdom</citetitle>, both free on-line and in bookstores on the same "
5424 "day. His (and his publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution "
5425 "would be a great advertisement for the <quote>real</quote> book. People "
5426 "would read part on-line, and then decide whether they liked the book or "
5427 "not. If they liked it, they would be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's "
5428 "content is type D content. If sharing networks enable his work to be spread, "
5429 "then both he and society are better off. (Actually, much better off: It is a "
5433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5434 #: freeculture.xml:4009
5436 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
5437 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
5438 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
5439 "important in order to protect type A content."
5442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5443 #: freeculture.xml:4015
5445 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
5446 "says, <quote>This is how much we've lost,</quote> we must also ask, "
5447 "<quote>How much has society gained from p2p sharing? What are the "
5448 "efficiencies? What is the content that otherwise would be "
5449 "unavailable?</quote>"
5452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5453 #: freeculture.xml:4022
5455 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
5456 "of the <quote>piracy</quote> that file sharing enables is plainly legal and "
5457 "good. And like the piracy I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
5458 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"pirates\"/>, much of this piracy is motivated by a "
5459 "new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
5460 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
5461 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
5462 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
5463 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
5464 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
5465 "balance will be found only with time."
5468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5469 #: freeculture.xml:4036
5471 "<quote>But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the "
5472 "target just what you call type A sharing?</quote>"
5476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5477 #: freeculture.xml:4053
5479 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
5480 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
5481 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
5482 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, "
5483 "<citetitle>All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's "
5484 "Napster</citetitle> (New York: Crown Business, 2003), 269–82."
5487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5488 #: freeculture.xml:4040
5490 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
5491 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
5492 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
5493 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
5494 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
5495 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
5496 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements <quote>down to "
5497 "zero.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5501 #: freeculture.xml:4064
5503 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
5504 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
5505 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
5506 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
5507 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
5508 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
5509 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
5510 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
5511 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
5514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5515 #: freeculture.xml:4075
5517 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
5518 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
5519 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
5520 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
5521 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
5522 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
5526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5527 #: freeculture.xml:4088
5529 "So, as we've seen, when <quote>mechanical reproduction</quote> threatened "
5530 "the interests of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers "
5531 "against the interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to "
5532 "composers, but also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but "
5533 "at a price set by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the "
5534 "recordings made by these recording artists, and they complained to Congress "
5535 "that their <quote>creative property</quote> was not being respected (since "
5536 "the radio station did not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), "
5537 "Congress rejected their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
5540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5541 #: freeculture.xml:4100
5543 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
5544 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
5545 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
5546 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
5547 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
5551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5552 #: freeculture.xml:4110
5554 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
5555 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
5556 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
5557 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
5558 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
5559 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
5560 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
5561 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
5562 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
5563 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
5564 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure "
5565 "<emphasis>compensation</emphasis> without giving the past (broadcasters) "
5566 "control over the future (cable)."
5569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5570 #: freeculture.xml:4125
5574 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5575 #: freeculture.xml:4127
5577 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
5578 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
5579 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
5580 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
5581 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
5582 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
5583 "device that Sony built had a <quote>record</quote> button, the device could "
5584 "be used to record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore "
5585 "benefiting from the copyright infringement of its customers. It should "
5586 "therefore, Disney and Universal claimed, be partially liable for that "
5591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5592 #: freeculture.xml:4140
5594 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
5595 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
5596 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
5597 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
5598 "only if there were a special <quote>copy me</quote> signal on the line. It "
5599 "was clear that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone "
5600 "permission to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of "
5601 "shows would not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious "
5602 "preference, Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity "
5603 "for copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
5604 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
5608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5609 #: freeculture.xml:4162
5611 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
5612 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
5613 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
5614 "of America, Inc.)."
5618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5619 #: freeculture.xml:4174
5620 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
5624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5625 #: freeculture.xml:4179
5627 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
5628 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 480 F. Supp. 429, (C.D. Cal., 1979)."
5632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5633 #: freeculture.xml:4190
5635 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
5639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5640 #: freeculture.xml:4155
5642 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
5643 "called VCRs <quote>tapeworms.</quote> He warned, <quote>When there are 20, "
5644 "30, 40 million of these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of "
5645 "`tapeworms,' eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious "
5646 "asset the copyright owner has, his copyright.</quote><placeholder "
5647 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <quote>One does not have to be trained in "
5648 "sophisticated marketing and creative judgment,</quote> he told Congress, "
5649 "<quote>to understand the devastation on the after-theater marketplace caused "
5650 "by the hundreds of millions of tapings that will adversely impact on the "
5651 "future of the creative community in this country. It is simply a question of "
5652 "basic economics and plain common sense.</quote><placeholder "
5653 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would later show, percent of "
5654 "VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or more<placeholder "
5655 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would later hold was "
5656 "not <quote>fair.</quote> By <quote>allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
5657 "means of an exemption from copyright infringementwithout creating a "
5658 "mechanism to compensate copyrightowners,</quote> Valenti testified, Congress "
5659 "would <quote>take from the owners the very essence of their property: the "
5660 "exclusive right to control who may use their work, that is, who may copy it "
5661 "and thereby profit from its reproduction.</quote><placeholder "
5662 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"3\"/>"
5666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5667 #: freeculture.xml:4207
5669 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
5670 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th Cir. 1981)."
5673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5674 #: freeculture.xml:4210
5675 msgid "Kozinski, Alex"
5678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5679 #: freeculture.xml:4195
5681 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
5682 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
5683 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
5684 "refers to it as the <quote>Hollywood Circuit</quote>—held that Sony "
5685 "would be liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its "
5686 "machines. Under the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar "
5687 "technology—which Jack Valenti had called <quote>the Boston Strangler "
5688 "of the American film industry</quote> (worse yet, it was a "
5689 "<emphasis>Japanese</emphasis> Boston Strangler of the American film "
5690 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5691 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5696 #: freeculture.xml:4213
5698 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
5699 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
5700 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
5704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5705 #: freeculture.xml:4232
5707 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
5708 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 431 (1984)."
5711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
5712 #: freeculture.xml:4222
5714 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
5715 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
5716 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
5717 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
5718 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
5719 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5723 #: freeculture.xml:4237
5725 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
5726 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
5727 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
5728 "<quote>taking</quote> notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a "
5732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5733 #: freeculture.xml:4248
5737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5738 #: freeculture.xml:4249
5739 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS <quote>PIRATED</quote>"
5742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5743 #: freeculture.xml:4250
5744 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
5747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5748 #: freeculture.xml:4251
5749 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
5752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5753 #: freeculture.xml:4256
5757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5758 #: freeculture.xml:4257
5762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5763 #: freeculture.xml:4258 freeculture.xml:4270 freeculture.xml:4276
5764 msgid "No protection"
5767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5768 #: freeculture.xml:4259 freeculture.xml:4271
5769 msgid "Statutory license"
5772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5773 #: freeculture.xml:4263
5774 msgid "Recording artists"
5777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5778 #: freeculture.xml:4264
5782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5783 #: freeculture.xml:4265 freeculture.xml:4277
5787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5788 #: freeculture.xml:4269
5789 msgid "Broadcasters"
5792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5793 #: freeculture.xml:4274
5797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5798 #: freeculture.xml:4275
5799 msgid "Film creators"
5802 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5803 #: freeculture.xml:4287
5805 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
5806 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
5807 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
5808 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
5809 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
5810 "<citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. "
5811 "4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not "
5812 "eliminate the opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See "
5813 "Lessig, <citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 71. See also Picker, <quote>From "
5814 "Edison to the Broadcast Flag,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law "
5815 "Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 293–96. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
5816 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5819 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5820 #: freeculture.xml:4284
5822 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
5823 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
5824 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a "
5825 "<quote>free ride</quote> on someone else's work."
5829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5830 #: freeculture.xml:4305
5832 "In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these cases did either the courts or "
5833 "Congress eliminate all free riding. In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these "
5834 "cases did the courts or Congress insist that the law should assure that the "
5835 "copyright holder get all the value that his copyright created. In every "
5836 "case, the copyright owners complained of <quote>piracy.</quote> In every "
5837 "case, Congress acted to recognize some of the legitimacy in the behavior of "
5838 "the <quote>pirates.</quote> In each case, Congress allowed some new "
5839 "technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced the interests at "
5843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5844 #: freeculture.xml:4317
5846 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
5847 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
5848 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
5849 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
5850 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
5851 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
5852 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
5853 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
5857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5858 #: freeculture.xml:4334
5860 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
5861 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
5864 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5865 #: freeculture.xml:4329
5867 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
5868 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
5869 "<quote>has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all "
5870 "possible uses of his work.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
5871 "Instead, the particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by "
5872 "balancing the good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the "
5873 "burdens such an exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically "
5874 "been done <emphasis>after</emphasis> a technology has matured, or settled "
5875 "into the mix of technologies that facilitate the distribution of content."
5878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5879 #: freeculture.xml:4345
5881 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
5882 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
5883 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
5884 "become a tool for <quote>stealing</quote> from artists. But neither should "
5885 "the law become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or "
5886 "more accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the "
5887 "last chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we "
5888 "allow the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
5889 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
5890 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
5891 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
5895 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5896 #: freeculture.xml:4369
5898 "John Schwartz, <quote>New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software "
5899 "Echoes Past Efforts,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 22 "
5900 "September 2003, C3."
5903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5904 #: freeculture.xml:4361
5906 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
5907 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
5908 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
5909 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
5910 "<quote>potential public benefits,</quote> as John Schwartz writes in "
5911 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, <quote>could be delayed in the "
5912 "P2P fight.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Yet when anyone "
5913 "begins to talk about <quote>balance,</quote> the copyright warriors raise a "
5914 "different argument. <quote>All this hand waving about balance and "
5915 "incentives,</quote> they say, <quote>misses a fundamental point. Our "
5916 "content,</quote> the warriors insist, <quote>is our "
5917 "<emphasis>property</emphasis>. Why should we wait for Congress to "
5918 "`rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait before calling the "
5919 "police when your car has been stolen? And why should Congress deliberate at "
5920 "all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether the car thief had a "
5921 "good use for the car before we arrest him?</quote>"
5924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5925 #: freeculture.xml:4383
5927 "<quote>It is <emphasis>our property</emphasis>,</quote> the warriors "
5928 "insist. <quote>And it should be protected just as any other property is "
5929 "protected.</quote>"
5932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
5933 #: freeculture.xml:4392
5934 msgid "<quote>PROPERTY</quote>"
5938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
5939 #: freeculture.xml:4397
5941 "The copyright warriors are right: A copyright is a kind of property. It can "
5942 "be owned and sold, and the law protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the "
5943 "copyright owner gets to hold out for any price he wants. Markets reckon the "
5944 "supply and demand that partially determine the price she can get."
5947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
5948 #: freeculture.xml:4404
5950 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a <quote>property</quote> "
5951 "right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of "
5952 "property. Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression "
5953 "is very odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you "
5954 "put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I "
5955 "take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good "
5956 "<emphasis>idea</emphasis> you had to put a picnic table in the "
5957 "backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting "
5958 "it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking then?"
5962 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
5963 #: freeculture.xml:4429
5965 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in "
5966 "<citetitle>The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</citetitle>, vol. 6 (Andrew "
5967 "A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
5970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
5971 #: freeculture.xml:4416
5973 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
5974 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
5975 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
5976 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
5977 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
5978 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
5979 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
5980 "copy the way someone else dresses), <quote>He who receives an idea from me, "
5981 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
5982 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.</quote><placeholder "
5983 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
5987 #: freeculture.xml:4435
5989 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
5990 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
5991 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
5992 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
5996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
5997 #: freeculture.xml:4448
5999 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
6000 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
6001 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
6002 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
6003 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, "
6004 "<quote>What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,</quote> "
6005 "<citetitle>Arizona Law Review</citetitle> 45 (2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
6008 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6009 #: freeculture.xml:4443
6011 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
6012 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
6013 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this "
6014 "<quote>property</quote> in its proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6019 #: freeculture.xml:4458
6021 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
6022 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of <quote>copyright material "
6023 "is property</quote> in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its "
6024 "limits? How does it function in practice? After these stories, the "
6025 "significance of this true statement—<quote>copyright material is "
6026 "property</quote>— will be a bit more clear, and its implications will "
6027 "be revealed as quite different from the implications that the copyright "
6028 "warriors would have us draw."
6031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6032 #: freeculture.xml:4471
6033 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
6036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6037 #: freeculture.xml:4472
6041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6042 #: freeculture.xml:4473 freeculture.xml:4615
6043 msgid "Branagh, Kenneth"
6046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6047 #: freeculture.xml:4475
6049 "William Shakespeare wrote <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> in "
6050 "1595. The play was first published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play "
6051 "that Shakespeare had written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, "
6052 "and the plays that he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture "
6053 "ever since. So deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped "
6054 "into our culture that we often don't even recognize their source. I once "
6055 "overheard someone commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: "
6056 "<quote>I liked it, but Shakespeare is so full of clichés.</quote>"
6059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6060 #: freeculture.xml:4490
6064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6065 #: freeculture.xml:4491
6066 msgid "Dryden, John"
6069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6070 #: freeculture.xml:4490
6072 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6073 "id=\"1\"/> Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with "
6074 "prominent eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and "
6075 "for his handsome <quote>definitive editions</quote> of classic works. In "
6076 "addition to <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle>, he published an "
6077 "astonishing array of works that still remain at the heart of the English "
6078 "canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, "
6079 "and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, <quote>Jacob Tonson, Bookseller,</quote> "
6080 "<citetitle>American Scholar</citetitle> 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
6084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6085 #: freeculture.xml:4503
6087 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6088 "Perspective</citetitle> (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), "
6093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6094 #: freeculture.xml:4486
6096 "In 1774, almost 180 years after <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> was "
6097 "written, the <quote>copy-right</quote> for the work was still thought by "
6098 "many to be the exclusive right of a single London publisher, Jacob "
6099 "Tonson.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most "
6100 "prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<placeholder "
6101 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who controlled bookselling in England during "
6102 "the eighteenth century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "
6103 "<quote>copy</quote> of books that they had acquired from authors. That "
6104 "perpetual right meant that no one else could publish copies of a book to "
6105 "which they held the copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; "
6106 "competition to produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated."
6109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6110 #: freeculture.xml:4525
6112 "As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely argues, it is erroneous to call this a "
6113 "<quote>copyright law.</quote> See Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and "
6114 "Copywrongs</citetitle>, 40. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6118 #: freeculture.xml:4516
6120 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
6121 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
6122 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
6123 "<quote>copyright</quote> act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated "
6124 "that all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, "
6125 "renewable once if the author was alive, and that all works already published "
6126 "by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
6127 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, <citetitle>Romeo and "
6128 "Juliet</citetitle> should have been free in 1731. So why was there any issue "
6129 "about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?"
6132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6133 #: freeculture.xml:4542
6134 msgid "Licensing Act (1662)"
6137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6138 #: freeculture.xml:4533
6140 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "
6141 "<quote>copyright</quote> was—indeed, no one had. At the time the "
6142 "English passed the Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing "
6143 "copyrights. The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, "
6144 "had expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as "
6145 "a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published. But "
6146 "after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the publishers, "
6147 "or <quote>Stationers,</quote> had an exclusive right to print books. "
6148 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6152 #: freeculture.xml:4545
6154 "There was no <emphasis>positive</emphasis> law, but that didn't mean that "
6155 "there was no law. The Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words "
6156 "of legislatures and the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern "
6157 "how people are to behave. We call the words from legislatures "
6158 "<quote>positive law.</quote> We call the words from judges <quote>common "
6159 "law.</quote> The common law sets the background against which legislatures "
6160 "legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that background only if it "
6161 "passes a law to displace it. And so the real question after the licensing "
6162 "statutes had expired was whether the common law protected a copyright, "
6163 "independent of any positive law."
6167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6168 #: freeculture.xml:4557
6170 "This question was important to the publishers, or "
6171 "<quote>booksellers,</quote> as they were called, because there was growing "
6172 "competition from foreign publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were "
6173 "increasingly publishing and exporting books to England. That competition "
6174 "reduced the profits of the Conger, which reacted by demanding that "
6175 "Parliament pass a law to again give them exclusive control over "
6176 "publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in the Statute of Anne."
6179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6180 #: freeculture.xml:4569
6182 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or <quote>proprietor</quote> of a "
6183 "book an exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, "
6184 "however, and to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller "
6185 "that right for a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright "
6186 "<quote>expired,</quote> and the work would then be free and could be "
6187 "published by anyone. Or so the legislature is thought to have believed."
6190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6191 #: freeculture.xml:4578
6193 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
6194 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
6195 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right <emphasis>at "
6199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6200 #: freeculture.xml:4584
6202 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
6203 "strong claim. Take <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> as an example: "
6204 "That play was written by Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into "
6205 "the world. He didn't take anybody's property when he created this play "
6206 "(that's a controversial claim, but never mind), and by his creating this "
6207 "play, he didn't make it any harder for others to craft a play. So why is it "
6208 "that the law would ever allow someone else to come along and take "
6209 "Shakespeare's play without his, or his estate's, permission? What reason is "
6210 "there to allow someone else to <quote>steal</quote> Shakespeare's work?"
6213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6214 #: freeculture.xml:4595
6216 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
6217 "the notion of <quote>copyright</quote> that existed at the time of the "
6218 "Statute of Anne. Second, we have to see something important about "
6219 "<quote>booksellers.</quote>"
6223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6224 #: freeculture.xml:4601
6226 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
6227 "apply the concept of <quote>copyright</quote> ever more broadly. But in "
6228 "1710, it wasn't so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The "
6229 "copyright was born as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others "
6230 "from reprinting a book. In 1710, the <quote>copy-right</quote> was a right "
6231 "to use a particular machine to replicate a particular work. It did not go "
6232 "beyond that very narrow right. It did not control any more generally how a "
6233 "work could be <emphasis>used</emphasis>. Today the right includes a large "
6234 "collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It grants the author "
6235 "the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to distribute, the "
6236 "exclusive right to perform, and so on."
6239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6240 #: freeculture.xml:4617
6242 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
6243 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
6244 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
6245 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
6246 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
6247 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
6248 "<quote>copy-right</quote> was only an exclusive right to print—no "
6249 "less, of course, but also no more."
6252 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6253 #: freeculture.xml:4626
6254 msgid "Henry VIII, King of England"
6257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6258 #: freeculture.xml:4627
6259 msgid "Statute of Monopolies (1656)"
6262 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6263 #: freeculture.xml:4629
6265 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
6266 "had a long and ugly experience with <quote>exclusive rights,</quote> "
6267 "especially <quote>exclusive rights</quote> granted by the Crown. The English "
6268 "had fought a civil war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
6269 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
6270 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
6271 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
6272 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
6273 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
6274 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
6277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6278 #: freeculture.xml:4642
6280 "Thus the <quote>copy-right,</quote> when viewed as a monopoly right, was "
6281 "naturally viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the "
6282 "claim that <quote>it's my property, and I should have it forever,</quote> "
6283 "try sounding convincing when uttering, <quote>It's my monopoly, and I should "
6284 "have it forever.</quote>) The state would protect the exclusive right, but "
6285 "only so long as it benefited society. The British saw the harms from "
6286 "specialinterest favors; they passed a law to stop them."
6290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6291 #: freeculture.xml:4666
6293 "Philip Wittenberg, <citetitle>The Protection and Marketing of Literary "
6294 "Property</citetitle> (New York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
6297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6298 #: freeculture.xml:4651
6300 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
6301 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
6302 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
6303 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
6304 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
6305 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
6306 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
6307 "described them as <quote>old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
6308 "book-selling</quote>; they were <quote>men who do not therefore labour in an "
6309 "honest profession to which learning is indetted.</quote><placeholder "
6310 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6314 #: freeculture.xml:4671
6316 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
6317 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
6318 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
6319 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
6320 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
6323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6324 #: freeculture.xml:4679
6326 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
6327 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
6328 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
6329 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
6330 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
6331 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
6332 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
6333 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
6337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6338 #: freeculture.xml:4691
6340 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
6341 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
6342 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
6343 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
6344 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
6345 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
6349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6350 #: freeculture.xml:4700
6352 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
6357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6358 #: freeculture.xml:4715
6360 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
6361 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
6362 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
6363 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
6364 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
6365 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
6366 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618)."
6369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
6370 #: freeculture.xml:4705
6372 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
6373 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
6374 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
6375 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
6376 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
6377 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
6378 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6382 #: freeculture.xml:4726
6384 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
6385 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
6386 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
6387 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
6388 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
6389 "already wrong to take another person's creative <quote>property</quote> and "
6390 "use it without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, "
6391 "didn't change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute "
6392 "of Anne expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: "
6393 "Under the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, "
6394 "even if its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was "
6395 "the only way to protect authors."
6398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6399 #: freeculture.xml:4747
6401 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <quote>Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair Use,</quote> "
6402 "<citetitle>Vanderbilt Law Review</citetitle> 40 (1987): 28. For a "
6403 "wonderfully compelling account, see Vaidhyanathan, 37–48. "
6404 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6408 #: freeculture.xml:4741
6410 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
6411 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
6412 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, <quote>The publishers "
6413 "… had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
6414 "cattle.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller "
6415 "didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the "
6416 "monopoly profit that the author's work gave."
6420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6421 #: freeculture.xml:4760
6423 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, <citetitle>Authorship and "
6424 "Copyright</citetitle> (London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
6427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6428 #: freeculture.xml:4756
6430 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
6431 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
6432 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6435 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6436 #: freeculture.xml:4772 freeculture.xml:14762
6440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6441 #: freeculture.xml:4770
6443 "Mark Rose, <citetitle>Authors and Owners</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard "
6444 "University Press, 1993), 92. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6448 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6449 #: freeculture.xml:4781
6453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6454 #: freeculture.xml:4783
6455 msgid "Boswell, James"
6458 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6459 #: freeculture.xml:4784
6460 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
6463 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6464 #: freeculture.xml:4765
6466 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
6467 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints "
6468 "<quote>of standard works whose copyright term had expired,</quote> at least "
6469 "under the Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6470 "Donaldson's publishing house prospered and became <quote>something of a "
6471 "center for literary Scotsmen.</quote> <quote>[A]mong them,</quote> Professor "
6472 "Mark Rose writes, was <quote>the young James Boswell who, together with his "
6473 "friend Andrew Erskine, published an anthology of contemporary Scottish poems "
6474 "with Donaldson.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
6475 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6481 #: freeculture.xml:4793
6483 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6484 "Perspective</citetitle>, 167 (quoting Borwell)."
6487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6488 #: freeculture.xml:4787
6490 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
6491 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
6492 "editions <quote>of the most popular English books, in defiance of the "
6493 "supposed common law right of Literary Property.</quote><placeholder "
6494 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to "
6495 "50 percent, and he rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under "
6496 "the Statute of Anne, the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
6499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6500 #: freeculture.xml:4801
6502 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block <quote>piracy</quote> "
6503 "like Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the "
6504 "<quote>pirates,</quote> the most important early victory being "
6505 "<citetitle>Millar</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Taylor</citetitle>."
6508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6509 #: freeculture.xml:4805
6510 msgid "Taylor, Robert"
6514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6515 #: freeculture.xml:4814
6517 "Howard B. Abrams, <quote>The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
6518 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Wayne Law "
6519 "Review</citetitle> 29 (1983): 1152."
6522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6523 #: freeculture.xml:4807
6525 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
6526 "Thomson's poem <quote>The Seasons.</quote> Millar complied with the "
6527 "requirements of the Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full "
6528 "protection of the statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor "
6529 "began printing a competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common "
6530 "law right, the Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder "
6531 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6535 #: freeculture.xml:4823
6537 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
6538 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
6539 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
6540 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
6541 "author against subsequent <quote>pirates.</quote> Mansfield's answer was "
6542 "yes: The common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without "
6543 "Millar's permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the "
6544 "booksellers a perpetual right to control the publication of any book "
6549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6550 #: freeculture.xml:4834
6552 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
6553 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
6554 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
6555 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
6556 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
6557 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
6558 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
6559 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
6560 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
6561 "the free culture that we inherited."
6564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6565 #: freeculture.xml:4849
6567 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
6568 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
6571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6572 #: freeculture.xml:4852
6573 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
6577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6578 #: freeculture.xml:4858
6579 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
6582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6583 #: freeculture.xml:4854
6585 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
6586 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
6587 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
6588 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
6589 "decision in <citetitle>Millar</citetitle>, got an injunction against "
6590 "Donaldson. Donaldson appealed the case to the House of Lords, which "
6591 "functioned much like our own Supreme Court. In February of 1774, that body "
6592 "had the chance to interpret the meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty "
6596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6597 #: freeculture.xml:4868
6599 "As few legal cases ever do, <citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> "
6600 "v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle> drew an enormous amount of attention "
6601 "throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever rights may have "
6602 "existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated those "
6603 "rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal protection for "
6604 "an exclusive right to control publication came from that statute. Thus, they "
6605 "argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne expired, works that "
6606 "had been protected by the statute were no longer protected."
6609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6610 #: freeculture.xml:4878
6612 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
6613 "the House and voted upon first by the <quote>law lords,</quote> members of "
6614 "special legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our "
6615 "Supreme Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally "
6620 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6621 #: freeculture.xml:4885
6623 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
6624 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
6625 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
6626 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
6627 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
6628 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
6632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6633 #: freeculture.xml:4903
6634 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
6637 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6638 #: freeculture.xml:4904
6639 msgid "Bunyan, John"
6642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6643 #: freeculture.xml:4905
6644 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
6647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6648 #: freeculture.xml:4906
6649 msgid "Milton, John"
6652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6653 #: freeculture.xml:4907
6654 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
6657 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6658 #: freeculture.xml:4895
6660 "<quote>The public domain.</quote> Before the case of "
6661 "<citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle>, there "
6662 "was no clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a "
6663 "strong argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the "
6664 "public domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the "
6665 "legal control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
6666 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
6667 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6668 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
6669 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> "
6670 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/>"
6674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6675 #: freeculture.xml:4920
6679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6680 #: freeculture.xml:4910
6682 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
6683 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
6684 "of the <quote>pirate publishers</quote> did their work, people celebrated "
6685 "the decision in the streets. As the <citetitle>Edinburgh "
6686 "Advertiser</citetitle> reported, <quote>No private cause has so much "
6687 "engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried before the "
6688 "House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
6689 "interested.</quote> <quote>Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over "
6690 "literary property: bonfires and illuminations.</quote><placeholder "
6691 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6695 #: freeculture.xml:4924
6697 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
6698 "strong in the opposite direction. The <citetitle>Morning "
6699 "Chronicle</citetitle> reported:"
6702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
6703 #: freeculture.xml:4930
6705 "By the above decision … near 200,000 pounds worth of what was "
6706 "honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property "
6707 "is now reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many "
6708 "of whom sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner "
6709 "ruined, and those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a "
6710 "competency to provide for their families now find themselves without a "
6711 "shilling to devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6717 #: freeculture.xml:4945
6719 "<quote>Ruined</quote> is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an "
6720 "exaggeration to say that the change was profound. The decision of the House "
6721 "of Lords meant that the booksellers could no longer control how culture in "
6722 "England would grow and develop. Culture in England was thereafter "
6723 "<emphasis>free</emphasis>. Not in the sense that copyrights would not be "
6724 "respected, for of course, for a limited time after a work was published, the "
6725 "bookseller had an exclusive right to control the publication of that "
6726 "book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, for even after a "
6727 "copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from someone. But "
6728 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> in the sense that the culture and its growth would "
6729 "no longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
6730 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
6731 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
6732 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
6733 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a "
6734 "<emphasis>competitive context</emphasis>, not a context in which the choices "
6735 "about what culture is available to people and how they get access to it are "
6736 "made by the few despite the wishes of the many."
6739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6740 #: freeculture.xml:4966
6742 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
6743 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
6744 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
6747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6748 #: freeculture.xml:4974
6749 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
6752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6753 #: freeculture.xml:4976
6755 "Jon Else is a filmmaker. He is best known for his documentaries and has been "
6756 "very successful in spreading his art. He is also a teacher, and as a teacher "
6757 "myself, I envy the loyalty and admiration that his students feel for him. (I "
6758 "met, by accident, two of his students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
6761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6762 #: freeculture.xml:4983
6764 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
6765 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
6768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6769 #: freeculture.xml:4994 freeculture.xml:5063
6770 msgid "San Francisco Opera"
6773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6774 #: freeculture.xml:4988
6776 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
6777 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
6778 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
6779 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
6780 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage. <placeholder "
6781 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6786 #: freeculture.xml:4997
6788 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
6789 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
6790 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
6791 "played Wagner, was <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. As Else judged it, "
6792 "this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special about "
6796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6797 #: freeculture.xml:5006
6799 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
6800 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of <citetitle>The "
6801 "Simpsons</citetitle>. For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and "
6802 "of course, to use copyrighted material you need the permission of the "
6803 "copyright owner, unless <quote>fair use</quote> or some other privilege "
6807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6808 #: freeculture.xml:5018 freeculture.xml:5026
6809 msgid "Gracie Films"
6812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6813 #: freeculture.xml:5013
6815 "Else called <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> creator Matt Groening's office "
6816 "to get permission. Groening approved the shot. The shot was a "
6817 "four-and-a-halfsecond image on a tiny television set in the corner of the "
6818 "room. How could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he "
6819 "told Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program. "
6820 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6824 #: freeculture.xml:5021
6826 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
6827 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
6828 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
6829 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
6830 "just confirming the permission with Fox. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6835 #: freeculture.xml:5029
6837 "Then, as Else told me, <quote>two things happened. First we discovered "
6838 "… that Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least "
6839 "that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.</quote> And "
6840 "second, Fox <quote>wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to "
6841 "use this four-point-five seconds of … entirely unsolicited "
6842 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> which was in the corner of the shot.</quote>"
6845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6846 #: freeculture.xml:5037
6848 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
6849 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
6850 "to her, <quote>There must be some mistake here. … We're asking for "
6851 "your educational rate on this.</quote> That was the educational rate, "
6852 "Herrera told Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he "
6857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6858 #: freeculture.xml:5045
6860 "<quote>I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,</quote> he told "
6861 "me. <quote>Yes, you have your facts straight,</quote> she said. It would "
6862 "cost $10,000 to use the clip of <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle> in the "
6863 "corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's Ring Cycle. And then, "
6864 "astonishingly, Herrera told Else, <quote>And if you quote me, I'll turn you "
6865 "over to our attorneys.</quote> As an assistant to Herrera told Else later "
6866 "on, <quote>They don't give a shit. They just want the money.</quote>"
6869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
6870 #: freeculture.xml:5064
6871 msgid "Day After Trinity, The"
6874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6875 #: freeculture.xml:5057
6877 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
6878 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
6879 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
6880 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
6881 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, <citetitle>The Day "
6882 "After Trinity</citetitle>, from ten years before. <placeholder "
6883 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6887 #: freeculture.xml:5067
6889 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
6890 "copyright to <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. That copyright is their "
6891 "property. To use that copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the "
6892 "permission of the copyright owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of "
6893 "the <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> copyright were one of the uses "
6894 "restricted by the law, then he would need to get the permission of the "
6895 "copyright owner before he could use the work in that way. And in a free "
6896 "market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set the price for any "
6897 "use that the law says the owner gets to control."
6900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6901 #: freeculture.xml:5078
6903 "For example, <quote>public performance</quote> is a use of <citetitle>The "
6904 "Simpsons</citetitle> that the copyright owner gets to control. If you take a "
6905 "selection of favorite episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets "
6906 "to come see <quote>My Favorite <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>,</quote> then "
6907 "you need to get permission from the copyright owner. And the copyright owner "
6908 "(rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she wants—$10 or "
6909 "$1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
6913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6914 #: freeculture.xml:5090
6916 "For an excellent argument that such use is <quote>fair use,</quote> but that "
6917 "lawyers don't permit recognition that it is <quote>fair use,</quote> see "
6918 "Richard A. Posner with William F. Patry, <quote>Fair Use and Statutory "
6919 "Reform in the Wake of <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle></quote> (draft on file "
6920 "with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August 2003."
6923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6924 #: freeculture.xml:5087
6926 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
6927 "is <quote>fair use.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's "
6928 "use of just 4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a "
6929 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> episode is clearly a fair use of "
6930 "<citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>—and fair use does not require the "
6931 "permission of anyone."
6935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6936 #: freeculture.xml:5102
6938 "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon <quote>fair use.</quote> Here's "
6942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
6943 #: freeculture.xml:5106
6945 "The <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> fiasco was for me a great lesson in the "
6946 "gulf between what lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what "
6947 "is crushingly relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make "
6948 "and broadcast documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was "
6949 "<quote>clearly fair use</quote> in an absolute legal sense. But I couldn't "
6950 "rely on the concept in any concrete way. Here's why:"
6954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6955 #: freeculture.xml:5116
6957 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
6958 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed <quote>visual cue "
6959 "sheet</quote> listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
6960 "film. They take a dim view of <quote>fair use,</quote> and a claim of "
6961 "<quote>fair use</quote> can grind the application process to a halt."
6964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
6965 #: freeculture.xml:5123
6966 msgid "<citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle>"
6969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para><indexterm><primary>
6970 #: freeculture.xml:5135
6971 msgid "Lucas, George"
6974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6975 #: freeculture.xml:5126
6977 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
6978 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
6979 "stopping unlicensed <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> usage, just as George "
6980 "Lucas had a very high profile litigating <citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle> "
6981 "usage. So I decided to play by the book, thinking that we would be granted "
6982 "free or cheap license to four seconds of <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>. As "
6983 "a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, the last thing "
6984 "I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal trouble, and even to "
6985 "defend a principle. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6991 #: freeculture.xml:5139
6993 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
6994 "… who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox "
6995 "would <quote>depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,</quote> "
6996 "regardless of the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down "
6997 "to who had the bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
7001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7002 #: freeculture.xml:5149
7004 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
7005 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
7008 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7009 #: freeculture.xml:5156
7011 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
7012 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
7013 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
7014 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
7015 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
7016 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
7019 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7020 #: freeculture.xml:5164
7022 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
7023 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
7024 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
7025 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
7028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7029 #: freeculture.xml:5173
7030 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
7033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7034 #: freeculture.xml:5174
7038 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
7039 #: freeculture.xml:5176 freeculture.xml:5241 freeculture.xml:5425 freeculture.xml:9864 freeculture.xml:14141
7043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7044 #: freeculture.xml:5180
7046 "In 1993, Alex Alben was a lawyer working at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an "
7047 "innovative company founded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen to develop "
7048 "digital entertainment. Long before the Internet became popular, Starwave "
7049 "began investing in new technology for delivering entertainment in "
7050 "anticipation of the power of networks."
7053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7054 #: freeculture.xml:5188
7055 msgid "retrospective compilations on"
7058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7059 #: freeculture.xml:5191
7061 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
7062 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
7063 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
7064 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
7065 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
7066 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
7067 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
7070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7071 #: freeculture.xml:5201
7073 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
7074 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
7075 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
7076 "include them on the CD."
7080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7081 #: freeculture.xml:5208
7083 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
7084 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
7085 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
7086 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
7087 "permission for that content."
7090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7091 #: freeculture.xml:5215
7093 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. <quote>Our "
7094 "goal was that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's "
7095 "films,</quote> Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. <quote>No "
7096 "one had ever really done this before,</quote> Alben explained. <quote>No one "
7097 "had ever tried to do this in the context of an artistic look at an actor's "
7101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7102 #: freeculture.xml:5223
7104 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
7105 "<quote>Well, what will it take?</quote>"
7108 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
7109 #: freeculture.xml:5239
7110 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
7113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7114 #: freeculture.xml:5233
7116 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
7117 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
7118 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden <quote>Rip, Mix, Burn</quote> "
7119 "creativity, as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7120 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7124 #: freeculture.xml:5227
7126 "Alben replied, <quote>Well, we're going to have to clear rights from "
7127 "everyone who appears in these films, and the music and everything else that "
7128 "we want to use in these film clips.</quote> Slade said, <quote>Great! Go for "
7129 "it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7133 #: freeculture.xml:5245
7135 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
7136 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
7137 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
7138 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
7139 "Starwave was to do."
7142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7143 #: freeculture.xml:5252
7145 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
7146 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
7147 "recounted just what they did:"
7150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7151 #: freeculture.xml:5258
7153 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
7154 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
7155 "going to use the <quote>Make my day</quote> clip from <citetitle>Dirty "
7156 "Harry</citetitle>. But you then need to get the guy on the ground who's "
7157 "wiggling under the gun and you need to get his permission. And then you "
7158 "have to decide what you are going to pay him."
7162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7163 #: freeculture.xml:5267
7165 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
7166 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
7167 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
7168 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
7169 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
7170 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
7171 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
7172 "just started calling people."
7175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7176 #: freeculture.xml:5278
7177 msgid "Sutherland, Donald"
7180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7181 #: freeculture.xml:5280
7183 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
7184 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
7185 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, <quote>Hey, can I pay "
7186 "you $600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?</quote> And "
7187 "they would say, <quote>Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get "
7188 "$1,200.</quote> And some of course were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, "
7189 "in particular). But eventually, Alben and his team had cleared the rights to "
7190 "this retrospective CD-ROM on Clint Eastwood's career."
7193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7194 #: freeculture.xml:5291
7196 "It was one <emphasis>year</emphasis> later—<quote>and even then we "
7197 "weren't sure whether we were totally in the clear.</quote>"
7200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7201 #: freeculture.xml:5295
7203 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
7204 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
7205 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
7208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7209 #: freeculture.xml:5301
7211 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
7212 "and said, <quote>Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the "
7213 "music, there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the "
7214 "actors.</quote> But we just broke it down. We just put it into its "
7215 "constituent parts and said, <quote>Okay, there's this many actors, this many "
7216 "directors, … this many musicians,</quote> and we just went at it very "
7217 "systematically and cleared the rights."
7221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7222 #: freeculture.xml:5313
7224 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
7225 "and it sold very well."
7228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7229 #: freeculture.xml:5316
7230 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
7234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7235 #: freeculture.xml:5324
7237 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, "
7238 "<citetitle>Seven Steps to Performance-Based Services "
7239 "Acquisition</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
7240 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
7243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7244 #: freeculture.xml:5318
7246 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
7247 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
7248 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, <quote>There is "
7249 "nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
7250 "all.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I "
7251 "asked Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
7254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7255 #: freeculture.xml:5332
7257 "For, as he acknowledged, <quote>very few … have the time and "
7258 "resources, and the will to do this,</quote> and thus, very few such works "
7259 "would ever be made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of "
7260 "what anybody really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, "
7261 "that you would have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
7264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7265 #: freeculture.xml:5340
7267 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
7268 "gets paid very well. … And then when 30 seconds of that performance "
7269 "is used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I "
7270 "don't think that that person … should be compensated for that."
7273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7274 #: freeculture.xml:5348
7276 "Or at least, is this <emphasis>how</emphasis> the artist should be "
7277 "compensated? Would it make sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of "
7278 "statutory license that someone could pay and be free to make derivative use "
7279 "of clips like this? Did it really make sense that a follow-on creator would "
7280 "have to track down every artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit "
7281 "permission from each? Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of "
7282 "the creative process could be made to be more clean?"
7286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7287 #: freeculture.xml:5359
7289 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
7290 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
7291 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
7292 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
7293 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
7294 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
7295 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
7296 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
7297 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
7298 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
7299 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
7300 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, <quote>Oh, "
7301 "I want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
7302 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for "
7303 "money,</quote> then it becomes difficult to put one of these things "
7307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7308 #: freeculture.xml:5379
7310 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
7311 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
7312 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
7313 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
7314 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high?"
7317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7318 #: freeculture.xml:5387
7320 "These costs are the burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat "
7321 "for a moment, and get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of "
7322 "these rights, and the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost "
7323 "to negotiate them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and "
7324 "imagine the pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from "
7325 "Los Angeles to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made "
7326 "sense; but as circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, "
7327 "a well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights "
7328 "and ask, <quote>Does this still make sense?</quote>"
7332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7333 #: freeculture.xml:5400
7335 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
7336 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
7337 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
7338 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
7339 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
7340 "Fairbank, had produced."
7343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7344 #: freeculture.xml:5410
7346 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
7347 "century, all framed around the idea of a <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> "
7348 "episode. The execution was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The "
7349 "judges loved every minute of it."
7352 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7353 #: freeculture.xml:5415
7354 msgid "Nimmer, David"
7357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7358 #: freeculture.xml:5417
7360 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
7361 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
7362 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
7363 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
7364 "question: <quote>Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in "
7365 "this room?</quote>"
7368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7369 #: freeculture.xml:5424
7370 msgid "Boies, David"
7373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7374 #: freeculture.xml:5427
7376 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
7377 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
7378 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
7379 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
7380 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
7381 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
7382 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
7383 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
7384 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
7385 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
7386 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
7387 "couldn't easily do them legally."
7390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7391 #: freeculture.xml:5442
7393 "We live in a <quote>cut and paste</quote> culture enabled by "
7394 "technology. Anyone building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom "
7395 "that the cut and paste architecture of the Internet created—in a "
7396 "second you can find just about any image you want; in another second, you "
7397 "can have it planted in your presentation."
7400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7401 #: freeculture.xml:5448
7406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7407 #: freeculture.xml:5450
7409 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
7410 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
7411 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
7412 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
7413 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
7414 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
7415 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
7419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7420 #: freeculture.xml:5461
7422 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
7423 "to be <quote>legal,</quote> the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
7424 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
7425 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
7426 "rules, it doesn't get released."
7429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7430 #: freeculture.xml:5468
7432 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
7433 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
7434 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
7435 "the <quote>free</quote> use be free as in <quote>free beer.</quote> Instead, "
7436 "the system could simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate "
7437 "artists without requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for "
7438 "example, that says <quote>the royalty owed the copyright owner of an "
7439 "unregistered work for the derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 "
7440 "percent of net revenues, to be held in escrow for the copyright "
7441 "owner.</quote> Under this rule, the copyright owner could benefit from some "
7442 "royalty, but he would not have the benefit of a full property right (meaning "
7443 "the right to name his own price) unless he registers the work."
7446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7447 #: freeculture.xml:5483
7449 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
7450 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
7451 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
7452 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
7456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7457 #: freeculture.xml:5489
7459 "In February 2003, DreamWorks studios announced an agreement with Mike Myers, "
7460 "the comic genius of <citetitle>Saturday Night Live</citetitle> and Austin "
7461 "Powers. According to the announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work "
7462 "together to form a <quote>unique filmmaking pact.</quote> Under the "
7463 "agreement, DreamWorks <quote>will acquire the rights to existing motion "
7464 "picture hits and classics, write new storylines and—with the use of "
7465 "stateof-the-art digital technology—insert Myers and other actors into "
7466 "the film, thereby creating an entirely new piece of entertainment.</quote>"
7469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7470 #: freeculture.xml:5501
7472 "The announcement called this <quote>film sampling.</quote> As Myers "
7473 "explained, <quote>Film Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin "
7474 "on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap "
7475 "artists have been doing this for years with music and now we are able to "
7476 "take that same concept and apply it to film.</quote> Steven Spielberg is "
7477 "quoted as saying, <quote>If anyone can create a way to bring old films to "
7478 "new audiences, it is Mike.</quote>"
7481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7482 #: freeculture.xml:5510
7484 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
7485 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
7486 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
7487 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
7488 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
7489 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
7490 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
7491 "famous—and presumably rich."
7494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7495 #: freeculture.xml:5520
7497 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
7498 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of <quote>fair "
7499 "use.</quote> Much of <quote>sampling</quote> should be considered "
7500 "<quote>fair use.</quote> But few would rely upon so weak a doctrine to "
7501 "create. That leads to the second reason that the privilege is reserved for "
7502 "the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights for the creative reuse of "
7503 "content are astronomically high. These costs mirror the costs with fair "
7504 "use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair use rights or pay a lawyer "
7505 "to track down permissions so you don't have to rely upon fair use "
7506 "rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of paying "
7507 "lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the few."
7510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7511 #: freeculture.xml:5535
7512 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
7515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7516 #: freeculture.xml:5537 freeculture.xml:8662 freeculture.xml:10882 freeculture.xml:11132
7517 msgid "archives, digital"
7520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7521 #: freeculture.xml:5540
7523 "In April 1996, millions of <quote>bots</quote>—computer codes designed "
7524 "to <quote>spider,</quote> or automatically search the Internet and copy "
7525 "content—began running across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied "
7526 "Internet-based information onto a small set of computers located in a "
7527 "basement in San Francisco's Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of "
7528 "the Internet, they started again. Over and over again, once every two "
7529 "months, these bits of code took copies of the Internet and stored them."
7532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7533 #: freeculture.xml:5549
7535 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
7536 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
7537 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
7538 "technology called <quote>the Way Back Machine,</quote> you could enter a Web "
7539 "page, and see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those "
7543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7544 #: freeculture.xml:5557
7545 msgid "Orwell, George"
7548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7549 #: freeculture.xml:5560
7551 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
7552 "the dystopia described in <citetitle>1984</citetitle>, old newspapers were "
7553 "constantly updated to assure that the current view of the world, approved of "
7554 "by the government, was not contradicted by previous news reports."
7558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7559 #: freeculture.xml:5568
7561 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
7562 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
7563 "printed on the date published on the paper."
7566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7567 #: freeculture.xml:5573
7569 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
7570 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
7571 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
7572 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
7573 "updated, without any reliable memory."
7576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
7577 #: freeculture.xml:5588
7578 msgid "White House press releases"
7581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7582 #: freeculture.xml:5587
7584 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7585 "id=\"1\"/> The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the "
7586 "White House changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, "
7587 "press release stated, <quote>Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.</quote> "
7588 "That was later changed, without notice, to <quote>Major Combat Operations in "
7589 "Iraq Have Ended.</quote> E-mail from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
7592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7593 #: freeculture.xml:5581
7595 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
7596 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
7597 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
7598 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
7599 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7603 #: freeculture.xml:5597
7605 "We take it for granted that we can go back to see what we remember "
7606 "reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted to study the reaction of your "
7607 "hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts in 1965, or to Bull Connor's "
7608 "water cannon in 1963, you could go to your public library and look at the "
7609 "newspapers. Those papers probably exist on microfiche. If you're lucky, they "
7610 "exist in paper, too. Either way, you are free, using a library, to go back "
7611 "and remember—not just what it is convenient to remember, but remember "
7612 "something close to the truth."
7615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7616 #: freeculture.xml:5608
7618 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
7619 "it. That's not quite correct. We <emphasis>all</emphasis> forget "
7620 "history. The key is whether we have a way to go back to rediscover what we "
7621 "forget. More directly, the key is whether an objective past can keep us "
7622 "honest. Libraries help do that, by collecting content and keeping it, for "
7623 "schoolchildren, for researchers, for grandma. A free society presumes this "
7628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7629 #: freeculture.xml:5617
7631 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
7632 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
7633 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
7634 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
7635 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
7636 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
7637 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
7640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7641 #: freeculture.xml:5628
7643 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
7644 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
7645 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
7646 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
7647 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
7648 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
7649 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
7650 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
7653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7654 #: freeculture.xml:5637
7655 msgid "Vanderbilt University"
7658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7659 #: freeculture.xml:5639
7661 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
7662 "history. At the end of 2002, it held <quote>two hundred and thirty terabytes "
7663 "of material</quote>—and was <quote>ten times larger than the Library "
7664 "of Congress.</quote> And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle "
7665 "set out to build. In addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been "
7666 "constructing the Television Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more "
7667 "ephemeral than the Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was "
7668 "constructed through television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is "
7669 "available for anyone to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each "
7670 "evening by Vanderbilt University—thanks to a specific exemption in the "
7671 "copyright law. That content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a "
7672 "very low fee. <quote>But other than that, [television] is almost "
7673 "unavailable,</quote> Kahle told me. <quote>If you were Barbara Walters you "
7674 "could get access to [the archives], but if you are just a graduate "
7675 "student?</quote> As Kahle put it,"
7678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
7679 #: freeculture.xml:5656
7684 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7685 #: freeculture.xml:5658
7687 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
7688 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
7689 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
7690 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
7691 "between the two, the <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> episode that came out "
7692 "after it … it would be almost impossible. … Those materials "
7693 "are almost unfindable. …"
7696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7697 #: freeculture.xml:5670
7699 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
7700 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
7701 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
7702 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
7703 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
7704 "media on twentieth-century America?"
7707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7708 #: freeculture.xml:5678
7710 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
7711 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
7712 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
7713 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
7714 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
7718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7719 #: freeculture.xml:5695
7721 "Doug Herrick, <quote>Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at "
7722 "the Library of Congress,</quote> <citetitle>Film Library "
7723 "Quarterly</citetitle> 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; Anthony Slide, "
7724 "<citetitle>Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United "
7725 "States</citetitle> ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
7728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7729 #: freeculture.xml:5686
7731 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
7732 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
7733 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
7734 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
7735 "more than 5,475 films deposited and <quote>borrowed back.</quote> Thus, when "
7736 "the copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The "
7737 "copy exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the "
7738 "film company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7742 #: freeculture.xml:5703
7744 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
7745 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
7746 "so there was no fear of <quote>theft.</quote> But as technology enabled "
7747 "capturing, broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required "
7748 "they make a copy of each broadcast for the work to be "
7749 "<quote>copyrighted.</quote> But those copies were simply kept by the "
7750 "broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't demand "
7751 "them. The content of this part of American culture is practically invisible "
7752 "to anyone who would look."
7756 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7757 #: freeculture.xml:5714
7759 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
7760 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
7761 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
7762 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
7763 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
7764 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
7765 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
7768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7769 #: freeculture.xml:5724
7770 msgid "Movie Archive"
7773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7774 #: freeculture.xml:5726
7778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><seealso>
7779 #: freeculture.xml:5727
7780 msgid "Internet Archive"
7783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7784 #: freeculture.xml:5730
7786 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
7787 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 <quote>ephemeral films</quote> "
7788 "(meaning films other than Hollywood movies, films that were never "
7789 "copyrighted), Kahle established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle "
7790 "digitize 1,300 films in this archive and post those films on the Internet to "
7791 "be downloaded for free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies "
7792 "of these films as stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he "
7793 "made a significant chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
7794 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
7795 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
7796 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
7797 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
7798 "<quote>Duck and Cover</quote> film that instructed children how to save "
7799 "themselves in the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can "
7800 "download the film in a few minutes—for free."
7803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7804 #: freeculture.xml:5748
7806 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
7807 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
7808 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
7809 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
7810 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
7813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7814 #: freeculture.xml:5756
7816 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
7817 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
7818 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
7819 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
7820 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
7824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7825 #: freeculture.xml:5764
7827 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
7828 "creative property goes through different <quote>lives.</quote> In its first "
7829 "life, if the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the "
7830 "commercial market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of "
7831 "creative property doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For "
7832 "that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this "
7833 "commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
7836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7837 #: freeculture.xml:5776
7839 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
7840 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
7841 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
7842 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
7843 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
7844 "even if that information is no longer sold."
7848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7849 #: freeculture.xml:5788
7851 "Dave Barns, <quote>Fledgling Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, "
7852 "Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter by Adopting Business,</quote> "
7853 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 5 September 1997, at Metro Lake "
7854 "1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, only 2.2 percent were in print "
7855 "in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, <quote>The First Sale Doctrine in the Era of "
7856 "Digital Networks,</quote> <citetitle>Boston College Law Review</citetitle> "
7857 "44 (2003): 593 n. 51."
7860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7861 #: freeculture.xml:5785
7863 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
7864 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
7865 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
7866 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
7867 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
7868 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
7869 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
7872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7873 #: freeculture.xml:5802
7875 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
7876 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
7877 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
7878 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
7879 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
7880 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
7881 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
7882 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
7886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7887 #: freeculture.xml:5813
7889 "For most of the twentieth century, it was economics that made this so. It "
7890 "would have been insanely expensive to collect and make accessible all "
7891 "television and film and music: The cost of analog copies is extraordinarily "
7892 "high. So even though the law in principle would have restricted the ability "
7893 "of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture generally, the real restriction was "
7894 "economics. The market made it impossibly difficult to do anything about this "
7895 "ephemeral culture; the law had little practical effect."
7898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7899 #: freeculture.xml:5825
7901 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
7902 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
7903 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
7904 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
7905 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
7906 "moving images and sound."
7909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7910 #: freeculture.xml:5833
7912 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
7913 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
7914 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
7918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
7919 #: freeculture.xml:5840
7923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><secondary>
7924 #: freeculture.xml:5841
7925 msgid "total number of"
7928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7929 #: freeculture.xml:5844
7931 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
7932 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
7933 "… and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the "
7934 "twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of "
7935 "books. All of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and "
7936 "be able to be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in "
7937 "our history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
7938 "different life, based on this, is … thrilling. It could be one of the "
7939 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
7940 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
7945 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7946 #: freeculture.xml:5858
7948 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
7949 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
7950 "libraries or archives could be. <emphasis>When</emphasis> the commercial "
7951 "life of creative property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it "
7952 "does, Kahle and his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and "
7953 "culture, remains perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand "
7954 "it; some to criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create "
7955 "the past for the future. These technologies promise something that had "
7956 "become unimaginable for much of our past—a future "
7957 "<emphasis>for</emphasis> our past. The technology of digital arts could make "
7958 "the dream of the Library of Alexandria real again."
7961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7962 #: freeculture.xml:5873
7964 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
7965 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
7966 "these <quote>archives,</quote> as warm as the idea of a "
7967 "<quote>library</quote> might seem, the <quote>content</quote> that is "
7968 "collected in these digital spaces is also someone's <quote>property.</quote> "
7969 "And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and others would "
7973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7974 #: freeculture.xml:5884
7975 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: <quote>Property</quote>"
7978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7979 #: freeculture.xml:5893
7980 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
7983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
7984 #: freeculture.xml:5894 freeculture.xml:9628
7985 msgid "Kennedy, John F."
7988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7989 #: freeculture.xml:5886
7991 "Jack Valenti has been the president of the Motion Picture Association of "
7992 "America since 1966. He first came to Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's "
7993 "administration—literally. The famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in "
7994 "on Air Force One after the assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in "
7995 "the background. In his almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has "
7996 "established himself as perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in "
7997 "Washington. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
7998 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
8001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8002 #: freeculture.xml:5907
8003 msgid "Disney, Inc."
8006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8007 #: freeculture.xml:5908
8008 msgid "Sony Pictures Entertainment"
8011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8012 #: freeculture.xml:5909
8016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8017 #: freeculture.xml:5910
8018 msgid "Paramount Pictures"
8021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8022 #: freeculture.xml:5911
8023 msgid "Twentieth Century Fox"
8026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8027 #: freeculture.xml:5912
8028 msgid "Universal Pictures"
8031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8032 #: freeculture.xml:5913 freeculture.xml:7326
8033 msgid "Warner Brothers"
8036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8037 #: freeculture.xml:5897
8039 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
8040 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
8041 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
8042 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
8043 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
8044 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
8045 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
8046 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
8047 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers. <placeholder "
8048 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
8049 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8050 "id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> <placeholder "
8051 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"6\"/>"
8055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8056 #: freeculture.xml:5917
8058 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
8059 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
8060 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
8061 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
8062 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
8063 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
8064 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
8065 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
8066 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
8069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8070 #: freeculture.xml:5929
8072 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
8073 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
8074 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
8075 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
8076 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
8077 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of "
8078 "<quote>creative property.</quote>"
8081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8082 #: freeculture.xml:5938
8083 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
8087 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
8088 #: freeculture.xml:5952
8090 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
8091 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
8092 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
8093 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
8094 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
8097 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8098 #: freeculture.xml:5943
8100 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
8101 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
8102 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
8103 "animates this entire debate: <emphasis>Creative property owners must be "
8104 "accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property "
8105 "owners in the nation</emphasis>. That is the issue. That is the "
8106 "question. And that is the rostrum on which this entire hearing and the "
8107 "debates to follow must rest.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8112 #: freeculture.xml:5962
8114 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
8115 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
8116 "<quote>central theme</quote> to which <quote>reasonable men and "
8117 "women</quote> will return is this: <quote>Creative property owners must be "
8118 "accorded the same rights and protections resident in all other property "
8119 "owners in the nation.</quote> There are no second-class citizens, Valenti "
8120 "might have continued. There should be no second-class property owners."
8123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8124 #: freeculture.xml:5973
8126 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
8127 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
8128 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
8129 "made by <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> who is serious in this debate than this "
8130 "claim of Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is "
8131 "perhaps the nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and "
8132 "scope of <quote>creative property.</quote> His views have "
8133 "<emphasis>no</emphasis> reasonable connection to our actual legal tradition, "
8134 "even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly redefined that "
8135 "tradition, at least in Washington."
8139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8140 #: freeculture.xml:5988
8142 "Lawyers speak of <quote>property</quote> not as an absolute thing, but as a "
8143 "bundle of rights that are sometimes associated with a particular "
8144 "object. Thus, my <quote>property right</quote> to my car gives me the right "
8145 "to exclusive use, but not the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the "
8146 "best effort to connect the ordinary meaning of <quote>property</quote> to "
8147 "<quote>lawyer talk,</quote> see Bruce Ackerman, <citetitle>Private Property "
8148 "and the Constitution</citetitle> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), "
8152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8153 #: freeculture.xml:5985
8155 "While <quote>creative property</quote> is certainly <quote>property</quote> "
8156 "in a nerdy and precise sense that lawyers are trained to "
8157 "understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it has never been the "
8158 "case, nor should it be, that <quote>creative property owners</quote> have "
8159 "been <quote>accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other "
8160 "property owners.</quote> Indeed, if creative property owners were given the "
8161 "same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a radical, and "
8162 "radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
8165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8166 #: freeculture.xml:6003
8168 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
8169 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
8170 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
8171 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
8172 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
8176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8177 #: freeculture.xml:6011
8179 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
8180 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
8181 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
8182 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
8183 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
8184 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
8185 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
8186 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
8187 "creativity having less than perfect control."
8190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8191 #: freeculture.xml:6026
8193 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
8194 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
8195 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
8196 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
8197 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
8198 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
8199 "threaten the old. To get just a hint that there is something fundamentally "
8200 "wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further than the United States "
8201 "Constitution itself."
8204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8205 #: freeculture.xml:6038
8207 "The framers of our Constitution loved <quote>property.</quote> Indeed, so "
8208 "strongly did they love property that they built into the Constitution an "
8209 "important requirement. If the government takes your property—if it "
8210 "condemns your house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is "
8211 "required, under the Fifth Amendment's <quote>Takings Clause,</quote> to pay "
8212 "you <quote>just compensation</quote> for that taking. The Constitution thus "
8213 "guarantees that property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot "
8214 "<emphasis>ever</emphasis> be taken from the property owner unless the "
8215 "government pays for the privilege."
8219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8220 #: freeculture.xml:6049
8222 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
8223 "calls <quote>creative property.</quote> In the clause granting Congress the "
8224 "power to create <quote>creative property,</quote> the Constitution "
8225 "<emphasis>requires</emphasis> that after a <quote>limited time,</quote> "
8226 "Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set the "
8227 "<quote>creative property</quote> free to the public domain. Yet when "
8228 "Congress does this, when the expiration of a copyright term "
8229 "<quote>takes</quote> your copyright and turns it over to the public domain, "
8230 "Congress does not have any obligation to pay <quote>just "
8231 "compensation</quote> for this <quote>taking.</quote> Instead, the same "
8232 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
8233 "your <quote>creative property</quote> right without any compensation at all."
8236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8237 #: freeculture.xml:6064
8239 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
8240 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
8241 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
8242 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
8243 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
8244 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
8247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8248 #: freeculture.xml:6073
8250 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
8251 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
8252 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
8253 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
8254 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
8255 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
8256 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
8257 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
8258 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
8261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8262 #: freeculture.xml:6085
8264 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
8265 "try to understand <emphasis>why</emphasis>. Why did the framers, fanatical "
8266 "property types that they were, reject the claim that creative property be "
8267 "given the same rights as all other property? Why did they require that for "
8268 "creative property there must be a public domain?"
8271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8272 #: freeculture.xml:6093
8274 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
8275 "these <quote>creative property</quote> rights, and the control that they "
8276 "enabled. Once we see clearly how differently these rights have been "
8277 "defined, we will be in a better position to ask the question that should be "
8278 "at the core of this war: Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> creative property "
8279 "should be protected, but how. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> we will "
8280 "enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but what the "
8281 "particular mix of rights ought to be. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> "
8282 "artists should be paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that "
8283 "artists get paid need also control how culture develops."
8287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8288 #: freeculture.xml:6108
8290 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
8291 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
8292 "narrow language of the law allows. In <citetitle>Code and Other Laws of "
8293 "Cyberspace</citetitle>, I used a simple model to capture this more general "
8294 "perspective. For any particular right or regulation, this model asks how "
8295 "four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the "
8296 "right or regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
8299 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
8300 #: freeculture.xml:6117
8302 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
8303 "the right or regulation."
8306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
8307 #: freeculture.xml:6118 freeculture.xml:6304 freeculture.xml:6612
8308 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.png\"></graphic>"
8311 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8312 #: freeculture.xml:6121
8314 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
8315 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
8316 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
8317 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
8318 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
8319 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
8320 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
8321 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
8322 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
8323 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
8324 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
8325 "by the state. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
8328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8329 #: freeculture.xml:6137 freeculture.xml:6198 freeculture.xml:6307
8330 msgid "norms, regulatory influence of"
8333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8334 #: freeculture.xml:6139
8336 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
8337 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
8338 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
8339 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
8340 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
8341 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
8342 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
8343 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
8346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8347 #: freeculture.xml:6149 freeculture.xml:6197 freeculture.xml:6287 freeculture.xml:6306 freeculture.xml:9246 freeculture.xml:9444
8348 msgid "market constraints"
8351 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8352 #: freeculture.xml:6151
8354 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
8355 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
8356 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
8357 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
8358 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
8359 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
8360 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
8363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8364 #: freeculture.xml:6160 freeculture.xml:6196 freeculture.xml:6245 freeculture.xml:6286
8365 msgid "architecture, constraint effected through"
8368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8369 #: freeculture.xml:6162
8371 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
8372 "<quote>architecture</quote>—the physical world as one finds "
8373 "it—is a constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your "
8374 "ability to get across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability "
8375 "of a community to integrate its social life. As with the market, "
8376 "architecture does not effect its constraint through ex post "
8377 "punishments. Instead, also as with the market, architecture effects its "
8378 "constraint through simultaneous conditions. These conditions are imposed not "
8379 "by courts enforcing contracts, or by police punishing theft, but by nature, "
8380 "by <quote>architecture.</quote> If a 500-pound boulder blocks your way, it "
8381 "is the law of gravity that enforces this constraint. If a $500 airplane "
8382 "ticket stands between you and a flight to New York, it is the market that "
8383 "enforces this constraint."
8387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8388 #: freeculture.xml:6179
8390 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
8391 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
8392 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
8395 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8396 #: freeculture.xml:6185
8398 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
8399 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
8400 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
8401 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
8402 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
8403 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
8404 "particular interact."
8407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8408 #: freeculture.xml:6194
8409 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
8412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8413 #: freeculture.xml:6200
8415 "So, for example, consider the <quote>freedom</quote> to drive a car at a "
8416 "high speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that "
8417 "say how fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is "
8418 "in part restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most "
8419 "rational drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum "
8420 "rate at which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the "
8421 "market: Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
8422 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
8423 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
8424 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
8425 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
8429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8430 #: freeculture.xml:6218
8432 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
8433 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
8434 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
8435 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
8436 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>Code: And Other "
8437 "Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle> (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; "
8438 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>The New Chicago School,</quote> <citetitle>Journal "
8439 "of Legal Studies</citetitle>, June 1998."
8443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8444 #: freeculture.xml:6214
8446 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
8447 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
8448 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
8449 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
8450 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
8451 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
8452 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
8453 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
8454 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
8455 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
8456 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
8460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
8461 #: freeculture.xml:6242
8462 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
8465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
8466 #: freeculture.xml:6243
8467 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.png\"></graphic>"
8470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8471 #: freeculture.xml:6284
8472 msgid "Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)"
8475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8476 #: freeculture.xml:6285
8477 msgid "Commons, John R."
8480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8481 #: freeculture.xml:6255
8483 "Some people object to this way of talking about <quote>liberty.</quote> They "
8484 "object because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at "
8485 "any particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the "
8486 "government. For instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think "
8487 "it is meaningless to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge "
8488 "has washed out, and it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk "
8489 "about this as a loss of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of "
8490 "politics with the vagaries of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value "
8491 "in this narrower view, which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, "
8492 "however, mean to argue against any insistence that this narrower view is the "
8493 "only proper view of liberty. As I argued in <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, we "
8494 "come from a long tradition of political thought with a broader focus than "
8495 "the narrow question of what the government did when. John Stuart Mill "
8496 "defended freedom of speech, for example, from the tyranny of narrow minds, "
8497 "not from the fear of government prosecution; John Stuart Mill, <citetitle>On "
8498 "Liberty</citetitle> (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. John "
8499 "R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from constraints "
8500 "imposed by the market; John R. Commons, <quote>The Right to Work,</quote> in "
8501 "Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., <citetitle>John R. Commons: "
8502 "Selected Essays</citetitle> (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans "
8503 "with Disabilities Act increases the liberty of people with physical "
8504 "disabilities by changing the architecture of certain public places, thereby "
8505 "making access to those places easier; 42 <citetitle>United States "
8506 "Code</citetitle>, section 12101 (2000). Each of these interventions to "
8507 "change existing conditions changes the liberty of a particular group. The "
8508 "effect of those interventions should be accounted for in order to understand "
8509 "the effective liberty that each of these groups might face. <placeholder "
8510 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
8511 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8516 #: freeculture.xml:6247
8518 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
8519 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
8520 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
8521 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
8522 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
8526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
8527 #: freeculture.xml:6291
8528 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
8531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8532 #: freeculture.xml:6293
8534 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
8535 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
8536 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
8540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8541 #: freeculture.xml:6299
8542 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
8545 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
8546 #: freeculture.xml:6303 freeculture.xml:6611
8547 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
8551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8552 #: freeculture.xml:6310
8554 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
8555 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
8556 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
8557 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
8558 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
8559 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
8560 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
8561 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
8562 "this form of infringement."
8565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8566 #: freeculture.xml:6322
8568 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
8569 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
8570 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
8571 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
8572 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
8573 "of anarchy after the Internet."
8577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8578 #: freeculture.xml:6330
8580 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
8581 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
8582 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
8583 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
8584 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
8588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
8589 #: freeculture.xml:6340
8590 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
8593 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
8594 #: freeculture.xml:6341
8595 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.png\"></graphic>"
8598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8599 #: freeculture.xml:6344
8601 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
8602 "warriors. Indeed, in a <quote>White Paper</quote> prepared by the Commerce "
8603 "Department (one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this "
8604 "mix of regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
8605 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
8606 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
8607 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
8608 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
8609 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
8612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8613 #: freeculture.xml:6355
8614 msgid "steel industry"
8618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8619 #: freeculture.xml:6357
8621 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
8622 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
8623 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
8624 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
8625 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
8626 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
8627 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
8628 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
8629 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
8630 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
8631 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
8632 "U.S. steel industry."
8635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8636 #: freeculture.xml:6374
8638 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
8639 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
8640 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
8641 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
8642 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
8643 "<quote>architecture of revenue.</quote>"
8646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8647 #: freeculture.xml:6381
8648 msgid "railroad industry"
8652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
8653 #: freeculture.xml:6392
8655 "See Geoffrey Smith, <quote>Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a "
8656 "Bridge?</quote> BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
8657 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
8658 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, "
8659 "<quote>Can Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?</quote> Forbes.com, 6 October "
8660 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
8664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8665 #: freeculture.xml:6384
8667 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
8668 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
8669 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
8670 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
8671 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
8672 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
8673 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
8674 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
8675 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
8676 "trucks from roads <emphasis>for the purpose of</emphasis> protecting the "
8677 "railroads? Closer to the subject of this book, remote channel changers have "
8678 "weakened the <quote>stickiness</quote> of television advertising (if a "
8679 "boring commercial comes on the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf ), and "
8680 "it may well be that this change has weakened the television advertising "
8681 "market. But does anyone believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce "
8682 "commercial television? (Maybe by limiting them to function only once a "
8683 "second, or to switch to only ten channels within an hour?)"
8686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
8687 #: freeculture.xml:6413 freeculture.xml:14709
8688 msgid "Brezhnev, Leonid"
8691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
8692 #: freeculture.xml:6414 freeculture.xml:12971
8697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
8698 #: freeculture.xml:6426
8700 "Fred Warshofsky, <citetitle>The Patent Wars</citetitle> (New York: Wiley, "
8701 "1994), 170–71."
8704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8705 #: freeculture.xml:6416
8707 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
8708 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
8709 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
8710 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
8711 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
8712 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
8713 "patents, <quote>established companies have an interest in excluding future "
8714 "competitors.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative "
8715 "to a startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
8716 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
8717 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
8718 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
8719 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev."
8722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8723 #: freeculture.xml:6437
8725 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
8726 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
8727 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
8728 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
8729 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
8730 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
8731 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
8734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8735 #: freeculture.xml:6447
8737 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
8738 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
8739 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
8740 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
8741 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
8742 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
8743 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
8744 "Constitution: <quote>Congress shall make no law … abridging the "
8745 "freedom of speech.</quote> So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that "
8746 "would <quote>abridge</quote> the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
8747 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
8751 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8752 #: freeculture.xml:6461
8754 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
8755 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are "
8756 "<quote>justified.</quote> My argument is about their effect. For before we "
8757 "get to the question of justification, a hard question that depends a great "
8758 "deal upon your values, we should first ask whether we understand the effect "
8759 "of the changes the content industry wants."
8762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8763 #: freeculture.xml:6470
8764 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
8767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8768 #: freeculture.xml:6473
8772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
8773 #: freeculture.xml:6481
8774 msgid "Müller, Paul Hermann"
8777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8778 #: freeculture.xml:6476
8780 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
8781 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
8782 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
8783 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
8784 "increase farm production. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
8787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8788 #: freeculture.xml:6484
8790 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
8791 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
8792 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
8795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8796 #: freeculture.xml:6488
8797 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
8800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8801 #: freeculture.xml:6489
8802 msgid "Silent Sprint (Carson)"
8805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8806 #: freeculture.xml:6491
8808 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published <citetitle>Silent Spring</citetitle>, "
8809 "which argued that DDT, whatever its primary benefits, was also having "
8810 "unintended environmental consequences. Birds were losing the ability to "
8811 "reproduce. Whole chains of the ecology were being destroyed."
8814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8815 #: freeculture.xml:6497
8817 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
8818 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
8819 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
8820 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
8821 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
8822 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
8826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8827 #: freeculture.xml:6505
8828 msgid "Boyle, James"
8832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
8833 #: freeculture.xml:6511
8835 "See, for example, James Boyle, <quote>A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
8836 "Environmentalism for the Net?</quote> <citetitle>Duke Law "
8837 "Journal</citetitle> 47 (1997): 87."
8841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8842 #: freeculture.xml:6507
8844 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
8845 "appeals when he argues that we need an <quote>environmentalism</quote> for "
8846 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
8847 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
8848 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
8849 "that music should be given away <quote>for free.</quote> The point is that "
8850 "some of the ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended "
8851 "consequences for the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural "
8852 "environment. And just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria "
8853 "or an attack on farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of "
8854 "regulations protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack "
8855 "on authors. It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should "
8856 "be aware of our actions' effects on the environment."
8859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8860 #: freeculture.xml:6528
8862 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
8863 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
8864 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
8865 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
8866 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
8867 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
8868 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
8869 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
8873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8874 #: freeculture.xml:6539
8876 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
8877 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
8880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
8881 #: freeculture.xml:6546
8885 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8886 #: freeculture.xml:6548
8888 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
8889 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of <quote>creative "
8890 "property</quote> rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English "
8891 "aim to avoid overly powerful publishers."
8894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8895 #: freeculture.xml:6554
8897 "The power to establish <quote>creative property</quote> rights is granted to "
8898 "Congress in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article "
8899 "I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
8903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8904 #: freeculture.xml:6559
8906 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
8907 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
8908 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
8909 "<quote>Progress Clause,</quote> for notice what this clause does not say. It "
8910 "does not say Congress has the power to grant <quote>creative property "
8911 "rights.</quote> It says that Congress has the power <emphasis>to promote "
8912 "progress</emphasis>. The grant of power is its purpose, and its purpose is a "
8913 "public one, not the purpose of enriching publishers, nor even primarily the "
8914 "purpose of rewarding authors."
8917 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8918 #: freeculture.xml:6572
8920 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
8921 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"founders\"/>, the "
8922 "English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a few would not "
8923 "exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
8924 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
8925 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
8926 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend <quote>to "
8927 "Authors</quote> only."
8930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8931 #: freeculture.xml:6582
8933 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
8934 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
8935 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
8936 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
8937 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
8938 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
8939 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
8940 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
8941 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
8942 "select the president. In each case, a <emphasis>structure</emphasis> built "
8943 "checks and balances into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent "
8944 "otherwise inevitable concentrations of power."
8947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8948 #: freeculture.xml:6597
8950 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call "
8951 "<quote>copyright</quote> today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond "
8952 "anything they ever considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need "
8953 "to put our <quote>copyright</quote> in context: We need to see how it has "
8954 "changed in the 210 years since they first struck its design."
8958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8959 #: freeculture.xml:6604
8961 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
8962 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
8963 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
8966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8967 #: freeculture.xml:6615
8968 msgid "We will end here:"
8971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
8972 #: freeculture.xml:6618
8973 msgid "<quote>Copyright</quote> today."
8976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
8977 #: freeculture.xml:6619
8978 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.png\"></graphic>"
8982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
8983 #: freeculture.xml:6622
8984 msgid "Let me explain how."
8987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
8988 #: freeculture.xml:6627
8989 msgid "Law: Duration"
8992 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8993 #: freeculture.xml:6643
8994 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
8997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
8998 #: freeculture.xml:6637
9000 "William W. Crosskey, <citetitle>Politics and the Constitution in the History "
9001 "of the United States</citetitle> (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), "
9002 "vol. 1, 485–86: <quote>extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the "
9003 "supreme Law of the Land,' <emphasis>the perpetual rights which authors had, "
9004 "or were supposed by some to have, under the Common Law</emphasis></quote> "
9005 "(emphasis added). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9008 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9009 #: freeculture.xml:6629
9011 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
9012 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
9013 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
9014 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
9015 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
9016 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
9017 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
9018 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
9019 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
9020 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
9021 "to reprint and distribute works."
9024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9025 #: freeculture.xml:6653
9027 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
9028 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
9029 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
9030 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
9031 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
9035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9036 #: freeculture.xml:6661
9038 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
9039 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
9040 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
9041 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
9042 "work passed into the public domain."
9046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9047 #: freeculture.xml:6676
9049 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
9050 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, <citetitle>A "
9051 "History of Book Publishing in the United States</citetitle>, vol. 1, "
9052 "<citetitle>The Creation of an Industry, 1630–1865</citetitle> (New "
9053 "York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints recorded before 1790, only "
9054 "twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; William J. Maher, "
9055 "<citetitle>Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright Law of "
9056 "1790 in Historical Context</citetitle>, 7–10 (2002), available at "
9057 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
9058 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
9059 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
9060 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
9061 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
9062 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
9065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9066 #: freeculture.xml:6668
9068 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
9069 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
9070 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
9071 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
9072 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
9073 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
9074 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9079 #: freeculture.xml:6692
9081 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
9082 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
9083 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
9084 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
9085 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
9089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9090 #: freeculture.xml:6707
9092 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
9093 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
9094 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
9095 "<quote>Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Studies on "
9096 "Copyright</citetitle>, vol. 1 (New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), "
9097 "618. For a more recent and comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and "
9098 "Richard A. Posner, <quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> "
9099 "<citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 471, "
9100 "498–501, and accompanying figures."
9103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9104 #: freeculture.xml:6701
9106 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
9107 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
9108 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
9109 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9115 #: freeculture.xml:6722
9116 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
9119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9120 #: freeculture.xml:6718
9122 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
9123 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
9124 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
9125 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
9126 "books are no longer <emphasis>effectively</emphasis> controlled by "
9127 "copyright. The only practical commercial use of the books at that time is to "
9128 "sell the books as used books; that use—because it does not involve "
9129 "publication—is effectively free."
9132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9133 #: freeculture.xml:6730
9135 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
9136 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
9137 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
9138 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
9139 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
9140 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
9143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9144 #: freeculture.xml:6738
9146 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
9147 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
9148 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
9149 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
9150 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
9151 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
9152 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
9153 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
9157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9158 #: freeculture.xml:6748
9160 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
9161 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
9162 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
9163 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
9164 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
9165 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
9169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9170 #: freeculture.xml:6759
9172 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
9173 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
9174 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
9175 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
9176 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
9177 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
9178 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
9181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9182 #: freeculture.xml:6769
9184 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
9185 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
9186 "term. For <quote>natural</quote> authors, that term was life plus fifty "
9187 "years. For corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, "
9188 "Congress abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before "
9189 "1978. All works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term "
9190 "then available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
9193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9194 #: freeculture.xml:6779
9196 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
9197 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
9198 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
9199 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
9200 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be "
9201 "<quote>limited,</quote> we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
9205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9206 #: freeculture.xml:6796
9208 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
9209 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
9210 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
9211 "<quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> loc. cit."
9214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9215 #: freeculture.xml:6788
9217 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
9218 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
9219 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
9220 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
9221 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
9222 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
9223 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9227 #: freeculture.xml:6805
9231 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9232 #: freeculture.xml:6807
9234 "The <quote>scope</quote> of a copyright is the range of rights granted by "
9235 "the law. The scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those "
9236 "changes are not necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the "
9237 "changes if we're to keep this debate in context."
9240 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9241 #: freeculture.xml:6813
9243 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only <quote>maps, "
9244 "charts, and books.</quote> That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
9245 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
9246 "author the exclusive right to <quote>publish</quote> copyrighted works. That "
9247 "means someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work "
9248 "without the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a "
9249 "copyright was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not "
9250 "extend to what lawyers call <quote>derivative works.</quote> It would not, "
9251 "therefore, interfere with the right of someone other than the author to "
9252 "translate a copyrighted book, or to adapt the story to a different form "
9253 "(such as a drama based on a published book)."
9256 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9257 #: freeculture.xml:6826
9259 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
9260 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
9261 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
9262 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
9263 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
9264 "<quote>publish</quote> the work, but also the exclusive right of control "
9265 "over any <quote>copies</quote> of that work. And most significant for our "
9266 "purposes here, the right gives the copyright owner control over not only his "
9267 "or her particular work, but also any <quote>derivative work</quote> that "
9268 "might grow out of the original work. In this way, the right covers more "
9269 "creative work, protects the creative work more broadly, and protects works "
9270 "that are based in a significant way on the initial creative work."
9274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9275 #: freeculture.xml:6841
9277 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
9278 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
9279 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
9280 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
9281 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
9282 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
9283 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
9284 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis>. And for most of the history of American "
9285 "copyright law, there was a requirement that works be deposited with the "
9286 "government before a copyright could be secured."
9289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9290 #: freeculture.xml:6855
9292 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
9293 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
9294 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
9295 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
9296 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
9297 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
9298 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
9299 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
9300 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
9301 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
9305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9306 #: freeculture.xml:6869
9308 "All of these <quote>formalities</quote> were abolished in the American "
9309 "system when we decided to follow European copyright law. There is no "
9310 "requirement that you register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now "
9311 "is automatic; the copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a "
9312 "©; and the copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy "
9313 "available for others to copy."
9316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9317 #: freeculture.xml:6877
9318 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
9322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9323 #: freeculture.xml:6888
9325 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, <quote>Poets, Pirates, and the "
9326 "Creation of American Literature,</quote> 29 <citetitle>New York University "
9327 "Journal of International Law and Politics</citetitle> 255 (1997), and James "
9328 "Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, 1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., "
9332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9333 #: freeculture.xml:6881
9335 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
9336 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
9337 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
9338 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
9339 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
9340 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
9341 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
9342 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
9346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9347 #: freeculture.xml:6900
9349 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
9350 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
9351 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
9352 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
9353 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
9354 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
9357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9358 #: freeculture.xml:6909
9360 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
9361 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
9362 "note to your spouse, every doodle, <emphasis>every</emphasis> creative act "
9363 "that's reduced to a tangible form—all of this is automatically "
9364 "copyrighted. There is no need to register or mark your work. The protection "
9365 "follows the creation, not the steps you take to protect it."
9368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9369 #: freeculture.xml:6918
9371 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
9372 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
9373 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
9376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9377 #: freeculture.xml:6923
9379 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
9380 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
9381 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of <quote>derivative "
9382 "rights.</quote> If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your "
9383 "book without permission. No one can translate it without permission. "
9384 "CliffsNotes can't make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of "
9385 "these derivative uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright "
9386 "holder. The copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to "
9387 "your writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large "
9388 "proportion of the writings inspired by them."
9391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9392 #: freeculture.xml:6937
9394 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
9395 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
9396 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
9397 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
9398 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
9399 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
9400 "the verbatim original work."
9403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9404 #: freeculture.xml:6959
9406 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>The Copyright Cage,</quote> <citetitle>Legal "
9407 "Affairs</citetitle>, July/August 2003, available at <ulink "
9408 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>. <placeholder "
9409 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9413 #: freeculture.xml:6949
9415 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
9416 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
9417 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
9418 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
9419 "work. But whatever <emphasis>that</emphasis> wrong is, transforming someone "
9420 "else's work is a different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at "
9421 "all—they believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not "
9422 "protect derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
9423 "Whether or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is "
9424 "involved is fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
9427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9428 #: freeculture.xml:6981
9429 msgid "Rubenfeld, Jeb"
9432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9433 #: freeculture.xml:6974
9435 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
9436 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
9437 "First Amendment) between mere <quote>copies</quote> and derivative "
9438 "works. See Jed Rubenfeld, <quote>The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's "
9439 "Constitutionality,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 112 "
9440 "(2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59). <placeholder "
9441 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9445 #: freeculture.xml:6969
9447 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
9448 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
9449 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
9450 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
9451 "my creative work are treated the same."
9454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9455 #: freeculture.xml:6986
9457 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
9458 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
9459 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called "
9460 "<quote>Mickey Mouse,</quote> why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse "
9461 "toys and be the one to trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
9464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9465 #: freeculture.xml:6994
9467 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
9468 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
9469 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
9470 "originally granted."
9473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9474 #: freeculture.xml:7001
9475 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
9479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9480 #: freeculture.xml:7008
9482 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
9483 "regulates more than <quote>copies</quote>—a public performance of a "
9484 "copyrighted song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se "
9485 "doesn't make a copy; 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section "
9486 "106(4). And it certainly sometimes doesn't regulate a <quote>copy</quote>; "
9487 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 112(a). But the "
9488 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates <quote>copies;</quote> "
9489 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 102) is that if there "
9490 "is a copy, there is a right."
9493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9494 #: freeculture.xml:7003
9496 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
9497 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
9498 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
9499 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
9500 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9505 #: freeculture.xml:7020
9507 "<quote>Copies.</quote> That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for "
9508 "<emphasis>copy</emphasis>right law to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's "
9509 "argument at the start of this chapter, that <quote>creative property</quote> "
9510 "deserves the <quote>same rights</quote> as all other property, it is the "
9511 "<emphasis>obvious</emphasis> that we need to be most careful about. For "
9512 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
9513 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
9514 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should <emphasis>not</emphasis> "
9515 "be the trigger for copyright law. More precisely, they should not "
9516 "<emphasis>always</emphasis> be the trigger for copyright law."
9520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9521 #: freeculture.xml:7038
9523 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
9524 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
9525 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
9526 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
9529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9530 #: freeculture.xml:7033
9532 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
9533 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
9534 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
9535 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
9536 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
9537 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
9541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9542 #: freeculture.xml:7049
9544 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
9548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9549 #: freeculture.xml:7053
9550 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
9553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9554 #: freeculture.xml:7054
9555 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.png\"></graphic>"
9559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9560 #: freeculture.xml:7058
9562 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
9563 "its potential <emphasis>uses</emphasis>. Most of these uses are unregulated "
9564 "by copyright law, because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, "
9565 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, "
9566 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act "
9567 "is not regulated (copyright law expressly states that after the first sale "
9568 "of a book, the copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the "
9569 "disposition of the book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a "
9570 "lamp or let your puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright "
9571 "law, because those acts do not make a copy."
9574 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9575 #: freeculture.xml:7071
9576 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
9579 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9580 #: freeculture.xml:7072
9581 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.png\"></graphic>"
9584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9585 #: freeculture.xml:7075
9587 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
9588 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
9589 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
9590 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
9591 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
9592 "diagram on next page)."
9595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9596 #: freeculture.xml:7083
9598 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
9599 "remain unregulated because the law considers these <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
9602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9603 #: freeculture.xml:7088
9605 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
9609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9610 #: freeculture.xml:7089
9611 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\"></graphic>"
9614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9615 #: freeculture.xml:7092
9617 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
9618 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
9619 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
9620 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
9621 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
9622 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
9623 "over such <quote>fair uses</quote> for public policy (and possibly First "
9624 "Amendment) reasons."
9627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9628 #: freeculture.xml:7102
9629 msgid "Unregulated copying considered <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
9632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9633 #: freeculture.xml:7103
9634 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\"></graphic>"
9637 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9638 #: freeculture.xml:7107
9640 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
9644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9645 #: freeculture.xml:7108
9646 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\"></graphic>"
9650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9651 #: freeculture.xml:7112
9653 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
9654 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
9655 "are nonetheless deemed <quote>fair</quote> regardless of the copyright "
9660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9661 #: freeculture.xml:7120
9663 "I don't mean <quote>nature</quote> in the sense that it couldn't be "
9664 "different, but rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical "
9665 "networks need not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital "
9666 "network could be designed to delete anything it copies so that the same "
9667 "number of copies remain."
9670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9671 #: freeculture.xml:7117
9673 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
9674 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
9675 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
9676 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
9677 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
9678 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
9679 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
9680 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
9681 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
9682 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
9683 "burden of this shift."
9687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9688 #: freeculture.xml:7138
9690 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
9691 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
9692 "plausible <emphasis>copyright</emphasis>-related argument that the copyright "
9693 "owner could make to control that use of her book. Copyright law would have "
9694 "nothing to say about whether you read the book once, ten times, or every "
9695 "night before you went to bed. None of those instances of "
9696 "use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because none of "
9697 "those uses produced a copy."
9700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9701 #: freeculture.xml:7150
9703 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
9704 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
9705 "only once a month, then <emphasis>copyright law</emphasis> would aid the "
9706 "copyright owner in exercising this degree of control, because of the "
9707 "accidental feature of copyright law that triggers its application upon there "
9708 "being a copy. Now if you read the book ten times and the license says you "
9709 "may read it only five times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion "
9710 "of it) beyond the fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to "
9711 "the copyright owner's wish."
9714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9715 #: freeculture.xml:7162
9717 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
9718 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
9719 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
9723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9724 #: freeculture.xml:7168
9726 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
9727 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
9728 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
9729 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
9730 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
9734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9735 #: freeculture.xml:7176
9737 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
9738 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
9739 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate "
9740 "<emphasis>any</emphasis> transformation you make of creative work using a "
9741 "machine. <quote>Copy and paste</quote> and <quote>cut and paste</quote> "
9742 "become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others exposes the "
9743 "tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However troubling the "
9744 "expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is extraordinarily "
9745 "troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative work."
9749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9750 #: freeculture.xml:7188
9752 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
9753 "on category 3 (<quote>fair use</quote>) that fair use never before had to "
9754 "bear. If a copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read "
9755 "a book on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a "
9756 "violation of my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation "
9757 "about whether I have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, "
9758 "reading did not trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need "
9759 "for a fair use defense. The right to read was effectively protected before "
9760 "because reading was not regulated."
9763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9764 #: freeculture.xml:7202
9766 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
9767 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
9768 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
9769 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
9770 "when the vast majority of uses are <emphasis>unregulated</emphasis>. But "
9771 "when everything becomes presumptively regulated, then the protections of "
9772 "fair use are not enough."
9775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9776 #: freeculture.xml:7215
9778 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
9779 "business of making <quote>trailer</quote> advertisements for movies "
9780 "available to video stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way "
9781 "to sell videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, "
9782 "put the trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
9785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9786 #: freeculture.xml:7222
9788 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
9789 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
9790 "idea was to expand their <quote>selling by sampling</quote> technique by "
9791 "giving on-line stores the same ability to enable <quote>browsing.</quote> "
9792 "Just as in a bookstore you can read a few pages of a book before you buy the "
9793 "book, so, too, you would be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line "
9794 "before you bought it."
9798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9799 #: freeculture.xml:7231
9801 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
9802 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
9803 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
9804 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
9805 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
9806 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
9807 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
9808 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
9809 "was within their <quote>fair use</quote> rights to distribute the clips as "
9810 "they had. So they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these "
9811 "rights were in fact their rights."
9814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9815 #: freeculture.xml:7246
9817 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
9818 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had <quote>willfully "
9819 "infringed</quote> on Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of "
9820 "willful infringement, it can award damages not on the basis of the actual "
9821 "harm to the copyright owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the "
9822 "statute. Because Video Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of "
9823 "Disney movies to enable video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney "
9824 "was now suing Video Pipeline for $100 million."
9827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9828 #: freeculture.xml:7256
9830 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
9831 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
9832 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
9833 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
9834 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
9835 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
9836 "Disney's permission."
9839 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9840 #: freeculture.xml:7266
9842 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
9843 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
9844 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
9845 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
9846 "<quote>first-sale doctrine</quote> would free the seller to use the video as "
9847 "he wished, including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of "
9848 "the entire movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for "
9849 "Disney to centralize control over access to this content. Because each use "
9850 "of the Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
9851 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
9852 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
9855 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9856 #: freeculture.xml:7279
9857 msgid "Barnes & Noble"
9861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9862 #: freeculture.xml:7282
9864 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
9865 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
9866 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
9867 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
9868 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
9869 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
9870 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
9871 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
9872 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
9873 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
9874 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
9878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9879 #: freeculture.xml:7297
9881 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
9882 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
9883 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
9884 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
9885 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
9886 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
9889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9890 #: freeculture.xml:7306
9891 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
9894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9895 #: freeculture.xml:7308
9897 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
9898 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
9899 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
9900 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
9903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9904 #: freeculture.xml:7314
9906 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
9907 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
9908 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
9909 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
9910 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
9913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9914 #: freeculture.xml:7321
9918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
9919 #: freeculture.xml:7323 freeculture.xml:7502
9920 msgid "Marx Brothers"
9924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9925 #: freeculture.xml:7337
9927 "See David Lange, <quote>Recognizing the Public Domain,</quote> "
9928 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 44 (1981): "
9932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9933 #: freeculture.xml:7329
9935 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
9936 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of "
9937 "<citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>. Warner Brothers objected. They wrote a "
9938 "nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them that there would be serious legal "
9939 "consequences if they went forward with their plan.<placeholder "
9940 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9944 #: freeculture.xml:7346
9946 "Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and "
9947 "Copywrongs</citetitle>, 1–3. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
9951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9952 #: freeculture.xml:7342
9954 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
9955 "that the Marx Brothers <quote>were brothers long before you "
9956 "were.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers "
9957 "therefore owned the word <citetitle>brothers</citetitle>, and if Warner "
9958 "Brothers insisted on trying to control <citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>, "
9959 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over "
9960 "<citetitle>brothers</citetitle>."
9963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9964 #: freeculture.xml:7356
9966 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
9967 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
9968 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
9969 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
9972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9973 #: freeculture.xml:7362
9975 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
9976 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
9977 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
9978 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
9979 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
9980 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
9981 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
9984 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9985 #: freeculture.xml:7375
9986 msgid "Adobe eBook Reader"
9989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9990 #: freeculture.xml:7378
9991 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
9994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9995 #: freeculture.xml:7381
9997 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
9998 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
9999 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
10000 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
10003 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10004 #: freeculture.xml:7388
10005 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10010 #: freeculture.xml:7392
10012 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
10013 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
10014 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, for example, is in the public domain. "
10015 "Some of them reproduce content that is not in the public domain: My own book "
10016 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> is not yet within the public "
10017 "domain. Consider <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> first. If you click on "
10018 "my e-book copy of <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, you'll see a fancy "
10019 "cover, and then a button at the bottom called Permissions."
10022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10023 #: freeculture.xml:7405
10024 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
10027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10028 #: freeculture.xml:7406
10029 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\"></graphic>"
10032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10033 #: freeculture.xml:7409
10035 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
10036 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
10039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10040 #: freeculture.xml:7413
10041 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
10044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10045 #: freeculture.xml:7414
10046 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\"></graphic>"
10050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10051 #: freeculture.xml:7418
10053 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
10054 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
10055 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
10056 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
10057 "button to hear <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> read aloud through the "
10061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10062 #: freeculture.xml:7428
10066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10067 #: freeculture.xml:7429
10068 msgid "<citetitle>Politics</citetitle>, (Aristotle)"
10071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10072 #: freeculture.xml:7426
10074 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
10075 "translation): Aristotle's <citetitle>Politics</citetitle>. <placeholder "
10076 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
10079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10080 #: freeculture.xml:7432
10081 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>"
10084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10085 #: freeculture.xml:7433
10086 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\"></graphic>"
10089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10090 #: freeculture.xml:7436
10092 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
10093 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
10096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10097 #: freeculture.xml:7441
10098 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>."
10101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10102 #: freeculture.xml:7442
10103 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\"></graphic>"
10106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10107 #: freeculture.xml:7445
10109 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
10110 "e-book version of my last book, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>:"
10113 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10114 #: freeculture.xml:7451
10115 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>The Future of Ideas</quote>."
10118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10119 #: freeculture.xml:7452
10120 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\"></graphic>"
10123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10124 #: freeculture.xml:7455
10125 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
10129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10130 #: freeculture.xml:7465
10132 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
10133 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
10134 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
10135 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
10136 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
10137 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
10140 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10141 #: freeculture.xml:7458
10143 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls "
10144 "<quote>permissions</quote>— as if the publisher has the power to "
10145 "control how you use these works. For works under copyright, the copyright "
10146 "owner certainly does have the power—up to the limits of the copyright "
10147 "law. But for work not under copyright, there is no such copyright "
10148 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of "
10149 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> says I have the permission to copy only "
10150 "ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means "
10151 "is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the "
10152 "book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable."
10155 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10156 #: freeculture.xml:7480
10158 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
10159 "which the e-book <quote>lives.</quote> Though the e-book says that these are "
10160 "permissions, they are not the sort of <quote>permissions</quote> that most "
10161 "of us deal with. When a teenager gets <quote>permission</quote> to stay out "
10162 "till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out "
10163 "till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the "
10164 "Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text "
10165 "into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the "
10166 "computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: "
10167 "After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the "
10168 "same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud "
10169 "button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if "
10170 "you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine "
10171 "simply won't read aloud."
10174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10175 #: freeculture.xml:7498
10177 "These are <emphasis>controls</emphasis>, not permissions. Imagine a world "
10178 "where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried "
10179 "to type <quote>Warner Brothers,</quote> erased <quote>Brothers</quote> from "
10180 "the sentence. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10184 #: freeculture.xml:7505
10186 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright "
10187 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> as copyright <emphasis>code</emphasis>. The "
10188 "controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by "
10189 "courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded "
10190 "by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are "
10191 "always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the "
10192 "technology have no similar built-in check."
10195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10196 #: freeculture.xml:7514
10198 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
10199 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
10200 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
10201 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
10205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10206 #: freeculture.xml:7521
10208 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
10212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10213 #: freeculture.xml:7531
10214 msgid "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)"
10217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10218 #: freeculture.xml:7525
10220 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
10221 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
10222 "Adobe site was a copy of <citetitle>Alice's Adventures in "
10223 "Wonderland</citetitle>. This wonderful book is in the public domain. Yet "
10224 "when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the following report: "
10225 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10229 #: freeculture.xml:7534
10230 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</quote>."
10233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10234 #: freeculture.xml:7536
10235 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\"></graphic>"
10238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10239 #: freeculture.xml:7540
10241 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
10242 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the "
10243 "<quote>permissions</quote> indicated, not allowed to <quote>read "
10247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10248 #: freeculture.xml:7545
10250 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
10251 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
10252 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
10253 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
10254 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
10258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10259 #: freeculture.xml:7553
10261 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
10262 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
10263 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
10264 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
10265 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
10266 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
10267 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
10268 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
10269 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
10270 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
10273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10274 #: freeculture.xml:7566
10276 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
10277 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
10278 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
10279 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
10280 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
10283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10284 #: freeculture.xml:7575
10286 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
10287 "of mine that makes the same point."
10290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10291 #: freeculture.xml:7579 freeculture.xml:7728 freeculture.xml:7799 freeculture.xml:7905
10292 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
10295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10296 #: freeculture.xml:7582 freeculture.xml:7731 freeculture.xml:7800 freeculture.xml:7906
10297 msgid "robotic dog"
10300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10301 #: freeculture.xml:7585 freeculture.xml:7734 freeculture.xml:7802 freeculture.xml:7908
10305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10306 #: freeculture.xml:7586 freeculture.xml:7735 freeculture.xml:7803 freeculture.xml:7909
10307 msgid "Aibo robotic dog produced by"
10310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10311 #: freeculture.xml:7589
10313 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named <quote>Aibo.</quote> The Aibo "
10314 "learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and "
10315 "that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
10318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10319 #: freeculture.xml:7594
10321 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
10322 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
10323 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set <beginpage "
10324 "pagenum=\"165\"/> up aibopet.com (and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the "
10325 "same site), and on that site he provided information about how to teach an "
10326 "Aibo to do tricks in addition to the ones Sony had taught it."
10329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10330 #: freeculture.xml:7603
10332 "<quote>Teach</quote> here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute "
10333 "computers. You teach a computer how to do something by programming it "
10334 "differently. So to say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to "
10335 "teach the dog to do new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving "
10336 "information to users of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer "
10337 "<quote>dog</quote> to make it do new tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
10340 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10341 #: freeculture.xml:7611
10343 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word "
10344 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> has a particularly unfriendly "
10345 "connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror "
10346 "movies do even worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, "
10347 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> is a much more positive "
10348 "term. <citetitle>Hack</citetitle> just means code that enables the program "
10349 "to do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy a "
10350 "new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer doesn't "
10351 "run, or <quote>drive,</quote> the printer. If you discovered that, you'd "
10352 "later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a "
10353 "driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought."
10356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10357 #: freeculture.xml:7625
10359 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
10360 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
10361 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
10362 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
10366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10367 #: freeculture.xml:7632
10369 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
10370 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
10371 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
10372 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
10377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10378 #: freeculture.xml:7642
10380 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
10381 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
10382 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
10383 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
10384 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
10385 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
10386 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
10387 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
10388 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, <emphasis>What possible problem could "
10389 "there be with teaching a robot dog to dance?</emphasis>"
10392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10393 #: freeculture.xml:7658
10395 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
10396 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
10397 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
10398 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
10399 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
10400 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
10401 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
10402 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
10406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10407 #: freeculture.xml:7681 freeculture.xml:10178
10408 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
10411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10412 #: freeculture.xml:7671
10414 "See Pamela Samuelson, <quote>Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to "
10415 "Science,</quote> <citetitle>Science</citetitle> 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan "
10416 "I. Koerner, <quote>Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog "
10417 "New Tricks,</quote> <citetitle>American Prospect</citetitle>, January 2002; "
10418 "<quote>Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,</quote> "
10419 "<citetitle>Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter</citetitle>, 11 "
10420 "December 2001; Bill Holland, <quote>Copyright Act Raising Free-Speech "
10421 "Concerns,</quote> <citetitle>Billboard</citetitle>, May 2001; Janelle Brown, "
10422 "<quote>Is the RIAA Running Scared?</quote> Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic "
10423 "Frontier Foundation, <quote>Frequently Asked Questions about "
10424 "<citetitle>Felten and USENIX</citetitle> v. <citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> "
10425 "Legal Case,</quote> available at <ulink "
10426 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #27</ulink>. <placeholder "
10427 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10430 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10431 #: freeculture.xml:7669
10433 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
10434 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
10435 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
10436 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
10437 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
10440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10441 #: freeculture.xml:7689
10443 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
10444 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
10445 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
10446 "standard that would allow the content owner to say <quote>this music cannot "
10447 "be copied,</quote> and have a computer respect that command. The technology "
10448 "was to be part of a <quote>trusted system</quote> of control that would get "
10449 "content owners to trust the system of the Internet much more."
10452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10453 #: freeculture.xml:7699
10455 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
10456 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
10457 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
10458 "problems to the consortium."
10462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10463 #: freeculture.xml:7706
10465 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
10466 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
10467 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
10468 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
10471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10472 #: freeculture.xml:7712
10474 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
10475 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
10476 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
10477 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
10478 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
10479 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
10482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10483 #: freeculture.xml:7720
10485 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
10486 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
10487 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
10488 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
10489 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
10492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10493 #: freeculture.xml:7738
10495 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
10496 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
10497 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
10500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
10501 #: freeculture.xml:7745
10503 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
10504 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
10505 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
10508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10509 #: freeculture.xml:7754
10511 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
10512 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
10513 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
10517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
10518 #: freeculture.xml:7760
10520 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
10521 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
10522 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
10523 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<quote>DMCA</quote>)."
10526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10527 #: freeculture.xml:7768
10529 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
10530 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
10531 "information an offense."
10534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10535 #: freeculture.xml:7773
10537 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
10538 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
10539 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
10540 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
10541 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
10542 "were designed as <emphasis>code</emphasis> to modify the original "
10543 "<emphasis>code</emphasis> of the Internet, to reestablish some protection "
10544 "for copyright owners."
10547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10548 #: freeculture.xml:7784
10550 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
10551 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, "
10552 "<emphasis>legal code</emphasis> intended to buttress <emphasis>software "
10553 "code</emphasis> which itself was intended to support the <emphasis>legal "
10554 "code of copyright</emphasis>."
10557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10558 #: freeculture.xml:7791
10560 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
10561 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
10562 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
10563 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
10564 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
10565 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
10569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10570 #: freeculture.xml:7806
10572 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
10573 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
10574 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
10575 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
10576 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
10577 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
10578 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
10579 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
10580 "system was circumvented."
10583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10584 #: freeculture.xml:7818
10586 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
10587 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
10588 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
10589 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
10590 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
10591 "others to infringe others' copyright."
10594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10595 #: freeculture.xml:7825 freeculture.xml:7858
10596 msgid "Rogers, Fred"
10599 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10600 #: freeculture.xml:7835 freeculture.xml:7871 freeculture.xml:7903
10601 msgid "Conrad, Paul"
10604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10605 #: freeculture.xml:7827
10607 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
10608 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
10609 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
10610 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
10611 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
10612 "<quote><citetitle>Mr. Rogers</citetitle>,</quote> for example, had testified "
10613 "in that case that he wanted people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' "
10614 "Neighborhood. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10617 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
10618 #: freeculture.xml:7854
10620 "<citetitle>Sony Corporation of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal "
10621 "City Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers "
10622 "never changed his view about the VCR. See James Lardner, <citetitle>Fast "
10623 "Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the VCR</citetitle> "
10624 "(New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 270–71. <placeholder "
10625 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
10629 #: freeculture.xml:7839
10631 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
10632 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> at hours when some children cannot use it. I "
10633 "think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such "
10634 "programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with "
10635 "the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "
10636 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "
10637 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> because that's what I produce, that they then "
10638 "become much more active in the programming of their family's television "
10639 "life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My "
10640 "whole approach in broadcasting has always been <quote>You are an important "
10641 "person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.</quote> Maybe "
10642 "I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to "
10643 "be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is "
10644 "important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10649 #: freeculture.xml:7864
10651 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
10652 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
10656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10657 #: freeculture.xml:7869
10659 "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA. "
10660 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10663 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10664 #: freeculture.xml:7874
10665 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
10668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10669 #: freeculture.xml:7877
10671 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
10672 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
10673 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
10674 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
10675 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
10676 "use—a good end."
10680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10681 #: freeculture.xml:7885
10683 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
10684 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
10685 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
10686 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
10689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10690 #: freeculture.xml:7893
10691 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
10694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10695 #: freeculture.xml:7894
10696 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\"></graphic>"
10699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10700 #: freeculture.xml:7897
10702 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
10703 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
10704 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: <emphasis>No one ever died from copyright "
10705 "circumvention</emphasis>. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies "
10706 "absolutely, despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits "
10707 "guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do. <placeholder "
10708 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10712 #: freeculture.xml:7912
10714 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
10715 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
10716 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
10717 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
10718 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
10722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10723 #: freeculture.xml:7920
10725 "This is how <emphasis>code</emphasis> becomes <emphasis>law</emphasis>. The "
10726 "controls built into the technology of copy and access protection become "
10727 "rules the violation of which is also a violation of the law. In this way, "
10728 "the code extends the law—increasing its regulation, even if the "
10729 "subject it regulates (activities that would otherwise plainly constitute "
10730 "fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code becomes law; code extends the "
10731 "law; code thus extends the control that copyright owners effect—at "
10732 "least for those copyright holders with the lawyers who can write the nasty "
10733 "letters that Felten and aibopet.com received."
10736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10737 #: freeculture.xml:7932
10739 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
10740 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
10741 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
10742 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
10743 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
10744 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
10745 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
10746 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
10747 "violate the rules."
10751 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10752 #: freeculture.xml:7951
10754 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, <quote>Legal "
10755 "Fictions, Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,</quote> "
10756 "<citetitle>Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal</citetitle> 17 "
10760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10761 #: freeculture.xml:7945
10763 "For example, imagine you were part of a <citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> fan "
10764 "club. You gathered every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of "
10765 "fan fiction about the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain "
10766 "Kirk. The characters would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply "
10767 "continue it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10771 #: freeculture.xml:7957
10773 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
10774 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
10775 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
10776 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
10777 "wished without fear of legal control."
10780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10781 #: freeculture.xml:7964
10783 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
10784 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
10785 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
10786 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
10787 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
10788 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
10789 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
10793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10794 #: freeculture.xml:7974
10796 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
10797 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
10798 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
10799 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
10800 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
10801 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
10804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10805 #: freeculture.xml:7983
10806 msgid "Market: Concentration"
10810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10811 #: freeculture.xml:7985
10813 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
10814 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
10815 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
10816 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
10817 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
10818 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
10819 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
10820 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
10821 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
10822 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
10823 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
10824 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
10825 "to copyright's control."
10828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10829 #: freeculture.xml:8003
10831 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
10832 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
10833 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
10834 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
10835 "about all the other changes I have described."
10838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10839 #: freeculture.xml:8010
10841 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
10842 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
10843 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
10844 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
10845 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
10846 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
10847 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
10848 "three companies control more than percent of the media."
10851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10852 #: freeculture.xml:8021
10853 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
10857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10858 #: freeculture.xml:8029
10860 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
10861 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
10862 "of Senator John McCain)."
10866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10867 #: freeculture.xml:8036
10869 "Lynette Holloway, <quote>Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to "
10870 "Slide,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 23 December 2002."
10874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10875 #: freeculture.xml:8042
10877 "Molly Ivins, <quote>Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,</quote> "
10878 "<citetitle>Charleston Gazette</citetitle>, 31 May 2003."
10881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10882 #: freeculture.xml:8045
10886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10887 #: freeculture.xml:8046 freeculture.xml:9397
10891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10892 #: freeculture.xml:8047
10893 msgid "McCain, John"
10896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10897 #: freeculture.xml:8048 freeculture.xml:9398
10898 msgid "Universal Music Group"
10901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
10902 #: freeculture.xml:8049
10903 msgid "Warner Music Group"
10906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10907 #: freeculture.xml:8025
10909 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
10910 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, "
10911 "<quote>five companies control 85 percent of our media "
10912 "sources.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording "
10913 "labels of Universal Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music "
10914 "Group, and EMI control 84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder "
10915 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The <quote>five largest cable companies pipe "
10916 "programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers "
10917 "nationwide.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
10918 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> "
10919 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
10920 "id=\"6\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"7\"/>"
10924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10925 #: freeculture.xml:8052
10927 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
10928 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
10929 "seventy-five stations. Today <emphasis>one</emphasis> company owns more than "
10930 "1,200 stations. During that period of consolidation, the total number of "
10931 "radio owners dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest "
10932 "broadcasters control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just "
10933 "four companies control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising "
10937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10938 #: freeculture.xml:8063
10940 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
10941 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
10942 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
10943 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
10944 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
10945 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
10946 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
10947 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
10951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10952 #: freeculture.xml:8077 freeculture.xml:8094
10953 msgid "Fallows, James"
10956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10957 #: freeculture.xml:8074
10959 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
10960 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
10961 "article about Rupert Murdoch, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
10965 #: freeculture.xml:8092
10967 "James Fallows, <quote>The Age of Murdoch,</quote> <citetitle>Atlantic "
10968 "Monthly</citetitle> (September 2003): 89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
10972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
10973 #: freeculture.xml:8081
10975 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
10976 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies … Fox TV shows "
10977 "… Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They "
10978 "sell the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on "
10979 "the broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
10980 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
10981 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
10982 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
10983 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
10984 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10988 #: freeculture.xml:8099
10990 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
10991 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
10992 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
10993 "thousand words could do:"
10996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10997 #: freeculture.xml:8105
10998 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
11001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11002 #: freeculture.xml:8106
11003 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\"></graphic>"
11007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11008 #: freeculture.xml:8110
11010 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
11011 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
11015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11016 #: freeculture.xml:8115
11018 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
11019 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
11020 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
11021 "beginning to change my mind."
11024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11025 #: freeculture.xml:8121
11027 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
11031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11032 #: freeculture.xml:8124
11033 msgid "Lear, Norman"
11036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11037 #: freeculture.xml:8126 freeculture.xml:8189
11038 msgid "All in the Family"
11041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11042 #: freeculture.xml:8128
11044 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for <citetitle>All in the "
11045 "Family</citetitle>. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It "
11046 "was too edgy, they told Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more "
11047 "edgy than the first. ABC was exasperated. You're missing the point, they "
11048 "told Lear. We wanted less edgy, not more."
11052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11053 #: freeculture.xml:8140
11055 "Leonard Hill, <quote>The Axis of Access,</quote> remarks before Weidenbaum "
11056 "Center Forum, <quote>Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,</quote> "
11057 "St. Louis, Missouri, 3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available "
11058 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the "
11059 "Lear story, not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
11060 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
11063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11064 #: freeculture.xml:8135
11066 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
11067 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
11068 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
11069 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11074 #: freeculture.xml:8151
11076 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
11077 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
11078 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
11079 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
11080 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
11081 "<quote>independent</quote> of the networks."
11085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11086 #: freeculture.xml:8170
11088 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
11089 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
11090 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
11091 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
11092 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
11093 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
11094 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
11097 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11098 #: freeculture.xml:8160
11100 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
11101 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
11102 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
11103 "independent television studios remained. <quote>In 1992, only 15 percent of "
11104 "new series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last "
11105 "year, the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
11106 "quintupled to 77 percent.</quote> <quote>In 1992, 16 new series were "
11107 "produced independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
11108 "one.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of "
11109 "prime time television was owned by the networks that ran it. <quote>In the "
11110 "ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television "
11111 "hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the "
11112 "number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent "
11113 "studios decreased 63%.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
11116 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11117 #: freeculture.xml:8191
11119 "Today, another Norman Lear with another <citetitle>All in the "
11120 "Family</citetitle> would find that he had the choice either to make the show "
11121 "less edgy or to be fired: The content of any show developed for a network is "
11122 "increasingly owned by the network."
11125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
11126 #: freeculture.xml:8200
11127 msgid "Diller, Barry"
11130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
11131 #: freeculture.xml:8201
11132 msgid "Moyers, Bill"
11135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11136 #: freeculture.xml:8197
11138 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
11139 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
11140 "Diller said to Bill Moyers, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
11141 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
11145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11146 #: freeculture.xml:8214
11148 "<quote>Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,</quote> <citetitle>Now with "
11149 "Bill Moyers</citetitle>, Bill Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript "
11150 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
11153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11154 #: freeculture.xml:8205
11156 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
11157 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
11158 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
11159 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
11160 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
11161 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11165 #: freeculture.xml:8221
11167 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
11168 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
11169 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
11170 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
11171 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
11172 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
11173 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
11174 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
11175 "the environment for a democracy."
11178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11179 #: freeculture.xml:8232
11180 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
11184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11185 #: freeculture.xml:8241
11187 "Clayton M. Christensen, <citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The "
11188 "Revolutionary National Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do "
11189 "Business</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, "
11190 "1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first suggested by Dean "
11191 "Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, <quote>The Interaction of Design Hierarchies "
11192 "and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,</quote> <citetitle>Research "
11193 "Policy</citetitle> 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see "
11194 "Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, <citetitle>Creative Destruction: Why "
11195 "Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to "
11196 "Successfully Transform Them</citetitle> (New York: Currency/Doubleday, "
11200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11201 #: freeculture.xml:8234
11203 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
11204 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the "
11205 "<quote>Innovator's Dilemma</quote>: the fact that large traditional firms "
11206 "find it rational to ignore new, breakthrough technologies that compete with "
11207 "their core business. The same analysis could help explain why large, "
11208 "traditional media companies would find it rational to ignore new cultural "
11209 "trends.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only "
11210 "don't, but should not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, "
11211 "there will be far too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11216 #: freeculture.xml:8258
11218 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
11219 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
11220 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
11223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11224 #: freeculture.xml:8264
11226 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
11230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11231 #: freeculture.xml:8268
11233 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
11234 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
11235 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
11239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11240 #: freeculture.xml:8273
11242 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
11243 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
11244 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
11245 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
11246 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
11247 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
11248 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
11249 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
11250 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
11251 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
11252 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
11253 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
11254 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
11257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11258 #: freeculture.xml:8292
11260 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
11261 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
11262 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
11265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11266 #: freeculture.xml:8301
11268 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
11269 "media campaign as part of the <quote>war on drugs.</quote> The campaign "
11270 "produced scores of short film clips about issues related to illegal "
11271 "drugs. In one series (the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, "
11272 "discussing the idea of legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the "
11273 "collateral damage from the war. One advances an argument in favor of drug "
11274 "legalization. The other responds in a powerful and effective way against the "
11275 "argument of the first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
11276 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
11280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11281 #: freeculture.xml:8313
11283 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
11284 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
11287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11288 #: freeculture.xml:8317
11290 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
11291 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
11292 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
11293 "war. Can you do it?"
11297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11298 #: freeculture.xml:8323
11300 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
11301 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
11302 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
11306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11307 #: freeculture.xml:8365
11311 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11312 #: freeculture.xml:8366
11313 msgid "Marijuana Policy Project"
11316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11317 #: freeculture.xml:8367
11321 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11322 #: freeculture.xml:8368
11326 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11327 #: freeculture.xml:8369
11331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11332 #: freeculture.xml:8340
11334 "The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that "
11335 "directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the "
11336 "Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as <quote>against [their] "
11337 "policy.</quote> The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without "
11338 "reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the "
11339 "ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and "
11340 "returned the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. "
11341 "These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for "
11342 "example, Nat Ives, <quote>On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet "
11343 "with Rejection from TV Networks,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
11344 "Times</citetitle>, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time "
11345 "there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to even "
11346 "the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, <quote>Ad Hoc "
11347 "Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and "
11348 "Radio,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law and Policy Review</citetitle> 6 (1988): "
11349 "449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the "
11350 "courts, see <citetitle>Radio-Television News Directors "
11351 "Association</citetitle> v. <citetitle>FCC</citetitle>, 184 F. 3d 872 "
11352 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
11353 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
11354 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
11355 "Matier and Andrew Ross, <quote>Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects "
11356 "Ad,</quote> SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
11357 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
11358 "the criticism was <quote>too controversial.</quote> <placeholder "
11359 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
11360 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11361 "id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> <placeholder "
11362 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"6\"/>"
11365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11366 #: freeculture.xml:8330
11368 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
11369 "<quote>controversial</quote> ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
11370 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
11371 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
11372 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
11373 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
11374 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
11375 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
11376 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11380 #: freeculture.xml:8374
11382 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
11383 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
11384 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
11385 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
11386 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
11387 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
11388 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
11389 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
11392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
11393 #: freeculture.xml:8387
11397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11398 #: freeculture.xml:8389
11400 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
11401 "warriors that the government should <quote>protect my property.</quote> In "
11402 "the abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No "
11403 "sane sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
11407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11408 #: freeculture.xml:8395
11410 "But when we see how dramatically this <quote>property</quote> has "
11411 "changed— when we recognize how it might now interact with both "
11412 "technology and markets to mean that the effective constraint on the liberty "
11413 "to cultivate our culture is dramatically different—the claim begins to "
11414 "seem less innocent and obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to "
11415 "supplement the law's control, and (2) the power of concentrated markets to "
11416 "weaken the opportunity for dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively "
11417 "expanded <quote>property</quote> rights granted by copyright fundamentally "
11418 "changes the freedom within this culture to cultivate and build upon our "
11419 "past, then we have to ask whether this property should be redefined."
11422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11423 #: freeculture.xml:8411
11425 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
11426 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
11427 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
11431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11432 #: freeculture.xml:8417
11434 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
11435 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
11436 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
11437 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
11438 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
11439 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
11440 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
11441 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
11442 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
11445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11446 #: freeculture.xml:8429
11448 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
11449 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
11450 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
11451 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
11452 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
11453 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
11454 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be "
11455 "<emphasis>reductions</emphasis> in the scope of copyright, in response to "
11456 "the extraordinary increase in control that technology and the market enable."
11460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11461 #: freeculture.xml:8441
11463 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
11464 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
11465 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
11466 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: <emphasis>Never in our "
11467 "history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of "
11468 "our culture than now</emphasis>."
11471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11472 #: freeculture.xml:8465
11474 "Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a similar point in his <quote>four "
11475 "surrenders</quote> of copyright law in the digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, "
11476 "159–60. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11480 #: freeculture.xml:8450
11482 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
11483 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
11484 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
11485 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
11486 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
11487 "networks. <emphasis>Never</emphasis> has copyright protected such a wide "
11488 "range of rights, against as broad a range of actors, for a term that was "
11489 "remotely as long. This form of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny "
11490 "part of the creative energy of a nation at the founding—is now a "
11491 "massive regulation of the overall creative process. Law plus technology plus "
11492 "the market now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the "
11493 "most significant regulation of culture that our free society has "
11494 "known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11498 #: freeculture.xml:8471
11499 msgid "This has been a long chapter. Its point can now be briefly stated."
11502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11503 #: freeculture.xml:8474
11505 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
11506 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
11507 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
11508 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
11509 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
11512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
11513 #: freeculture.xml:8486 freeculture.xml:8523
11517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
11518 #: freeculture.xml:8487 freeculture.xml:8524 freeculture.xml:8562 freeculture.xml:8594
11522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
11523 #: freeculture.xml:8492 freeculture.xml:8529 freeculture.xml:8567 freeculture.xml:8599
11527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
11528 #: freeculture.xml:8493 freeculture.xml:8530 freeculture.xml:8531 freeculture.xml:8568 freeculture.xml:8569 freeculture.xml:8600 freeculture.xml:8601 freeculture.xml:8605 freeculture.xml:8606
11532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
11533 #: freeculture.xml:8494 freeculture.xml:8498 freeculture.xml:8499 freeculture.xml:8535 freeculture.xml:8536 freeculture.xml:8574
11537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
11538 #: freeculture.xml:8497 freeculture.xml:8534 freeculture.xml:8572 freeculture.xml:8604
11539 msgid "Noncommercial"
11543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11544 #: freeculture.xml:8506
11546 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
11547 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
11548 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
11549 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
11553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11554 #: freeculture.xml:8515
11555 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
11558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11559 #: freeculture.xml:8543
11561 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
11562 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
11563 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
11564 "essentially free."
11567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11568 #: freeculture.xml:8549
11570 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
11571 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
11572 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
11573 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
11577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
11578 #: freeculture.xml:8561 freeculture.xml:8593
11582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
11583 #: freeculture.xml:8573
11584 msgid "©/Free"
11587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11588 #: freeculture.xml:8581
11590 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
11591 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
11592 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
11593 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
11598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11599 #: freeculture.xml:8613
11601 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
11602 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
11603 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
11604 "commercial publishers."
11607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11608 #: freeculture.xml:8621
11610 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
11611 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
11612 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
11613 "actually does any good."
11616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11617 #: freeculture.xml:8627
11619 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
11620 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
11621 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
11622 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
11623 "chapters <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/> and "
11624 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"transformers\"/>, one "
11625 "might well wonder whether it does more harm than good for commercial "
11626 "transformation. More commercial transformative work would be created if "
11627 "derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
11630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11631 #: freeculture.xml:8651
11632 msgid "legal realist movement"
11635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11636 #: freeculture.xml:8645
11638 "It was the single most important contribution of the legal realist movement "
11639 "to demonstrate that all property rights are always crafted to balance public "
11640 "and private interests. See Thomas C. Grey, <quote>The Disintegration of "
11641 "Property,</quote> in <citetitle>Nomos XXII: Property</citetitle>, J. Roland "
11642 "Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds. (New York: New York University Press, "
11643 "1980). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11647 #: freeculture.xml:8639
11649 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
11650 "copyright is a kind of <quote>property,</quote> and of course, as with any "
11651 "property, the state ought to protect it. But first impressions "
11652 "notwithstanding, historically, this property right (as with all property "
11653 "rights<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to "
11654 "balance the important need to give authors and artists incentives with the "
11655 "equally important need to assure access to creative work. This balance has "
11656 "always been struck in light of new technologies. And for almost half of our "
11657 "tradition, the <quote>copyright</quote> did not control <emphasis>at "
11658 "all</emphasis> the freedom of others to build upon or transform a creative "
11659 "work. American culture was born free, and for almost 180 years our country "
11660 "consistently protected a vibrant and rich free culture."
11664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11665 #: freeculture.xml:8664
11667 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
11668 "the scope of the interests protected by <quote>property.</quote> The very "
11669 "birth of <quote>copyright</quote> as a statutory right recognized those "
11670 "limits, by granting copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the "
11671 "story of chapter 6). The tradition of <quote>fair use</quote> is animated by "
11672 "a similar concern that is increasingly under strain as the costs of "
11673 "exercising any fair use right become unavoidably high (the story of chapter "
11674 "7). Adding statutory rights where markets might stifle innovation is another "
11675 "familiar limit on the property right that copyright is (chapter 8). And "
11676 "granting archives and libraries a broad freedom to collect, claims of "
11677 "property notwithstanding, is a crucial part of guaranteeing the soul of a "
11678 "culture (chapter 9). Free cultures, like free markets, are built with "
11679 "property. But the nature of the property that builds a free culture is very "
11680 "different from the extremist vision that dominates the debate today."
11683 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11684 #: freeculture.xml:8683
11686 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
11687 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
11688 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
11689 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
11690 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
11691 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
11692 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
11693 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
11694 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
11698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
11699 #: freeculture.xml:8700
11703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
11704 #: freeculture.xml:8704
11705 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
11708 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
11709 #: freeculture.xml:8706
11713 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
11714 #: freeculture.xml:8709
11715 msgid "Wells, H. G."
11718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
11719 #: freeculture.xml:8712
11720 msgid "<quote>Country of the Blind, The</quote> (Wells)"
11724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
11725 #: freeculture.xml:8720
11727 "H. G. Wells, <quote>The Country of the Blind</quote> (1904, 1911). See "
11728 "H. G. Wells, <citetitle>The Country of the Blind and Other "
11729 "Stories</citetitle>, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: Oxford University "
11733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11734 #: freeculture.xml:8716
11736 "In a well-known short story by H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez "
11737 "trips (literally, down an ice slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in "
11738 "the Peruvian Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
11739 "extraordinarily beautiful, with <quote>sweet water, pasture, an even "
11740 "climate, slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an "
11741 "excellent fruit.</quote> But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this "
11742 "as an opportunity. <quote>In the Country of the Blind,</quote> he tells "
11743 "himself, <quote>the One-Eyed Man is King.</quote> So he resolves to live "
11744 "with the villagers to explore life as a king."
11747 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11748 #: freeculture.xml:8732
11750 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
11751 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are "
11752 "<quote>blind.</quote> They don't have the word "
11753 "<citetitle>blind</citetitle>. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
11754 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
11755 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
11756 "becomes increasingly frustrated. <quote>`You don't understand,' he cried, in "
11757 "a voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
11758 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'</quote>"
11762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11763 #: freeculture.xml:8744
11765 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
11766 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
11767 "a young woman who to him seems <quote>the most beautiful thing in the whole "
11768 "of creation,</quote> understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of "
11769 "what he sees <quote>seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she "
11770 "listened to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet "
11771 "white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.</quote> <quote>She "
11772 "did not believe,</quote> Wells tells us, and <quote>she could only half "
11773 "understand, but she was mysteriously delighted.</quote>"
11776 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11777 #: freeculture.xml:8755
11779 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his <quote>mysteriously "
11780 "delighted</quote> love, the father and the village object. <quote>You see, "
11781 "my dear,</quote> her father instructs, <quote>he's an idiot. He has "
11782 "delusions. He can't do anything right.</quote> They take Nunez to the "
11786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11787 #: freeculture.xml:8761
11789 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. <quote>His brain "
11790 "is affected,</quote> he reports."
11793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11794 #: freeculture.xml:8765
11796 "<quote>What affects it?</quote> the father asks. <quote>Those queer things "
11797 "that are called the eyes … are diseased … in such a way as to "
11798 "affect his brain.</quote>"
11801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11802 #: freeculture.xml:8770
11804 "The doctor continues: <quote>I think I may say with reasonable certainty "
11805 "that in order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and "
11806 "easy surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
11811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11812 #: freeculture.xml:8776
11814 "<quote>Thank Heaven for science!</quote> says the father to the doctor. They "
11815 "inform Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. "
11816 "(You'll have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I "
11817 "believe in free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.) It "
11818 "sometimes happens that the eggs of twins fuse in the mother's womb. That "
11819 "fusion produces a <quote>chimera.</quote> A chimera is a single creature "
11820 "with two sets of DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different "
11821 "from the DNA of the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder "
11822 "mysteries. <quote>But the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was "
11823 "not the person whose blood was at the scene. …</quote>"
11826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11827 #: freeculture.xml:8793
11829 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
11830 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
11831 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
11832 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
11833 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a <quote>person</quote> should "
11834 "reflect this reality."
11837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11838 #: freeculture.xml:8801
11840 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
11841 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
11842 "enough, <quote>the copyright wars,</quote> the more I think we're dealing "
11843 "with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question <quote>What is "
11844 "p2p file sharing?</quote> both sides have it right, and both sides have it "
11845 "wrong. One side says, <quote>File sharing is just like two kids taping each "
11846 "others' records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty "
11847 "years without any question at all.</quote> That's true, at least in "
11848 "part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but "
11849 "rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all "
11850 "relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company "
11851 "no doubt did as a kid: sharing music."
11854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11855 #: freeculture.xml:8815
11857 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
11858 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
11859 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "
11860 "<quote>friends</quote> beyond recognition to say <quote>my ten thousand best "
11861 "friends</quote> can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best "
11862 "friend is what <quote>we have always been allowed to do,</quote> we have not "
11863 "always been allowed to share music with <quote>our ten thousand best "
11867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11868 #: freeculture.xml:8824
11870 "Likewise, when the other side says, <quote>File sharing is just like walking "
11871 "into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with "
11872 "it,</quote> that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) "
11873 "releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free "
11874 "copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower. "
11875 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11880 #: freeculture.xml:8835
11882 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
11883 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
11884 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
11885 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
11886 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
11887 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
11888 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
11891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11892 #: freeculture.xml:8845
11894 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
11895 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
11896 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
11897 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
11898 "rules should govern it?"
11901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11902 #: freeculture.xml:8861 freeculture.xml:9142 freeculture.xml:10180
11903 msgid "ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by"
11906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11907 #: freeculture.xml:8892
11908 msgid "Conyers, John, Jr."
11911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11912 #: freeculture.xml:8893 freeculture.xml:9605
11913 msgid "Berman, Howard L."
11916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
11917 #: freeculture.xml:8861
11919 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For an excellent summary, see the "
11920 "report prepared by GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society "
11921 "at Harvard Law School, <quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
11922 "World,</quote> 27 June 2003, available at <ulink "
11923 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John Conyers "
11924 "Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill that "
11925 "would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
11926 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
11927 "<quote>House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
11928 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 17 July 2003, available at <ulink "
11929 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #34</ulink>. Civil penalties are "
11930 "currently set at $150,000 per copied song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) "
11931 "legal challenge to the RIAA's demand that an ISP reveal the identity of a "
11932 "user accused of sharing more than 600 songs through a family computer, see "
11933 "<citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Verizon Internet Services (In "
11934 "re. Verizon Internet Services)</citetitle>, 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 "
11935 "(D.D.C. 2003). Such a user could face liability ranging as high as $90 "
11936 "million. Such astronomical figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal "
11937 "in its prosecution of file sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to "
11938 "$17,500 for four students accused of heavy file sharing on university "
11939 "networks must have seemed a mere pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA "
11940 "could seek should the matter proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, "
11941 "<quote>Downloading Could Lead to Fines,</quote> redandblack.com, August "
11942 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
11943 "#35</ulink>. For an example of the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, "
11944 "and of the subpoenas issued to universities to reveal student file-sharer "
11945 "identities, see James Collins, <quote>RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to "
11946 "Name Students,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 8 August 2003, "
11947 "D3, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
11948 "#36</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
11949 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
11952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11953 #: freeculture.xml:8852
11955 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
11956 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
11957 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
11958 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
11959 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
11960 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
11961 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
11965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11966 #: freeculture.xml:8899
11968 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
11969 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
11970 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
11971 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
11972 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
11975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11976 #: freeculture.xml:8906
11978 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
11979 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
11980 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
11981 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
11982 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
11983 "<emphasis>either</emphasis> extreme would be worse than a reasonable "
11984 "alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse "
11985 "of the two extremes."
11989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
11990 #: freeculture.xml:8918
11992 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
11993 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
11994 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
11995 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
11996 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
12000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12001 #: freeculture.xml:8926
12003 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to <quote>steal</quote> "
12004 "music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this "
12005 "war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so "
12006 "broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation "
12007 "that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing "
12008 "of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The "
12009 "law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public "
12010 "policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing "
12011 "the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,"
12014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12015 #: freeculture.xml:8939
12017 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
12018 "and we want to protect those rights."
12021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12022 #: freeculture.xml:8943
12024 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
12025 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
12026 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
12027 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
12032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12033 #: freeculture.xml:8960
12035 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
12036 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
12037 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
12038 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
12039 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
12040 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
12043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12044 #: freeculture.xml:8950
12046 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
12047 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
12048 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
12049 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
12050 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
12051 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
12052 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
12053 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12057 #: freeculture.xml:8974 freeculture.xml:9330
12058 msgid "Vivendi Universal"
12061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12062 #: freeculture.xml:8971
12064 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "
12065 "<quote>the major labels.</quote> Its position on these matters has now "
12066 "changed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12070 #: freeculture.xml:8977
12072 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
12073 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
12074 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
12077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12078 #: freeculture.xml:8985
12079 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
12082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12083 #: freeculture.xml:8987
12085 "To fight <quote>piracy,</quote> to protect <quote>property,</quote> the "
12086 "content industry has launched a war. Lobbying and lots of campaign "
12087 "contributions have now brought the government into this war. As with any "
12088 "war, this one will have both direct and collateral damage. As with any war "
12089 "of prohibition, these damages will be suffered most by our own people."
12092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12093 #: freeculture.xml:8994
12095 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
12096 "particular, the consequences for <quote>free culture.</quote> But my aim now "
12097 "is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
12101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12102 #: freeculture.xml:9000
12104 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
12105 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
12106 "the property called <quote>intellectual property</quote> is at its greatest "
12110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12111 #: freeculture.xml:9008
12113 "Yet <quote>common sense</quote> does not see it this way. Common sense is "
12114 "still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme "
12115 "claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical "
12116 "rejection of <quote>piracy</quote> still has play."
12120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12121 #: freeculture.xml:9016
12123 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
12124 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
12125 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
12126 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
12127 "today's monopolists of culture."
12130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12131 #: freeculture.xml:9023
12132 msgid "Constraining Creators"
12135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12136 #: freeculture.xml:9025
12138 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
12139 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
12140 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
12141 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
12142 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
12143 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
12144 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
12145 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
12146 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
12147 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
12148 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
12149 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
12152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12153 #: freeculture.xml:9040
12155 "This digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> is in part an extension of "
12156 "the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and "
12157 "in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it "
12158 "explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of "
12159 "digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> promises a world of "
12160 "extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly "
12161 "shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a "
12162 "broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and "
12163 "contribute to the culture all around."
12167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12168 #: freeculture.xml:9051
12170 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
12171 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
12172 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
12173 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
12174 "across the globe."
12177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12178 #: freeculture.xml:9061
12180 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
12181 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
12182 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
12183 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
12184 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
12185 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
12186 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
12187 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
12188 "presumptively illegal."
12191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
12192 #: freeculture.xml:9089 freeculture.xml:9110
12196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12197 #: freeculture.xml:9084
12199 "See Lynne W. Jeter, <citetitle>Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at "
12200 "WorldCom</citetitle> (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; "
12201 "for details of the settlement, see MCI press release, <quote>MCI Wins "
12202 "U.S. District Court Approval for SEC Settlement</quote> (7 July 2003), "
12203 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>. "
12204 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12207 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12208 #: freeculture.xml:9105
12209 msgid "Bush, George W."
12212 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12213 #: freeculture.xml:9096
12215 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
12216 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
12217 "overview, see Tanya Albert, <quote>Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be "
12218 "Back,' Say Tort Reformers,</quote> amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at "
12219 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and "
12220 "<quote>Senate Turns Back Malpractice Caps,</quote> CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, "
12221 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12222 "#39</ulink>. President Bush has continued to urge tort reform in recent "
12223 "months. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12227 #: freeculture.xml:9072
12229 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
12230 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
12231 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
12232 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
12233 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 "
12234 "was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search "
12235 "engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which "
12236 "defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in "
12237 "market capitalization of over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere "
12238 "$750 million.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation "
12239 "being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the "
12240 "wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in "
12241 "damages for pain and suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can "
12242 "common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for "
12243 "downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's "
12244 "negligently butchering a patient? <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
12247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12248 #: freeculture.xml:9112
12249 msgid "art, underground"
12253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12254 #: freeculture.xml:9133
12256 "See Danit Lidor, <quote>Artists Just Wanna Be Free,</quote> "
12257 "<citetitle>Wired</citetitle>, 7 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12258 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #40</ulink>. For an overview of "
12259 "the exhibition, see <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12264 #: freeculture.xml:9114
12266 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
12267 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
12268 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
12269 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys "
12270 "<quote>pirates.</quote> We make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a "
12271 "public domain, because the boundaries of the public domain are designed to "
12272 "be unclear. It never pays to do anything except pay for the right to create, "
12273 "and hence only those who can pay are allowed to create. As was the case in "
12274 "the Soviet Union, though for very different reasons, we will begin to see a "
12275 "world of underground art—not because the message is necessarily "
12276 "political, or because the subject is controversial, but because the very act "
12277 "of creating the art is legally fraught. Already, exhibits of <quote>illegal "
12278 "art</quote> tour the United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
12279 "In what does their <quote>illegality</quote> consist? In the act of mixing "
12280 "the culture around us with an expression that is critical or reflective."
12283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12284 #: freeculture.xml:9144
12286 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
12287 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
12288 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>. But an even bigger part has to do "
12289 "with the increasing ease with which infractions can be tracked. As users of "
12290 "file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a trivial matter for "
12291 "copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service providers to reveal "
12292 "who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape player transmitted a "
12293 "list of the songs that you played in the privacy of your own home that "
12294 "anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
12297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12298 #: freeculture.xml:9157
12300 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
12301 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
12302 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
12303 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
12304 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
12305 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
12306 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
12307 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
12308 "them is not similarly free."
12311 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12312 #: freeculture.xml:9168
12314 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
12315 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/>, "
12316 "in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, I have been "
12317 "lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was fair use, and "
12318 "hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
12322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12323 #: freeculture.xml:9179
12325 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
12326 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
12327 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
12328 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
12329 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
12330 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
12331 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
12332 "on the rule of law."
12335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12336 #: freeculture.xml:9189
12338 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
12339 "<quote>breathing room</quote> between regulation by the law and the access "
12340 "the law should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal "
12341 "system has become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that "
12342 "publishers impose upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon "
12343 "filmmakers, the rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these "
12344 "are the real laws governing creativity. And these rules have little "
12345 "relationship to the <quote>law</quote> with which judges comfort themselves."
12348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12349 #: freeculture.xml:9200
12351 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
12352 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
12353 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
12354 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
12355 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
12356 "that pass under the name <quote>copyright</quote> silence speech and "
12357 "creativity. And in that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to "
12358 "continue to believe they live in a culture that is free."
12361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12362 #: freeculture.xml:9211
12363 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
12367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12368 #: freeculture.xml:9215
12370 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
12371 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
12372 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
12373 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made … you're not going to "
12374 "get it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note "
12375 "from a lawyer saying, <quote>This has been cleared.</quote> You're not even "
12376 "going to get it on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at "
12377 "which they control it."
12380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12381 #: freeculture.xml:9228
12382 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
12385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12386 #: freeculture.xml:9230
12388 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
12389 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
12390 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
12391 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
12392 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
12396 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12397 #: freeculture.xml:9238
12399 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
12400 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
12401 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, 188 "
12402 "pages into a book like this), then you can see this other aspect by "
12403 "substituting <quote>free market</quote> every place I've spoken of "
12404 "<quote>free culture.</quote> The point is the same, even if the interests "
12405 "affecting culture are more fundamental."
12408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12409 #: freeculture.xml:9248
12411 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
12412 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
12413 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
12414 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
12415 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
12416 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
12417 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
12418 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
12419 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
12420 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
12423 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12424 #: freeculture.xml:9260 freeculture.xml:9368
12425 msgid "Barry, Hank"
12429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12430 #: freeculture.xml:9262
12432 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
12433 "that I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
12434 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>. The consequence of this massive threat of "
12435 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
12436 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
12437 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
12438 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
12439 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
12440 "Barry calls a <quote>nuclear pall</quote> that has fallen over the "
12441 "Valley—has been learned."
12444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12445 #: freeculture.xml:9275
12447 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
12448 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> and which has progressed in a way "
12449 "that even I (pessimist extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
12452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12453 #: freeculture.xml:9279
12454 msgid "Roberts, Michael"
12457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12458 #: freeculture.xml:9281
12460 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
12461 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
12462 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
12463 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
12464 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
12468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12469 #: freeculture.xml:9289
12471 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
12472 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
12473 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
12474 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
12475 "so on. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12479 #: freeculture.xml:9297
12481 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
12482 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
12483 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
12484 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
12485 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
12486 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
12487 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
12488 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
12489 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
12493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12494 #: freeculture.xml:9309
12496 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
12497 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
12498 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
12499 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
12503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12504 #: freeculture.xml:9318
12506 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
12507 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
12508 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
12509 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
12510 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
12511 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
12512 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
12513 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
12514 "something they had already bought."
12517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12518 #: freeculture.xml:9333
12520 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
12521 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
12522 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
12523 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
12524 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
12525 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
12526 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
12529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12530 #: freeculture.xml:9343
12531 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
12534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12535 #: freeculture.xml:9346
12537 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
12538 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
12539 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
12540 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
12541 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
12542 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
12543 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
12547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12548 #: freeculture.xml:9356
12550 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
12551 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
12552 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
12553 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
12554 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
12555 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
12556 "cost you and your firm dearly."
12559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12560 #: freeculture.xml:9367
12561 msgid "Hummer, John"
12564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12565 #: freeculture.xml:9369
12566 msgid "Hummer Winblad"
12570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12571 #: freeculture.xml:9377
12573 "See Joseph Menn, <quote>Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,</quote> "
12574 "<citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 23 April 2003. For a parallel "
12575 "argument about the effects on innovation in the distribution of music, see "
12576 "Janelle Brown, <quote>The Music Revolution Will Not Be Digitized,</quote> "
12577 "Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
12578 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
12579 "Healey, <quote>Online Music Services Besieged,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
12580 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 28 May 2001."
12583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12584 #: freeculture.xml:9371
12586 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
12587 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
12588 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
12589 "cofounder ( John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
12590 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
12591 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
12592 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
12593 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
12594 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
12595 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
12596 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
12597 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
12598 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
12599 "that touch content. In an article in <citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, "
12600 "Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW: <placeholder "
12601 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
12604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
12605 #: freeculture.xml:9401
12609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12610 #: freeculture.xml:9416
12611 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
12614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12615 #: freeculture.xml:9412
12617 "Rafe Needleman, <quote>Driving in Cars with MP3s,</quote> "
12618 "<citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12619 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #43</ulink>. I am grateful to "
12620 "Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12625 #: freeculture.xml:9403
12627 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
12628 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
12629 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
12630 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
12631 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
12632 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. … <placeholder "
12633 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12637 #: freeculture.xml:9421
12639 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with <quote>your money or your "
12640 "life</quote> offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats "
12641 "that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that "
12642 "will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to "
12643 "start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly "
12644 "threatened by litigation."
12648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12649 #: freeculture.xml:9431
12651 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
12652 "enterprises. The point is the definition of <quote>illegal.</quote> The law "
12653 "is a mess of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to "
12654 "new technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and "
12655 "by embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, "
12656 "that uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
12657 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
12658 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
12659 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
12660 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
12661 "and much less creativity."
12664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12665 #: freeculture.xml:9446
12667 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
12668 "use. Whatever the <quote>real</quote> law is, realism about the effect of "
12669 "law in both contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation "
12670 "will systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
12671 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
12672 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
12673 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
12674 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
12675 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulatedregulated market."
12679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12680 #: freeculture.xml:9458
12682 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
12683 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
12684 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
12685 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
12686 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
12687 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
12688 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
12689 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
12690 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
12691 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
12692 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
12693 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
12694 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
12695 "justifying to justify that result. The uncertainty of the law is one burden "
12696 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
12697 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
12698 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
12702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12703 #: freeculture.xml:9480
12705 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
12706 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
12707 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
12708 "<quote>bug.</quote> The efficient spread of content means that content "
12709 "distributors have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. "
12710 "One obvious response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less "
12711 "efficient. If the Internet enables <quote>piracy,</quote> then, this "
12712 "response says, we should break the kneecaps of the Internet."
12716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12717 #: freeculture.xml:9495
12719 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> "
12720 "GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law "
12721 "School (2003), 33–35, available at <ulink "
12722 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
12726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12727 #: freeculture.xml:9508
12728 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
12731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12732 #: freeculture.xml:9491
12734 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
12735 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
12736 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
12737 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
12738 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
12739 "explore a mandatory <quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would be required on "
12740 "any device capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and "
12741 "that would disable the copying of any content that is marked with a "
12742 "broadcast flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content "
12743 "providers from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt "
12744 "down copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
12745 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
12749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12750 #: freeculture.xml:9512
12752 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
12753 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
12754 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
12755 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
12756 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
12760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12761 #: freeculture.xml:9526
12763 "See David McGuire, <quote>Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,</quote> "
12764 "Newsbytes, February 2002 (Entertainment)."
12767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
12768 #: freeculture.xml:9532 freeculture.xml:11386
12772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12773 #: freeculture.xml:9522
12775 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
12776 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
12777 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
12778 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
12779 "any protection should not do more harm than good. <placeholder "
12780 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
12783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12784 #: freeculture.xml:9535
12786 "There is one more obvious way in which this war has harmed "
12787 "innovation—again, a story that will be quite familiar to the free "
12791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12792 #: freeculture.xml:9540
12794 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
12795 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
12796 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
12797 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
12800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12801 #: freeculture.xml:9552
12803 "Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (Amherst, N.Y.: "
12804 "Prometheus Books, 2001). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12808 #: freeculture.xml:9546
12810 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
12811 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, despite this feature of copyright as regulation, "
12812 "and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica Litman in her "
12813 "book <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle>,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
12814 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter 10 "
12815 "details, when new technologies have come along, Congress has struck a "
12816 "balance to assure that the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or "
12817 "statutory, licenses have been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the "
12818 "case of the VCR) has been another."
12821 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12822 #: freeculture.xml:9563
12824 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
12825 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
12826 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
12827 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
12828 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
12832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12833 #: freeculture.xml:9572
12835 "The only circuit court exception is found in <citetitle>Recording Industry "
12836 "Association of America (RIAA)</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Diamond Multimedia "
12837 "Systems</citetitle>, 180 F. 3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999). There the court of "
12838 "appeals for the Ninth Circuit reasoned that makers of a portable MP3 player "
12839 "were not liable for contributory copyright infringement for a device that is "
12840 "unable to record or redistribute music (a device whose only copying function "
12841 "is to render portable a music file already stored on a user's hard drive). "
12842 "At the district court level, the only exception is found in "
12843 "<citetitle>Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, "
12844 "Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Grokster, Ltd</citetitle>., 259 F. Supp. 2d "
12845 "1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the link between the "
12846 "distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to make the "
12847 "distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement liability."
12850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12851 #: freeculture.xml:9590
12852 msgid "Tauzin, Billy"
12855 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12856 #: freeculture.xml:9606
12857 msgid "Hollings, Fritz"
12860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12861 #: freeculture.xml:9590
12863 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For example, in July 2002, "
12864 "Representative Howard Berman introduced the Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention "
12865 "Act (H.R. 5211), which would immunize copyright holders from liability for "
12866 "damage done to computers when the copyright holders use technology to stop "
12867 "copyright infringement. In August 2002, Representative Billy Tauzin "
12868 "introduced a bill to mandate that technologies capable of rebroadcasting "
12869 "digital copies of films broadcast on TV (i.e., computers) respect a "
12870 "<quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would disable copying of that "
12871 "content. And in March of the same year, Senator Fritz Hollings introduced "
12872 "the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandated "
12873 "copyright protection technology in all digital media devices. See GartnerG2, "
12874 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> 27 June "
12875 "2003, 33–34, available at <ulink "
12876 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>. <placeholder "
12877 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> "
12878 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
12881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12882 #: freeculture.xml:9570
12884 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
12885 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
12886 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
12887 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
12888 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
12889 "demise of Internet radio."
12892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12893 #: freeculture.xml:9619
12895 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
12896 "linkend=\"pirates\"/>, when a radio station plays a song, the recording "
12897 "artist doesn't get paid for that <quote>radio performance</quote> unless he "
12898 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
12899 "a version of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote>—to memorialize her famous "
12900 "performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then "
12901 "whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current copyright "
12902 "owners of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> would get some money, whereas "
12903 "Marilyn Monroe would not. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12907 #: freeculture.xml:9631
12909 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
12910 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
12911 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
12912 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
12913 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
12914 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
12915 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
12916 "compensation to the recording artists."
12919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12920 #: freeculture.xml:9642
12922 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
12923 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
12924 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
12925 "<quote>tune in</quote> to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting "
12926 "in San Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular "
12927 "radio station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
12930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12931 #: freeculture.xml:9651
12933 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
12934 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
12935 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
12936 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
12937 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
12938 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
12939 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
12940 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
12941 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
12942 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
12946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12947 #: freeculture.xml:9667
12949 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
12950 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
12951 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
12952 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
12953 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
12954 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
12958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12959 #: freeculture.xml:9691
12960 msgid "Lessing, 239."
12963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12964 #: freeculture.xml:9677
12966 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
12967 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
12968 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
12969 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
12970 "restrictions. … Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
12971 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
12972 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
12973 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
12974 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
12975 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
12976 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
12977 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12982 #: freeculture.xml:9701
12983 msgid "Ibid., 229."
12986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12987 #: freeculture.xml:9696
12989 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
12990 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
12991 "<quote>vested interests, habits, customs and legislation</quote><placeholder "
12992 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
12996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12997 #: freeculture.xml:9706
12999 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
13000 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
13001 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
13002 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
13003 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
13007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13008 #: freeculture.xml:9718
13010 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
13011 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
13012 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
13013 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
13014 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
13015 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
13016 "it plays her hypothetical recording of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> on the "
13017 "air, <emphasis>Internet radio does</emphasis>. Not only is the law not "
13018 "neutral toward Internet radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio "
13019 "more than it burdens terrestrial radio."
13022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13023 #: freeculture.xml:9757
13024 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
13027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13028 #: freeculture.xml:9740
13030 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
13031 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
13032 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
13033 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
13034 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
13035 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
13036 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
13037 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
13038 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>Copyright as "
13039 "Entry Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,</quote> <citetitle>Antitrust "
13040 "Bulletin</citetitle> (Summer/Fall 2002): 461: <quote>This was not confusion, "
13041 "these are just old-fashioned entry barriers. Analog radio stations are "
13042 "protected from digital entrants, reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, "
13043 "this is done in the name of getting royalties to copyright holders, but, "
13044 "absent the play of powerful interests, that could have been done in a "
13045 "media-neutral way.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
13046 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
13049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13050 #: freeculture.xml:9733
13052 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
13053 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
13054 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
13055 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
13056 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
13057 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
13060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13061 #: freeculture.xml:9765
13063 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
13064 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
13065 "would have to collect the following data from <emphasis>every listening "
13066 "transaction</emphasis>:"
13069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13070 #: freeculture.xml:9773
13071 msgid "name of the service;"
13074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13075 #: freeculture.xml:9776
13076 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
13079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13080 #: freeculture.xml:9779
13081 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
13084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13085 #: freeculture.xml:9782
13086 msgid "date of transmission;"
13089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13090 #: freeculture.xml:9785
13091 msgid "time of transmission;"
13094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13095 #: freeculture.xml:9788
13096 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
13099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13100 #: freeculture.xml:9791
13101 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
13104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13105 #: freeculture.xml:9794
13106 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
13109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13110 #: freeculture.xml:9797
13111 msgid "sound recording title;"
13114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13115 #: freeculture.xml:9800
13116 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
13119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13120 #: freeculture.xml:9803
13122 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
13123 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
13127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13128 #: freeculture.xml:9806
13129 msgid "featured recording artist;"
13132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13133 #: freeculture.xml:9809
13134 msgid "retail album title;"
13137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13138 #: freeculture.xml:9812
13139 msgid "recording label;"
13142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13143 #: freeculture.xml:9815
13144 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
13147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13148 #: freeculture.xml:9818
13149 msgid "catalog number;"
13152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13153 #: freeculture.xml:9821
13154 msgid "copyright owner information;"
13157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13158 #: freeculture.xml:9824
13159 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
13162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13163 #: freeculture.xml:9827
13164 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
13167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13168 #: freeculture.xml:9830
13169 msgid "channel or program;"
13172 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13173 #: freeculture.xml:9833
13174 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
13177 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13178 #: freeculture.xml:9836
13179 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
13182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13183 #: freeculture.xml:9839
13184 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
13187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13188 #: freeculture.xml:9842
13189 msgid "unique user identifier;"
13192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13193 #: freeculture.xml:9845
13194 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
13197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13198 #: freeculture.xml:9850
13200 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
13201 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
13202 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
13203 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
13204 "pay a <emphasis>type of copyright fee</emphasis> that terrestrial radio does "
13208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13209 #: freeculture.xml:9858
13211 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
13212 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
13213 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
13216 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
13217 #: freeculture.xml:9862 freeculture.xml:14510
13218 msgid "Real Networks"
13221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13222 #: freeculture.xml:9867
13224 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
13225 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
13226 "Real Networks, told me,"
13230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13231 #: freeculture.xml:9873
13233 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
13234 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
13235 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
13236 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
13237 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, … <quote>How do you come "
13238 "up with a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? "
13239 "Because here we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, "
13240 "and that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, "
13241 "you're going to drive the small webcasters out of business. …</quote>"
13244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13245 #: freeculture.xml:9892
13247 "And the RIAA experts said, <quote>Well, we don't really model this as an "
13248 "industry with thousands of webcasters, <emphasis>we think it should be an "
13249 "industry with, you know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate "
13250 "and it's a stable, predictable market</emphasis>.</quote> (Emphasis added.)"
13253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13254 #: freeculture.xml:9901
13256 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
13257 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
13258 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
13259 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
13260 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
13261 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
13264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13265 #: freeculture.xml:9911
13266 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
13269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13270 #: freeculture.xml:9913
13272 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
13273 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
13274 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
13277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13278 #: freeculture.xml:9919
13280 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
13281 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
13282 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
13286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13287 #: freeculture.xml:9928
13289 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, <quote>The Music Downloading Deluge,</quote> "
13290 "Pew Internet and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
13291 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
13292 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
13293 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
13297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13298 #: freeculture.xml:9924
13300 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
13301 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
13302 "of citizens. According to <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, 43 "
13303 "million Americans downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder "
13304 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 "
13305 "million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 "
13306 "percent of America into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not "
13307 "only the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, but against students building "
13308 "search engines, and increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, "
13309 "the technologies for sharing will advance to further protect and hide "
13310 "illegal use. It is an arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one "
13311 "side inviting a more extreme response by the other."
13315 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13316 #: freeculture.xml:9962
13318 "Alex Pham, <quote>The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA "
13319 "Case,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, "
13323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13324 #: freeculture.xml:9949
13326 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
13327 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
13328 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
13329 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
13330 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
13331 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
13332 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
13333 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
13334 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
13335 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
13336 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
13337 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
13338 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
13339 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
13340 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
13341 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
13342 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
13346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13347 #: freeculture.xml:9984
13349 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, <quote>Alcohol Consumption During "
13350 "Prohibition,</quote> <citetitle>American Economic Review</citetitle> 81, "
13351 "no. 2 (1991): 242."
13355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13356 #: freeculture.xml:9992
13358 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
13359 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
13360 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
13364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13365 #: freeculture.xml:10002
13367 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, <quote>Tax "
13368 "Compliance,</quote> <citetitle>Journal of Economic Literature</citetitle> 36 "
13369 "(1998): 818 (survey of compliance literature)."
13372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
13373 #: freeculture.xml:10009
13374 msgid "alcohol prohibition"
13377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13378 #: freeculture.xml:9974
13380 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
13381 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
13382 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
13383 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
13384 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
13385 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
13386 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
13387 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
13388 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
13389 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13390 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
13391 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
13392 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
13393 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
13394 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our <quote>free "
13395 "society,</quote> but an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated "
13396 "within our society. And as a result, a huge proportion of Americans "
13397 "regularly violate at least some law. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
13401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
13402 #: freeculture.xml:10027
13403 msgid "law schools"
13406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13407 #: freeculture.xml:10012
13409 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
13410 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
13411 "about the importance of <quote>ethics.</quote> As my colleague Charlie "
13412 "Nesson told a class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of "
13413 "students who have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and "
13414 "sometimes drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven "
13415 "cars. These are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the "
13416 "norm. And then we, as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to "
13417 "behave ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds "
13418 "separate, or honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your "
13419 "case is over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some "
13420 "parts of America than in others, but still, everywhere in America "
13421 "today—can't live their lives both normally and legally, since "
13422 "<quote>normally</quote> entails a certain degree of illegality. "
13423 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13427 #: freeculture.xml:10030
13429 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
13430 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
13431 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
13432 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
13433 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
13434 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
13435 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
13436 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
13440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13441 #: freeculture.xml:10043
13443 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
13444 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
13445 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
13446 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
13447 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
13450 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13451 #: freeculture.xml:10050
13453 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
13454 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
13455 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
13456 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
13457 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
13458 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
13459 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
13460 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
13461 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
13462 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of "
13463 "<quote>sharing.</quote> We need to be able to call these twenty million "
13464 "Americans <quote>citizens,</quote> not <quote>felons.</quote>"
13467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13468 #: freeculture.xml:10064
13470 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
13471 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
13472 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
13473 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
13474 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
13475 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
13476 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
13477 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
13478 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
13481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13482 #: freeculture.xml:10076
13483 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
13487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13488 #: freeculture.xml:10079
13490 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
13491 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
13492 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
13493 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
13494 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That <quote>use</quote> of the "
13495 "recordings is free."
13498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13499 #: freeculture.xml:10090
13501 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
13502 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
13503 "copy-protection technologies, I am <quote>free</quote> to copy, or "
13504 "<quote>rip,</quote> music from my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, "
13505 "Apple Corporation went so far as to suggest that <quote>freedom</quote> was "
13506 "a right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the <quote>Rip, Mix, "
13507 "Burn</quote> capacities of digital technologies."
13510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13511 #: freeculture.xml:10098
13515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13516 #: freeculture.xml:10100
13518 "This <quote>use</quote> of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a "
13519 "large process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing "
13520 "them in one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program "
13521 "called Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, "
13522 "Baroque, Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
13523 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
13524 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
13525 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
13529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13530 #: freeculture.xml:10111
13532 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
13533 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
13534 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
13535 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
13536 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
13537 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
13538 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
13542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13543 #: freeculture.xml:10121
13545 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
13546 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
13547 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
13548 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
13549 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
13550 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
13551 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
13552 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
13553 "part of a massively complex <quote>digital rights management</quote> system."
13556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13557 #: freeculture.xml:10135
13559 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
13560 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
13561 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
13562 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
13563 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
13564 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
13568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13569 #: freeculture.xml:10144
13571 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
13572 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
13573 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
13574 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
13575 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
13576 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
13577 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
13578 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
13581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13582 #: freeculture.xml:10155
13584 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
13585 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
13586 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
13587 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
13588 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
13589 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
13590 "horse-drawn buggy."
13593 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13594 #: freeculture.xml:10164
13596 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
13597 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
13598 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
13599 "as criminals and their own survival."
13603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13604 #: freeculture.xml:10170
13606 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
13607 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
13608 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
13609 "important as our tradition of free culture."
13612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13613 #: freeculture.xml:10183
13615 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">There's one</emphasis> more aspect to this "
13616 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
13617 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
13618 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the <quote>collateral "
13619 "damage</quote> that <quote>arises whenever you turn a very large percentage "
13620 "of the population into criminals.</quote> This is the collateral damage to "
13621 "civil liberties generally."
13624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
13625 #: freeculture.xml:10194 freeculture.xml:10304
13626 msgid "von Lohmann, Fred"
13629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13630 #: freeculture.xml:10192
13632 "<quote>If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,</quote> von "
13633 "Lohmann explains, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13637 #: freeculture.xml:10198
13639 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
13640 "one degree or another. … If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
13641 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
13642 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
13643 "continue to receive Internet access? … Our sensibilities change as "
13644 "soon as we think, <quote>Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a "
13645 "lawbreaker.</quote> Well, what this campaign against file sharing has done "
13646 "is turn a remarkable percentage of the American Internet-using population "
13647 "into <quote>lawbreakers.</quote>"
13650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13651 #: freeculture.xml:10210
13653 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
13654 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
13655 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
13658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13659 #: freeculture.xml:10215
13661 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
13662 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
13663 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
13664 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
13665 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
13666 "user is revealed."
13670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13671 #: freeculture.xml:10233
13673 "See Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single "
13674 "Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> "
13675 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, "
13676 "<quote>Worried Parents Pull Plug on File `Stealing'; With the Music Industry "
13677 "Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents are Yanking Software from Home PCs "
13678 "to Avoid Being Sued,</quote> <citetitle>Orlando Sentinel "
13679 "Tribune</citetitle>, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, <quote>Recording "
13680 "Industry Sues Parents,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 15 "
13681 "September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, <quote>She Says She's No Music Pirate. No "
13682 "Snoop Fan, Either,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 25 "
13683 "September 2003, C1; Margo Varadi, <quote>Is Brianna a Criminal?</quote> "
13684 "<citetitle>Toronto Star</citetitle>, 18 September 2003, P7."
13687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13688 #: freeculture.xml:10224
13690 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
13691 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
13692 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
13693 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
13694 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
13695 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
13696 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
13697 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13702 #: freeculture.xml:10251
13704 "See <quote>Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses "
13705 "Some Methods Used,</quote> CNN.com, available at <ulink "
13706 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
13709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13710 #: freeculture.xml:10247
13712 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
13713 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
13714 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
13715 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
13716 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
13717 "MP3s will have the same <quote>fingerprint.</quote>"
13721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13722 #: freeculture.xml:10272
13724 "See Jeff Adler, <quote>Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not "
13725 "Penitent,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 18 May 2003, City "
13726 "Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, <quote>Four Students Sued over Music Sites; "
13727 "Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,</quote> "
13728 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth "
13729 "Armstrong, <quote>Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at Their Own Risk,</quote> "
13730 "<citetitle>Christian Science Monitor</citetitle>, 2 September 2003, 20; "
13731 "Robert Becker and Angela Rozas, <quote>Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; "
13732 "Two Students Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,</quote> "
13733 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 16 July 2003, 1C; Beth Cox, "
13734 "<quote>RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,</quote> "
13735 "<citetitle>Internet News</citetitle>, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
13736 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
13737 "<quote>Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include "
13738 "Record Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,</quote> <citetitle>San "
13739 "Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 11 August 2003, E11; <quote>Raid, Letters "
13740 "Are Weapons at Universities,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 26 "
13741 "September 2000, 3D."
13744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13745 #: freeculture.xml:10260
13747 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
13748 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
13749 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
13750 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
13751 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
13752 "if the college network is <quote>cooperating</quote> with the RIAA's "
13753 "espionage, and she hasn't properly protected her content from the network "
13754 "(do you know how to do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to "
13755 "identify your daughter as a <quote>criminal.</quote> And under the rules "
13756 "that universities are beginning to deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13757 "id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer "
13758 "network. She can, in some cases, be expelled."
13761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13762 #: freeculture.xml:10292
13764 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
13765 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
13766 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
13767 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
13768 "university might not believe her. It might treat this "
13769 "<quote>contraband</quote> as presumptive of guilt. And as any number of "
13770 "college students have already learned, our presumptions about innocence "
13771 "disappear in the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different. "
13772 "Says von Lohmann, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13776 #: freeculture.xml:10308
13778 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
13779 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
13780 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
13781 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
13782 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
13783 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
13784 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
13785 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
13786 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
13787 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
13788 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
13789 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
13790 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. … If forty to "
13791 "sixty million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a "
13792 "slippery slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty "
13796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13797 #: freeculture.xml:10328
13799 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered "
13800 "<quote>criminals</quote> under the law, and when the law could achieve the "
13801 "same objective— securing rights to authors—without these "
13802 "millions being considered <quote>criminals,</quote> who is the villain? "
13803 "Americans or the law? Which is American, a constant war on our own people or "
13804 "a concerted effort through our democracy to change our law?"
13807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
13808 #: freeculture.xml:10341
13812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13813 #: freeculture.xml:10346
13815 "So here's the picture: You're standing at the side of the road. Your car is "
13816 "on fire. You are angry and upset because in part you helped start the "
13817 "fire. Now you don't know how to put it out. Next to you is a bucket, filled "
13818 "with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline won't put the fire out."
13821 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13822 #: freeculture.xml:10352
13824 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
13825 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
13826 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
13827 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
13828 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
13831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13832 #: freeculture.xml:10360
13834 "A war about copyright rages all around—and we're all focusing on the "
13835 "wrong thing. No doubt, current technologies threaten existing businesses. "
13836 "No doubt they may threaten artists. But technologies change. The industry "
13837 "and technologists have plenty of ways to use technology to protect "
13838 "themselves against the current threats of the Internet. This is a fire that "
13839 "if let alone would burn itself out."
13843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13844 #: freeculture.xml:10369
13846 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
13847 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
13848 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
13849 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
13850 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
13853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13854 #: freeculture.xml:10377
13856 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
13857 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
13861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13862 #: freeculture.xml:10382
13864 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
13865 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
13866 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
13867 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
13870 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
13871 #: freeculture.xml:10388
13873 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
13874 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
13875 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
13876 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
13879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
13880 #: freeculture.xml:10398
13881 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
13884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13885 #: freeculture.xml:10400
13886 msgid "Hawthorne, Nathaniel"
13889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13890 #: freeculture.xml:10403
13892 "In 1995, a father was frustrated that his daughters didn't seem to like "
13893 "Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one such father, but at least one "
13894 "did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired computer programmer living in "
13895 "New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the Web. An electronic version, "
13896 "Eldred thought, with links to pictures and explanatory text, would make this "
13897 "nineteenth-century author's work come alive."
13900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13901 #: freeculture.xml:10412
13903 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
13904 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
13905 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
13906 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
13910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13911 #: freeculture.xml:10419
13913 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
13914 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
13915 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
13916 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
13917 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
13918 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
13919 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
13922 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13923 #: freeculture.xml:10430
13925 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
13926 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's <citetitle>Scarlet Letter</citetitle> had passed "
13927 "into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the "
13928 "permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press "
13929 "and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed "
13930 "editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as "
13931 "Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes "
13932 "successfully (<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle>), sometimes not "
13933 "(<citetitle>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</citetitle>, <citetitle>Treasure "
13934 "Planet</citetitle>). These are all commercial publications of public domain "
13939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
13940 #: freeculture.xml:10454
13942 "There's a parallel here with pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but "
13943 "it's a strong one. One phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of "
13944 "noncommercial pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were "
13945 "not making money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a "
13946 "class didn't exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of "
13947 "distributing porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got "
13948 "special attention in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the "
13949 "Communications Decency Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on "
13950 "noncommercial speakers that the statute was found to exceed Congress's "
13951 "power. The same point could have been made about noncommercial publishers "
13952 "after the advent of the Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the "
13953 "Internet were extremely few. Yet one would think it at least as important to "
13954 "protect the Eldreds of the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
13957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13958 #: freeculture.xml:10443
13960 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
13961 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
13962 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
13963 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
13964 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the "
13965 "<quote>noncommercial publishing industry,</quote> which before the Internet "
13966 "was limited to people with large egos or with political or social "
13967 "causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and "
13968 "groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.<placeholder "
13969 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
13973 #: freeculture.xml:10471
13975 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
13976 "of poems <citetitle>New Hampshire</citetitle> was slated to pass into the "
13977 "public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public "
13978 "library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter <xref "
13979 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, in 1998, for the "
13980 "eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing "
13981 "copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add "
13982 "any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no "
13983 "copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not "
13984 "even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same "
13985 "period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain."
13988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13989 #: freeculture.xml:10484 freeculture.xml:10494
13993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13994 #: freeculture.xml:10485 freeculture.xml:10495
13995 msgid "Bono, Sonny"
13998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
13999 #: freeculture.xml:10494
14001 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14002 "id=\"1\"/> The full text is: <quote>Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of "
14003 "copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a "
14004 "change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me "
14005 "to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you "
14006 "know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less "
14007 "one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,</quote> 144 "
14008 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
14011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14012 #: freeculture.xml:10489
14014 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
14015 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
14016 "Mary Bono, says, believed that <quote>copyrights should be "
14017 "forever.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14021 #: freeculture.xml:10507
14023 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
14024 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
14025 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
14026 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
14027 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
14028 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
14031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14032 #: freeculture.xml:10516
14034 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
14035 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
14036 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
14037 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
14038 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
14041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
14042 #: freeculture.xml:10527
14044 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science … by "
14045 "securing for limited Times to Authors … exclusive Right to their "
14046 "… Writings. …"
14049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14050 #: freeculture.xml:10533
14052 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
14053 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
14054 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
14055 "example, to regulate <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> or "
14056 "<quote>declare War.</quote> But here, the <quote>something</quote> is "
14057 "something quite specific—to <quote>promote … "
14058 "Progress</quote>—through means that are also specific— by "
14059 "<quote>securing</quote> <quote>exclusive Rights</quote> (i.e., copyrights) "
14060 "<quote>for limited Times.</quote>"
14063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
14064 #: freeculture.xml:10552 freeculture.xml:12022
14065 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
14068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14069 #: freeculture.xml:10543
14071 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
14072 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
14073 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
14074 "requirement that terms be <quote>limited</quote> will have no practical "
14075 "effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power "
14076 "to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
14077 "forbids—perpetual terms <quote>on the installment plan,</quote> as "
14078 "Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14083 #: freeculture.xml:10555
14085 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
14086 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
14087 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
14088 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
14089 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
14090 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
14091 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
14092 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
14095 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14096 #: freeculture.xml:10566
14098 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
14099 "government. <quote>Corruption</quote> not in the sense that representatives "
14100 "are bribed. Rather, <quote>corruption</quote> in the sense that the system "
14101 "induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to "
14102 "Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so "
14103 "much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must "
14104 "do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
14107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14108 #: freeculture.xml:10575
14110 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
14111 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
14112 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
14113 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
14114 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
14115 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
14116 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
14119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14120 #: freeculture.xml:10585
14122 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
14123 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
14124 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
14125 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
14129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14130 #: freeculture.xml:10592
14132 "<quote>Next year,</quote> the adviser announces, <quote>our copyrights in "
14133 "works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no "
14134 "longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers "
14135 "of those works.</quote>"
14138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14139 #: freeculture.xml:10600
14141 "<quote>There's a proposal in Congress, however,</quote> she continues, "
14142 "<quote>that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to "
14143 "extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be "
14144 "extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.</quote>"
14147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14148 #: freeculture.xml:10606
14150 "<quote>Hope?</quote> a fellow board member says. <quote>Can't we be doing "
14151 "something about it?</quote>"
14154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14155 #: freeculture.xml:10610
14157 "<quote>Well, obviously, yes,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>We could "
14158 "contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure "
14159 "that they support the bill.</quote>"
14162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14163 #: freeculture.xml:10615
14165 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
14166 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. <quote>How much would we get "
14167 "if this extension were passed?</quote> you ask the adviser. <quote>How much "
14168 "is it worth?</quote>"
14171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14172 #: freeculture.xml:10621
14174 "<quote>Well,</quote> the adviser says, <quote>if you're confident that you "
14175 "will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you "
14176 "use the `discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 "
14177 "percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.</quote>"
14180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14181 #: freeculture.xml:10627
14183 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
14187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14188 #: freeculture.xml:10631
14190 "<quote>So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than "
14191 "$1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those "
14192 "contributions would assure that the bill was passed?</quote>"
14195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14196 #: freeculture.xml:10637
14198 "<quote>Absolutely,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>It is worth it to "
14199 "you to contribute up to the `present value' of the income you expect from "
14200 "these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.</quote>"
14204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14205 #: freeculture.xml:10643
14207 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
14208 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
14209 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
14210 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
14211 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
14212 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
14216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14217 #: freeculture.xml:10654
14219 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
14220 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
14221 "buy further extensions of copyright."
14225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14226 #: freeculture.xml:10666
14228 "Associated Press, <quote>Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey "
14229 "Mouse Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,</quote> "
14230 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 17 October 1998, 22."
14234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14235 #: freeculture.xml:10673
14237 "See Nick Brown, <quote>Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information "
14238 "Age,</quote> available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
14243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14244 #: freeculture.xml:10681
14246 "Alan K. Ota, <quote>Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,</quote> "
14247 "<citetitle>Congressional Quarterly This Week</citetitle>, 8 August 1990, "
14248 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
14251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14252 #: freeculture.xml:10659
14254 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
14255 "Extension Act, this <quote>theory</quote> about incentives was proved "
14256 "real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received "
14257 "the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the "
14258 "Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder "
14259 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have "
14260 "spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out "
14261 "more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14262 "id=\"1\"/> Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to "
14263 "reelection campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
14266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14267 #: freeculture.xml:10688
14269 "Constitutional law is not oblivious to the obvious. Or at least, it need not "
14270 "be. So when I was considering Eldred's complaint, this reality about the "
14271 "never-ending incentives to increase the copyright term was central to my "
14272 "thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court committed to interpreting and "
14273 "applying the Constitution of our framers would see that if Congress has the "
14274 "power to extend existing terms, then there would be no effective "
14275 "constitutional requirement that terms be <quote>limited.</quote> If they "
14276 "could extend it once, they would extend it again and again and again."
14280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14281 #: freeculture.xml:10701
14283 "It was also my judgment that <emphasis>this</emphasis> Supreme Court would "
14284 "not allow Congress to extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme "
14285 "Court's work knows, this Court has increasingly restricted the power of "
14286 "Congress when it has viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power "
14287 "granted to it by the Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most "
14288 "famous example of this trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to "
14289 "strike down a law that banned the possession of guns near schools."
14292 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14293 #: freeculture.xml:10714
14295 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
14296 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
14297 "only <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> (aka <quote>interstate "
14298 "commerce</quote>), the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include "
14299 "the power to regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
14302 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14303 #: freeculture.xml:10724
14305 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
14306 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
14307 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
14308 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
14312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14313 #: freeculture.xml:10730 freeculture.xml:11515
14314 msgid "Rehnquist, William H."
14317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14318 #: freeculture.xml:10732
14320 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
14321 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The "
14322 "government had argued that possessing guns near schools affected interstate "
14323 "commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, crime lowers property values, "
14324 "and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief Justice asked the government "
14325 "whether there was any activity that would not affect interstate commerce "
14326 "under the reasoning the government advanced. The government said there was "
14327 "not; if Congress says an activity affects interstate commerce, then that "
14328 "activity affects interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, the government "
14329 "said, was not in the position to second-guess Congress."
14333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14334 #: freeculture.xml:10747
14336 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>, 514 "
14337 "U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
14341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14342 #: freeculture.xml:10754
14344 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>, 529 "
14348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14349 #: freeculture.xml:10745
14351 "<quote>We pause to consider the implications of the government's "
14352 "arguments,</quote> the Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14353 "id=\"0\"/> If anything Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore "
14354 "be considered interstate commerce, then there would be no limit to "
14355 "Congress's power. The decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> was "
14356 "reaffirmed five years later in <citetitle>United States</citetitle> "
14357 "v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
14361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14362 #: freeculture.xml:10761
14364 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
14365 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
14366 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
14367 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
14368 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
14369 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
14370 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
14371 "copyrights—the limitation to <quote>limited times</quote> "
14376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14377 #: freeculture.xml:10758
14379 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
14380 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14381 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
14382 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
14383 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no "
14384 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power over terms, though the "
14385 "Constitution expressly states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same "
14386 "principle applied to the power to grant copyrights should entail that "
14387 "Congress is not allowed to extend the term of existing copyrights."
14390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14391 #: freeculture.xml:10782
14393 "<emphasis>If</emphasis>, that is, the principle announced in "
14394 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for a principle. Many believed the "
14395 "decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for politics—a "
14396 "conservative Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its "
14397 "power over Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I "
14398 "rejected that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after "
14399 "the decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the <quote>fidelity</quote> "
14400 "in such an interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme "
14401 "Court decides cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily "
14402 "boring. I was not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if "
14403 "these nine Justices were going to be petty politicians."
14406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14407 #: freeculture.xml:10795
14409 "Now let's pause for a moment to make sure we understand what the argument in "
14410 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was not about. By insisting on the "
14411 "Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously Eldred was not endorsing "
14412 "piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was fighting a kind of "
14413 "piracy—piracy of the public domain. When Robert Frost wrote his work "
14414 "and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum copyright term was "
14415 "just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost and Disney had "
14416 "already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their work. They had gotten "
14417 "the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution envisions: In exchange for "
14418 "a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they created new work. But now "
14419 "these entities were using their power—expressed through the power of "
14420 "lobbyists' money—to get another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That "
14421 "twenty-year dollop would be taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was "
14422 "fighting a piracy that affects us all."
14426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14427 #: freeculture.xml:10818
14429 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, "
14430 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. "
14431 "186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
14432 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
14435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
14436 #: freeculture.xml:10826
14437 msgid "Nashville Songwriters Association"
14440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14441 #: freeculture.xml:10812
14443 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
14444 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
14445 "domain is nothing more than <quote>legal piracy.</quote><placeholder "
14446 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; "
14447 "and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
14448 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
14449 "pirate's charter. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
14452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14453 #: freeculture.xml:10829
14455 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
14456 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
14457 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
14458 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
14459 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
14460 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
14461 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
14464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14465 #: freeculture.xml:10841
14467 "It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. "
14468 "Mickey Mouse and <quote>Rhapsody in Blue.</quote> These works are too "
14469 "valuable for copyright owners to ignore. But the real harm to our society "
14470 "from copyright extensions is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget "
14471 "Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and "
14472 "1930s that have continuing commercial value. The real harm of term extension "
14473 "comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are "
14474 "not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
14478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14479 #: freeculture.xml:10862
14481 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
14482 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
14483 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
14484 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 7, available at <ulink "
14485 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
14488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14489 #: freeculture.xml:10856
14491 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
14492 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
14493 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
14494 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
14495 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
14496 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14501 #: freeculture.xml:10871
14503 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
14504 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
14505 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
14506 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
14507 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
14511 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14512 #: freeculture.xml:10884
14514 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
14515 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
14516 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
14517 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
14518 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
14522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14523 #: freeculture.xml:10892
14525 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
14526 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
14529 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14530 #: freeculture.xml:10896
14532 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
14533 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
14534 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
14537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14538 #: freeculture.xml:10903
14540 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
14541 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
14542 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
14543 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
14544 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
14547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14548 #: freeculture.xml:10912
14550 "<quote>But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,</quote> the "
14551 "apologists for the system respond. <quote>Why should there be a list of "
14552 "copyright owners?</quote>"
14555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14556 #: freeculture.xml:10917
14558 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there <emphasis>are</emphasis> plenty "
14559 "of lists of who owns what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles "
14560 "to cars. And where there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty "
14561 "good at suggesting who the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in "
14562 "your backyard is probably yours.) So formally or informally, we have a "
14563 "pretty good way to know who owns what tangible property."
14567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14568 #: freeculture.xml:10926
14570 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
14571 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
14572 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
14573 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
14574 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
14575 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
14576 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
14577 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
14578 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
14581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14582 #: freeculture.xml:10941
14584 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
14585 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
14586 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
14587 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
14588 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
14589 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
14590 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
14591 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
14595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14596 #: freeculture.xml:10953
14598 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
14599 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
14600 "creative works is much more dire."
14603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14604 #: freeculture.xml:10959
14605 msgid "Agee, Michael"
14608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14609 #: freeculture.xml:10961 freeculture.xml:11398
14610 msgid "Hal Roach Studios"
14613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14614 #: freeculture.xml:10962
14615 msgid "Laurel and Hardy Films"
14619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14620 #: freeculture.xml:10975
14622 "See David G. Savage, <quote>High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright "
14623 "Law,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 6 October 2002; David "
14624 "Streitfeld, <quote>Classic Movies, Songs, Books at Stake; Supreme Court "
14625 "Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down Copyright Extension,</quote> "
14626 "<citetitle>Orlando Sentinel Tribune</citetitle>, 9 October 2002."
14629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
14630 #: freeculture.xml:10981
14631 msgid "Lucky Dog, The"
14634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14635 #: freeculture.xml:10964
14637 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
14638 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
14639 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
14640 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, <citetitle>The Lucky "
14641 "Dog</citetitle>, is currently out of copyright. But for the CTEA, films made "
14642 "after 1923 would have begun entering the public domain. Because Agee "
14643 "controls the exclusive rights for these popular films, he makes a great deal "
14644 "of money. According to one estimate, <quote>Roach has sold about 60,000 "
14645 "videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's silent "
14646 "films.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
14647 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
14650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14651 #: freeculture.xml:10984
14653 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
14654 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
14655 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
14656 "a whole generation of American film."
14660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14661 #: freeculture.xml:10990
14663 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
14664 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
14665 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
14666 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
14667 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
14668 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
14672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14673 #: freeculture.xml:11008
14675 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
14676 "Petitoners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
14677 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), "
14678 "12. See also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the "
14679 "Internet Archive, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
14680 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
14681 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
14684 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14685 #: freeculture.xml:11001
14687 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
14688 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
14689 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
14690 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
14691 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of mm film.<placeholder "
14692 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14696 #: freeculture.xml:11018
14698 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
14699 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
14700 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
14701 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
14702 "locate the copyright owner."
14705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14706 #: freeculture.xml:11026
14708 "Or more accurately, <emphasis>owners</emphasis>. As we've seen, there isn't "
14709 "only a single copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't "
14710 "a single person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as "
14711 "many as can hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large "
14712 "number. Thus the costs of clearing the rights to these films is "
14713 "exceptionally high."
14716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14717 #: freeculture.xml:11034
14719 "<quote>But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
14720 "copyright owner when she shows up?</quote> Sure, if you want to commit a "
14721 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
14722 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
14723 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
14724 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
14725 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
14726 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
14727 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
14731 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14732 #: freeculture.xml:11045
14734 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
14735 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
14736 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
14737 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
14741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14742 #: freeculture.xml:11056
14744 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
14745 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
14746 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
14747 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
14750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14751 #: freeculture.xml:11064
14753 "Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has "
14754 "continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a "
14755 "crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright "
14756 "creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that "
14757 "tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an <quote>engine of free "
14758 "expression.</quote>"
14761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14762 #: freeculture.xml:11073
14764 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
14765 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
14766 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
14767 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
14768 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
14769 "commercial life ends."
14772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14773 #: freeculture.xml:11083
14775 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
14776 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
14777 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
14778 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
14779 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
14780 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
14781 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
14782 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
14786 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14787 #: freeculture.xml:11096
14789 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
14790 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
14791 "context do no good."
14794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14795 #: freeculture.xml:11103
14797 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
14798 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
14799 "<emphasis>copyright-related use</emphasis> that would be inhibited by an "
14800 "exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a "
14801 "publisher. But you could still buy it from a used book store, and when a "
14802 "used book store sells it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the "
14803 "copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its "
14804 "commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law."
14807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14808 #: freeculture.xml:11114
14810 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
14811 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
14812 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
14813 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
14814 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
14815 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
14818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14819 #: freeculture.xml:11123
14821 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
14822 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
14823 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
14824 "interfered with anything."
14827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14828 #: freeculture.xml:11129
14829 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
14832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14833 #: freeculture.xml:11135
14835 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
14836 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
14837 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
14838 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
14839 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
14840 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
14841 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
14842 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
14843 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
14847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14848 #: freeculture.xml:11148
14850 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
14851 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
14852 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
14853 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
14854 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
14855 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
14856 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
14857 "radically different context."
14860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14861 #: freeculture.xml:11158
14863 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
14864 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
14865 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful "
14866 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis> purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to "
14867 "enable the commercial market that spreads culture. No, we are talking about "
14868 "culture after it has lived its commercial life. In this context, copyright "
14869 "is serving no purpose <emphasis>at all</emphasis> related to the spread of "
14870 "knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
14871 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
14874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14875 #: freeculture.xml:11169
14877 "You may well ask, <quote>But if digital technologies lower the costs for "
14878 "Brewster Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So "
14879 "won't Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture "
14883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14884 #: freeculture.xml:11175
14886 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
14887 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
14888 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
14889 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
14890 "what <quote>the market</quote> would demand. But if you think the role of a "
14891 "library is bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive "
14892 "culture, whether there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or "
14893 "not—then we can't count on the commercial market to do our library "
14898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14899 #: freeculture.xml:11199
14901 "Jason Schultz, <quote>The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,</quote> "
14902 "20 December 2002, available at <ulink "
14903 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
14906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14907 #: freeculture.xml:11187
14909 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
14910 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
14911 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
14912 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
14913 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
14914 "films, books, and music produced between and 1946 is not commercially "
14915 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
14916 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
14917 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14921 #: freeculture.xml:11206
14923 "In January 1999, we filed a lawsuit on Eric Eldred's behalf in federal "
14924 "district court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to declare the Sonny "
14925 "Bono Copyright Term Extension Act unconstitutional. The two central claims "
14926 "that we made were (1) that extending existing terms violated the "
14927 "Constitution's <quote>limited Times</quote> requirement, and (2) that "
14928 "extending terms by another twenty years violated the First Amendment."
14931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14932 #: freeculture.xml:11214
14934 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
14935 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
14936 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
14937 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
14938 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
14941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14942 #: freeculture.xml:11221
14944 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
14945 "be for <quote>limited Times</quote> only. His argument was as elegant as it "
14946 "was simple: If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no "
14947 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power under the Copyright "
14948 "Clause. The power to extend existing terms means Congress is not required to "
14949 "grant terms that are <quote>limited.</quote> Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, "
14950 "the court had to interpret the term <quote>limited Times</quote> to give it "
14951 "meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle argued, would be to "
14952 "deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
14955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14956 #: freeculture.xml:11232
14958 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
14959 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
14960 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
14961 "the court will sit <quote>en banc</quote> to hear the case."
14964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14965 #: freeculture.xml:11237
14966 msgid "Tatel, David"
14970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14971 #: freeculture.xml:11239
14973 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
14974 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
14975 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
14976 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
14980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14981 #: freeculture.xml:11248
14983 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
14984 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
14985 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
14986 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
14987 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
14990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14991 #: freeculture.xml:11255
14993 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
14994 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
14995 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
14998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14999 #: freeculture.xml:11261
15001 "It is over a year later as I write these words. It is still astonishingly "
15002 "hard. If you know anything at all about this story, you know that we lost "
15003 "the appeal. And if you know something more than just the minimum, you "
15004 "probably think there was no way this case could have been won. After our "
15005 "defeat, I received literally thousands of missives by well-wishers and "
15006 "supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this noble but doomed "
15007 "cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me than the e-mail "
15008 "from my client, Eric Eldred."
15011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15012 #: freeculture.xml:11271
15014 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
15015 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
15016 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
15019 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15020 #: freeculture.xml:11276 freeculture.xml:11290
15021 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
15025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15026 #: freeculture.xml:11278
15028 "The mistake was made early, though it became obvious only at the very "
15029 "end. Our case had been supported from the very beginning by an extraordinary "
15030 "lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, "
15031 "Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great deal of heat from its "
15032 "copyright-protectionist clients for supporting us. They ignored this "
15033 "pressure (something that few law firms today would ever do), and throughout "
15034 "the case, they gave it everything they could."
15037 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15038 #: freeculture.xml:11288 freeculture.xml:11639 freeculture.xml:11655 freeculture.xml:11749 freeculture.xml:11965 freeculture.xml:11996 freeculture.xml:12089
15042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15043 #: freeculture.xml:11289
15044 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
15047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15048 #: freeculture.xml:11292
15050 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
15051 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
15052 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
15053 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
15054 "make the issue seem <quote>important</quote> to the Supreme Court. It had to "
15055 "seem as if dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; "
15056 "otherwise, they would never vote against <quote>the most powerful media "
15057 "companies in the world.</quote>"
15060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15061 #: freeculture.xml:11302
15063 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
15064 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
15065 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
15066 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be "
15067 "<quote>right</quote> as in <quote>true,</quote> I thought, but it is "
15068 "<quote>wrong</quote> as in <quote>it just shouldn't be that way.</quote> As "
15069 "I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the framers of our "
15070 "Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
15071 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
15072 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
15073 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
15074 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
15075 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
15076 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
15077 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
15078 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
15079 "put in the Constitution."
15082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15083 #: freeculture.xml:11323
15085 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
15086 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
15087 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
15088 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
15089 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
15093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15094 #: freeculture.xml:11331
15096 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
15097 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
15098 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
15099 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
15100 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
15101 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
15102 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
15103 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
15104 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
15105 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in "
15106 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> and not politics, then, we tried to gather the "
15107 "widest range of credible critics—credible not because they were rich "
15108 "and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law "
15109 "was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics."
15112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15113 #: freeculture.xml:11362 freeculture.xml:11388
15114 msgid "Eagle Forum"
15117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15118 #: freeculture.xml:11363
15119 msgid "Schlafly, Phyllis"
15122 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15123 #: freeculture.xml:11350
15125 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
15126 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
15127 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
15128 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
15129 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, <quote>Do you sometimes wonder why "
15130 "bills that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide "
15131 "easily through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit "
15132 "the general public seem to get bogged down?</quote> The answer, as the "
15133 "editorial documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
15134 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
15135 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
15136 "Schlafly argued. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
15137 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
15140 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15141 #: freeculture.xml:11366
15143 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
15144 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
15145 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
15146 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
15147 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
15150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15151 #: freeculture.xml:11374
15153 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
15154 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
15155 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/ Linux possible). They "
15156 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
15157 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
15158 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
15159 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
15160 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments. "
15161 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
15162 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
15163 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
15166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15167 #: freeculture.xml:11395
15168 msgid "American Association of Law Libraries"
15171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15172 #: freeculture.xml:11396
15173 msgid "National Writers Union"
15176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15177 #: freeculture.xml:11391
15179 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
15180 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
15181 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
15182 "National Writers Union. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
15183 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
15186 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15187 #: freeculture.xml:11400
15189 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
15190 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
15191 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
15192 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
15195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15196 #: freeculture.xml:11406
15197 msgid "Akerlof, George"
15200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15201 #: freeculture.xml:11407
15202 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
15205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15206 #: freeculture.xml:11408
15207 msgid "Buchanan, James"
15210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15211 #: freeculture.xml:11409
15212 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
15215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15216 #: freeculture.xml:11410
15217 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
15220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15221 #: freeculture.xml:11412
15223 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
15224 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
15225 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
15226 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
15227 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
15228 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
15229 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than "
15230 "<quote>rent-seeking</quote>—the fancy term economists use to describe "
15231 "special-interest legislation gone wild."
15234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15235 #: freeculture.xml:11435 freeculture.xml:11451 freeculture.xml:11646 freeculture.xml:12001
15236 msgid "Fried, Charles"
15239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15240 #: freeculture.xml:11436
15241 msgid "Morrison, Alan"
15244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15245 #: freeculture.xml:11437
15246 msgid "Public Citizen"
15249 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15250 #: freeculture.xml:11438 freeculture.xml:11640 freeculture.xml:12747
15251 msgid "Reagan, Ronald"
15254 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15255 #: freeculture.xml:11423
15257 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
15258 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
15259 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
15260 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
15261 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
15262 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
15263 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
15264 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
15265 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried. "
15266 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
15267 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
15268 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
15271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15272 #: freeculture.xml:11441
15274 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
15275 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
15276 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
15277 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
15278 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
15279 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
15280 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
15281 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
15282 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument. <placeholder "
15283 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
15286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15287 #: freeculture.xml:11454
15289 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
15290 "well. Significantly, however, none of these <quote>friends</quote> included "
15291 "historians or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were "
15292 "written exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright "
15296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15297 #: freeculture.xml:11461
15299 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
15300 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
15301 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
15302 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
15303 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
15304 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
15308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15309 #: freeculture.xml:11477
15311 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15312 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. (2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
15316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15317 #: freeculture.xml:11485
15319 "Dinitia Smith, <quote>Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse "
15320 "Joins the Fray,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 28 March "
15324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
15325 #: freeculture.xml:11492
15326 msgid "Gershwin, George"
15329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15330 #: freeculture.xml:11470
15332 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
15333 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
15334 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
15335 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to "
15336 "<quote>glorify drugs or to create pornography.</quote><placeholder "
15337 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That was also the motive of the Gershwin "
15338 "estate, which defended its <quote>protection</quote> of the work of George "
15339 "Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to license <citetitle>Porgy and "
15340 "Bess</citetitle> to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
15341 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
15342 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
15343 "help them effect that control. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
15346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15347 #: freeculture.xml:11495
15349 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
15350 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
15351 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
15352 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
15353 "Congress and say, <quote>Give us twenty years to control the speech about "
15354 "these icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone "
15355 "else.</quote> Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by "
15356 "giving them what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive "
15357 "right to speak in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is "
15358 "traditionally meant to block."
15361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15362 #: freeculture.xml:11507
15364 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
15365 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
15366 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
15367 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
15368 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak. Between "
15369 "February and October, there was little I did beyond preparing for this "
15370 "case. Early on, as I said, I set the strategy."
15373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15374 #: freeculture.xml:11516 freeculture.xml:11694
15375 msgid "O'Connor, Sandra Day"
15378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15379 #: freeculture.xml:11518
15381 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
15382 "<quote>the Conservatives.</quote> The other we called <quote>the "
15383 "Rest.</quote> The Conservatives included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice "
15384 "O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five "
15385 "had been the most consistent in limiting Congress's power. They were the "
15386 "five who had supported the <citetitle>Lopez/Morrison</citetitle> line of "
15387 "cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to assure "
15388 "that Congress's powers had limits."
15391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15392 #: freeculture.xml:11527 freeculture.xml:11551 freeculture.xml:11893 freeculture.xml:11905
15393 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
15397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15398 #: freeculture.xml:11529
15400 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
15401 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
15402 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
15403 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
15404 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
15405 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
15406 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
15407 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
15410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15411 #: freeculture.xml:11541
15413 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
15414 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
15415 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
15416 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
15417 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
15418 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
15419 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
15420 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
15423 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15424 #: freeculture.xml:11553
15426 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
15427 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
15428 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
15429 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
15430 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
15433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15434 #: freeculture.xml:11561
15436 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
15437 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
15438 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
15439 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
15440 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
15441 "confident he would recognize limits here."
15444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15445 #: freeculture.xml:11569
15447 "This analysis of <quote>the Rest</quote> showed most clearly where our focus "
15448 "had to be: on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open "
15449 "these five and get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single "
15450 "overriding argument that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' "
15451 "most important jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge "
15452 "Sentelle had relied upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must "
15453 "be interpreted so that its enumerated powers have limits."
15457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15458 #: freeculture.xml:11579
15460 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
15461 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the "
15462 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, under the government's argument here, "
15463 "Congress would always have unlimited power to extend existing terms. If "
15464 "anything was plain about Congress's power under the Progress Clause, it was "
15465 "that this power was supposed to be <quote>limited.</quote> Our aim would be "
15466 "to get the Court to reconcile <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> with "
15467 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was "
15468 "limited, then so, too, must Congress's power to regulate copyright be "
15472 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15473 #: freeculture.xml:11593
15475 "The argument on the government's side came down to this: Congress has done "
15476 "it before. It should be allowed to do it again. The government claimed that "
15477 "from the very beginning, Congress has been extending the term of existing "
15478 "copyrights. So, the government argued, the Court should not now say that "
15479 "practice is unconstitutional."
15482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15483 #: freeculture.xml:11600
15485 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
15486 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in 1831 and in 1909. And of "
15487 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
15488 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
15492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15493 #: freeculture.xml:11607
15495 "But this <quote>consistency</quote> should be kept in perspective. Congress "
15496 "extended existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It "
15497 "then extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare "
15498 "extensions are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
15499 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
15500 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
15501 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
15502 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
15503 "couldn't intervene here. Oral argument was scheduled for the first week in "
15504 "October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During those two "
15505 "weeks, I was repeatedly <quote>mooted</quote> by lawyers who had volunteered "
15506 "to help in the case. Such <quote>moots</quote> are basically practice "
15507 "rounds, where wannabe justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
15510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15511 #: freeculture.xml:11630
15513 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
15514 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
15515 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
15516 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
15517 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
15518 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
15521 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15522 #: freeculture.xml:11642
15524 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
15525 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
15526 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
15527 "of the moot, he let his concern speak: <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
15531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15532 #: freeculture.xml:11649
15534 "<quote>I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
15535 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
15536 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
15537 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
15538 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.</quote>"
15542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15543 #: freeculture.xml:11657
15545 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
15546 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
15547 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
15548 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
15549 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
15550 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
15551 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
15552 "politicians learn to see that it was also good. The night before the "
15553 "argument, a line of people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The "
15554 "case had become a focus of the press and of the movement to free "
15555 "culture. Hundreds stood in line for the chance to see the "
15556 "proceedings. Scores spent the night on the Supreme Court steps so that they "
15557 "would be assured a seat."
15560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15561 #: freeculture.xml:11674
15563 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
15564 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
15565 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
15566 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
15567 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
15568 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
15569 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
15570 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
15571 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
15572 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
15573 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
15576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15577 #: freeculture.xml:11689
15579 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
15580 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
15581 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
15582 "powers had any limit."
15585 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15586 #: freeculture.xml:11696
15588 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
15589 "was bothering her."
15592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15593 #: freeculture.xml:11701
15595 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
15596 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
15597 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
15601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15602 #: freeculture.xml:11708
15604 "She was quite willing to concede <quote>that this flies directly in the face "
15605 "of what the framers had in mind.</quote> But my response again and again was "
15606 "to emphasize limits on Congress's power."
15610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15611 #: freeculture.xml:11714
15613 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
15614 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
15615 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
15618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15619 #: freeculture.xml:11722
15621 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
15622 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
15625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15626 #: freeculture.xml:11728
15628 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
15629 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
15630 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
15631 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
15632 "evidence for that."
15635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15636 #: freeculture.xml:11736
15638 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
15642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15643 #: freeculture.xml:11742
15645 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
15646 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
15647 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
15648 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
15649 "under the copyright laws."
15652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15653 #: freeculture.xml:11751
15655 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
15656 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
15657 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
15658 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
15659 "was a swing and a miss."
15662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15663 #: freeculture.xml:11758
15665 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
15666 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
15667 "ruling, and we hoped that he would see this case as its second cousin."
15671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15672 #: freeculture.xml:11763
15674 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
15675 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
15678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15679 #: freeculture.xml:11770
15681 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
15682 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
15685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15686 #: freeculture.xml:11774
15688 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
15689 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
15690 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
15691 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
15694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15695 #: freeculture.xml:11782
15696 msgid "Olson, Theodore B."
15699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15700 #: freeculture.xml:11784
15702 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
15703 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
15707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
15708 #: freeculture.xml:11790
15710 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
15711 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
15712 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
15713 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
15716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15717 #: freeculture.xml:11798
15719 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
15720 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
15721 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
15722 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
15723 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
15724 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
15725 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
15726 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
15727 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
15728 "Court to my side."
15732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15733 #: freeculture.xml:11811
15735 "As I left the court that day, I knew there were a hundred points I wished I "
15736 "could remake. There were a hundred questions I wished I had answered "
15737 "differently. But one way of thinking about this case left me optimistic."
15740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15741 #: freeculture.xml:11819
15743 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
15744 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
15745 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
15746 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
15747 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
15748 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
15749 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
15750 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
15751 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
15752 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
15753 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
15754 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
15757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15758 #: freeculture.xml:11834
15760 "The morning of January 15, 2003, I was five minutes late to the office and "
15761 "missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the "
15762 "message, I could tell in an instant that she had bad news to report.The "
15763 "Supreme Court had affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals. Seven "
15764 "justices had voted in the majority. There were two dissents."
15767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15768 #: freeculture.xml:11841
15770 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
15771 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
15772 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
15775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15776 #: freeculture.xml:11846
15778 "My <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. Here was a case that pitted all the money "
15779 "in the world against <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. And here was the last "
15780 "naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."
15783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15784 #: freeculture.xml:11852
15786 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
15787 "principle in this case from the principle in "
15788 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The argument was nowhere to be found. The case "
15789 "was not even cited. The argument that was the core argument of our case did "
15790 "not even appear in the Court's opinion."
15794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15795 #: freeculture.xml:11861
15797 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
15798 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
15799 "Congress's power not limited here."
15802 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15803 #: freeculture.xml:11866
15805 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
15806 "Souter. Neither believes in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. It would be too "
15807 "much to expect them to write an opinion that recognized, much less "
15808 "explained, the doctrine they had worked so hard to defeat."
15811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15812 #: freeculture.xml:11872
15814 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
15815 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
15816 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
15817 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
15818 "simply <emphasis>by not addressing the argument</emphasis>. There was no "
15819 "inconsistency because they would not talk about the two together. There was "
15820 "therefore no principle that followed from the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
15821 "case: In that context, Congress's power would be limited, but in this "
15822 "context it would not."
15825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15826 #: freeculture.xml:11883
15828 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
15829 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
15830 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
15831 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
15832 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
15833 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
15834 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
15835 "will respect, that is the system we have."
15838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15839 #: freeculture.xml:11895
15841 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
15842 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
15843 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
15844 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
15845 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
15846 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
15847 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
15848 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
15849 "charge go unanswered."
15853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15854 #: freeculture.xml:11908
15856 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
15857 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
15858 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
15859 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
15860 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
15861 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
15862 "Constitution said a term had to be <quote>limited,</quote> and the existing "
15863 "term was so long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was "
15864 "unconstitutional."
15867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15868 #: freeculture.xml:11919
15870 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
15871 "neither believed in the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, neither was "
15872 "willing to push it as a reason to reject this extension. The case was "
15873 "decided without anyone having addressed the argument that we had carried "
15874 "from Judge Sentelle. It was <citetitle>Hamlet</citetitle> without the "
15878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15879 #: freeculture.xml:11926
15881 "Defeat brings depression. They say it is a sign of health when depression "
15882 "gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, but it didn't cure the "
15883 "depression. This anger was of two sorts."
15886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15887 #: freeculture.xml:11930
15888 msgid "originalism"
15891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15892 #: freeculture.xml:11932
15894 "It was first anger with the five <quote>Conservatives.</quote> It would have "
15895 "been one thing for them to have explained why the principle of "
15896 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> didn't apply in this case. That wouldn't have "
15897 "been a very convincing argument, I don't believe, having read it made by "
15898 "others, and having tried to make it myself. But it at least would have been "
15899 "an act of integrity. These justices in particular have repeatedly said that "
15900 "the proper mode of interpreting the Constitution is "
15901 "<quote>originalism</quote>—to first understand the framers' text, "
15902 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
15903 "Constitution. That method had produced <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> and many "
15904 "other <quote>originalist</quote> rulings. Where was their "
15905 "<quote>originalism</quote> now?"
15909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15910 #: freeculture.xml:11945
15912 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
15913 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
15914 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
15915 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
15916 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
15917 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
15918 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
15919 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
15920 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
15921 "consistent with their own principles."
15924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15925 #: freeculture.xml:11960
15927 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
15928 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
15932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15933 #: freeculture.xml:11967
15935 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
15936 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
15937 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
15938 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
15939 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
15940 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
15941 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
15942 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
15947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15948 #: freeculture.xml:11978
15950 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
15951 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
15952 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
15953 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
15954 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
15955 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
15956 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
15957 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
15958 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
15959 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
15960 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
15961 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
15962 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
15963 "on which a court should decide the issue."
15966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15967 #: freeculture.xml:11998
15969 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
15970 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
15971 "Sullivan? <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
15974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15975 #: freeculture.xml:12004
15977 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
15978 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
15979 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
15980 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
15983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15984 #: freeculture.xml:12010
15986 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
15987 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
15988 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
15989 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
15993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15994 #: freeculture.xml:12017
15996 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
15997 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
15998 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
15999 "was a mistake. <quote>The Court is not ready,</quote> Peter Jaszi said; this "
16000 "issue should not be raised until it is. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
16005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16006 #: freeculture.xml:12025
16008 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
16009 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
16010 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
16011 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
16012 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
16013 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
16014 "had made four years before—was wrong. While the reaction to the Sonny "
16015 "Bono Act itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's "
16016 "decision was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that "
16017 "extending the term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over "
16018 "ideas. Where the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had "
16019 "been skeptical of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good "
16020 "thing, even if it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was "
16021 "attacked, it was attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful "
16022 "law. <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> wrote in its editorial,"
16025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16026 #: freeculture.xml:12046
16028 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
16029 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
16030 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
16031 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
16032 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
16033 "creative ferment."
16036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><indexterm><primary>
16037 #: freeculture.xml:12060 freeculture.xml:12065
16038 msgid "Bolling, Ruben"
16041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16042 #: freeculture.xml:12055
16044 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
16045 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
16046 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page (<xref "
16047 "linkend=\"fig-18\"/>). The <quote>powerful and wealthy</quote> line is a bit "
16048 "unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like that. <placeholder "
16049 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
16053 #: freeculture.xml:12063
16054 msgid "Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon"
16057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
16058 #: freeculture.xml:12064
16060 "<graphic fileref=\"images/18.png\"></graphic> <placeholder "
16061 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16065 #: freeculture.xml:12068
16067 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
16068 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>. That <quote>grand "
16069 "experiment</quote> we call the <quote>public domain</quote> is over? When I "
16070 "can make light of it, I think, <quote>Honey, I shrunk the "
16071 "Constitution.</quote> But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
16072 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
16073 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
16074 "have made them see differently."
16077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
16078 #: freeculture.xml:12079
16079 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
16082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16083 #: freeculture.xml:12081
16085 "The day <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was decided, fate would have it that I "
16086 "was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The day the rehearing petition in "
16087 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was denied—meaning the case was really "
16088 "finally over—fate would have it that I was giving a speech to "
16089 "technologists at Disney World.) This was a particularly long flight to my "
16090 "least favorite city. The drive into the city from Dulles was delayed because "
16091 "of traffic, so I opened up my computer and wrote an op-ed piece."
16094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16095 #: freeculture.xml:12091
16097 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
16098 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
16099 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
16100 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: "
16101 "<quote>For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the "
16102 "useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.</quote> And "
16103 "so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I "
16104 "turned to an argument of politics."
16108 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16109 #: freeculture.xml:12101
16111 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> published the piece. In it, I "
16112 "proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the "
16113 "copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small "
16114 "fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of "
16115 "copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain."
16118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16119 #: freeculture.xml:12109
16121 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
16122 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
16123 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
16126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16127 #: freeculture.xml:12114
16129 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
16130 "the <quote>Public Domain Enhancement Act</quote> or the <quote>Copyright "
16131 "Term Deregulation Act.</quote> Either way, the essence of the idea is clear "
16132 "and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking "
16133 "access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows "
16134 "for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let "
16138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16139 #: freeculture.xml:12122 freeculture.xml:12322
16140 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
16143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16144 #: freeculture.xml:12124
16146 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
16147 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
16148 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
16149 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
16150 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
16151 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
16152 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
16153 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
16154 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
16157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16158 #: freeculture.xml:12136
16160 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
16161 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
16162 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
16163 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
16164 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
16165 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
16166 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
16167 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
16170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16171 #: freeculture.xml:12146
16172 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
16175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16176 #: freeculture.xml:12147 freeculture.xml:12187
16177 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
16181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16182 #: freeculture.xml:12155
16184 "Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the Berne Convention, national copyright "
16185 "legislation sometimes made protection depend upon compliance with "
16186 "formalities such as registration, deposit, and affixation of notice of the "
16187 "author's claim of copyright. However, starting with the 1908 act, every text "
16188 "of the Convention has provided that <quote>the enjoyment and the "
16189 "exercise</quote> of rights guaranteed by the Convention <quote>shall not be "
16190 "subject to any formality.</quote> The prohibition against formalities is "
16191 "presently embodied in Article 5(2) of the Paris Text of the Berne "
16192 "Convention. Many countries continue to impose some form of deposit or "
16193 "registration requirement, albeit not as a condition of copyright. French "
16194 "law, for example, requires the deposit of copies of works in national "
16195 "repositories, principally the National Museum. Copies of books published in "
16196 "the United Kingdom must be deposited in the British Library. The German "
16197 "Copyright Act provides for a Registrar of Authors where the author's true "
16198 "name can be filed in the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works. Paul "
16199 "Goldstein, <citetitle>International Intellectual Property Law, Cases and "
16200 "Materials</citetitle> (New York: Foundation Press, 2001), 153–54."
16203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16204 #: freeculture.xml:12150
16206 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
16207 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, "
16208 "when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement "
16209 "before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
16210 "Europeans are said to view copyright as a <quote>natural right.</quote> "
16211 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
16212 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
16213 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
16214 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
16215 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
16218 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16219 #: freeculture.xml:12181
16221 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
16222 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
16223 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread <quote>Walt "
16224 "Disney creativity</quote> is destroyed when there is no simple way to know "
16225 "what's protected and what's not."
16228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16229 #: freeculture.xml:12189
16231 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
16232 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
16233 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
16234 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
16235 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
16236 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an "
16237 "<citetitle>i</citetitle> or cross a <citetitle>t</citetitle> resulted in the "
16238 "loss of widows' only income."
16241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16242 #: freeculture.xml:12199
16244 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
16245 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
16246 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
16247 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
16248 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
16252 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16253 #: freeculture.xml:12207
16255 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
16256 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
16257 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
16258 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
16259 "imposed upon creators."
16263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16264 #: freeculture.xml:12215
16266 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
16267 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
16268 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
16269 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
16270 "a property right over the table <quote>naturally,</quote> and he can assert "
16271 "that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has "
16272 "informed the government of his ownership of the table."
16275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16276 #: freeculture.xml:12227
16278 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
16279 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
16280 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
16281 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
16282 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
16283 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
16286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16287 #: freeculture.xml:12236
16289 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
16290 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
16291 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
16292 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
16293 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
16294 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
16295 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
16296 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
16297 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
16298 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
16299 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
16300 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
16301 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
16304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16305 #: freeculture.xml:12252
16307 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
16308 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
16309 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
16310 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
16311 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
16312 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
16313 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
16314 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
16315 "formalities. Complex, expensive, <emphasis>lawyer</emphasis> transactions "
16316 "take their place. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16320 #: freeculture.xml:12267
16322 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
16323 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't "
16324 "<quote>get.</quote> Because we live in a system without formalities, there "
16325 "is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright "
16326 "terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, <quote>short,</quote> then "
16327 "this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a "
16328 "work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be "
16329 "presumptively uncontrolled."
16332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16333 #: freeculture.xml:12277
16335 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
16336 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
16337 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
16338 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
16339 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
16340 "in a way that has never been seen before <emphasis>because there are no "
16341 "formalities</emphasis>."
16344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16345 #: freeculture.xml:12286
16347 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
16348 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
16349 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
16350 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
16351 "extended copyright term."
16354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16355 #: freeculture.xml:12293
16357 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
16358 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
16359 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
16360 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
16361 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
16364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16365 #: freeculture.xml:12300
16367 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
16368 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
16369 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
16373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16374 #: freeculture.xml:12306
16376 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
16377 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
16378 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
16379 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
16380 "the real problem of <emphasis>governments</emphasis> standing at the core of "
16381 "any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That "
16382 "solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was "
16383 "Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click "
16384 "registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration "
16385 "fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that "
16386 "system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that "
16387 "no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty "
16388 "years. What do you think?"
16391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16392 #: freeculture.xml:12324
16394 "When Steve Forbes endorsed the idea, some in Washington began to pay "
16395 "attention. Many people contacted me pointing to representatives who might be "
16396 "willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had a few who directly suggested "
16397 "that they might be willing to take the first step."
16400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
16401 #: freeculture.xml:12337
16402 msgid "Lofgren, Zoe"
16405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16406 #: freeculture.xml:12330
16408 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
16409 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
16410 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
16411 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
16412 "the Eldred Act blog, <quote>we are close.</quote> There was a general "
16413 "reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here. "
16414 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16418 #: freeculture.xml:12340
16420 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
16421 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
16422 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
16423 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
16424 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
16425 "about what this debate is really about."
16429 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16430 #: freeculture.xml:12348
16432 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had <quote>firmly rejected the central "
16433 "concept in the proposed bill</quote>—that copyrights be renewed. That "
16434 "was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's <quote>firm rejection</quote> had "
16435 "occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. "
16436 "Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright "
16437 "owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they "
16438 "argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would "
16439 "encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of "
16440 "work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again "
16441 "this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term "
16442 "unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would "
16443 "impose <quote>enormous</quote> costs, since a registration system is not "
16444 "free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of "
16445 "clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they "
16446 "worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were "
16447 "to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the "
16448 "public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use."
16451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16452 #: freeculture.xml:12369
16454 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
16455 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
16456 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
16457 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
16458 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
16462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16463 #: freeculture.xml:12377
16465 "At the beginning of this book, I told two stories about the law reacting to "
16466 "changes in technology. In the one, common sense prevailed. In the other, "
16467 "common sense was delayed. The difference between the two stories was the "
16468 "power of the opposition—the power of the side that fought to defend "
16469 "the status quo. In both cases, a new technology threatened old "
16470 "interests. But in only one case did those interest's have the power to "
16471 "protect themselves against this new competitive threat."
16474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16475 #: freeculture.xml:12387
16477 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
16478 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
16479 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
16480 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
16484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16485 #: freeculture.xml:12396
16487 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
16488 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
16489 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
16490 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
16491 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
16492 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
16493 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
16494 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
16498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16499 #: freeculture.xml:12406
16500 msgid "Kelly, Kevin"
16503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16504 #: freeculture.xml:12408
16506 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
16507 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
16508 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
16509 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
16510 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
16511 "what Kevin Kelly calls the <quote>Dark Content</quote> that fills archives "
16512 "around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should "
16513 "ask one simple question:"
16516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16517 #: freeculture.xml:12418
16518 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
16521 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16522 #: freeculture.xml:12421
16524 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
16525 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
16526 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an "
16527 "effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is "
16528 "another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there "
16529 "will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that "
16530 "there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require "
16531 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> permission first."
16534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16535 #: freeculture.xml:12432
16537 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
16538 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
16539 "the protection of <quote>property</quote> but the rejection of a tradition. "
16540 "Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. <emphasis>Their aim is to "
16541 "assure that all there is is what is theirs</emphasis>."
16545 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16546 #: freeculture.xml:12440
16548 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
16549 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
16550 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
16551 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
16552 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
16556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16557 #: freeculture.xml:12452
16559 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
16560 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
16561 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
16562 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
16566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16567 #: freeculture.xml:12459
16569 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
16570 "<quote>property</quote> in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, "
16571 "and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of "
16572 "the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing <quote>permission "
16573 "society.</quote> The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the "
16574 "owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be "
16575 "controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
16578 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
16579 #: freeculture.xml:12471
16583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16584 #: freeculture.xml:12473
16585 msgid "antiretroviral drugs"
16588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16589 #: freeculture.xml:12476
16590 msgid "HIV/AIDS therapies"
16593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16594 #: freeculture.xml:12479
16595 msgid "Africa, medications for HIV patients in"
16598 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16599 #: freeculture.xml:12482
16601 "There are more than 35 million people with the AIDS virus "
16602 "worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. "
16603 "Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million Africans is "
16604 "proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More importantly, "
16605 "it is seventeen million Africans."
16608 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16609 #: freeculture.xml:12489
16611 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
16612 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
16613 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
16614 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
16615 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
16619 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16620 #: freeculture.xml:12504
16622 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, <quote>Final Report: Integrating "
16623 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy</quote> (London, 2002), "
16624 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
16625 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
16626 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
16627 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
16630 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16631 #: freeculture.xml:12497
16633 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
16634 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
16635 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
16636 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
16637 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
16638 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
16643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16644 #: freeculture.xml:12515
16646 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
16647 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
16648 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
16649 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
16650 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
16651 "used to keep the prices high."
16654 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16655 #: freeculture.xml:12523
16657 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
16658 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
16659 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
16660 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
16661 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
16662 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
16663 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
16664 "it, at least without other changes."
16667 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16668 #: freeculture.xml:12534
16670 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
16671 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
16672 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
16673 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
16677 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16678 #: freeculture.xml:12552 freeculture.xml:12998
16679 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
16682 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16683 #: freeculture.xml:12550
16685 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism: "
16686 "Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New Press, 2003), "
16687 "37. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
16688 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
16691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16692 #: freeculture.xml:12541
16694 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
16695 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
16696 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
16697 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
16698 "called <quote>parallel importation,</quote> and it is generally permitted "
16699 "under international trade law and is specifically permitted within the "
16700 "European Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
16704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16705 #: freeculture.xml:12563
16707 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
16708 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
16709 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
16710 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 14, available at <ulink "
16711 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #56</ulink>. For a firsthand "
16712 "account of the struggle over South Africa, see Hearing Before the "
16713 "Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, House "
16714 "Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., Ser. No. 106-126 (22 "
16715 "July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
16719 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16720 #: freeculture.xml:12590
16722 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
16723 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
16724 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
16725 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 15."
16728 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16729 #: freeculture.xml:12557
16731 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
16732 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
16733 "characterized it, <quote>The U.S. government pressured South Africa … "
16734 "not to permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.</quote><placeholder "
16735 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
16736 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
16737 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
16738 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
16739 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
16740 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
16741 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
16742 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
16743 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
16744 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
16745 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
16746 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
16747 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
16748 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
16751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16752 #: freeculture.xml:12596
16754 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
16755 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
16756 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
16757 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
16758 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
16759 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
16760 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
16763 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16764 #: freeculture.xml:12606
16766 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
16767 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
16768 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
16769 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
16770 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
16771 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
16774 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16775 #: freeculture.xml:12614
16777 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
16778 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
16779 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
16780 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
16781 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
16782 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
16788 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16789 #: freeculture.xml:12629
16791 "See Sabin Russell, <quote>New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's "
16792 "Needs at Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
16793 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 May 1999, A1, available at <ulink "
16794 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> (<quote>compulsory "
16795 "licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system of intellectual "
16796 "property protection</quote>); Robert Weissman, <quote>AIDS and Developing "
16797 "Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,</quote> "
16798 "<citetitle>Foreign Policy in Focus</citetitle> 4:23 (August 1999), available "
16799 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
16800 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, <quote>TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and "
16801 "the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual "
16802 "Property Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,</quote> <citetitle>Widener Law "
16803 "Symposium Journal</citetitle> (Spring 2001): 175."
16806 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16807 #: freeculture.xml:12623
16809 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
16810 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
16811 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
16812 "because <quote>intellectual property</quote> would be violated that these "
16813 "drugs should not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance "
16814 "of <quote>intellectual property</quote> that led these government actors to "
16815 "intervene against the South African response to AIDS."
16818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16819 #: freeculture.xml:12650
16821 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
16822 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
16823 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
16824 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
16825 "would be to uphold the <quote>sanctity</quote> of an idea? What possible "
16826 "justification could there ever be for a policy that results in so many "
16827 "deaths? What exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for "
16828 "such an abstraction?"
16831 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16832 #: freeculture.xml:12660
16834 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
16835 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
16836 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
16837 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
16838 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
16839 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
16842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16843 #: freeculture.xml:12668
16845 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
16846 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
16847 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
16848 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
16849 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
16850 "could be overcome."
16854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16855 #: freeculture.xml:12676
16857 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
16858 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
16859 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, <quote>How is it you can sell "
16860 "this HIV drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an "
16861 "American $1,500?</quote> Because there is no <quote>sound bite</quote> "
16862 "answer to that question, its effect would be to induce regulation of prices "
16863 "in America. The drug companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first "
16864 "step. They reinforce the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a "
16865 "rational strategy in an irrational context, with the unintended consequence "
16866 "that perhaps millions die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in "
16867 "terms of this ideal—the sanctity of an idea called <quote>intellectual "
16868 "property.</quote>"
16871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16872 #: freeculture.xml:12691
16874 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
16875 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
16876 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
16879 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16880 #: freeculture.xml:12697
16882 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
16883 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
16884 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
16885 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
16886 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
16887 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
16888 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
16889 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
16890 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
16893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16894 #: freeculture.xml:12709
16896 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
16897 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
16898 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
16899 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
16900 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
16901 "decision that we as a democracy will make."
16905 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16906 #: freeculture.xml:12720
16908 "A simple idea blinds us, and under the cover of darkness, much happens that "
16909 "most of us would reject if any of us looked. So uncritically do we accept "
16910 "the idea of property in ideas that we don't even notice how monstrous it is "
16911 "to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them. So uncritically do we "
16912 "accept the idea of property in culture that we don't even question when the "
16913 "control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our "
16914 "culture democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the "
16915 "challenge for anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is "
16916 "to find a way to make this common sense open its eyes."
16919 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16920 #: freeculture.xml:12734
16922 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
16923 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
16924 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
16925 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight <quote>piracy,</quote> "
16926 "and devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of "
16927 "<quote>creative property,</quote> while transforming real creators into "
16928 "modern-day sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should "
16929 "be balanced, even though each of the major players in this content war was "
16930 "itself a beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a "
16931 "city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, "
16932 "complex issues, and MTV attention spans produce the <quote>perfect "
16933 "storm</quote> for free culture."
16936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16937 #: freeculture.xml:12749
16938 msgid "biomedical research"
16941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16942 #: freeculture.xml:12751
16943 msgid "Wellcome Trust"
16947 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16948 #: freeculture.xml:12756
16950 "Jonathan Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> "
16951 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, August 2003, E1, available at <ulink "
16952 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #59</ulink>; William New, "
16953 "<quote>Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir,</quote> "
16954 "<citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 August 2003, "
16955 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; "
16956 "William New, <quote>U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at "
16957 "WIPO,</quote> <citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 "
16958 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
16962 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
16963 #: freeculture.xml:12784 freeculture.xml:13461
16964 msgid "academic journals"
16967 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
16968 #: freeculture.xml:12785 freeculture.xml:12876 freeculture.xml:13386
16972 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
16973 #: freeculture.xml:12786 freeculture.xml:13525
16974 msgid "PLoS (Public Library of Science)"
16977 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16978 #: freeculture.xml:12753
16980 "In August 2003, a fight broke out in the United States about a decision by "
16981 "the World Intellectual Property Organization to cancel a "
16982 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> At the request of a wide "
16983 "range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a meeting to discuss "
16984 "<quote>open and collaborative projects to create public goods.</quote> These "
16985 "are projects that have been successful in producing public goods without "
16986 "relying exclusively upon a proprietary use of intellectual "
16987 "property. Examples include the Internet and the World Wide Web, both of "
16988 "which were developed on the basis of protocols in the public domain. It "
16989 "included an emerging trend to support open academic journals, including the "
16990 "Public Library of Science project that I describe in the Afterword. It "
16991 "included a project to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which "
16992 "are thought to have great significance in biomedical research. (That "
16993 "nonprofit project comprised a consortium of the Wellcome Trust and "
16994 "pharmaceutical and technological companies, including Amersham Biosciences, "
16995 "AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La Roche, "
16996 "Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It included "
16997 "the Global Positioning System, which Ronald Reagan set free in the early "
16998 "1980s. And it included <quote>open source and free software.</quote> "
16999 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17000 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
17003 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17004 #: freeculture.xml:12790
17006 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
17007 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
17008 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
17009 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
17010 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
17014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17015 #: freeculture.xml:12798
17017 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
17021 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17022 #: freeculture.xml:12797
17024 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
17025 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
17026 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
17027 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
17028 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
17029 "with intellectual property issues."
17033 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17034 #: freeculture.xml:12808
17036 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
17037 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
17038 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
17039 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
17040 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
17041 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
17042 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
17043 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
17044 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
17045 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
17046 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
17047 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
17048 "no way to talk about an <quote>Information Society</quote> unless one also "
17049 "talked about the range of information and culture that would be free. My "
17050 "talk did not make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt "
17051 "correct that the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily "
17052 "the stuff of WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a "
17053 "conversation about how much intellectual property is needed, since in my "
17054 "view, the very idea of balance in intellectual property had been lost."
17057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17058 #: freeculture.xml:12832
17060 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
17061 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
17062 "meeting about <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17063 "goods</quote> seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
17066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17067 #: freeculture.xml:12838
17069 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
17070 "least among lobbyists. That project is <quote>open source and free "
17071 "software.</quote> Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the "
17072 "subject. From its perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free "
17073 "software would be like a conference to discuss Apple's operating "
17074 "system. Both open source and free software compete with Microsoft's "
17075 "software. And internationally, many governments have begun to explore "
17076 "requirements that they use open source or free software, rather than "
17077 "<quote>proprietary software,</quote> for their own internal uses."
17081 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17082 #: freeculture.xml:12860
17084 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
17085 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with "
17086 "<quote>open source</quote> software or software in the public "
17087 "domain. Microsoft's principal opposition is to <quote>free software</quote> "
17088 "licensed under a <quote>copyleft</quote> license, meaning a license that "
17089 "requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any derivative work. See "
17090 "Bradford L. Smith, <quote>The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace "
17091 "to Decide,</quote> <citetitle>Government Policy Toward Open Source "
17092 "Software</citetitle> (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for "
17093 "Regulatory Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy "
17094 "Research, 2002), 69, available at <ulink "
17095 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #62</ulink>. See also Craig "
17096 "Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, <citetitle>The Commercial Software "
17097 "Model</citetitle>, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
17098 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
17099 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
17102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
17103 #: freeculture.xml:12877
17104 msgid "<quote>copyleft</quote> licenses"
17107 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17108 #: freeculture.xml:12849
17110 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
17111 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
17112 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
17113 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
17114 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
17115 "famous bit of <quote>free software</quote>—and IBM is emphatically a "
17116 "commercial entity. Thus, to support <quote>open source and free "
17117 "software</quote> is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to "
17118 "support a mode of software development that is different from "
17119 "Microsoft's.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
17120 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> "
17121 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17127 #: freeculture.xml:12882
17129 "More important for our purposes, to support <quote>open source and free "
17130 "software</quote> is not to oppose copyright. <quote>Open source and free "
17131 "software</quote> is not software in the public domain. Instead, like "
17132 "Microsoft's software, the copyright owners of free and open source software "
17133 "insist quite strongly that the terms of their software license be respected "
17134 "by adopters of free and open source software. The terms of that license are "
17135 "no doubt different from the terms of a proprietary software license. Free "
17136 "software licensed under the General Public License (GPL), for example, "
17137 "requires that the source code for the software be made available by anyone "
17138 "who modifies and redistributes the software. But that requirement is "
17139 "effective only if copyright governs software. If copyright did not govern "
17140 "software, then free software could not impose the same kind of requirements "
17141 "on its adopters. It thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does."
17145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17146 #: freeculture.xml:12908
17148 "Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> available at <ulink "
17149 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
17152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
17153 #: freeculture.xml:12912
17154 msgid "Krim, Jonathan"
17157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17158 #: freeculture.xml:12900
17160 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
17161 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
17162 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
17163 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
17164 "to Jonathan Krim of the <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, Microsoft's "
17165 "lobbyists succeeded in getting the United States government to veto the "
17166 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, "
17167 "the meeting was canceled. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
17170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17171 #: freeculture.xml:12915
17173 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
17174 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
17175 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
17176 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
17177 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
17180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17181 #: freeculture.xml:12923
17183 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
17184 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
17185 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
17186 "that <quote>open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which "
17187 "is to promote intellectual-property rights.</quote> She is quoted as saying, "
17188 "<quote>To hold a meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such "
17189 "rights seems to us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.</quote>"
17192 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17193 #: freeculture.xml:12933
17194 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
17197 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17198 #: freeculture.xml:12937
17200 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
17201 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
17202 "<quote>copyright</quote>. Without it, restrictions imposed by those "
17203 "licenses wouldn't work. Thus, to say it <quote>runs counter</quote> to the "
17204 "mission of promoting intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary "
17205 "gap in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a "
17206 "first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official "
17207 "dealing with intellectual property issues."
17210 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17211 #: freeculture.xml:12947
17213 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to "
17214 "<quote>promote</quote> intellectual property maximally? As I had been "
17215 "scolded at the preparatory conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only "
17216 "how best to protect intellectual property, but also what the best balance of "
17217 "intellectual property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard "
17218 "question in intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that "
17219 "there should be limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask "
17220 "Ms. Boland, are generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has "
17221 "expired) contrary to the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken "
17222 "intellectual property? Would it have been better if the protocols of the "
17223 "Internet had been patented?"
17226 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17227 #: freeculture.xml:12960
17229 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
17230 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
17231 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
17232 "those rights because, again, they are <emphasis>their</emphasis> rights. If "
17233 "they want to <quote>waive</quote> or <quote>disclaim</quote> their rights, "
17234 "that is, within our tradition, totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives "
17235 "away more than $20 billion to do good in the world, that is not inconsistent "
17236 "with the objectives of the property system. That is, on the contrary, just "
17237 "what a property system is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right "
17238 "to decide what to do with <emphasis>their</emphasis> property. <placeholder "
17239 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17243 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17244 #: freeculture.xml:12974
17246 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting "
17247 "<quote>which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,</quote> "
17248 "she's saying that WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of "
17249 "the individuals who own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's "
17250 "objective should be to stop an individual from <quote>waiving</quote> or "
17251 "<quote>disclaiming</quote> an intellectual property right. That the interest "
17252 "of WIPO is not just that intellectual property rights be maximized, but that "
17253 "they also should be exercised in the most extreme and restrictive way "
17257 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17258 #: freeculture.xml:12986
17260 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
17261 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called <quote>feudalism.</quote> Under "
17262 "feudalism, not only was property held by a relatively small number of "
17263 "individuals and entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that "
17264 "property powerful and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest "
17265 "in assuring that property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by "
17266 "liberating people or property within their control to the free "
17267 "market. Feudalism depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought "
17268 "any freedom that might interfere with that control."
17271 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17272 #: freeculture.xml:13003
17274 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism</citetitle>, "
17275 "210–20. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17279 #: freeculture.xml:13000
17281 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
17282 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17283 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
17284 "only choice now is whether that information society will be "
17285 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> or <emphasis>feudal</emphasis>. The trend is "
17286 "toward the feudal."
17289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17290 #: freeculture.xml:13012
17292 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
17293 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
17294 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
17295 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
17299 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
17300 #: freeculture.xml:13019
17302 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
17303 "should be (<quote>the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should "
17304 "be to promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply "
17305 "to promote intellectual property rights</quote>), not as it is. If we were "
17306 "talking about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
17307 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
17308 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
17312 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17313 #: freeculture.xml:13031
17315 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
17316 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
17317 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
17318 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
17319 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
17320 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
17321 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
17325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17326 #: freeculture.xml:13041
17328 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
17329 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the "
17330 "<quote>goal</quote> of a government should be <quote>to promote the right "
17331 "balance</quote> of intellectual property. That was obviously silly to "
17332 "him. And it obviously betrayed, he believed, my own silly "
17333 "utopianism. <quote>Typical for an academic,</quote> the poster might well "
17337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17338 #: freeculture.xml:13049
17340 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
17341 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
17342 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
17345 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17346 #: freeculture.xml:13055
17348 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
17349 "should be to <quote>seek balance,</quote> then count me with the silly, for "
17350 "that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be "
17351 "obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the "
17352 "government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea "
17353 "of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea "
17354 "of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just "
17355 "naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, "
17360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17361 #: freeculture.xml:13066
17363 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
17364 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
17365 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
17366 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
17367 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
17370 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17371 #: freeculture.xml:13075
17372 msgid "Turner, Ted"
17375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17376 #: freeculture.xml:13077
17378 "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon. There are moments "
17379 "of hope in this struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was "
17380 "considering relaxing ownership rules, which would thereby further increase "
17381 "the concentration in media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition "
17382 "formed to fight this change. For perhaps the first time in history, "
17383 "interests as diverse as the NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted "
17384 "Turner, and CodePink Women for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC "
17385 "policy. An astonishing 700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more "
17386 "hearings and a different result."
17389 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17390 #: freeculture.xml:13089
17392 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
17393 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
17394 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
17395 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
17396 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
17399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17400 #: freeculture.xml:13097
17402 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
17403 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
17404 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
17405 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
17406 "hamburger from somewhere else."
17409 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17410 #: freeculture.xml:13104
17412 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
17413 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
17414 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
17415 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
17416 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
17417 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
17418 "their bigness bad."
17421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17422 #: freeculture.xml:13114
17424 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
17425 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
17426 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
17427 "history of fighting <quote>big,</quote> wisely or not. That we could be "
17428 "motivated to fight <quote>big</quote> again is not something new."
17431 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17432 #: freeculture.xml:13121
17434 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
17435 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
17436 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote> Not because balance is alien to our "
17437 "tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the "
17438 "muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "
17439 "<quote>property</quote> is not well exercised within this tradition anymore."
17442 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17443 #: freeculture.xml:13129
17445 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
17449 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17450 #: freeculture.xml:13132
17455 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17456 #: freeculture.xml:13137
17458 "John Borland, <quote>RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,</quote> CNET News.com, "
17459 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
17460 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, "
17461 "<quote>Music Industry Sues Swappers,</quote> CNN/Money, 8 September 2003, "
17462 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; "
17463 "Soni Sangha and Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, <quote>Sued for a Song, "
17464 "N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among 261 Cited as Sharers,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
17465 "Daily News</citetitle>, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's "
17466 "Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl "
17467 "in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 "
17468 "September 2003, E1; Katie Dean, <quote>Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,</quote> "
17469 "<citetitle>Wired News</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, available at <ulink "
17470 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
17474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17475 #: freeculture.xml:13155
17477 "Jon Wiederhorn, <quote>Eminem Gets Sued … by a Little Old "
17478 "Lady,</quote> mtv.com, 17 September 2003, available at <ulink "
17479 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
17484 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17485 #: freeculture.xml:13162
17487 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, <quote>Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for "
17488 "Dylan Songs,</quote> Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
17489 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
17492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17493 #: freeculture.xml:13134
17495 "As I write these final words, the news is filled with stories about the RIAA "
17496 "lawsuits against almost three hundred individuals.<placeholder "
17497 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been sued for "
17498 "<quote>sampling</quote> someone else's music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17499 "id=\"1\"/> The story about Bob Dylan <quote>stealing</quote> from a Japanese "
17500 "author has just finished making the rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17501 "id=\"2\"/> An insider from Hollywood—who insists he must remain "
17502 "anonymous—reports <quote>an amazing conversation with these studio "
17503 "guys. They've got extraordinary [old] content that they'd love to use but "
17504 "can't because they can't begin to clear the rights. They've got scores of "
17505 "kids who could do amazing things with the content, but it would take scores "
17506 "of lawyers to clean it first.</quote> Congressmen are talking about "
17507 "deputizing computer viruses to bring down computers thought to violate the "
17508 "law. Universities are threatening expulsion for kids who use a computer to "
17512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17513 #: freeculture.xml:13179 freeculture.xml:13542
17514 msgid "Creative Commons"
17517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17518 #: freeculture.xml:13180
17519 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
17522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17523 #: freeculture.xml:13181
17527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17528 #: freeculture.xml:13182
17529 msgid "Brazil, free culture in"
17533 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17534 #: freeculture.xml:13187
17536 "<quote>BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,</quote> BBC press "
17537 "release, 24 August 2003, available at <ulink "
17538 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #70</ulink>."
17542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17543 #: freeculture.xml:13196
17545 "<quote>Creative Commons and Brazil,</quote> Creative Commons Weblog, 6 "
17546 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17552 #: freeculture.xml:13184
17554 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
17555 "will build a <quote>Creative Archive,</quote> from which British citizens "
17556 "can download BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder "
17557 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto "
17558 "Gil, himself a folk hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative "
17559 "Commons to release content and free licenses in that Latin American "
17560 "country.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark "
17561 "story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new "
17562 "freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean "
17563 "anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without "
17564 "artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being "
17565 "destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take "
17566 "some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys."
17570 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17571 #: freeculture.xml:13210
17573 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
17574 "potential is ever to be realized."
17577 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
17578 #: freeculture.xml:13218
17583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17584 #: freeculture.xml:13222
17586 "At least some who have read this far will agree with me that something must "
17587 "be done to change where we are heading. The balance of this book maps what "
17591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17592 #: freeculture.xml:13227
17594 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
17595 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
17596 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
17597 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
17600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17601 #: freeculture.xml:13233
17603 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
17604 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
17605 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
17606 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
17609 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17610 #: freeculture.xml:13240
17612 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
17613 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
17614 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
17615 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
17616 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
17619 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
17620 #: freeculture.xml:13249
17624 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
17625 #: freeculture.xml:13251
17627 "Common sense is with the copyright warriors because the debate so far has "
17628 "been framed at the extremes—as a grand either/or: either property or "
17629 "anarchy, either total control or artists won't be paid. If that really is "
17630 "the choice, then the warriors should win."
17633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
17634 #: freeculture.xml:13257
17636 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
17637 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
17638 "believe in maximal copyright—<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote>— "
17639 "and those who reject copyright—<quote>No Rights Reserved.</quote> The "
17640 "<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe that you should ask "
17641 "permission before you <quote>use</quote> a copyrighted work in any way. The "
17642 "<quote>No Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe you should be able to do "
17643 "with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not."
17647 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
17648 #: freeculture.xml:13267
17650 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
17651 "tilted in the <quote>no rights reserved</quote> direction. Content could be "
17652 "copied perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
17653 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
17654 "original design of the Internet was <quote>no rights reserved.</quote> "
17655 "Content was <quote>taken</quote> regardless of the rights. Any rights were "
17656 "effectively unprotected."
17659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
17660 #: freeculture.xml:13279
17662 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
17663 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
17664 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
17665 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
17666 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
17667 "default <quote>no rights reserved,</quote> the future architecture will make "
17668 "the effective default <quote>all rights reserved.</quote> The architecture "
17669 "and law that surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an "
17670 "environment where all use of content requires permission. The <quote>cut "
17671 "and paste</quote> world that defines the Internet today will become a "
17672 "<quote>get permission to cut and paste</quote> world that is a creator's "
17676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
17677 #: freeculture.xml:13293
17679 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither "
17680 "<quote>all rights reserved</quote> nor <quote>no rights reserved</quote> but "
17681 "<quote>some rights reserved</quote>— and thus a way to respect "
17682 "copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other "
17683 "words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take "
17684 "for granted before."
17687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
17688 #: freeculture.xml:13302
17689 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
17692 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17693 #: freeculture.xml:13304
17695 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
17696 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
17697 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
17698 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
17699 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
17700 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The "
17701 "<quote>privacy</quote> of your browsing habits was assured."
17704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17705 #: freeculture.xml:13314
17706 msgid "What made it assured?"
17709 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17710 #: freeculture.xml:13318
17712 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter <xref "
17713 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, your privacy was "
17714 "assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering data and hence "
17715 "a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather that data. If you "
17716 "were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, no doubt your "
17717 "privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA would (we hope) "
17718 "find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to track you. But "
17719 "for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The highly "
17720 "inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly robust "
17721 "amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not by law "
17722 "(there is no law protecting <quote>privacy</quote> in public places), and in "
17723 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
17724 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
17727 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17728 #: freeculture.xml:13333
17732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17733 #: freeculture.xml:13343
17734 msgid "cookies, Internet"
17737 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17738 #: freeculture.xml:13335
17740 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
17741 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
17742 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
17743 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of <quote>recently "
17744 "viewed</quote> pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the "
17745 "function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than "
17746 "not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any <quote>privacy</quote> "
17747 "protected by the friction disappears, too. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17752 #: freeculture.xml:13346
17754 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
17755 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
17756 "should have the <quote>right</quote> to browse in a library without the "
17757 "government knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), "
17758 "then this change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it "
17759 "becomes simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then "
17760 "the friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
17764 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
17765 #: freeculture.xml:13362
17767 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, <quote>Fair Information Practices and the "
17768 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),</quote> "
17769 "<citetitle>Stanford Technology Law Review</citetitle> 1 (2001): "
17770 "par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
17771 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
17772 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, "
17773 "<citetitle>The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious "
17774 "Age</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between "
17775 "technology and privacy)."
17779 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17780 #: freeculture.xml:13356
17782 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define "
17783 "<quote>privacy</quote> on the Internet. It is the recognition that "
17784 "technology can remove what friction before gave us that leads many to push "
17785 "for laws to do what friction did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
17786 "And whether you're in favor of those laws or not, it is the pattern that is "
17787 "important here. We must take affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom "
17788 "that was passively provided before. A change in technology now forces those "
17789 "who believe in privacy to affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given "
17793 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17794 #: freeculture.xml:13380
17796 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
17797 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
17798 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
17799 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
17800 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
17801 "about controlling their software. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17805 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17806 #: freeculture.xml:13388
17807 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
17810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17811 #: freeculture.xml:13390
17813 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
17814 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
17815 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
17816 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
17817 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
17820 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17821 #: freeculture.xml:13398
17823 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
17824 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
17825 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
17826 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
17827 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
17828 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
17829 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
17830 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
17834 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17835 #: freeculture.xml:13410
17837 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
17838 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
17839 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
17840 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
17841 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
17842 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
17843 "market than it was for you."
17847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17848 #: freeculture.xml:13419
17850 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
17851 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
17852 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
17853 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
17854 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
17857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17858 #: freeculture.xml:13427
17859 msgid "Torvalds, Linus"
17862 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17863 #: freeculture.xml:13429
17865 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
17866 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
17867 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's "
17868 "<quote>Linux</quote> kernel was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating "
17869 "system. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
17870 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
17873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17874 #: freeculture.xml:13437
17876 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
17877 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
17878 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
17879 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
17880 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
17881 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
17882 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
17883 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
17886 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17887 #: freeculture.xml:13448
17889 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
17890 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
17891 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
17892 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
17893 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
17894 "passively guaranteed."
17897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17898 #: freeculture.xml:13456
17900 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
17901 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
17902 "journals are produced."
17906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17907 #: freeculture.xml:13464
17909 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
17910 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
17911 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
17912 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
17913 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
17914 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
17915 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
17916 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
17917 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
17918 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
17919 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
17920 "opinion through their respective services."
17923 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17924 #: freeculture.xml:13480
17926 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
17927 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
17928 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
17929 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
17930 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
17931 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
17932 "the public domain."
17935 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17936 #: freeculture.xml:13489
17938 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
17939 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
17940 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
17943 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17944 #: freeculture.xml:13494
17946 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
17947 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
17948 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
17949 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
17950 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
17951 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
17952 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
17953 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
17954 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
17958 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17959 #: freeculture.xml:13506
17961 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
17962 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
17963 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
17964 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
17965 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
17968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17969 #: freeculture.xml:13514
17971 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
17972 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
17973 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
17974 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
17975 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
17976 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
17977 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
17978 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
17979 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free. <placeholder "
17980 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17983 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
17984 #: freeculture.xml:13528
17986 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
17987 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
17988 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
17989 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
17990 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
17991 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
17994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
17995 #: freeculture.xml:13540
17996 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
17999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18000 #: freeculture.xml:13545
18002 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
18003 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
18006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18007 #: freeculture.xml:13548
18008 msgid "Stanford University"
18011 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18012 #: freeculture.xml:13550
18014 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
18015 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
18016 "aim is to build a layer of <emphasis>reasonable</emphasis> copyright on top "
18017 "of the extremes that now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to "
18018 "build upon other people's work, by making it simple for creators to express "
18019 "the freedom for others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied "
18020 "to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
18025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18026 #: freeculture.xml:13561
18028 "<emphasis>Simple</emphasis>—which means without a middleman, or "
18029 "without a lawyer. By developing a free set of licenses that people can "
18030 "attach to their content, Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content "
18031 "that can easily, and reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to "
18032 "machine-readable versions of the license that enable computers automatically "
18033 "to identify content that can easily be shared. These three expressions "
18034 "together—a legal license, a human-readable description, and "
18035 "machine-readable tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A "
18036 "Creative Commons license constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who "
18037 "accesses the license, and more importantly, an expression of the ideal that "
18038 "the person associated with the license believes in something different than "
18039 "the <quote>All</quote> or <quote>No</quote> extremes. Content is marked with "
18040 "the CC mark, which does not mean that copyright is waived, but that certain "
18041 "freedoms are given."
18044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18045 #: freeculture.xml:13579
18047 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
18048 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
18049 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
18050 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
18051 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
18052 "uses (<quote>share and share alike</quote>). Or any use so long as no "
18053 "derivative use is made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any "
18054 "sampling use, so long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any "
18058 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18059 #: freeculture.xml:13590
18061 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
18062 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
18063 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
18064 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
18065 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
18066 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
18067 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
18068 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
18071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
18072 #: freeculture.xml:13611
18073 msgid "Garlick, Mia"
18076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18077 #: freeculture.xml:13601
18079 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
18080 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
18081 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
18082 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
18083 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
18084 "movement of consumers and producers of content (<quote>content "
18085 "conducers,</quote> as attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the "
18086 "public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the importance of the public "
18087 "domain to other creativity. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18090 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18091 #: freeculture.xml:13614
18093 "The aim is not to fight the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts. The "
18094 "aim is to complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a "
18095 "culture are produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written "
18096 "centuries ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have "
18097 "imagined. The rules may well have made sense against a background of "
18098 "technologies from centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the "
18099 "background of digital technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, "
18100 "expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use them—are "
18101 "needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively to begin to build "
18105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18106 #: freeculture.xml:13626
18108 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
18109 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
18110 "fiction author. His first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
18111 "Kingdom</citetitle>, was released on-line and for free, under a Creative "
18112 "Commons license, on the same day that it went on sale in bookstores."
18115 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18116 #: freeculture.xml:13633
18118 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
18119 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
18120 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
18121 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
18122 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
18123 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
18124 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
18125 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
18126 "will probably <emphasis>increase</emphasis> sales of Cory's book."
18129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18130 #: freeculture.xml:13645
18132 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
18133 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
18134 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
18137 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
18138 #: freeculture.xml:13660
18139 msgid "Free for All (Wayner)"
18142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
18143 #: freeculture.xml:13661
18144 msgid "Wayner, Peter"
18147 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18148 #: freeculture.xml:13651
18150 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
18151 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
18152 "book about the free software movement titled <citetitle>Free for "
18153 "All</citetitle>, made an electronic version of his book free on-line under a "
18154 "Creative Commons license after the book went out of print. He then monitored "
18155 "used book store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of "
18156 "downloads increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well. "
18157 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
18161 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18162 #: freeculture.xml:13663
18163 msgid "Public Enemy"
18166 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18167 #: freeculture.xml:13664
18171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18172 #: freeculture.xml:13665
18173 msgid "Leaphart, Walter"
18177 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18178 #: freeculture.xml:13682
18180 "<citetitle>Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real "
18181 "Culture Wars</citetitle> (2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg "
18182 "Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre production, available at <ulink "
18183 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink>."
18186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18187 #: freeculture.xml:13667
18189 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
18190 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
18191 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
18192 "the <quote>sampling license</quote> do so because anything else would be "
18193 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
18194 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
18195 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
18196 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
18197 "others. Because the <emphasis>legal</emphasis> costs of sampling are so high "
18198 "(Walter Leaphart, manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born "
18199 "sampling the music of others, has stated that he does not "
18200 "<quote>allow</quote> Public Enemy to sample anymore, because the legal costs "
18201 "are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), these artists release "
18202 "into the creative environment content that others can build upon, so that "
18203 "their form of creativity might grow."
18206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18207 #: freeculture.xml:13691
18209 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
18210 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
18211 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
18212 "are effectively saying you believe in the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> "
18213 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
18214 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
18215 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
18216 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of <quote>Some Rights "
18217 "Reserved,</quote> and gives many the chance to say it to others."
18221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18222 #: freeculture.xml:13703
18224 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
18225 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
18226 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
18227 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
18228 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
18229 "build content based upon content set free."
18232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18233 #: freeculture.xml:13713
18235 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
18236 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
18237 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
18238 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
18239 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
18243 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18244 #: freeculture.xml:13721
18246 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
18247 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
18248 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
18249 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
18250 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
18251 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
18254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
18255 #: freeculture.xml:13735
18259 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18260 #: freeculture.xml:13737
18262 "We will not reclaim a free culture by individual action alone. It will also "
18263 "take important reforms of laws. We have a long way to go before the "
18264 "politicians will listen to these ideas and implement these reforms. But "
18265 "that also means that we have time to build awareness around the changes that "
18269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18270 #: freeculture.xml:13744
18272 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
18273 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
18274 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
18278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18279 #: freeculture.xml:13751
18280 msgid "1. More Formalities"
18283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18284 #: freeculture.xml:13753
18286 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
18287 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
18288 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
18289 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
18293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18294 #: freeculture.xml:13760
18296 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
18297 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
18300 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18301 #: freeculture.xml:13765
18303 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
18304 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
18305 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
18306 "and <quote>formalities</quote> are banished."
18309 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18310 #: freeculture.xml:13771
18314 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18315 #: freeculture.xml:13774
18317 "As I suggested in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
18318 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, the motivation to abolish formalities was a good "
18319 "one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a burden "
18320 "on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when the "
18321 "law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
18322 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
18325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18326 #: freeculture.xml:13783
18328 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
18329 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
18330 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
18331 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
18332 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
18333 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
18334 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
18335 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the <emphasis>lack</emphasis> "
18336 "of formalities forces many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
18340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18341 #: freeculture.xml:13797
18343 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
18344 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
18345 "by other countries as well."
18348 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18349 #: freeculture.xml:13795
18351 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
18352 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
18353 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
18354 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
18355 "these formalities."
18358 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18359 #: freeculture.xml:13805
18361 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
18362 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
18363 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
18364 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
18365 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
18366 "approving standards developed by others."
18369 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
18370 #: freeculture.xml:13817
18371 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
18374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18375 #: freeculture.xml:13819
18377 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
18378 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
18379 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
18380 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
18381 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
18382 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
18383 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
18384 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
18385 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
18386 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
18389 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18390 #: freeculture.xml:13832
18392 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
18393 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
18394 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
18395 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
18396 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
18397 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
18398 "that the government sets."
18401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18402 #: freeculture.xml:13841
18404 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
18405 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
18406 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
18407 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
18408 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
18409 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
18410 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
18414 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18415 #: freeculture.xml:13851
18417 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
18418 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
18419 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
18420 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
18421 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
18422 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
18423 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
18424 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
18425 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
18428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
18429 #: freeculture.xml:13866
18433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18434 #: freeculture.xml:13868
18436 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
18437 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
18438 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
18439 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
18440 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
18441 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
18442 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
18445 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18446 #: freeculture.xml:13878
18448 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
18449 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
18450 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
18453 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18454 #: freeculture.xml:13884
18456 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
18457 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
18458 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
18459 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
18460 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
18461 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
18462 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
18463 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
18467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18468 #: freeculture.xml:13901
18470 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
18471 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
18472 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
18476 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18477 #: freeculture.xml:13894
18479 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
18480 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
18481 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
18482 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
18483 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
18484 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
18485 "unmarked work would therefore be <quote>use unless someone "
18486 "complains.</quote> If someone does complain, then the obligation would be to "
18487 "stop using the work in any new work from then on though no penalty would "
18488 "attach for existing uses. This would create a strong incentive for "
18489 "copyright owners to mark their work."
18492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18493 #: freeculture.xml:13914
18495 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
18496 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
18497 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
18498 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
18502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18503 #: freeculture.xml:13921
18505 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
18506 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
18507 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
18508 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
18509 "and it would base that choice <emphasis>solely</emphasis> upon the "
18510 "consideration of which method could best be integrated into the registration "
18511 "and renewal system. We would not count on the government to innovate; but we "
18512 "would count on the government to keep the product of innovation in line with "
18513 "its other important functions."
18516 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18517 #: freeculture.xml:13933
18519 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
18520 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
18521 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
18522 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
18523 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
18527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18528 #: freeculture.xml:13941
18530 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
18531 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
18535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
18536 #: freeculture.xml:13946
18538 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
18539 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
18540 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
18541 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
18542 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
18543 "the appropriate time."
18546 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18547 #: freeculture.xml:13958
18548 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
18551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18552 #: freeculture.xml:13960
18554 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
18555 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
18560 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18561 #: freeculture.xml:13973
18563 "<quote>A Radical Rethink,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 366:8308 "
18564 "(25 January 2003): 15, available at <ulink "
18565 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
18568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18569 #: freeculture.xml:13965
18571 "In <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>, I proposed a "
18572 "seventy-five-year term, granted in five-year increments with a requirement "
18573 "of renewal every five years. That seemed radical enough at the time. But "
18574 "after we lost <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
18575 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, the proposals became even more "
18576 "radical. <citetitle>The Economist</citetitle> endorsed a proposal for a "
18577 "fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
18578 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
18581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18582 #: freeculture.xml:13980
18584 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
18585 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
18586 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
18590 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18591 #: freeculture.xml:13988
18593 "<emphasis>Keep it short:</emphasis> The term should be as long as necessary "
18594 "to give incentives to create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong "
18595 "protections for authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from "
18596 "publishers), rights to the same work (not derivative works) might be "
18597 "extended further. The key is not to tie the work up with legal regulations "
18598 "when it no longer benefits an author."
18603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18604 #: freeculture.xml:13997
18606 "<emphasis>Keep it simple:</emphasis> The line between the public domain and "
18607 "protected content must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of "
18608 "<quote>fair use,</quote> and the distinction between <quote>ideas</quote> "
18609 "and <quote>expression.</quote> That kind of law gives them lots of work. But "
18610 "our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected versus unprotected. The "
18611 "value of short terms is that there is little need to build exceptions into "
18612 "copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active "
18613 "<quote>lawyer-free zone</quote> makes the complexities of <quote>fair "
18614 "use</quote> and <quote>idea/expression</quote> less necessary to navigate."
18618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
18619 #: freeculture.xml:14018
18621 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
18622 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
18623 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
18626 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><indexterm><primary>
18627 #: freeculture.xml:14026
18628 msgid "veterans' pensions"
18631 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18632 #: freeculture.xml:14010
18634 "<emphasis>Keep it alive:</emphasis> Copyright should have to be renewed. "
18635 "Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be "
18636 "required to signal periodically that he wants the protection continued. This "
18637 "need not be an onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly "
18638 "protection has to be granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes "
18639 "for a veteran to apply for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
18640 "id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we "
18641 "couldn't require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a "
18642 "single form. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18647 #: freeculture.xml:14030
18649 "<emphasis>Keep it prospective:</emphasis> Whatever the term of copyright "
18650 "should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once "
18651 "given should not be extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the "
18652 "law to offer authors only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's "
18653 "possible. If it was a mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer "
18654 "authors to create in 1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct "
18655 "that mistake today by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we "
18656 "will not increase the number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can "
18657 "increase the reward that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase "
18658 "the copyright burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But "
18659 "increasing their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's "
18660 "not done is not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
18663 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18664 #: freeculture.xml:14046
18666 "These changes together should produce an <emphasis>average</emphasis> "
18667 "copyright term that is much shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the "
18668 "average term was just 32.2 years. We should be aiming for the same."
18671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18672 #: freeculture.xml:14052
18674 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas <quote>radical.</quote> (After "
18675 "all, I call them <quote>extremists.</quote>) But again, the term I "
18676 "recommended was longer than the term under Richard Nixon. How "
18677 "<quote>radical</quote> can it be to ask for a more generous copyright law "
18678 "than Richard Nixon presided over?"
18681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18682 #: freeculture.xml:14062
18683 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
18686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18687 #: freeculture.xml:14069
18689 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
18690 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
18691 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
18692 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
18693 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
18697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18698 #: freeculture.xml:14077
18700 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors <quote>exclusive "
18701 "right</quote> to <quote>their writings.</quote> Congress has given authors "
18702 "an exclusive right to <quote>their writings</quote> plus any derivative "
18703 "writings (made by others) that are sufficiently close to the author's "
18704 "original work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I "
18705 "have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even though that "
18706 "movie is not <quote>my writing.</quote>"
18710 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18711 #: freeculture.xml:14090
18713 "Benjamin Kaplan, <citetitle>An Unhurried View of Copyright</citetitle> (New "
18714 "York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 32."
18717 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
18718 #: freeculture.xml:14096
18719 msgid "Kaplan, Benjamin"
18722 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18723 #: freeculture.xml:14086
18725 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
18726 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
18727 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
18728 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
18729 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
18730 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
18735 #: freeculture.xml:14104
18739 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para>
18740 #: freeculture.xml:14100
18742 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
18743 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
18744 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
18745 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
18748 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18749 #: freeculture.xml:14109
18751 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
18752 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
18753 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
18754 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
18755 "each limitation in turn."
18758 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18759 #: freeculture.xml:14116
18761 "<emphasis>Term:</emphasis> If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, "
18762 "then that right should be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect "
18763 "John Grisham's right to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at "
18764 "least I'm willing to assume it does); but it does not make sense for that "
18765 "right to run for the same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative "
18766 "right could be important in inducing creativity; it is not important long "
18767 "after the creative work is done. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18771 #: freeculture.xml:14129
18773 "<emphasis>Scope:</emphasis> Likewise should the scope of derivative rights "
18774 "be narrowed. Again, there are some cases in which derivative rights are "
18775 "important. Those should be specified. But the law should draw clear lines "
18776 "around regulated and unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all "
18777 "<quote>reuse</quote> of creative material was within the control of "
18778 "businesses, perhaps it made sense to require lawyers to negotiate the "
18779 "lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers to negotiate the lines. Think "
18780 "about all the creative possibilities that digital technologies enable; now "
18781 "imagine pouring molasses into the machines. That's what this general "
18782 "requirement of permission does to the creative process. Smothers it."
18785 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18786 #: freeculture.xml:14143
18788 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
18789 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
18790 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
18791 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
18792 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
18795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
18796 #: freeculture.xml:14159
18797 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
18800 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18801 #: freeculture.xml:14157
18803 "Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the "
18804 "Celestial Jukebox</citetitle> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), "
18805 "187–216. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18809 #: freeculture.xml:14151
18811 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
18812 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
18813 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
18814 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
18815 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
18818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18819 #: freeculture.xml:14165
18821 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
18822 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
18823 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
18824 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
18825 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
18829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18830 #: freeculture.xml:14172
18832 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
18833 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
18834 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
18835 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
18836 "would earn artists more income."
18839 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18840 #: freeculture.xml:14182
18841 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
18844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18845 #: freeculture.xml:14184
18847 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
18848 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
18849 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
18850 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
18854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18855 #: freeculture.xml:14191
18857 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
18858 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
18859 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
18860 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
18861 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
18862 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
18865 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18866 #: freeculture.xml:14200
18868 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
18869 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
18870 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
18871 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
18872 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
18875 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18876 #: freeculture.xml:14207
18878 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
18879 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
18880 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter <xref "
18881 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"piracy\"/>, they enable four "
18882 "different kinds of sharing:"
18886 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18887 #: freeculture.xml:14216
18889 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
18894 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18895 #: freeculture.xml:14221
18897 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
18903 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18904 #: freeculture.xml:14227
18906 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
18907 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
18908 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
18912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
18913 #: freeculture.xml:14233
18915 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
18916 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
18920 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18921 #: freeculture.xml:14239
18923 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
18924 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
18925 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
18926 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
18927 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
18931 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18932 #: freeculture.xml:14247
18934 "As I said in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
18935 "linkend=\"piracy\"/>, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
18936 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
18937 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
18938 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
18941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18942 #: freeculture.xml:14255
18944 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
18945 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
18949 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18950 #: freeculture.xml:14260
18952 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
18953 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
18954 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
18955 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
18956 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
18957 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
18958 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
18959 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
18960 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
18964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18965 #: freeculture.xml:14272
18967 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
18968 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
18969 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
18970 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
18971 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
18972 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
18973 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
18974 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
18975 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
18976 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
18977 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
18980 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18981 #: freeculture.xml:14286
18982 msgid "cell phones, music streamed over"
18986 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18987 #: freeculture.xml:14306
18989 "See, for example, <quote>Music Media Watch,</quote> The J@pan "
18990 "Inc. Newsletter, 3 April 2002, available at <ulink "
18991 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #76</ulink>."
18994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18995 #: freeculture.xml:14288
18997 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
18998 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
18999 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
19000 "point: When it is <emphasis>extremely</emphasis> easy to connect to services "
19001 "that give access to content, it will be <emphasis>easier</emphasis> to "
19002 "connect to services that give you access to content than it will be to "
19003 "download and store content <emphasis>on the many devices you will have for "
19004 "playing content</emphasis>. It will be easier, in other words, to subscribe "
19005 "than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
19006 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
19007 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
19008 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
19009 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
19010 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
19011 "<quote>free</quote> content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
19012 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19017 #: freeculture.xml:14313
19019 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
19020 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The <quote>problem</quote> with file "
19021 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
19022 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
19023 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
19024 "to be <quote>solving</quote> this problem in light of a technology that will "
19025 "be gone tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet "
19026 "to eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The "
19027 "question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
19028 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
19029 "twenty-first-century technologies."
19032 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19033 #: freeculture.xml:14329
19035 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different "
19036 "<quote>problems</quote> here to solve. Let's start with type D "
19037 "content—uncopyrighted content or copyrighted content that the artist "
19038 "wants shared. The <quote>problem</quote> with this content is to make sure "
19039 "that the technology that would enable this kind of sharing is not rendered "
19040 "illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones are used to deliver ransom "
19041 "demands, no doubt. But there are many who need to use pay phones who have "
19042 "nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to ban pay phones in order to "
19043 "eliminate kidnapping."
19046 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19047 #: freeculture.xml:14340
19049 "Type C content raises a different <quote>problem.</quote> This is content "
19050 "that was, at one time, published and is no longer available. It may be "
19051 "unavailable because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record "
19052 "label he signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the "
19053 "work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate "
19054 "the access to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the "
19058 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19059 #: freeculture.xml:14349
19061 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
19062 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
19063 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
19064 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
19065 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
19066 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this "
19067 "<quote>sharing</quote> of his content without his being compensated is less "
19071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19072 #: freeculture.xml:14359
19074 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
19075 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
19076 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
19077 "be free, under this rule, to <quote>share</quote> that content, even though "
19078 "the sharing involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the "
19079 "trade; in a context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music "
19080 "should be as free as trading books."
19084 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19085 #: freeculture.xml:14370
19087 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
19088 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
19089 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
19090 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
19091 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
19092 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
19093 "artists would benefit from this trade."
19096 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19097 #: freeculture.xml:14380
19099 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
19100 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
19101 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
19102 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
19103 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
19104 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
19105 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
19109 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19110 #: freeculture.xml:14390
19112 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
19113 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
19114 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
19115 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
19116 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
19120 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19121 #: freeculture.xml:14398
19123 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
19124 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
19127 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19128 #: freeculture.xml:14402
19130 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
19131 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
19132 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
19133 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
19134 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
19135 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
19136 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
19141 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19142 #: freeculture.xml:14413
19144 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
19145 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
19146 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
19147 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
19148 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
19149 "compensate those who are harmed."
19152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19153 #: freeculture.xml:14462
19154 msgid "Fisher, William"
19157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19158 #: freeculture.xml:14464 freeculture.xml:14477
19159 msgid "Promises to Keep (Fisher)"
19162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19163 #: freeculture.xml:14425
19165 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> William Fisher, "
19166 "<citetitle>Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities</citetitle> (last "
19167 "revised: 10 October 2000), available at <ulink "
19168 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
19169 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of "
19170 "Entertainment</citetitle> (forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University "
19171 "Press, 2004), ch. 6, available at <ulink "
19172 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor Netanel "
19173 "has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing from the "
19174 "reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to balance "
19175 "any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, <quote>Impose a Noncommercial Use Levy "
19176 "to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,</quote> available at <ulink "
19177 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
19178 "see Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Who's Holding Back Broadband?</quote> "
19179 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 8 January 2002, A17; Philip "
19180 "S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter to Senator Joseph "
19181 "R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 "
19182 "February 2002, available at <ulink "
19183 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, "
19184 "<citetitle>A Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee "
19185 "(IPUF)</citetitle>, 3 March 2002, available at <ulink "
19186 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson Graham, "
19187 "<quote>Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,</quote> "
19188 "<citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 13 May 2002, available at <ulink "
19189 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, "
19190 "<quote>Getting Copyright Right,</quote> IEEE Spectrum Online, 1 July 2002, "
19191 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; "
19192 "Declan McCullagh, <quote>Verizon's Copyright Campaign,</quote> CNET "
19193 "News.com, 27 August 2002, available at <ulink "
19194 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's proposal "
19195 "is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike Fisher's, "
19196 "Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, though "
19197 "more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is typical "
19198 "with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
19199 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
19200 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
19201 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
19204 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19205 #: freeculture.xml:14421
19207 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
19208 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19209 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
19210 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
19211 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
19212 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
19213 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
19214 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
19215 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
19216 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
19219 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19220 #: freeculture.xml:14479
19222 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
19223 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, "
19224 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep</citetitle>. The modification that I would make "
19225 "is relatively simple: Fisher imagines his proposal replacing the existing "
19226 "copyright system. I imagine it complementing the existing system. The aim "
19227 "of the proposal would be to facilitate compensation to the extent that harm "
19228 "could be shown. This compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating "
19229 "a transition between regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of "
19230 "years. If it continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, "
19231 "supported through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form "
19232 "of protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the "
19233 "old system of controlling access."
19237 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19238 #: freeculture.xml:14498
19240 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
19241 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
19242 "supports the widest range of <quote>semiotic democracy</quote> possible. But "
19243 "the aims of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I "
19244 "described were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative "
19245 "uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden "
19246 "semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to "
19247 "do with the content itself."
19250 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19251 #: freeculture.xml:14512
19253 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of "
19254 "<quote>harm</quote> to an industry. But the difficulty of making that "
19255 "calculation would be outweighed by the benefit of facilitating "
19256 "innovation. This background system to compensate would also not need to "
19257 "interfere with innovative proposals such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts "
19258 "predicted when Apple launched the MusicStore, it could beat "
19259 "<quote>free</quote> by being easier than free is. This has proven correct: "
19260 "Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price of 99 cents a "
19261 "song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song CD price, "
19262 "though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's move was "
19263 "countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no "
19264 "doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music "
19268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19269 #: freeculture.xml:14528
19271 "This competition has already occurred against the background of "
19272 "<quote>free</quote> music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable "
19273 "television have known for thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for "
19274 "much more than that, there is nothing impossible at all about "
19275 "<quote>competing with free.</quote> Indeed, if anything, the competition "
19276 "spurs the competitors to offer new and better products. This is precisely "
19277 "what the competitive market was to be about. Thus in Singapore, though "
19278 "piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often luxurious—with "
19279 "<quote>first class</quote> seats, and meals served while you watch a "
19280 "movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
19281 "<quote>free.</quote>"
19284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19285 #: freeculture.xml:14540
19287 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
19288 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
19289 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
19290 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
19291 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
19292 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
19295 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19296 #: freeculture.xml:14549
19297 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
19301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19302 #: freeculture.xml:14554
19304 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
19305 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
19306 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
19307 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
19310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19311 #: freeculture.xml:14561
19312 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
19316 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19317 #: freeculture.xml:14567
19318 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
19322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19323 #: freeculture.xml:14571
19325 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
19326 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
19330 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19331 #: freeculture.xml:14577
19333 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
19334 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
19337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19338 #: freeculture.xml:14582
19340 "But what if <quote>piracy</quote> doesn't disappear? What if there is a "
19341 "competitive market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number "
19342 "of consumers continue to <quote>take</quote> content for nothing? Should the "
19343 "law do something then?"
19346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19347 #: freeculture.xml:14588
19349 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
19350 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
19351 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
19352 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
19353 "percent secure and produces a market of size <citetitle>x</citetitle>, or "
19354 "(b) to have a technology that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of "
19355 "five times <citetitle>x</citetitle>? Less secure might produce more "
19356 "unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a much bigger market "
19357 "in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to assure artists' "
19358 "compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's assured, then it may "
19359 "well be appropriate to find ways to track down the petty pirates."
19363 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19364 #: freeculture.xml:14602
19366 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
19367 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
19368 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
19369 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
19370 "and creativity that the Internet is."
19373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19374 #: freeculture.xml:14613
19375 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
19378 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19379 #: freeculture.xml:14615
19381 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
19382 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
19383 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
19384 "the end that I would love to live."
19387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19388 #: freeculture.xml:14621
19390 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
19391 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
19392 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
19393 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
19394 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
19398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19399 #: freeculture.xml:14638
19401 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Copyright's First Amendment</quote> (Melville "
19402 "B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture), <citetitle>UCLA Law Review</citetitle> 48 "
19403 "(2001): 1057, 1069–70."
19406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19407 #: freeculture.xml:14629
19409 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "
19410 "<quote>radical</quote> by many within the profession, yet the positions that "
19411 "I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and "
19412 "significant figures in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for "
19413 "example, thought crazy the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term "
19414 "Extension Act. Yet just thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and "
19415 "practitioner in the field of copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it "
19416 "obvious.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19419 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19420 #: freeculture.xml:14644
19422 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
19423 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
19424 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
19427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19428 #: freeculture.xml:14654
19430 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
19431 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
19432 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
19433 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
19434 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
19435 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network "
19436 "Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace</citetitle> (New "
19437 "York: Amacom, 2002), (reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) "
19438 "with Stan J. Liebowitz, <quote>Will MP3s Annihilate the Record "
19439 "Industry?</quote> working paper, June 2003, available at <ulink "
19440 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful "
19441 "analysis is extremely valuable in estimating the effect of file-sharing "
19442 "technology. In my view, however, he underestimates the costs of the legal "
19443 "system. See, for example, <citetitle>Rethinking</citetitle>, 174–76. "
19444 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19447 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19448 #: freeculture.xml:14649
19450 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
19451 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
19452 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
19453 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
19454 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
19455 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
19459 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19460 #: freeculture.xml:14678
19462 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
19463 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
19464 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
19465 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
19466 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
19469 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19470 #: freeculture.xml:14686
19472 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
19473 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
19474 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
19475 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
19476 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
19477 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
19478 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
19479 "and costly cases."
19482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19483 #: freeculture.xml:14696
19485 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
19486 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
19487 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
19488 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
19489 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
19490 "and hence radically more just."
19493 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19494 #: freeculture.xml:14704
19496 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
19497 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
19498 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
19501 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19502 #: freeculture.xml:14711
19504 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
19505 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
19506 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
19507 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
19508 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
19509 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
19510 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
19514 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19515 #: freeculture.xml:14720
19517 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
19518 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
19519 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
19520 "question: <quote>Will it do good?</quote> When challenged about the "
19521 "expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, <quote>Why not?</quote>"
19524 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19525 #: freeculture.xml:14729
19527 "We should ask, <quote>Why?</quote> Show me why your regulation of culture is "
19528 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
19532 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
19533 #: freeculture.xml:14738
19537 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19538 #: freeculture.xml:14740
19540 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
19541 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
19542 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
19543 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
19544 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
19545 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
19546 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
19547 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
19551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
19552 #: freeculture.xml:14755
19553 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
19556 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19557 #: freeculture.xml:14757
19559 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
19560 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
19561 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
19562 "this book is dedicated."
19565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19566 #: freeculture.xml:14764
19568 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
19569 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
19570 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
19571 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
19572 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
19573 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
19574 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
19575 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
19576 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
19577 "her own critical eye on much of this."
19581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19582 #: freeculture.xml:14777
19584 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
19585 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
19586 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
19587 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
19588 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
19589 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
19590 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
19594 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19595 #: freeculture.xml:14788
19597 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
19598 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
19599 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
19600 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
19601 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
19602 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
19603 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
19604 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
19605 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
19606 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
19607 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
19608 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
19609 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
19610 "Williams, <quote>Wink,</quote> Roger Wood, <quote>Ximmbo da Jazz,</quote> "
19611 "and Richard Yanco. (I apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come "
19612 "glitches, and a crash of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great "
19616 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19617 #: freeculture.xml:14808
19619 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
19620 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
19621 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
19622 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
19623 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
19624 "places throughout this book."
19627 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
19628 #: freeculture.xml:14817
19630 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
19631 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
19632 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
19633 "patience and love."