1 # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 # This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
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34 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
36 msgid "<abbrev>\"freeculture\"</abbrev>"
39 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subtitle>
42 "HOW BIG MEDIA USES TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW TO LOCK DOWN CULTURE AND CONTROL "
46 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
48 msgid "<pubdate>2004-03-25</pubdate>"
51 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><releaseinfo>
53 msgid "Version 2004-02-10"
56 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><firstname>
61 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><surname>
66 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
68 msgid "Intellectual property—United States."
71 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
73 msgid "Mass media—United States."
76 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
78 msgid "Technological innovations—United States."
81 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subjectset><subject><subjectterm>
83 msgid "Art—United States."
86 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><publisher><address>
89 msgid "<city>New York</city>"
92 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
95 "<publisher> <publishername>The Penguin Press</publishername> <placeholder "
96 "type=\"address\" id=\"0\"/> </publisher> <copyright> <year>2004</year> "
97 "<holder>Lawrence Lessig</holder> </copyright>"
100 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><legalnotice><para><inlinemediaobject>
101 #: freeculture.xml:66
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106 "align=\"center\"/> </imageobject>"
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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-vcr-handgun-cartoonfig\"/> by Paul "
245 "Conrad, copyright Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights "
246 "reserved. Reprinted with permission."
249 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
250 #: freeculture.xml:183
252 "Diagram in <xref linkend=\"fig-1761-pattern-modern-media-ownership\"/> "
253 "courtesy of the office of FCC Commissioner, Michael J. Copps."
256 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
257 #: freeculture.xml:187
258 msgid "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data"
261 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
262 #: freeculture.xml:190
264 "Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture : how big media uses technology and the law "
265 "to lock down culture and control creativity / Lawrence Lessig."
268 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
269 #: freeculture.xml:195
273 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
274 #: freeculture.xml:198
275 msgid "Includes index."
278 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
279 #: freeculture.xml:201
280 msgid "ISBN 1-59420-006-8 (hardcover)"
283 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
284 #: freeculture.xml:205
286 "1. Intellectual property—United States. 2. Mass media—United "
290 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
291 #: freeculture.xml:208
293 "3. Technological innovations—United States. 4. Art—United "
297 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
298 #: freeculture.xml:211
302 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
303 #: freeculture.xml:214
304 msgid "343.7309'9—dc22"
307 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
308 #: freeculture.xml:217
309 msgid "This book is printed on acid-free paper."
312 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
313 #: freeculture.xml:220
314 msgid "Printed in the United States of America"
317 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
318 #: freeculture.xml:223
319 msgid "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4"
322 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
323 #: freeculture.xml:226
324 msgid "Designed by Marysarah Quinn"
327 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
328 #: freeculture.xml:230
329 msgid "&translationblock;"
332 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
333 #: freeculture.xml:234
335 "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this "
336 "publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval "
337 "system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, "
338 "photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission "
339 "of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book."
342 #. type: Content of: <book><colophon><para>
343 #: freeculture.xml:242
345 "The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or "
346 "via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and "
347 "punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and "
348 "do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted "
349 "materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."
352 #. type: Content of: <book><dedication><para>
353 #: freeculture.xml:254
355 "To Eric Eldred—whose work first drew me to this cause, and for whom it "
359 #. type: Content of: <book><lot><title>
360 #: freeculture.xml:262
361 msgid "List of figures"
364 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><title>
365 #: freeculture.xml:324
369 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
370 #: freeculture.xml:325
374 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
375 #: freeculture.xml:327
377 "<emphasis role=\"bold\">At the end</emphasis> of his review of my first "
378 "book, <citetitle>Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle>, David "
379 "Pogue, a brilliant writer and author of countless technical and "
380 "computer-related texts, wrote this:"
383 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
384 #: freeculture.xml:338
386 "David Pogue, <quote>Don't Just Chat, Do Something,</quote> <citetitle>New "
387 "York Times</citetitle>, 30 January 2000."
390 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
391 #: freeculture.xml:334
393 "Unlike actual law, Internet software has no capacity to punish. It doesn't "
394 "affect people who aren't online (and only a tiny minority of the world "
395 "population is). And if you don't like the Internet's system, you can always "
396 "flip off the modem.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
399 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
400 #: freeculture.xml:343
402 "Pogue was skeptical of the core argument of the book—that software, or "
403 "<quote>code,</quote> functioned as a kind of law—and his review "
404 "suggested the happy thought that if life in cyberspace got bad, we could "
405 "always <quote>drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome</quote>-like simply flip a "
406 "switch and be back home. Turn off the modem, unplug the computer, and any "
407 "troubles that exist in <emphasis>that</emphasis> space wouldn't "
408 "<quote>affect</quote> us anymore."
412 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
413 #: freeculture.xml:352
415 "Pogue might have been right in 1999—I'm skeptical, but maybe. But "
416 "even if he was right then, the point is not right now: <citetitle>Free "
417 "Culture</citetitle> is about the troubles the Internet causes even after the "
418 "modem is turned off. It is an argument about how the battles that now rage "
419 "regarding life on-line have fundamentally affected <quote>people who aren't "
420 "online.</quote> There is no switch that will insulate us from the Internet's "
424 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
425 #: freeculture.xml:363
427 "But unlike <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, the argument here is not much about "
428 "the Internet itself. It is instead about the consequence of the Internet to "
429 "a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this "
430 "is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important."
433 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para><footnote><para>
434 #: freeculture.xml:375
436 "Richard M. Stallman, <citetitle>Free Software, Free Societies</citetitle> 57 "
437 "(Joshua Gay, ed. 2002)."
440 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
441 #: freeculture.xml:370
443 "That tradition is the way our culture gets made. As I explain in the pages "
444 "that follow, we come from a tradition of <quote>free "
445 "culture</quote>—not <quote>free</quote> as in <quote>free beer</quote> "
446 "(to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free software "
447 "movement<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), but <quote>free</quote> "
448 "as in <quote>free speech,</quote> <quote>free markets,</quote> <quote>free "
449 "trade,</quote> <quote>free enterprise,</quote> <quote>free will,</quote> and "
450 "<quote>free elections.</quote> A free culture supports and protects creators "
451 "and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property "
452 "rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those rights, to "
453 "guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain <emphasis>as free as "
454 "possible</emphasis> from the control of the past. A free culture is not a "
455 "culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which "
456 "everything is free. The opposite of a free culture is a <quote>permission "
457 "culture</quote>—a culture in which creators get to create only with "
458 "the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past."
461 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
462 #: freeculture.xml:390
464 "If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not "
465 "<quote>we</quote> on the Left or <quote>you</quote> on the Right, but we who "
466 "have no stake in the particular industries of culture that defined the "
467 "twentieth century. Whether you are on the Left or the Right, if you are in "
468 "this sense disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For "
469 "the changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political "
470 "culture deem fundamental."
473 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
474 #: freeculture.xml:398 freeculture.xml:1048
475 msgid "power, concentration of"
478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
479 #: freeculture.xml:399 freeculture.xml:13331
480 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
483 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
484 #: freeculture.xml:400 freeculture.xml:421 freeculture.xml:13332
485 msgid "Safire, William"
488 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><indexterm><primary>
489 #: freeculture.xml:401
493 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
494 #: freeculture.xml:403
496 "We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of 2003. As "
497 "the FCC considered changes in media ownership rules that would relax limits "
498 "on media concentration, an extraordinary coalition generated more than "
499 "700,000 letters to the FCC opposing the change. As William Safire described "
500 "marching <quote>uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the "
501 "National Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative "
502 "Ted Stevens,</quote> he formulated perhaps most simply just what was at "
503 "stake: the concentration of power. And as he asked,"
506 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
507 #: freeculture.xml:419
509 "William Safire, <quote>The Great Media Gulp,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
510 "Times</citetitle>, 22 May 2003. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
513 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><blockquote><para>
514 #: freeculture.xml:415
516 "Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of "
517 "power—political, corporate, media, cultural—should be anathema "
518 "to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby "
519 "encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the "
520 "greatest expression of democracy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
523 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
524 #: freeculture.xml:426
526 "This idea is an element of the argument of <citetitle>Free "
527 "Culture</citetitle>, though my focus is not just on the concentration of "
528 "power produced by concentrations in ownership, but more importantly, if "
529 "because less visibly, on the concentration of power produced by a radical "
530 "change in the effective scope of the law. The law is changing; that change "
531 "is altering the way our culture gets made; that change should worry "
532 "you—whether or not you care about the Internet, and whether you're on "
533 "Safire's left or on his right."
536 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
537 #: freeculture.xml:437
539 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The inspiration</emphasis> for the title and for "
540 "much of the argument of this book comes from the work of Richard Stallman "
541 "and the Free Software Foundation. Indeed, as I reread Stallman's own work, "
542 "especially the essays in <citetitle>Free Software, Free Society</citetitle>, "
543 "I realize that all of the theoretical insights I develop here are insights "
544 "Stallman described decades ago. One could thus well argue that this work is "
545 "<quote>merely</quote> derivative."
549 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
550 #: freeculture.xml:446
552 "I accept that criticism, if indeed it is a criticism. The work of a lawyer "
553 "is always derivative, and I mean to do nothing more in this book than to "
554 "remind a culture about a tradition that has always been its own. Like "
555 "Stallman, I defend that tradition on the basis of values. Like Stallman, I "
556 "believe those are the values of freedom. And like Stallman, I believe those "
557 "are values of our past that will need to be defended in our future. A free "
558 "culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the "
559 "path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an "
560 "argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and "
561 "even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; "
562 "it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without "
563 "property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not "
564 "freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here."
567 #. type: Content of: <book><preface><para>
568 #: freeculture.xml:464
570 "Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between "
571 "anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with "
572 "property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced "
573 "by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes "
574 "feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property "
575 "rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is "
576 "against that extremism that this book is written."
579 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
580 #: freeculture.xml:479
584 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
585 #: freeculture.xml:480 freeculture.xml:583 freeculture.xml:1037
586 msgid "Wright brothers"
589 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
590 #: freeculture.xml:482
592 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">On December 17</emphasis>, 1903, on a windy North "
593 "Carolina beach for just shy of one hundred seconds, the Wright brothers "
594 "demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, self-propelled vehicle could fly. The "
595 "moment was electric and its importance widely understood. Almost "
596 "immediately, there was an explosion of interest in this newfound technology "
597 "of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began to build upon it."
600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
601 #: freeculture.xml:489
602 msgid "air traffic, land ownership vs."
605 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
606 #: freeculture.xml:490 freeculture.xml:14325
607 msgid "land ownership, air traffic and"
610 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
611 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14326
612 msgid "property rights"
615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
616 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14326
617 msgid "air traffic vs."
620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
621 #: freeculture.xml:497
623 "St. George Tucker, <citetitle>Blackstone's Commentaries</citetitle> 3 (South "
624 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1969), 18."
627 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
628 #: freeculture.xml:493
630 "At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American law held "
631 "that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface of his land, "
632 "but all the land below, down to the center of the earth, and all the space "
633 "above, to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards.</quote><placeholder "
634 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> For many years, scholars had puzzled about how "
635 "best to interpret the idea that rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that "
636 "mean that you owned the stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful "
637 "and regular trespass?"
640 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
641 #: freeculture.xml:507
643 "Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American "
644 "law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged by "
645 "the most important legal thinkers of our past—mattered. If my land "
646 "reaches to the heavens, what happens when United flies over my field? Do I "
647 "have the right to banish it from my property? Am I allowed to enter into an "
648 "exclusive license with Delta Airlines? Could we set up an auction to decide "
649 "how much these rights are worth?"
652 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
653 #: freeculture.xml:515 freeculture.xml:528 freeculture.xml:561 freeculture.xml:581 freeculture.xml:1017 freeculture.xml:1035 freeculture.xml:1083 freeculture.xml:9227 freeculture.xml:12695 freeculture.xml:13435
654 msgid "Causby, Thomas Lee"
657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
658 #: freeculture.xml:516 freeculture.xml:529 freeculture.xml:562 freeculture.xml:582 freeculture.xml:1018 freeculture.xml:1036 freeculture.xml:1084 freeculture.xml:9228 freeculture.xml:12696 freeculture.xml:13436
659 msgid "Causby, Tinie"
662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
663 #: freeculture.xml:518
665 "In 1945, these questions became a federal case. When North Carolina farmers "
666 "Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby started losing chickens because of low-flying "
667 "military aircraft (the terrified chickens apparently flew into the barn "
668 "walls and died), the Causbys filed a lawsuit saying that the government was "
669 "trespassing on their land. The airplanes, of course, never touched the "
670 "surface of the Causbys' land. But if, as Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had "
671 "said, their land reached to <quote>an indefinite extent, upwards,</quote> "
672 "then the government was trespassing on their property, and the Causbys "
676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
677 #: freeculture.xml:530
678 msgid "Douglas, William O."
681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
682 #: freeculture.xml:531
683 msgid "Supreme Court, U.S."
686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
687 #: freeculture.xml:531
688 msgid "on airspace vs. land rights"
691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
692 #: freeculture.xml:533
694 "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had declared "
695 "the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the heavens, "
696 "then Congress's declaration could well have been an unconstitutional "
697 "<quote>taking</quote> of property without compensation. The Court "
698 "acknowledged that <quote>it is ancient doctrine that common law ownership of "
699 "the land extended to the periphery of the universe.</quote> But Justice "
700 "Douglas had no patience for ancient doctrine. In a single paragraph, "
701 "hundreds of years of property law were erased. As he wrote for the Court,"
704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
705 #: freeculture.xml:553
707 "United States v. Causby, U.S. 328 (1946): 256, 261. The Court did find that "
708 "there could be a <quote>taking</quote> if the government's use of its land "
709 "effectively destroyed the value of the Causbys' land. This example was "
710 "suggested to me by Keith Aoki's wonderful piece, <quote>(Intellectual) "
711 "Property and Sovereignty: Notes Toward a Cultural Geography of "
712 "Authorship,</quote> <citetitle>Stanford Law Review</citetitle> 48 (1996): "
713 "1293, 1333. See also Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Real Property</citetitle> "
714 "(Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1984), 1112–13. <placeholder "
715 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
718 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
719 #: freeculture.xml:544
721 "[The] doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public "
722 "highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every "
723 "transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass "
724 "suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to "
725 "the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their "
726 "control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private "
727 "ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.<placeholder "
728 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
732 #: freeculture.xml:567
733 msgid "<quote>Common sense revolts at the idea.</quote>"
737 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
738 #: freeculture.xml:571
740 "This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, "
741 "but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to "
742 "dither. Other justices would have blathered on for pages to reach the "
743 "conclusion that Douglas holds in a single line: <quote>Common sense revolts "
744 "at the idea.</quote> But whether it takes pages or a few words, it is the "
745 "special genius of a common law system, as ours is, that the law adjusts to "
746 "the technologies of the time. And as it adjusts, it changes. Ideas that were "
747 "as solid as rock in one age crumble in another."
750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
751 #: freeculture.xml:585
753 "Or at least, this is how things happen when there's no one powerful on the "
754 "other side of the change. The Causbys were just farmers. And though there "
755 "were no doubt many like them who were upset by the growing traffic in the "
756 "air (though one hopes not many chickens flew themselves into walls), the "
757 "Causbys of the world would find it very hard to unite and stop the idea, and "
758 "the technology, that the Wright brothers had birthed. The Wright brothers "
759 "spat airplanes into the technological meme pool; the idea then spread like a "
760 "virus in a chicken coop; farmers like the Causbys found themselves "
761 "surrounded by <quote>what seemed reasonable</quote> given the technology "
762 "that the Wrights had produced. They could stand on their farms, dead "
763 "chickens in hand, and shake their fists at these newfangled technologies all "
764 "they wanted. They could call their representatives or even file a "
765 "lawsuit. But in the end, the force of what seems <quote>obvious</quote> to "
766 "everyone else—the power of <quote>common sense</quote>—would "
767 "prevail. Their <quote>private interest</quote> would not be allowed to "
768 "defeat an obvious public gain."
771 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
772 #: freeculture.xml:606 freeculture.xml:9235 freeculture.xml:9890
773 msgid "Armstrong, Edwin Howard"
776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
777 #: freeculture.xml:607
778 msgid "Bell, Alexander Graham"
781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
782 #: freeculture.xml:608
783 msgid "Edison, Thomas"
786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
787 #: freeculture.xml:609
788 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
792 #: freeculture.xml:610 freeculture.xml:4259
796 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
797 #: freeculture.xml:610
798 msgid "FM spectrum of"
802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
803 #: freeculture.xml:612
805 "<emphasis role='strong'>Edwin Howard Armstrong</emphasis> is one of "
806 "America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American "
807 "inventor scene just after the titans Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham "
808 "Bell. But his work in the area of radio technology was perhaps the most "
809 "important of any single inventor in the first fifty years of radio. He was "
810 "better educated than Michael Faraday, who as a bookbinder's apprentice had "
811 "discovered electric induction in 1831. But he had the same intuition about "
812 "how the world of radio worked, and on at least three occasions, Armstrong "
813 "invented profoundly important technologies that advanced our understanding "
817 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
818 #: freeculture.xml:625
820 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
821 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
822 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
823 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
824 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
825 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
826 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
830 #: freeculture.xml:635
832 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
833 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
834 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
835 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
836 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
837 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
838 "of an announcer's voice: <quote>This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
839 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.</quote>"
842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
843 #: freeculture.xml:646
844 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
848 #: freeculture.xml:657
850 "Lawrence Lessing, <citetitle>Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard "
851 "Armstrong</citetitle> (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
855 #: freeculture.xml:650
857 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
858 "like a glass of water being poured. … A paper was crumpled and torn; "
859 "it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. … Sousa "
860 "marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
861 "performed. … The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
862 "heard before from a radio <quote>music box.</quote><placeholder "
863 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
867 #: freeculture.xml:662
871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
872 #: freeculture.xml:663
876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
877 #: freeculture.xml:663
878 msgid "ownership concentration in"
882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
883 #: freeculture.xml:665
885 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
886 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
887 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
888 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
889 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
894 #: freeculture.xml:673 freeculture.xml:695
895 msgid "Sarnoff, David"
898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
899 #: freeculture.xml:675
901 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
902 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
903 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
904 "from <quote>radio.</quote> But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, "
905 "Sarnoff was not pleased."
908 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
909 #: freeculture.xml:686
911 "See <quote>Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,</quote> "
912 "First Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, "
913 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
916 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
917 #: freeculture.xml:683
919 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
920 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
921 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
926 #: freeculture.xml:694
930 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
931 #: freeculture.xml:697
933 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
934 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
935 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described,"
938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
939 #: freeculture.xml:702
940 msgid "Lessing, Lawrence"
943 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
944 #: freeculture.xml:710
945 msgid "Lessing, 226."
948 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
949 #: freeculture.xml:705
951 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
952 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
953 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
954 "posed … a complete reordering of radio power … and the "
955 "eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had "
956 "grown to power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
959 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
960 #: freeculture.xml:714
964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
965 #: freeculture.xml:714
969 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
970 #: freeculture.xml:716
972 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
973 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
974 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
975 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
976 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
977 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
978 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
979 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
980 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
981 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
982 "Lessing described it,"
985 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
986 #: freeculture.xml:735
987 msgid "Lessing, 256."
990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
991 #: freeculture.xml:731
993 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
994 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
995 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
996 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1000 #: freeculture.xml:740
1004 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1005 #: freeculture.xml:742
1007 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
1008 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
1009 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
1010 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
1011 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
1012 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
1013 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
1016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1017 #: freeculture.xml:754
1019 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
1020 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
1021 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
1022 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
1023 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
1024 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
1025 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
1026 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
1027 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
1031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1032 #: freeculture.xml:768
1034 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
1035 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
1036 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
1037 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
1038 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
1039 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
1040 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
1041 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
1042 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
1043 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
1044 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
1047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1048 #: freeculture.xml:785 freeculture.xml:1156 freeculture.xml:2395 freeculture.xml:2407 freeculture.xml:2491 freeculture.xml:7272
1052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1053 #: freeculture.xml:785
1054 msgid "development of"
1057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1058 #: freeculture.xml:793
1060 "Amanda Lenhart, <quote>The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
1061 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,</quote> Pew Internet and American "
1062 "Life Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
1063 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:787
1069 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">There's no</emphasis> single inventor of the "
1070 "Internet. Nor is there any good date upon which to mark its birth. Yet in a "
1071 "very short time, the Internet has become part of ordinary American "
1072 "life. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 58 percent of "
1073 "Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up from 49 percent two years "
1074 "before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That number could well "
1075 "exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
1078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1079 #: freeculture.xml:802
1081 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
1082 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
1083 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
1084 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
1085 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
1086 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
1087 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
1088 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
1089 "is not a book about the Internet."
1092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1093 #: freeculture.xml:813
1095 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
1096 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
1097 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
1098 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
1099 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
1100 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
1103 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1104 #: freeculture.xml:822
1105 msgid "Barlow, Joel"
1108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1109 #: freeculture.xml:823
1113 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1114 #: freeculture.xml:823
1115 msgid "commercial vs. noncommercial"
1118 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1119 #: freeculture.xml:824
1120 msgid "Webster, Noah"
1124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1125 #: freeculture.xml:826
1127 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
1128 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
1129 "<quote>commercial culture</quote> I mean that part of our culture that is "
1130 "produced and sold or produced to be sold. By <quote>noncommercial "
1131 "culture</quote> I mean all the rest. When old men sat around parks or on "
1132 "street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was "
1133 "noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his "
1134 "<quote>Reader,</quote> or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial "
1138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1139 #: freeculture.xml:838
1141 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
1142 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
1143 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
1144 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
1145 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture "
1146 "<quote>free.</quote> The ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared "
1147 "and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from "
1148 "plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making "
1149 "tapes—were left alone by the law."
1152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1153 #: freeculture.xml:848
1154 msgid "Copyright infringement lawsuits"
1157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1158 #: freeculture.xml:848
1159 msgid "commercial creativity as primary purpose of"
1162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1163 #: freeculture.xml:864 freeculture.xml:1998 freeculture.xml:2011
1164 msgid "Brandeis, Louis D."
1167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1168 #: freeculture.xml:856
1170 "This is not the only purpose of copyright, though it is the overwhelmingly "
1171 "primary purpose of the copyright established in the federal constitution. "
1172 "State copyright law historically protected not just the commercial interest "
1173 "in publication, but also a privacy interest. By granting authors the "
1174 "exclusive right to first publication, state copyright law gave authors the "
1175 "power to control the spread of facts about them. See Samuel D. Warren and "
1176 "Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> Harvard Law Review 4 "
1177 "(1890): 193, 198–200. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1181 #: freeculture.xml:850
1183 "The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly, then "
1184 "quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by granting "
1185 "them exclusive rights to their creative work, so that they could sell those "
1186 "exclusive rights in a commercial marketplace.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
1187 "id=\"0\"/> This is also, of course, an important part of creativity and "
1188 "culture, and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in "
1189 "no sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one part, "
1190 "a controlled part, balanced with the free."
1193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1194 #: freeculture.xml:871 freeculture.xml:1757
1195 msgid "free culture"
1198 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1199 #: freeculture.xml:871
1200 msgid "permission culture vs."
1203 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1204 #: freeculture.xml:872
1205 msgid "permission culture"
1208 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1209 #: freeculture.xml:872
1210 msgid "free culture vs."
1213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1214 #: freeculture.xml:878 freeculture.xml:9783
1215 msgid "Litman, Jessica"
1218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1219 #: freeculture.xml:876
1221 "See Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (New York: "
1222 "Prometheus Books, 2001), ch. 13. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1226 #: freeculture.xml:874
1228 "This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been "
1229 "erased.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Internet has set the "
1230 "stage for this erasure and, pushed by big media, the law has now affected "
1231 "it. For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which "
1232 "individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation "
1233 "of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of "
1234 "culture and creativity that it never reached before. The technology that "
1235 "preserved the balance of our history—between uses of our culture that "
1236 "were free and uses of our culture that were only upon permission—has "
1237 "been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free culture, "
1238 "more and more a permission culture."
1241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1242 #: freeculture.xml:892
1243 msgid "protection of artists vs. business interests"
1246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1247 #: freeculture.xml:894
1249 "This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial creativity. "
1250 "And indeed, protectionism is precisely its motivation. But the protectionism "
1251 "that justifies the changes that I will describe below is not the limited and "
1252 "balanced sort that has defined the law in the past. This is not a "
1253 "protectionism to protect artists. It is instead a protectionism to protect "
1254 "certain forms of business. Corporations threatened by the potential of the "
1255 "Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are "
1256 "made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect "
1257 "them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the Causbys."
1260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1261 #: freeculture.xml:908
1263 "For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to "
1264 "participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that "
1265 "reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace "
1266 "for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn "
1267 "threatens established content industries. The Internet is thus to the "
1268 "industries that built and distributed content in the twentieth century what "
1269 "FM radio was to AM radio, or what the truck was to the railroad industry of "
1270 "the nineteenth century: the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial "
1271 "transformation. Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a "
1272 "vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating "
1273 "culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of "
1274 "creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant "
1275 "range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those "
1276 "creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do "
1277 "today—all so long as the RCAs of our day don't use the law to protect "
1278 "themselves against this competition."
1281 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1282 #: freeculture.xml:927
1284 "Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is "
1285 "happening in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early "
1286 "twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their "
1287 "power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient, more "
1288 "vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in their plan "
1289 "to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."
1292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1293 #: freeculture.xml:936
1294 msgid "Valenti, Jack"
1297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1298 #: freeculture.xml:936
1299 msgid "on creative property rights"
1302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1303 #: freeculture.xml:946
1305 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Black Hawk Download: Moving Beyond Music, Pirates Use New "
1306 "Tools to Turn the Net into an Illicit Video Club,</quote> <citetitle>New "
1307 "York Times</citetitle>, 17 January 2002."
1310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1311 #: freeculture.xml:938
1313 "It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the "
1314 "Internet seem remote to most. To the few who follow them, they seem mainly "
1315 "about a much simpler brace of questions—whether <quote>piracy</quote> "
1316 "will be permitted, and whether <quote>property</quote> will be "
1317 "protected. The <quote>war</quote> that has been waged against the "
1318 "technologies of the Internet—what Motion Picture Association of "
1319 "America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti calls his <quote>own terrorist "
1320 "war</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—has been framed "
1321 "as a battle about the rule of law and respect for property. To know which "
1322 "side to take in this war, most think that we need only decide whether we're "
1323 "for property or against it."
1326 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1327 #: freeculture.xml:955
1329 "If those really were the choices, then I would be with Jack Valenti and the "
1330 "content industry. I, too, am a believer in property, and especially in the "
1331 "importance of what Mr. Valenti nicely calls <quote>creative "
1332 "property.</quote> I believe that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that "
1333 "the law, properly tuned, should punish <quote>piracy,</quote> whether on or "
1337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1338 #: freeculture.xml:963
1340 "But those simple beliefs mask a much more fundamental question and a much "
1341 "more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see this change, the "
1342 "war to rid the world of Internet <quote>pirates</quote> will also rid our "
1343 "culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start."
1346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1347 #: freeculture.xml:968 freeculture.xml:11016 freeculture.xml:11662
1348 msgid "Constitution, U.S."
1351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1352 #: freeculture.xml:968
1353 msgid "First Amendment to"
1356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1357 #: freeculture.xml:969 freeculture.xml:1134 freeculture.xml:1241 freeculture.xml:1266 freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768 freeculture.xml:3111 freeculture.xml:4257 freeculture.xml:4258 freeculture.xml:7271 freeculture.xml:7401
1358 msgid "copyright law"
1361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1362 #: freeculture.xml:969
1363 msgid "as protection of creators"
1366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1367 #: freeculture.xml:970
1368 msgid "First Amendment"
1371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1372 #: freeculture.xml:971 freeculture.xml:981 freeculture.xml:14724
1373 msgid "Netanel, Neil Weinstock"
1376 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1377 #: freeculture.xml:979
1379 "Neil W. Netanel, <quote>Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society,</quote> "
1380 "<citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 106 (1996): 283. <placeholder "
1381 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1384 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1385 #: freeculture.xml:973
1387 "These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of our "
1388 "Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their past, and "
1389 "protected creators and innovators from either state or private control. The "
1390 "First Amendment protected creators against state control. And as Professor "
1391 "Neil Netanel powerfully argues,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1392 "copyright law, properly balanced, protected creators against private "
1393 "control. Our tradition was thus neither Soviet nor the tradition of "
1394 "patrons. It instead carved out a wide berth within which creators could "
1395 "cultivate and extend our culture."
1398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1399 #: freeculture.xml:989
1401 "Yet the law's response to the Internet, when tied to changes in the "
1402 "technology of the Internet itself, has massively increased the effective "
1403 "regulation of creativity in America. To build upon or critique the culture "
1404 "around us one must ask, Oliver Twist–like, for permission first. "
1405 "Permission is, of course, often granted—but it is not often granted to "
1406 "the critical or the independent. We have built a kind of cultural nobility; "
1407 "those within the noble class live easily; those outside it don't. But it is "
1408 "nobility of any form that is alien to our tradition."
1411 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1412 #: freeculture.xml:1001
1414 "The story that follows is about this war. Is it not about the "
1415 "<quote>centrality of technology</quote> to ordinary life. I don't believe in "
1416 "gods, digital or otherwise. Nor is it an effort to demonize any individual "
1417 "or group, for neither do I believe in a devil, corporate or otherwise. It is "
1418 "not a morality tale. Nor is it a call to jihad against an industry."
1421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1422 #: freeculture.xml:1009
1424 "It is instead an effort to understand a hopelessly destructive war inspired "
1425 "by the technologies of the Internet but reaching far beyond its code. And by "
1426 "understanding this battle, it is an effort to map peace. There is no good "
1427 "reason for the current struggle around Internet technologies to "
1428 "continue. There will be great harm to our tradition and culture if it is "
1429 "allowed to continue unchecked. We must come to understand the source of this "
1430 "war. We must resolve it soon."
1433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1434 #: freeculture.xml:1019
1435 msgid "intellectual property rights"
1438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1439 #: freeculture.xml:1021
1441 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Like the Causbys'</emphasis> battle, this war is, "
1442 "in part, about <quote>property.</quote> The property of this war is not as "
1443 "tangible as the Causbys', and no innocent chicken has yet to lose its "
1444 "life. Yet the ideas surrounding this <quote>property</quote> are as obvious "
1445 "to most as the Causbys' claim about the sacredness of their farm was to "
1446 "them. We are the Causbys. Most of us take for granted the extraordinarily "
1447 "powerful claims that the owners of <quote>intellectual property</quote> now "
1448 "assert. Most of us, like the Causbys, treat these claims as obvious. And "
1449 "hence we, like the Causbys, object when a new technology interferes with "
1450 "this property. It is as plain to us as it was to them that the new "
1451 "technologies of the Internet are <quote>trespassing</quote> upon legitimate "
1452 "claims of <quote>property.</quote> It is as plain to us as it was to them "
1453 "that the law should intervene to stop this trespass."
1457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1458 #: freeculture.xml:1039
1460 "And thus, when geeks and technologists defend their Armstrong or Wright "
1461 "brothers technology, most of us are simply unsympathetic. Common sense does "
1462 "not revolt. Unlike in the case of the unlucky Causbys, common sense is on "
1463 "the side of the property owners in this war. Unlike the lucky Wright "
1464 "brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution on its side."
1467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1468 #: freeculture.xml:1050
1470 "My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly "
1471 "amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more "
1472 "importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and "
1473 "citizens. There has never been a time in our history when more of our "
1474 "<quote>culture</quote> was as <quote>owned</quote> as it is now. And yet "
1475 "there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the "
1476 "<emphasis>uses</emphasis> of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as "
1480 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1481 #: freeculture.xml:1060
1483 "The puzzle is, Why? Is it because we have come to understand a truth about "
1484 "the value and importance of absolute property over ideas and culture? Is it "
1485 "because we have discovered that our tradition of rejecting such an absolute "
1489 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1490 #: freeculture.xml:1066
1492 "Or is it because the idea of absolute property over ideas and culture "
1493 "benefits the RCAs of our time and fits our own unreflective intuitions?"
1496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1497 #: freeculture.xml:1070
1499 "Is the radical shift away from our tradition of free culture an instance of "
1500 "America correcting a mistake from its past, as we did after a bloody war "
1501 "with slavery, and as we are slowly doing with inequality? Or is the radical "
1502 "shift away from our tradition of free culture yet another example of a "
1503 "political system captured by a few powerful special interests?"
1506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1507 #: freeculture.xml:1077
1509 "Does common sense lead to the extremes on this question because common sense "
1510 "actually believes in these extremes? Or does common sense stand silent in "
1511 "the face of these extremes because, as with Armstrong versus RCA, the more "
1512 "powerful side has ensured that it has the more powerful view?"
1516 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1517 #: freeculture.xml:1086
1519 "I don't mean to be mysterious. My own views are resolved. I believe it was "
1520 "right for common sense to revolt against the extremism of the Causbys. I "
1521 "believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme "
1522 "claims made today on behalf of <quote>intellectual property.</quote> What "
1523 "the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an "
1524 "airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much "
1528 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1529 #: freeculture.xml:1097
1531 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">The struggle</emphasis> that rages just now "
1532 "centers on two ideas: <quote>piracy</quote> and <quote>property.</quote> My "
1533 "aim in this book's next two parts is to explore these two ideas."
1536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1537 #: freeculture.xml:1102
1539 "My method is not the usual method of an academic. I don't want to plunge you "
1540 "into a complex argument, buttressed with references to obscure French "
1541 "theorists—however natural that is for the weird sort we academics have "
1542 "become. Instead I begin in each part with a collection of stories that set a "
1543 "context within which these apparently simple ideas can be more fully "
1547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1548 #: freeculture.xml:1110
1550 "The two sections set up the core claim of this book: that while the Internet "
1551 "has indeed produced something fantastic and new, our government, pushed by "
1552 "big media to respond to this <quote>something new,</quote> is destroying "
1553 "something very old. Rather than understanding the changes the Internet might "
1554 "permit, and rather than taking time to let <quote>common sense</quote> "
1555 "resolve how best to respond, we are allowing those most threatened by the "
1556 "changes to use their power to change the law—and more importantly, to "
1557 "use their power to change something fundamental about who we have always "
1561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1562 #: freeculture.xml:1121
1564 "We allow this, I believe, not because it is right, and not because most of "
1565 "us really believe in these changes. We allow it because the interests most "
1566 "threatened are among the most powerful players in our depressingly "
1567 "compromised process of making law. This book is the story of one more "
1568 "consequence of this form of corruption—a consequence to which most of "
1569 "us remain oblivious."
1572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
1573 #: freeculture.xml:1131
1574 msgid "<quote>PIRACY</quote>"
1577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1578 #: freeculture.xml:1134
1582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1583 #: freeculture.xml:1135 freeculture.xml:5016
1584 msgid "Mansfield, William Murray, Lord"
1587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1588 #: freeculture.xml:1136
1589 msgid "music publishing"
1592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1593 #: freeculture.xml:1137 freeculture.xml:3199
1597 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1598 #: freeculture.xml:1139
1600 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Since the inception</emphasis> of the law "
1601 "regulating creative property, there has been a war against "
1602 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The precise contours of this concept, "
1603 "<quote>piracy,</quote> are hard to sketch, but the animating injustice is "
1604 "easy to capture. As Lord Mansfield wrote in a case that extended the reach "
1605 "of English copyright law to include sheet music,"
1609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1610 #: freeculture.xml:1151
1612 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
1613 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield)."
1616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1617 #: freeculture.xml:1147
1619 "A person may use the copy by playing it, but he has no right to rob the "
1620 "author of the profit, by multiplying copies and disposing of them for his "
1621 "own use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1625 #: freeculture.xml:1156
1626 msgid "efficient content distribution on"
1629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1630 #: freeculture.xml:1157
1631 msgid "peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing"
1634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1635 #: freeculture.xml:1157
1636 msgid "efficiency of"
1640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1641 #: freeculture.xml:1159
1643 "Today we are in the middle of another <quote>war</quote> against "
1644 "<quote>piracy.</quote> The Internet has provoked this war. The Internet "
1645 "makes possible the efficient spread of content. Peer-to-peer (p2p) file "
1646 "sharing is among the most efficient of the efficient technologies the "
1647 "Internet enables. Using distributed intelligence, p2p systems facilitate the "
1648 "easy spread of content in a way unimagined a generation ago."
1651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1652 #: freeculture.xml:1168
1654 "This efficiency does not respect the traditional lines of copyright. The "
1655 "network doesn't discriminate between the sharing of copyrighted and "
1656 "uncopyrighted content. Thus has there been a vast amount of sharing of "
1657 "copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the war, as copyright "
1658 "owners fear the sharing will <quote>rob the author of the profit.</quote>"
1661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1662 #: freeculture.xml:1177
1664 "The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and "
1665 "increasingly to technology to defend their <quote>property</quote> against "
1666 "this <quote>piracy.</quote> A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is "
1667 "being raised to believe that <quote>property</quote> should be "
1668 "<quote>free.</quote> Forget tattoos, never mind body piercing—our kids "
1669 "are becoming <emphasis>thieves</emphasis>!"
1672 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1673 #: freeculture.xml:1185
1675 "There's no doubt that <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong, and that pirates "
1676 "should be punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put "
1677 "this notion of <quote>piracy</quote> in some context. For as the concept is "
1678 "increasingly used, at its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost "
1682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1683 #: freeculture.xml:1191
1684 msgid "The idea goes something like this:"
1687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><blockquote><para>
1688 #: freeculture.xml:1195
1690 "Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative "
1691 "work of others, I am taking from them something of value. Whenever I take "
1692 "something of value from someone else, I should have their permission. The "
1693 "taking of something of value from someone else without permission is "
1694 "wrong. It is a form of piracy."
1697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1698 #: freeculture.xml:1203
1702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1703 #: freeculture.xml:1204
1704 msgid "Dreyfuss, Rochelle"
1707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1708 #: freeculture.xml:1205
1712 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1713 #: freeculture.xml:1206
1714 msgid "creative property"
1717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1718 #: freeculture.xml:1206
1719 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory of"
1722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1723 #: freeculture.xml:1207 freeculture.xml:3007
1724 msgid "<quote>if value, then right</quote> theory"
1728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1729 #: freeculture.xml:1213
1731 "See Rochelle Dreyfuss, <quote>Expressive Genericity: Trademarks as Language "
1732 "in the Pepsi Generation,</quote> <citetitle>Notre Dame Law "
1733 "Review</citetitle> 65 (1990): 397."
1736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1737 #: freeculture.xml:1226 freeculture.xml:7174
1738 msgid "Zittrain, Jonathan"
1741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1742 #: freeculture.xml:1221
1744 "Lisa Bannon, <quote>The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay "
1745 "Up,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 21 August 1996, "
1746 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; "
1747 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of "
1748 "Property vs. Free Speech, No One Wins,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
1749 "Globe</citetitle>, 24 November 2002. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1754 #: freeculture.xml:1209
1756 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1757 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1758 "theory of creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1759 "—if there is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It "
1760 "is the perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue "
1761 "the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1762 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1763 "<quote>value</quote> (the songs) so there must have been a "
1764 "<quote>right</quote>—even against the Girl Scouts."
1768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1769 #: freeculture.xml:1233
1771 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1772 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1773 "protecting creative property. But the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1774 "theory of creative property has never been America's theory of creative "
1775 "property. It has never taken hold within our law."
1778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
1779 #: freeculture.xml:1241 freeculture.xml:7401
1780 msgid "on republishing vs. transformation of original work"
1783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1784 #: freeculture.xml:1242 freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
1788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1789 #: freeculture.xml:1242
1790 msgid "legal restrictions on"
1793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1794 #: freeculture.xml:1244
1796 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1797 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1798 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1799 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1804 #: freeculture.xml:1251
1806 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1807 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1808 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1809 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1810 "copyright law today regulates both."
1813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1814 #: freeculture.xml:1259
1816 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1817 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1818 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1819 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1820 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1824 #: freeculture.xml:1266
1825 msgid "creativity impeded by"
1828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1829 #: freeculture.xml:1267 freeculture.xml:1298
1830 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1834 #: freeculture.xml:1268 freeculture.xml:1299
1835 msgid "Rise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)"
1838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1839 #: freeculture.xml:1290
1841 "In <citetitle>The Rise of the Creative Class</citetitle> (New York: Basic "
1842 "Books, 2002), Richard Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor "
1843 "toward a labor of creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address "
1844 "the legal conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I "
1845 "certainly agree with him about the importance and significance of this "
1846 "change, but I also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are "
1847 "much more tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1848 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1852 #: freeculture.xml:1270
1854 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1855 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1856 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1857 "matter much if copyright law regulated only <quote>copying,</quote> when the "
1858 "law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1859 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1860 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1861 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1862 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1863 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1864 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1865 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1866 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1867 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1868 "writes, the <quote>Rise of the Creative Class.</quote><placeholder "
1869 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an "
1870 "extraordinary rise of regulation of this creative class."
1873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1874 #: freeculture.xml:1306
1876 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1877 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1878 "context the current battles about behavior labeled <quote>piracy.</quote>"
1881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
1882 #: freeculture.xml:1314
1883 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1887 #: freeculture.xml:1315
1888 msgid "animated cartoons"
1891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1892 #: freeculture.xml:1316
1893 msgid "cartoon films"
1896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1897 #: freeculture.xml:1317 freeculture.xml:5890 freeculture.xml:5934
1901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1902 #: freeculture.xml:1317
1906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1907 #: freeculture.xml:1318
1908 msgid "Steamboat Willie"
1911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1912 #: freeculture.xml:1319 freeculture.xml:7198
1913 msgid "Mickey Mouse"
1916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1917 #: freeculture.xml:1321
1919 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">In 1928</emphasis>, a cartoon character was "
1920 "born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut in May of that year, in a silent "
1921 "flop called <citetitle>Plane Crazy</citetitle>. In November, in New York "
1922 "City's Colony Theater, in the first widely distributed cartoon synchronized "
1923 "with sound, <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle> brought to life the "
1924 "character that would become Mickey Mouse."
1927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1928 #: freeculture.xml:1327 freeculture.xml:1544 freeculture.xml:1598 freeculture.xml:1739 freeculture.xml:1985 freeculture.xml:4501 freeculture.xml:6066 freeculture.xml:7197 freeculture.xml:10637 freeculture.xml:11019
1929 msgid "Disney, Walt"
1932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1933 #: freeculture.xml:1329
1935 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1936 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle>. That success led Walt Disney to copy "
1937 "the technique and mix sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work "
1938 "or, if it did work, whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a "
1939 "test in the summer of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney "
1940 "describes that first experiment,"
1944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1945 #: freeculture.xml:1338
1947 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1948 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1949 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1950 "going to see the picture."
1953 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1954 #: freeculture.xml:1345
1956 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1957 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1958 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1959 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1964 #: freeculture.xml:1358
1966 "Leonard Maltin, <citetitle>Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated "
1967 "Cartoons</citetitle> (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1971 #: freeculture.xml:1352
1973 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1974 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1975 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1976 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1977 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1981 #: freeculture.xml:1363
1985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1986 #: freeculture.xml:1365
1988 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1989 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: <quote>I have never been so thrilled in my "
1990 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.</quote>"
1993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1994 #: freeculture.xml:1370
1996 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
1997 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
1998 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
1999 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
2000 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
2001 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
2005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2006 #: freeculture.xml:1379 freeculture.xml:1741
2007 msgid "Keaton, Buster"
2010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2011 #: freeculture.xml:1380 freeculture.xml:1611 freeculture.xml:1999
2012 msgid "Steamboat Bill, Jr."
2015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2016 #: freeculture.xml:1382
2018 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
2019 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
2020 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
2021 "Buster Keaton. The film was <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>."
2024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2025 #: freeculture.xml:1388
2027 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
2028 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
2029 "laughter from his audience. <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. was a "
2030 "classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. "
2031 "The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its "
2035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2036 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552 freeculture.xml:7274 freeculture.xml:7374
2037 msgid "derivative works"
2040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
2041 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552 freeculture.xml:7274
2045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
2046 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555 freeculture.xml:3688 freeculture.xml:7275 freeculture.xml:14790
2050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
2051 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555 freeculture.xml:7275
2052 msgid "derivative work vs."
2056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2057 #: freeculture.xml:1404
2059 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
2060 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
2061 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
2062 "five songs in <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle>: <quote>Steamboat "
2063 "Bill,</quote> <quote>The Simpleton</quote> (Delille), <quote>Mischief "
2064 "Makers</quote> (Carbonara), <quote>Joyful Hurry No. 1</quote> (Baron), and "
2065 "<quote>Gawky Rube</quote> (Lakay). A sixth song, <quote>The Turkey in the "
2066 "Straw,</quote> was already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to "
2067 "Harry Surden, 10 July 2003, on file with author."
2070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2071 #: freeculture.xml:1398
2073 "<citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. appeared before Disney's cartoon "
2074 "Steamboat Willie. The coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat "
2075 "Willie is a direct cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder "
2076 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and both are built upon a common song as a "
2077 "source. It is not just from the invention of synchronized sound in "
2078 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle> that we get <citetitle>Steamboat "
2079 "Willie</citetitle>. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat "
2080 "Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song <quote>Steamboat Bill,</quote> that "
2081 "we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
2084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2085 #: freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
2086 msgid "by transforming previous works"
2089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2090 #: freeculture.xml:1425 freeculture.xml:6107
2091 msgid "Disney, Inc."
2095 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2096 #: freeculture.xml:1431
2098 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, <quote>The Mouse "
2099 "that Ate the Public Domain,</quote> Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
2100 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
2103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2104 #: freeculture.xml:1427
2106 "This <quote>borrowing</quote> was nothing unique, either for Disney or for "
2107 "the industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream "
2108 "films of his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many "
2109 "others. Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on "
2110 "winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the "
2111 "brilliance of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his "
2112 "animation its spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the "
2113 "production-line cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were "
2114 "built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others "
2115 "before him, creating something new out of something just barely old."
2118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2119 #: freeculture.xml:1445 freeculture.xml:1740 freeculture.xml:10638
2120 msgid "Grimm fairy tales"
2123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2124 #: freeculture.xml:1447
2126 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
2127 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
2128 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
2129 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
2130 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
2131 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
2132 "bedtime or anytime."
2136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2137 #: freeculture.xml:1456
2139 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
2140 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
2141 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
2142 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
2143 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
2144 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
2145 "together: <citetitle>Snow White</citetitle> (1937), "
2146 "<citetitle>Fantasia</citetitle> (1940), <citetitle>Pinocchio</citetitle> "
2147 "(1940), <citetitle>Dumbo</citetitle> (1941), <citetitle>Bambi</citetitle> "
2148 "(1942), <citetitle>Song of the South</citetitle> (1946), "
2149 "<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle> (1950), <citetitle>Alice in "
2150 "Wonderland</citetitle> (1951), <citetitle>Robin Hood</citetitle> (1952), "
2151 "<citetitle>Peter Pan</citetitle> (1953), <citetitle>Lady and the "
2152 "Tramp</citetitle> (1955), <citetitle>Mulan</citetitle> (1998), "
2153 "<citetitle>Sleeping Beauty</citetitle> (1959), <citetitle>101 "
2154 "Dalmatians</citetitle> (1961), <citetitle>The Sword in the Stone</citetitle> "
2155 "(1963), and <citetitle>The Jungle Book</citetitle> (1967)—not to "
2156 "mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, "
2157 "<citetitle>Treasure Planet</citetitle> (2003). In all of these cases, Disney "
2158 "(or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that "
2159 "creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into "
2160 "the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
2163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2164 #: freeculture.xml:1479
2166 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
2167 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
2168 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
2169 "could call this <quote>Disney creativity,</quote> though that would be a bit "
2170 "misleading. It is, more precisely, <quote>Walt Disney "
2171 "creativity</quote>—a form of expression and genius that builds upon "
2172 "the culture around us and makes it something different."
2175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2176 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:11017 freeculture.xml:11018
2180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2181 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:11018
2185 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2186 #: freeculture.xml:1491 freeculture.xml:1492 freeculture.xml:7755 freeculture.xml:12987
2187 msgid "public domain"
2190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2191 #: freeculture.xml:1491
2195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2196 #: freeculture.xml:1492
2197 msgid "traditional term for conversion to"
2201 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2202 #: freeculture.xml:1499
2204 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
2205 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the "
2206 "<quote>average</quote> term by determining the weighted average of total "
2207 "registrations for any particular year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if "
2208 "100 copyrights are registered in year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the "
2209 "renewal term is 28 years, then the average term is 32.2 years. For the "
2210 "renewal data and other relevant data, see the Web site associated with this "
2211 "book, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2216 #: freeculture.xml:1493
2218 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
2219 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
2220 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
2221 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
2222 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
2223 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
2224 "work had an <quote>exclusive right</quote> to control certain uses of the "
2225 "work. To use this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission "
2226 "of the copyright owner."
2229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2230 #: freeculture.xml:1516
2232 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
2233 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
2234 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a <quote>lawyer-free zone.</quote> "
2235 "Thus, most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to "
2236 "use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected "
2237 "or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build "
2242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2243 #: freeculture.xml:1527
2245 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
2246 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
2247 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
2248 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
2249 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
2250 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
2251 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
2252 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
2255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2256 #: freeculture.xml:1546
2258 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Of course</emphasis>, Walt Disney had no monopoly "
2259 "on <quote>Walt Disney creativity.</quote> Nor does America. The norm of free "
2260 "culture has, until recently, and except within totalitarian nations, been "
2261 "broadly exploited and quite universal."
2264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2265 #: freeculture.xml:1551 freeculture.xml:1655 freeculture.xml:1769
2266 msgid "comics, Japanese"
2269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2270 #: freeculture.xml:1553 freeculture.xml:1771
2271 msgid "Japanese comics"
2274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2275 #: freeculture.xml:1554 freeculture.xml:1772
2279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2280 #: freeculture.xml:1557
2282 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
2283 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: "
2284 "<citetitle>manga</citetitle>, or comics. The Japanese are fanatics about "
2285 "comics. Some 40 percent of publications are comics, and 30 percent of "
2286 "publication revenue derives from comics. They are everywhere in Japanese "
2287 "society, at every magazine stand, carried by a large proportion of commuters "
2288 "on Japan's extraordinary system of public transportation."
2291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2292 #: freeculture.xml:1566
2294 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
2295 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
2296 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
2297 "that these <quote>graphic novels</quote> tell. For the Japanese, manga cover "
2298 "every aspect of social life. For us, comics are <quote>men in "
2299 "tights.</quote> And anyway, it's not as if the New York subways are filled "
2300 "with readers of Joyce or even Hemingway. People of different cultures "
2301 "distract themselves in different ways, the Japanese in this interestingly "
2305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2306 #: freeculture.xml:1577
2308 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
2309 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
2310 "perspective is quite familiar."
2313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2314 #: freeculture.xml:1582 freeculture.xml:1770
2315 msgid "doujinshi comics"
2319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2320 #: freeculture.xml:1584
2322 "This is the phenomenon of <citetitle>doujinshi</citetitle>. Doujinshi are "
2323 "also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the "
2324 "creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is "
2325 "<emphasis>just</emphasis> a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the "
2326 "art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
2327 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
2328 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
2329 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
2330 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently <quote>different.</quote> But they "
2331 "must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there "
2332 "are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject "
2333 "any copycat comic that is merely a copy."
2336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2337 #: freeculture.xml:1600
2339 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
2340 "huge. More than 33,000 <quote>circles</quote> of creators from across Japan "
2341 "produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese "
2342 "come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, "
2343 "to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
2344 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
2345 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
2346 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
2347 "competition and despite the law."
2350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2351 #: freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768
2355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2356 #: freeculture.xml:1613
2358 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
2359 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
2360 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
2361 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
2362 "<quote>derivative works.</quote> There is no general practice by doujinshi "
2363 "artists of securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the "
2364 "practice is simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt "
2365 "Disney did with <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. Under both "
2366 "Japanese and American law, that <quote>taking</quote> without the permission "
2367 "of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an infringement of the "
2368 "original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work without the original "
2369 "copyright owner's permission."
2372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2373 #: freeculture.xml:1627
2374 msgid "Winick, Judd"
2378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2379 #: freeculture.xml:1639
2381 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, <citetitle>Reinventing "
2382 "Comics</citetitle> (New York: Perennial, 2000)."
2385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2386 #: freeculture.xml:1629
2388 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
2389 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
2390 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, <quote>The "
2391 "early days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
2392 "now. … American comics were born out of copying each other. … "
2393 "That's how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and "
2394 "not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them</quote> and building "
2395 "from them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2399 #: freeculture.xml:1644
2400 msgid "Superman comics"
2403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2404 #: freeculture.xml:1646
2406 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
2407 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
2408 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, <quote>there are these rules "
2409 "and you have to stick to them.</quote> There are things Superman "
2410 "<quote>cannot</quote> do. <quote>As a creator, it's frustrating having to "
2411 "stick to some parameters which are fifty years old.</quote>"
2414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2415 #: freeculture.xml:1656
2416 msgid "Mehra, Salil"
2420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2421 #: freeculture.xml:1666
2423 "See Salil K. Mehra, <quote>Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain "
2424 "Why All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?</quote> "
2425 "<citetitle>Rutgers Law Review</citetitle> 55 (2002): 155, "
2426 "182. <quote>[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that would "
2427 "lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
2428 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
2429 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
2430 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
2434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2435 #: freeculture.xml:1658
2437 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
2438 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
2439 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
2440 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
2441 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
2442 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
2443 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2447 #: freeculture.xml:1680
2449 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
2450 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
2451 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
2452 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
2453 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
2454 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
2455 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this "
2456 "<quote>free taking</quote> by the doujinshi culture?"
2459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2460 #: freeculture.xml:1693
2462 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
2463 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
2464 "a major Japanese law firm. <quote>We don't have enough lawyers,</quote> he "
2465 "told me one afternoon. There <quote>just aren't enough resources to "
2466 "prosecute cases like this.</quote>"
2470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2471 #: freeculture.xml:1700
2473 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
2474 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
2475 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
2476 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
2477 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
2478 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
2479 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
2480 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them?"
2483 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2484 #: freeculture.xml:1713
2485 msgid "<emphasis role='strong'>Let's pause</emphasis> for a moment."
2488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2489 #: freeculture.xml:1716
2491 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
2492 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
2493 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
2496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2497 #: freeculture.xml:1726 freeculture.xml:3024 freeculture.xml:4717 freeculture.xml:4942 freeculture.xml:7574 freeculture.xml:8687
2498 msgid "Vaidhyanathan, Siva"
2501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2502 #: freeculture.xml:1726
2504 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The term <citetitle>intellectual "
2505 "property</citetitle> is of relatively recent origin. See Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
2506 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 11 (New York: New York "
2507 "University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>The Future of "
2508 "Ideas</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term "
2509 "accurately describes a set of <quote>property</quote> "
2510 "rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and trade-secret—but the "
2511 "nature of those rights is very different."
2514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2515 #: freeculture.xml:1721
2517 "We live in a world that celebrates <quote>property.</quote> I am one of "
2518 "those celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
2519 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
2520 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2521 "id=\"0\"/> A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a "
2522 "large, diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual "
2526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2527 #: freeculture.xml:1743
2529 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
2530 "value out there that <quote>property</quote> doesn't capture. I don't mean "
2531 "<quote>money can't buy you love,</quote> but rather, value that is plainly "
2532 "part of a process of production, including commercial as well as "
2533 "noncommercial production. If Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils "
2534 "to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd have no hesitation in condemning that taking "
2535 "as wrong— even though trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was "
2536 "nothing wrong, at least under the law of the day, with Disney's taking from "
2537 "Buster Keaton or from the Brothers Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the "
2538 "taking from Keaton because Disney's use would have been considered "
2539 "<quote>fair.</quote> There was nothing wrong with the taking from the Grimms "
2540 "because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
2543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2544 #: freeculture.xml:1757
2545 msgid "derivative works based on"
2549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2550 #: freeculture.xml:1759
2552 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
2553 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
2554 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
2555 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
2558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2559 #: freeculture.xml:1774
2561 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
2562 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
2563 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
2564 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
2565 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
2566 "whether large or small."
2569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2570 #: freeculture.xml:1783
2572 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
2573 "the copycat comic artists are <quote>stealing.</quote> This form of Walt "
2574 "Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular "
2575 "find it hard to say why."
2578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2579 #: freeculture.xml:1794 freeculture.xml:5102
2580 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
2583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2584 #: freeculture.xml:1796
2586 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
2587 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
2588 "or paying for the privilege. (<quote>Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may "
2589 "I have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were "
2590 "wrong about quantum physics?</quote>) Acting companies perform adaptations "
2591 "of the works of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does "
2592 "<emphasis>anyone</emphasis> believe Shakespeare would be better spread "
2593 "within our culture if there were a central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse "
2594 "that all productions of Shakespeare must appeal to first?) And Hollywood "
2595 "goes through cycles with a certain kind of movie: five asteroid films in the "
2596 "late 1990s; two volcano disaster films in 1997."
2600 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2601 #: freeculture.xml:1810
2603 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2604 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2605 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2606 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2607 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2608 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2609 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2610 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2614 #: freeculture.xml:1822
2616 "The hard question is therefore not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> a culture is "
2617 "free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is "
2618 "<quote><emphasis>How</emphasis> free is this culture?</quote> How much, and "
2619 "how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that "
2620 "freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top "
2621 "ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread "
2622 "broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To "
2623 "musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether "
2624 "affiliated with a studio or not?"
2627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2628 #: freeculture.xml:1834
2630 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2631 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2632 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
2636 #: freeculture.xml:1843
2637 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: <quote>Mere Copyists</quote>"
2640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2641 #: freeculture.xml:1844
2642 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2646 #: freeculture.xml:1845 freeculture.xml:2000 freeculture.xml:2055 freeculture.xml:6594
2647 msgid "camera technology"
2650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2651 #: freeculture.xml:1846
2655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2656 #: freeculture.xml:1848
2658 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1839</emphasis>, Louis Daguerre invented the "
2659 "first practical technology for producing what we would call "
2660 "<quote>photographs.</quote> Appropriately enough, they were called "
2661 "<quote>daguerreotypes.</quote> The process was complicated and expensive, "
2662 "and the field was thus limited to professionals and a few zealous and "
2663 "wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre Association that "
2664 "helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, by keeping "
2665 "competition down so as to keep prices up.)"
2668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2669 #: freeculture.xml:1857
2670 msgid "Talbot, William"
2673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2674 #: freeculture.xml:1859
2676 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2677 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make <quote>automatic "
2678 "pictures.</quote> William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2679 "<quote>negatives.</quote> But because the negatives were glass, and had to "
2680 "be kept wet, the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the "
2681 "1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of "
2682 "a picture from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it "
2683 "was still not a process within reach of most amateurs."
2686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2687 #: freeculture.xml:1869
2688 msgid "Eastman, George"
2692 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2693 #: freeculture.xml:1871
2695 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2696 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2697 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2698 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2699 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2700 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2701 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2702 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2706 #: freeculture.xml:1882 freeculture.xml:2037
2707 msgid "Kodak cameras"
2710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2711 #: freeculture.xml:1883
2712 msgid "Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)"
2716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2717 #: freeculture.xml:1890
2719 "Reese V. Jenkins, <citetitle>Images and Enterprise</citetitle> (Baltimore: "
2720 "Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 112."
2723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2724 #: freeculture.xml:1885
2726 "Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed rolls of "
2727 "it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was marketed on the basis "
2728 "of its simplicity. <quote>You press the button and we do the "
2729 "rest.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As he described in "
2730 "<citetitle>The Kodak Primer</citetitle>:"
2733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2734 #: freeculture.xml:1906 freeculture.xml:1932
2738 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2739 #: freeculture.xml:1906
2741 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Brian Coe, <citetitle>The Birth "
2742 "of Photography</citetitle> (New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1977), 53."
2745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2746 #: freeculture.xml:1895
2748 "The principle of the Kodak system is the separation of the work that any "
2749 "person whomsoever can do in making a photograph, from the work that only an "
2750 "expert can do. … We furnish anybody, man, woman or child, who has "
2751 "sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an "
2752 "instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the "
2753 "necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of "
2754 "the art. It can be employed without preliminary study, without a darkroom "
2755 "and without chemicals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2760 #: freeculture.xml:1925
2761 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2766 #: freeculture.xml:1929
2767 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2771 #: freeculture.xml:1914
2773 "For $25, anyone could make pictures. The camera came preloaded with film, "
2774 "and when it had been used, the camera was returned to an Eastman factory, "
2775 "where the film was developed. Over time, of course, the cost of the camera "
2776 "and the ease with which it could be used both improved. Roll film thus "
2777 "became the basis for the explosive growth of popular photography. Eastman's "
2778 "camera first went on sale in 1888; one year later, Kodak was printing more "
2779 "than six thousand negatives a day. From 1888 through 1909, while industrial "
2780 "production was rising by 4.7 percent, photographic equipment and material "
2781 "sales increased by 11 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
2782 "Eastman Kodak's sales during the same period experienced an average annual "
2783 "increase of over 17 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2788 #: freeculture.xml:1947
2792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2793 #: freeculture.xml:1936
2795 "The real significance of Eastman's invention, however, was not economic. It "
2796 "was social. Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places "
2797 "they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to "
2798 "record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before. As "
2799 "author Brian Coe notes, <quote>For the first time the snapshot album "
2800 "provided the man on the street with a permanent record of his family and its "
2801 "activities. … For the first time in history there exists an authentic "
2802 "visual record of the appearance and activities of the common man made "
2803 "without [literary] interpretation or bias.</quote><placeholder "
2804 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2808 #: freeculture.xml:1950 freeculture.xml:2056 freeculture.xml:2422 freeculture.xml:2440
2812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2813 #: freeculture.xml:1950 freeculture.xml:2056 freeculture.xml:2422
2814 msgid "in technologies of expression"
2817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2818 #: freeculture.xml:1951 freeculture.xml:2057 freeculture.xml:2424
2819 msgid "expression, technologies of"
2822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2823 #: freeculture.xml:1951 freeculture.xml:2057 freeculture.xml:2424
2827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2828 #: freeculture.xml:1953
2830 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2831 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2832 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2833 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2834 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2835 "its <quote>quality</quote>; professionals would discount it as "
2836 "irrelevant. But watch a child study how best to frame a picture and you get "
2837 "a sense of the experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic "
2838 "tools gave ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any "
2839 "tools could have before."
2842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2843 #: freeculture.xml:1966
2847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2848 #: freeculture.xml:1966
2849 msgid "photography exempted from"
2853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2854 #: freeculture.xml:1977
2856 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, <citetitle>Pavesich</citetitle> "
2857 "v. <citetitle>N.E. Life Ins. Co</citetitle>., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); "
2858 "<citetitle>Foster-Milburn Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Chinn</citetitle>, "
2859 "123090 S.W. 364, 366 (Ky. 1909); <citetitle>Corliss</citetitle> "
2860 "v. <citetitle>Walker</citetitle>, 64 F. 280 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1894)."
2863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2864 #: freeculture.xml:1968
2866 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2867 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2868 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2869 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2870 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2871 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2872 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2873 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2876 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2877 #: freeculture.xml:1986 freeculture.xml:9377
2878 msgid "images, ownership of"
2882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2883 #: freeculture.xml:1988
2885 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2886 "familiar. The photographer was <quote>taking</quote> something from the "
2887 "person or building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of "
2888 "value. Some even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was "
2889 "not free to take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, "
2890 "too, should these photographers not be free to take images that they thought "
2894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2895 #: freeculture.xml:2012
2896 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2900 #: freeculture.xml:2009
2902 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> "
2903 "<citetitle>Harvard Law Review</citetitle> 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder "
2904 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2908 #: freeculture.xml:2002
2910 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2911 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2912 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2913 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2914 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2915 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2916 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from <citetitle>Steamboat "
2917 "Bill, Jr</citetitle>. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free "
2918 "to capture an image without compensating the source."
2922 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2923 #: freeculture.xml:2030
2925 "See Melville B. Nimmer, <quote>The Right of Publicity,</quote> "
2926 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 19 (1954): 203; William "
2927 "L. Prosser, <quote>Privacy,</quote> <citetitle>California Law "
2928 "Review</citetitle> 48 (1960) 398–407; <citetitle>White</citetitle> "
2929 "v. <citetitle>Samsung Electronics America, Inc</citetitle>., 971 F. 2d 1395 "
2930 "(9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2934 #: freeculture.xml:2020
2936 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2937 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2938 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2939 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2940 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2941 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2942 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2943 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2944 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2948 #: freeculture.xml:2038
2952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2953 #: freeculture.xml:2040
2955 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2956 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2957 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2958 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2959 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2960 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2961 "<quote>theft</quote> committed by the photographer. Just as Napster "
2962 "benefited from the copyright infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak "
2963 "would be benefiting from the <quote>image-right</quote> infringement of its "
2964 "photographers. We could imagine the law then requiring that some form of "
2965 "permission be demonstrated before a company developed pictures. We could "
2966 "imagine a system developing to demonstrate that permission."
2970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2971 #: freeculture.xml:2061
2973 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2974 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2975 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2976 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2977 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2978 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2979 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2980 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2981 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2982 "of expression would have been realized."
2985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2986 #: freeculture.xml:2078
2988 "<emphasis role='strong'>If you drive</emphasis> through San Francisco's "
2989 "Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted over with "
2990 "colorful and striking images, and the logo <quote>Just Think!</quote> in "
2991 "place of the name of a school. But there's little that's <quote>just</quote> "
2992 "cerebral in the projects that these busses enable. These buses are filled "
2993 "with technologies that teach kids to tinker with film. Not the film of "
2994 "Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the <quote>film</quote> of "
2995 "digital cameras. Just Think! is a project that enables kids to make films, "
2996 "as a way to understand and critique the filmed culture that they find all "
2997 "around them. Each year, these busses travel to more than thirty schools and "
2998 "enable three hundred to five hundred children to learn something about media "
2999 "by doing something with media. By doing, they think. By tinkering, they "
3004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3005 #: freeculture.xml:2100
3007 "H. Edward Goldberg, <quote>Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and "
3008 "Software You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,</quote> "
3009 "cadalyst, February 2002, available at <ulink "
3010 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #7</ulink>."
3013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3014 #: freeculture.xml:2094
3016 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
3017 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
3018 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, <quote>Five years ago, a good "
3019 "real-time digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get "
3020 "professional quality for $595.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3021 "id=\"0\"/> These buses are filled with technology that would have cost "
3022 "hundreds of thousands just ten years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine "
3023 "not just buses like this, but classrooms across the country where kids are "
3024 "learning more and more of something teachers call <quote>media "
3028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3029 #: freeculture.xml:2110
3030 msgid "Yanofsky, Dave"
3034 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3035 #: freeculture.xml:2113
3037 "<quote>Media literacy,</quote> as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of "
3038 "Just Think!, puts it, <quote>is the ability … to understand, analyze, "
3039 "and deconstruct media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the "
3040 "way media works, the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the "
3041 "way people access it.</quote>"
3044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3045 #: freeculture.xml:2120
3047 "This may seem like an odd way to think about <quote>literacy.</quote> For "
3048 "most people, literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway "
3049 "and noticing split infinitives are the things that <quote>literate</quote> "
3050 "people know about."
3053 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3054 #: freeculture.xml:2125 freeculture.xml:2659 freeculture.xml:6593 freeculture.xml:7443 freeculture.xml:8521 freeculture.xml:8592
3058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3059 #: freeculture.xml:2126
3063 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
3064 #: freeculture.xml:2127 freeculture.xml:14788
3068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3069 #: freeculture.xml:2127
3070 msgid "advertising on"
3074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3075 #: freeculture.xml:2133
3077 "Judith Van Evra, <citetitle>Television and Child Development</citetitle> "
3078 "(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990); <quote>Findings on "
3079 "Family and TV Study,</quote> <citetitle>Denver Post</citetitle>, 25 May "
3083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3084 #: freeculture.xml:2129
3086 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
3087 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
3088 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
3089 "important to understand the <quote>grammar</quote> of media. For just as "
3090 "there is a grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for "
3091 "media. And just as kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible "
3092 "prose, kids learn how to write media by constructing lots of (at least at "
3093 "first) terrible media."
3096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3097 #: freeculture.xml:2144
3099 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
3100 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
3101 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
3102 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
3103 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
3104 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
3105 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
3109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3110 #: freeculture.xml:2155
3112 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
3113 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
3114 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
3115 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
3116 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
3117 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
3120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3121 #: freeculture.xml:2162
3122 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
3125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3126 #: freeculture.xml:2163 freeculture.xml:2178
3127 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
3130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3131 #: freeculture.xml:2177 freeculture.xml:2237 freeculture.xml:2244 freeculture.xml:2722
3132 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
3135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3136 #: freeculture.xml:2175
3138 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
3139 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3145 #: freeculture.xml:2189
3147 "See Scott Steinberg, <quote>Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,</quote> E!online, "
3148 "4 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3149 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #8</ulink>; "
3150 "<quote>Timeline,</quote> 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3151 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
3154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3155 #: freeculture.xml:2165
3157 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
3158 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
3159 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
3160 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about <quote>the "
3161 "placement of objects, color, … rhythm, pacing, and "
3162 "texture.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers "
3163 "open up an interactive space where a story is <quote>played</quote> as well "
3164 "as experienced, that grammar changes. The simple control of narrative is "
3165 "lost, and so other techniques are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had "
3166 "mastered the narrative of science fiction. But when he tried to design a "
3167 "computer game based on one of his works, it was a new craft he had to "
3168 "learn. How to lead people through a game without their feeling they have "
3169 "been led was not obvious, even to a wildly successful author.<placeholder "
3170 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3174 #: freeculture.xml:2196
3175 msgid "computer games"
3178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3179 #: freeculture.xml:2198
3181 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
3182 "<quote>people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t "
3183 "is perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If "
3184 "a filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.</quote> If you know "
3185 "you were led through a film, the film has failed."
3188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3189 #: freeculture.xml:2205
3191 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
3192 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
3193 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
3194 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
3197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3198 #: freeculture.xml:2212
3200 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
3201 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
3202 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
3203 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
3206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3207 #: freeculture.xml:2220
3209 "<quote>Read-only.</quote> Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. "
3210 "Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth "
3214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3215 #: freeculture.xml:2236
3216 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3221 #: freeculture.xml:2241 freeculture.xml:4052 freeculture.xml:5134 freeculture.xml:8410
3225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3226 #: freeculture.xml:2225
3228 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
3229 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
3230 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
3231 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
3232 "literacy in particular, is to <quote>empower people to choose the "
3233 "appropriate language for what they need to create or "
3234 "express.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable "
3235 "students <quote>to communicate in the language of the twenty-first "
3236 "century.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3240 #: freeculture.xml:2246
3242 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
3243 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
3244 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
3245 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
3246 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
3247 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
3248 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
3249 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
3250 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
3253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3254 #: freeculture.xml:2259
3256 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
3257 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
3258 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The "
3259 "<quote>kids were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,</quote> "
3260 "said Barish. They were working harder than in any other class to do what "
3261 "education should be about—learning how to express themselves."
3264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3265 #: freeculture.xml:2267
3267 "Using whatever <quote>free web stuff they could find,</quote> and relatively "
3268 "simple tools to enable the kids to mix <quote>image, sound, and "
3269 "text,</quote> Barish said this class produced a series of projects that "
3270 "showed something about gun violence that few would otherwise "
3271 "understand. This was an issue close to the lives of these students. The "
3272 "project <quote>gave them a tool and empowered them to be able to both "
3273 "understand it and talk about it,</quote> Barish explained. That tool "
3274 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
3275 "than could have been created using only text. <quote>If you had said to "
3276 "these students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their "
3277 "hands up and gone and done something else,</quote> Barish described, in "
3278 "part, no doubt, because expressing themselves in text is not something these "
3279 "students can do well. Yet neither is text a form in which "
3280 "<emphasis>these</emphasis> ideas can be expressed well. The power of this "
3281 "message depended upon its connection to this form of expression."
3285 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3286 #: freeculture.xml:2287
3288 "<quote>But isn't education about teaching kids to write?</quote> I asked. In "
3289 "part, of course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, "
3290 "Daley explained, is about giving students a way of <quote>constructing "
3291 "meaning.</quote> To say that that means just writing is like saying teaching "
3292 "writing is only about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and "
3293 "increasingly, not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As "
3294 "Daley explained in the most moving part of our interview,"
3297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3298 #: freeculture.xml:2298
3300 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
3301 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
3302 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
3303 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
3304 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
3305 "comes to school and you say, <quote>Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you "
3306 "can do matters.</quote> Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss "
3307 "you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to "
3308 "dismiss you. [But i]nstead, if you say, <quote>Well, with all these things "
3309 "that you can do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you "
3310 "think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw "
3311 "for me something that reflects that.</quote> Not by giving a kid a video "
3312 "camera and … saying, <quote>Let's go have fun with the video camera "
3313 "and make a little movie.</quote> But instead, really help you take these "
3314 "elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning "
3315 "about the topic.…"
3318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3319 #: freeculture.xml:2317
3321 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
3322 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, "
3323 "<quote>I need to explain this and I really need to write something.</quote> "
3324 "And as one of the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, "
3325 "6, 7, 8 times, till they got it right."
3329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3330 #: freeculture.xml:2324
3332 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
3333 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
3334 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
3335 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language."
3338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3339 #: freeculture.xml:2334 freeculture.xml:2393 freeculture.xml:5919
3340 msgid "September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of"
3343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3344 #: freeculture.xml:2335
3345 msgid "World Trade Center"
3348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3349 #: freeculture.xml:2336 freeculture.xml:5839
3350 msgid "news coverage"
3353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3354 #: freeculture.xml:2338
3356 "<emphasis role='strong'>When two planes</emphasis> crashed into the World "
3357 "Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania "
3358 "field, all media around the world shifted to this news. Every moment of just "
3359 "about every day for that week, and for weeks after, television in "
3360 "particular, and media generally, retold the story of the events we had just "
3361 "witnessed. The telling was a retelling, because we had seen the events that "
3362 "were described. The genius of this awful act of terrorism was that the "
3363 "delayed second attack was perfectly timed to assure that the whole world "
3364 "would be watching."
3367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3368 #: freeculture.xml:2350
3370 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
3371 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
3372 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was <quote>balance,</quote> "
3373 "and seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
3374 "come to expect it, <quote>news as entertainment,</quote> even if the "
3375 "entertainment is tragedy."
3378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3379 #: freeculture.xml:2357 freeculture.xml:8349 freeculture.xml:8586
3383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3384 #: freeculture.xml:2358
3388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3389 #: freeculture.xml:2360
3391 "But in addition to this produced news about the <quote>tragedy of September "
3392 "11,</quote> those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different "
3393 "production as well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same "
3394 "events. Yet these Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people "
3395 "constructed photo pages that captured images from around the world and "
3396 "presented them as slide shows with text. Some offered open letters. There "
3397 "were sound recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts "
3398 "to provide context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn "
3399 "raising, in the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book <citetitle>Cyber "
3400 "Rights</citetitle>, around a news event that had captured the attention of "
3401 "the world. There was ABC and CBS, but there was also the Internet."
3405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3406 #: freeculture.xml:2375
3408 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
3409 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
3410 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
3411 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
3412 "on the <quote>Just Think!</quote> bus, the visual images could be mixed with "
3416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3417 #: freeculture.xml:2385
3419 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
3420 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
3421 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
3422 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
3423 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
3424 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
3425 "practically instantaneously."
3428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3429 #: freeculture.xml:2394 freeculture.xml:2489 freeculture.xml:2617
3430 msgid "blogs (Web-logs)"
3433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3434 #: freeculture.xml:2395 freeculture.xml:2491
3438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3439 #: freeculture.xml:2396 freeculture.xml:2492
3440 msgid "Web-logs (blogs)"
3443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3444 #: freeculture.xml:2398
3446 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
3447 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
3448 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
3449 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
3450 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
3451 "public way—it's a kind of electronic <citetitle>Jerry "
3452 "Springer</citetitle>, available anywhere in the world."
3455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3456 #: freeculture.xml:2406 freeculture.xml:2475
3457 msgid "political discourse"
3460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3461 #: freeculture.xml:2407
3462 msgid "public discourse conducted on"
3465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3466 #: freeculture.xml:2409
3468 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
3469 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
3470 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
3471 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
3472 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
3473 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
3474 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
3475 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
3476 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
3477 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
3478 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
3481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3482 #: freeculture.xml:2423
3487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3488 #: freeculture.xml:2426
3490 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
3491 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
3492 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
3493 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
3494 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
3495 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
3496 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
3499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3500 #: freeculture.xml:2439
3501 msgid "Tocqueville, Alexis de"
3504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
3505 #: freeculture.xml:2440
3506 msgid "public discourse in"
3509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3510 #: freeculture.xml:2441
3515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3516 #: freeculture.xml:2458
3518 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, <citetitle>Democracy in "
3519 "America</citetitle>, bk. 1, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, "
3523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3524 #: freeculture.xml:2443
3526 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
3527 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
3528 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
3529 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
3530 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
3531 "early <quote>Democracy in America.</quote> It wasn't popular elections that "
3532 "fascinated him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary "
3533 "people the right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most "
3534 "fascinating for him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome "
3535 "they would impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the "
3536 "<quote>right</quote> result; they tried to persuade each other of the "
3537 "<quote>right</quote> result, and in criminal cases at least, they had to "
3538 "agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come to an end.<placeholder "
3539 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3543 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3544 #: freeculture.xml:2468
3546 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, <quote>Deliberation Day,</quote> "
3547 "<citetitle>Journal of Political Philosophy</citetitle> 10 (2) (2002): 129."
3550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3551 #: freeculture.xml:2464
3553 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
3554 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
3555 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3556 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
3557 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
3558 "for <quote>democratic deliberation</quote> to occur."
3562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3563 #: freeculture.xml:2484
3565 "Cass Sunstein, <citetitle>Republic.com</citetitle> (Princeton: Princeton "
3566 "University Press, 2001), 65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
3569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3570 #: freeculture.xml:2477
3572 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
3573 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
3574 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
3575 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
3576 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
3577 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
3578 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
3581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3582 #: freeculture.xml:2490
3587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3588 #: freeculture.xml:2497
3590 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
3591 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
3592 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
3593 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
3594 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
3595 "needing to gather in a single public place."
3598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3599 #: freeculture.xml:2508
3601 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
3602 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
3603 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
3604 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
3605 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
3606 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
3609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3610 #: freeculture.xml:2515
3611 msgid "Dean, Howard"
3614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3615 #: freeculture.xml:2517
3617 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
3618 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
3619 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
3623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3624 #: freeculture.xml:2522
3628 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3629 #: freeculture.xml:2523
3630 msgid "Thurmond, Strom"
3634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3635 #: freeculture.xml:2536
3637 "Noah Shachtman, <quote>With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the "
3638 "Pot,</quote> New York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
3641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3642 #: freeculture.xml:2525
3644 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
3645 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
3646 "<quote>misspoke</quote> at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially "
3647 "praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that "
3648 "this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight "
3649 "hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The "
3650 "bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of "
3651 "the same <quote>misspeaking</quote> emerged. Finally, the story broke back "
3652 "into the mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate "
3653 "majority leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3656 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3657 #: freeculture.xml:2541
3659 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
3660 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
3661 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
3662 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
3665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3666 #: freeculture.xml:2548
3668 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
3669 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
3670 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
3671 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
3672 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
3673 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
3676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3677 #: freeculture.xml:2556
3682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3683 #: freeculture.xml:2558
3685 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
3686 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
3687 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
3688 "absence of a financial <quote>conflict of interest.</quote> <quote>I think "
3689 "you have to take the conflict of interest</quote> out of journalism, Winer "
3690 "told me. <quote>An amateur journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of "
3691 "interest, or the conflict of interest is so easily disclosed that you know "
3692 "you can sort of get it out of the way.</quote>"
3695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3696 #: freeculture.xml:2568 freeculture.xml:2614
3700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3701 #: freeculture.xml:2569 freeculture.xml:2615 freeculture.xml:5783
3706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3707 #: freeculture.xml:2577
3708 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
3711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3712 #: freeculture.xml:2571
3714 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
3715 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
3716 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
3717 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
3718 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
3719 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
3720 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
3721 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
3722 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
3723 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
3724 "warranted, they told her that <emphasis>they</emphasis> were writing "
3725 "<quote>the story.</quote>)"
3729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3730 #: freeculture.xml:2595
3732 "John Schwartz, <quote>Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of "
3733 "Information Online,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 2 "
3734 "February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, <quote>Shuttle Disaster Coverage Mixed, "
3735 "but Strong Overall,</quote> Online Journalism Review, 2 February 2003, "
3736 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
3739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3740 #: freeculture.xml:2587
3742 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the "
3743 "debate—<quote>amateur</quote> not in the sense of inexperienced, but "
3744 "in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning not paid by anyone to give their "
3745 "reports. It allows for a much broader range of input into a story, as "
3746 "reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when hundreds from across the "
3747 "southwest United States turned to the Internet to retell what they had "
3748 "seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it drives readers to read "
3749 "across the range of accounts and <quote>triangulate,</quote> as Winer puts "
3750 "it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are <quote>communicating directly with our "
3751 "constituency, and the middle man is out of it</quote>—with all the "
3752 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
3755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3756 #: freeculture.xml:2616
3757 msgid "Olafson, Steve"
3760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3761 #: freeculture.xml:2614
3763 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3764 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
3765 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> See Michael Falcone, <quote>Does an Editor's "
3766 "Pencil Ruin a Web Log?</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 29 "
3767 "September 2003, C4. (<quote>Not all news organizations have been as "
3768 "accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq "
3769 "who started a blog about his reporting of the war on March 9, stopped "
3770 "posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year Steve Olafson, a "
3771 "<citetitle>Houston Chronicle</citetitle> reporter, was fired for keeping a "
3772 "personal Web log, published under a pseudonym, that dealt with some of the "
3773 "issues and people he was covering.</quote>)"
3777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3778 #: freeculture.xml:2607
3780 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
3781 "blogs. <quote>It's going to become an essential skill,</quote> Winer "
3782 "predicts, for public figures and increasingly for private figures as "
3783 "well. It's not clear that <quote>journalism</quote> is happy about "
3784 "this—some journalists have been told to curtail their "
3785 "blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is clear that we "
3786 "are still in transition. <quote>A lot of what we are doing now is warm-up "
3787 "exercises,</quote> Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature before "
3788 "this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in this "
3789 "space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing on "
3790 "copyright), Winer said, <quote>we will be the last thing that gets shut "
3794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3795 #: freeculture.xml:2637
3797 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because <quote>you "
3798 "don't have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.</quote> "
3799 "That is true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and "
3800 "more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will "
3801 "change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
3802 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
3803 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
3804 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
3805 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
3806 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
3807 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
3808 "something extraordinary to report."
3811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3812 #: freeculture.xml:2658
3813 msgid "Brown, John Seely"
3816 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3817 #: freeculture.xml:2661
3819 "<emphasis role='strong'>John Seely Brown</emphasis> is the chief scientist "
3820 "of the Xerox Corporation. His work, as his Web site describes it, is "
3821 "<quote>human learning and … the creation of knowledge ecologies for "
3822 "creating … innovation.</quote>"
3825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3826 #: freeculture.xml:2667
3828 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3829 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3830 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3831 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3836 #: freeculture.xml:2674
3838 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When <quote>a lot of us grew "
3839 "up,</quote> he explains, that tinkering was done <quote>on motorcycle "
3840 "engines, lawnmower engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.</quote> But "
3841 "digital technologies enable a different kind of tinkering—with "
3842 "abstract ideas though in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only "
3843 "think about how a commercial portrays a politician; using digital "
3844 "technology, they can take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker "
3845 "with it to see how it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind "
3846 "of bricolage, or <quote>free collage,</quote> as Brown calls it. Many get to "
3847 "add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3851 #: freeculture.xml:2687
3853 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3854 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3855 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3856 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3857 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3861 #: freeculture.xml:2694
3863 "This opportunity creates a <quote>completely new kind of learning "
3864 "platform,</quote> as Brown describes. <quote>As soon as you start doing "
3865 "that, you … unleash a free collage on the community, so that other "
3866 "people can start looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, "
3867 "seeing if they can improve it.</quote> Each effort is a kind of "
3868 "apprenticeship. <quote>Open source becomes a major apprenticeship "
3872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3873 #: freeculture.xml:2702
3875 "In this process, <quote>the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. "
3876 "They are code.</quote> Kids are <quote>shifting to the ability to tinker in "
3877 "the abstract, and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that "
3878 "you're doing in your garage. You are tinkering with a community "
3879 "platform. … You are tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you "
3880 "tinker the more you improve.</quote> The more you improve, the more you "
3884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3885 #: freeculture.xml:2711
3887 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3888 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3889 "<quote>the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3890 "intelligence.</quote> Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3891 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3892 "text. <quote>The Web … says if you are musical, if you are artistic, "
3893 "if you are visual, if you are interested in film … [then] there is a "
3894 "lot you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3895 "multiple forms of intelligence.</quote>"
3899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3900 #: freeculture.xml:2724
3902 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3903 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3904 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3909 #: freeculture.xml:2732
3911 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3912 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3913 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3914 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3915 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3916 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3917 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3922 #: freeculture.xml:2748
3924 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, <quote>Technological "
3925 "Access Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,</quote> "
3926 "<citetitle>Communications of the Association for Computer "
3927 "Machinery</citetitle> 43 (2000): 9."
3930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3931 #: freeculture.xml:2741
3933 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3934 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter <xref "
3935 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>) has developed a "
3936 "powerful argument in favor of the <quote>right to tinker</quote> as it "
3937 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3938 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3939 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3940 "because of the law."
3943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3944 #: freeculture.xml:2756
3946 "<quote>This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,</quote> "
3947 "Brown explains. We need to <quote>understand how kids who grow up digital "
3948 "think and want to learn.</quote>"
3951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3952 #: freeculture.xml:2761
3954 "<quote>Yet,</quote> as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will "
3955 "evince, <quote>we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the "
3956 "natural tendencies of today's digital kids. … We're building an "
3957 "architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system "
3958 "that closes down that part of the brain.</quote>"
3961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3962 #: freeculture.xml:2769
3964 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3965 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3966 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3971 #: freeculture.xml:2775
3973 "<quote>No way to run a culture,</quote> as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet "
3974 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>, "
3975 "quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3979 #: freeculture.xml:2782
3980 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3984 #: freeculture.xml:2783
3988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3989 #: freeculture.xml:2783 freeculture.xml:2784
3990 msgid "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)"
3993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3994 #: freeculture.xml:2786
3996 "<emphasis role='strong'>In the fall</emphasis> of 2002, Jesse Jordan of "
3997 "Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic "
3998 "Institute, in Troy, New York. His major at RPI was information "
3999 "technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October Jesse decided to begin "
4000 "to tinker with search engine technology that was available on the RPI "
4004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4005 #: freeculture.xml:2794
4007 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
4008 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
4009 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
4010 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
4011 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
4012 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
4015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4016 #: freeculture.xml:2802
4018 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
4019 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
4020 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
4021 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
4022 "access to other members of the RPI community."
4026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4027 #: freeculture.xml:2809
4029 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
4030 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
4031 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
4032 "idea of <quote>intranet</quote> search engines, search engines that search "
4033 "within the network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that "
4034 "institution with better access to material from that institution. "
4035 "Businesses do this all the time, enabling employees to have access to "
4036 "material that people outside the business can't get. Universities do it as "
4040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4041 #: freeculture.xml:2821
4043 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
4044 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
4045 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
4046 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
4047 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
4048 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
4051 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4052 #: freeculture.xml:2830
4054 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
4055 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
4056 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
4057 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
4058 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
4059 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
4060 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
4061 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
4062 "file was still on-line."
4065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4066 #: freeculture.xml:2842
4068 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
4069 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
4070 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
4071 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
4076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4077 #: freeculture.xml:2849
4079 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
4080 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
4081 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
4082 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
4083 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
4086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4087 #: freeculture.xml:2858
4089 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
4090 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
4091 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
4092 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
4093 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
4094 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
4095 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
4096 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
4097 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
4098 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
4099 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
4103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4104 #: freeculture.xml:2873
4106 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
4107 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
4108 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
4109 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
4110 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
4111 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
4114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4115 #: freeculture.xml:2882
4117 "<quote>It was absurd,</quote> he told me. <quote>I don't think I did "
4118 "anything wrong. … I don't think there's anything wrong with the "
4119 "search engine that I ran or … what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't "
4120 "modified it in any way that promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just "
4121 "modified the search engine in a way that would make it easier to "
4122 "use</quote>—again, a <emphasis>search engine</emphasis>, which Jesse "
4123 "had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, which Jesse had "
4124 "not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to get access to "
4125 "content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and the vast "
4126 "majority of which had nothing to do with music."
4129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4130 #: freeculture.xml:2894
4131 msgid "statutory damages"
4135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4136 #: freeculture.xml:2896
4138 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
4139 "had therefore <quote>willfully</quote> violated copyright laws. They "
4140 "demanded that he pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of "
4141 "<quote>willful infringement,</quote> the Copyright Act specifies something "
4142 "lawyers call <quote>statutory damages.</quote> These damages permit a "
4143 "copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement. As the RIAA alleged more "
4144 "than one hundred specific copyright infringements, they therefore demanded "
4145 "that Jesse pay them at least $15,000,000."
4148 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4149 #: freeculture.xml:2906
4150 msgid "Princeton University"
4153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4154 #: freeculture.xml:2907
4155 msgid "Michigan Technical University"
4159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4160 #: freeculture.xml:2921
4162 "Tim Goral, <quote>Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
4163 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,</quote> <citetitle>Professional Media "
4164 "Group LCC</citetitle> 6 (2003): 5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
4167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4168 #: freeculture.xml:2909
4170 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
4171 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
4172 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
4173 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
4174 "demands for <quote>damages</quote> that the RIAA claimed it was entitled "
4175 "to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in "
4176 "the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 "
4177 "<emphasis>billion</emphasis>—six times the <emphasis>total</emphasis> "
4178 "profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4183 #: freeculture.xml:2928
4185 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
4186 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
4187 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
4188 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
4191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4192 #: freeculture.xml:2934
4193 msgid "Oppenheimer, Matt"
4196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4197 #: freeculture.xml:2936
4199 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
4200 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
4201 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
4202 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
4203 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
4204 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, <quote>You don't want to "
4205 "pay another visit to a dentist like me.</quote>) And throughout, the RIAA "
4206 "insisted it would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had "
4211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4212 #: freeculture.xml:2947
4214 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
4215 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
4216 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
4217 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
4218 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
4219 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
4223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4224 #: freeculture.xml:2957
4226 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
4227 "$12,000 and a settlement."
4230 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4231 #: freeculture.xml:2960 freeculture.xml:3318 freeculture.xml:4253 freeculture.xml:5384 freeculture.xml:5433 freeculture.xml:9842 freeculture.xml:9940 freeculture.xml:10109 freeculture.xml:14689 freeculture.xml:14754
4235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
4236 #: freeculture.xml:2960 freeculture.xml:3318 freeculture.xml:4253 freeculture.xml:9842 freeculture.xml:9940 freeculture.xml:10109 freeculture.xml:14689 freeculture.xml:14754
4237 msgid "recording industry payments to"
4241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4242 #: freeculture.xml:2970
4244 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
4245 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
4246 "the Arts, <citetitle>More Than One in a Blue Moon</citetitle> (2000)."
4250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4251 #: freeculture.xml:2978
4253 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in <quote>KaZaA and "
4254 "Punishment,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 10 September "
4258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4259 #: freeculture.xml:2962
4261 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
4262 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
4263 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
4264 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
4265 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
4266 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
4267 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
4268 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
4269 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4273 #: freeculture.xml:2983
4275 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
4276 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
4277 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
4280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
4281 #: freeculture.xml:2990
4283 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
4284 "activist. … [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
4285 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
4289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4290 #: freeculture.xml:2997
4292 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
4293 "father told me, Jesse <quote>considers himself very conservative, and so do "
4294 "I. … He's not a tree hugger. … I think it's bizarre that they "
4295 "would pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the "
4296 "wrong message. And he wants to correct the record.</quote>"
4299 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4300 #: freeculture.xml:3006
4301 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: <quote>Pirates</quote>"
4304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4305 #: freeculture.xml:3009
4307 "<emphasis role='strong'>If <quote>piracy</quote> means</emphasis> using the "
4308 "creative property of others without their permission—if <quote>if "
4309 "value, then right</quote> is true—then the history of the content "
4310 "industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of <quote>big "
4311 "media</quote> today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
4312 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
4313 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
4316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4317 #: freeculture.xml:3020
4321 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4322 #: freeculture.xml:3024
4324 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> I am grateful to Peter DiMauro "
4325 "for pointing me to this extraordinary history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
4326 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 87–93, which details "
4327 "Edison's <quote>adventures</quote> with copyright and patent."
4331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4332 #: freeculture.xml:3022
4334 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
4335 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
4336 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
4337 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
4338 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "
4339 "<quote>trust,</quote> the Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on "
4340 "Thomas Edison's creative property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to "
4341 "exercise the rights this creative property gave him, and the MPPC was "
4342 "serious about the control it demanded."
4345 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4346 #: freeculture.xml:3040
4347 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
4350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4351 #: freeculture.xml:3044
4353 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
4354 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
4355 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
4356 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
4357 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
4358 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
4361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4362 #: freeculture.xml:3052
4363 msgid "Fox, William"
4366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4367 #: freeculture.xml:3053
4368 msgid "General Film Company"
4371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4372 #: freeculture.xml:3054 freeculture.xml:3336 freeculture.xml:4483 freeculture.xml:9982
4373 msgid "Picker, Randal C."
4376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4377 #: freeculture.xml:3078 freeculture.xml:4482 freeculture.xml:9716 freeculture.xml:9837
4378 msgid "broadcast flag"
4381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4382 #: freeculture.xml:3067
4384 "J. A. Aberdeen, <citetitle>Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent "
4385 "Motion Picture Producers</citetitle> (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and "
4386 "expanded texts posted at <quote>The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion "
4387 "Picture Patents Company vs. the Independent Outlaws,</quote> available at "
4388 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a "
4389 "discussion of the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits "
4390 "imposed by Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison "
4391 "to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the "
4392 "Propertization of Copyright</quote> (September 2002), University of Chicago "
4393 "Law School, James M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper "
4394 "No. 159. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4398 #: freeculture.xml:3056
4400 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
4401 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
4402 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
4403 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
4404 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
4405 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
4406 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
4407 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
4408 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
4409 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4414 #: freeculture.xml:3089
4416 "Marc Wanamaker, <quote>The First Studios,</quote> <citetitle>The Silents "
4417 "Majority</citetitle>, archived at <ulink "
4418 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
4421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4422 #: freeculture.xml:3083
4424 "The Napsters of those days, the <quote>independents,</quote> were companies "
4425 "like Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously "
4426 "resisted. <quote>Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and "
4427 "`accidents' resulting in loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and "
4428 "sometimes life and limb frequently occurred.</quote><placeholder "
4429 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the independents to flee the East "
4430 "Coast. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers "
4431 "there could pirate his inventions without fear of the law. And the leaders "
4432 "of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most prominently, did just that."
4436 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4437 #: freeculture.xml:3099
4439 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
4440 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
4441 "truly <quote>limited</quote> monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), "
4442 "by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new "
4443 "industry had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative "
4447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4448 #: freeculture.xml:3110
4449 msgid "Recorded Music"
4452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
4453 #: freeculture.xml:3111 freeculture.xml:4257
4454 msgid "on music recordings"
4457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4458 #: freeculture.xml:3113
4460 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
4461 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
4464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4465 #: freeculture.xml:3116
4466 msgid "Fourneaux, Henri"
4469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4470 #: freeculture.xml:3117
4471 msgid "Russel, Phil"
4474 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4475 #: freeculture.xml:3119
4477 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
4478 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
4479 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
4480 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
4481 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit <quote>Happy "
4482 "Mose,</quote> the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy "
4483 "of the musical score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform "
4487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4488 #: freeculture.xml:3128 freeculture.xml:3280
4492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4493 #: freeculture.xml:3130
4495 "But what if I wanted to record <quote>Happy Mose,</quote> using Edison's "
4496 "phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear "
4497 "enough that I would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I "
4498 "performed in making this recording. And it was clear enough that I would "
4499 "have to pay for any public performance of the work I was recording. But it "
4500 "wasn't totally clear that I would have to pay for a <quote>public "
4501 "performance</quote> if I recorded the song in my own house (even today, you "
4502 "don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing their songs in the shower), or if "
4503 "I recorded the song from memory (copies in your brain are "
4504 "not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I simply sang the "
4505 "song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, it wasn't clear "
4506 "that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it wasn't clear "
4507 "whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those "
4508 "recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
4509 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
4512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4513 #: freeculture.xml:3153 freeculture.xml:3170
4514 msgid "Kittredge, Alfred"
4517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4518 #: freeculture.xml:3149
4520 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
4521 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it, <placeholder "
4522 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4526 #: freeculture.xml:3164
4528 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
4529 "and H.R. 19853 Before the ( Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
4530 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
4531 "chairman), reprinted in <citetitle>Legislative History of the Copyright "
4532 "Act</citetitle>, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South "
4533 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4538 #: freeculture.xml:3157
4540 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
4541 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
4542 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
4543 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
4544 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4549 #: freeculture.xml:3174
4550 msgid "Sousa, John Philip"
4554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4555 #: freeculture.xml:3180
4557 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
4558 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4563 #: freeculture.xml:3186
4565 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
4566 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4571 #: freeculture.xml:3193
4573 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
4574 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
4577 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4578 #: freeculture.xml:3176
4580 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
4581 "were <quote>sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of "
4582 "American composers,</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the "
4583 "<quote>music publishing industry</quote> was thereby <quote>at the complete "
4584 "mercy of this one pirate.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4585 "As John Philip Sousa put it, in as direct a way as possible, <quote>When "
4586 "they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it.</quote><placeholder "
4587 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4590 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4591 #: freeculture.xml:3197
4592 msgid "American Graphophone Company"
4595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4596 #: freeculture.xml:3198
4597 msgid "player pianos"
4601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4602 #: freeculture.xml:3209
4604 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
4605 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
4606 "Company of New York)."
4610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4611 #: freeculture.xml:3220
4613 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
4614 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
4615 "Graphophone Company Association)."
4618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4619 #: freeculture.xml:3201
4621 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
4622 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
4623 "argued that <quote>it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
4624 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
4625 "before their introduction.</quote> Rather, the machines increased the sales "
4626 "of sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
4627 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was <quote>to consider first the "
4628 "interest of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they "
4629 "are.</quote> <quote>All talk about `theft,'</quote> the general counsel of "
4630 "the American Graphophone Company wrote, <quote>is the merest claptrap, for "
4631 "there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as "
4632 "defined by statute.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4637 #: freeculture.xml:3226
4639 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer "
4640 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> the recording artist. Congress amended the law to "
4641 "make sure that composers would be paid for the <quote>mechanical "
4642 "reproductions</quote> of their music. But rather than simply granting the "
4643 "composer complete control over the right to make mechanical reproductions, "
4644 "Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set "
4645 "by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the "
4646 "part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer "
4647 "authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, "
4648 "so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law."
4651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4652 #: freeculture.xml:3241
4654 "American law ordinarily calls this a <quote>compulsory license,</quote> but "
4655 "I will refer to it as a <quote>statutory license.</quote> A statutory "
4656 "license is a license whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's "
4657 "amendment of the Copyright Act in 1909, record companies were free to "
4658 "distribute copies of recordings so long as they paid the composer (or "
4659 "copyright holder) the fee set by the statute."
4662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4663 #: freeculture.xml:3248 freeculture.xml:14385
4664 msgid "Grisham, John"
4667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4668 #: freeculture.xml:3250
4670 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
4671 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
4672 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
4673 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
4674 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
4675 "work except with permission of Grisham."
4679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4680 #: freeculture.xml:3274
4682 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
4683 "H.R. 11794 Before the ( Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
4684 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
4685 "<citetitle>Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act</citetitle>, "
4686 "E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman "
4690 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4691 #: freeculture.xml:3260
4693 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
4694 "effect, the law <emphasis>subsidizes</emphasis> the recording industry "
4695 "through a kind of piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right "
4696 "than it otherwise gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over "
4697 "their creative work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less "
4698 "control are the recording industry and the public. The recording industry "
4699 "gets something of value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public "
4700 "gets access to a much wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress "
4701 "was quite explicit about its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was "
4702 "the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle "
4703 "follow-on creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4704 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4708 #: freeculture.xml:3283
4710 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
4711 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
4712 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
4716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4717 #: freeculture.xml:3305
4719 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
4720 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
4721 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
4724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4725 #: freeculture.xml:3290
4727 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
4728 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
4729 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
4730 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
4731 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
4732 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
4733 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
4734 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
4735 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
4736 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
4737 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
4738 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4742 #: freeculture.xml:3312
4744 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
4745 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
4748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4749 #: freeculture.xml:3317 freeculture.xml:4447
4753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4754 #: freeculture.xml:3320
4755 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
4758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4759 #: freeculture.xml:3335
4760 msgid "Hand, Learned"
4763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4764 #: freeculture.xml:3326
4766 "See 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, sections 106 and 110. At "
4767 "the beginning, record companies printed <quote>Not Licensed for Radio "
4768 "Broadcast</quote> and other messages purporting to restrict the ability to "
4769 "play a record on a radio station. Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument "
4770 "that a warning attached to a record might restrict the rights of the radio "
4771 "station. See <citetitle>RCA Manufacturing "
4772 "Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Whiteman</citetitle>, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd "
4773 "Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison to the Broadcast "
4774 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
4775 "Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> "
4776 "70 (2003): 281. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4777 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4781 #: freeculture.xml:3323
4783 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a "
4784 "<quote>public performance</quote> of the composer's work.<placeholder "
4785 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the "
4786 "composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of "
4787 "his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money for that "
4791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4792 #: freeculture.xml:3353 freeculture.xml:9051 freeculture.xml:9510 freeculture.xml:12509
4793 msgid "Lovett, Lyle"
4797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4798 #: freeculture.xml:3343
4800 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
4801 "of the <emphasis>composer's</emphasis> work. The radio station is also "
4802 "performing a copy of the <emphasis>recording artist's</emphasis> work. It's "
4803 "one thing to have <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> sung on the radio by the "
4804 "local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung by the Rolling "
4805 "Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the "
4806 "composition performed on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly "
4807 "consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording artist for his "
4808 "work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work. <placeholder "
4809 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4813 #: freeculture.xml:3358
4815 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
4816 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
4817 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
4818 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
4819 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
4822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4823 #: freeculture.xml:3365 freeculture.xml:3870 freeculture.xml:6348
4827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4828 #: freeculture.xml:3367
4830 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
4831 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
4832 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
4833 "she has to get your permission."
4836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4837 #: freeculture.xml:3373
4839 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
4840 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
4841 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
4842 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
4843 "public performance of her recording is not a <quote>protected</quote> "
4844 "right. The radio station thus gets to <emphasis>pirate</emphasis> the value "
4845 "of Madonna's work without paying her anything."
4848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4849 #: freeculture.xml:3384
4851 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
4852 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
4853 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
4854 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
4855 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
4859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4860 #: freeculture.xml:3394 freeculture.xml:4453
4864 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4865 #: freeculture.xml:3395 freeculture.xml:4277 freeculture.xml:8246 freeculture.xml:8285 freeculture.xml:14787
4866 msgid "cable television"
4869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4870 #: freeculture.xml:3397
4871 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
4875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4876 #: freeculture.xml:3400
4878 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
4879 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
4880 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
4881 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
4882 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
4883 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
4884 "the content it enabled others to give away."
4887 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4888 #: freeculture.xml:3410
4889 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
4892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4893 #: freeculture.xml:3411
4894 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
4897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4898 #: freeculture.xml:3412 freeculture.xml:3423
4899 msgid "Hyde, Rosel H."
4902 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4903 #: freeculture.xml:3418
4905 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
4906 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
4907 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
4908 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission). <placeholder "
4909 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4914 #: freeculture.xml:3430
4916 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
4917 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
4920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4921 #: freeculture.xml:3414
4923 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
4924 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of <quote>unfair "
4925 "and potentially destructive competition.</quote><placeholder "
4926 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There may have been a <quote>public "
4927 "interest</quote> in spreading the reach of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, "
4928 "general counsel to the National Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator "
4929 "Quentin Burdick during testimony, <quote>Does public interest dictate that "
4930 "you use somebody else's property?</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4931 "id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster put it,"
4935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4936 #: freeculture.xml:3441
4938 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
4939 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
4942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4943 #: freeculture.xml:3437
4945 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
4946 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
4947 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4951 #: freeculture.xml:3447
4952 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
4956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4957 #: freeculture.xml:3456
4959 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
4960 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
4961 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
4964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4965 #: freeculture.xml:3451
4967 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
4968 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
4969 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
4970 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4974 #: freeculture.xml:3462 freeculture.xml:3470
4975 msgid "Heston, Charlton"
4978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4979 #: freeculture.xml:3468
4981 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
4982 "president of the Screen Actors Guild). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4987 #: freeculture.xml:3464
4989 "These were <quote>free-ride[rs],</quote> Screen Actor's Guild president "
4990 "Charlton Heston said, who were <quote>depriving actors of "
4991 "compensation.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4995 #: freeculture.xml:3475
4997 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
4998 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
5001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
5002 #: freeculture.xml:3491 freeculture.xml:3493
5003 msgid "Zimmerman, Edwin"
5006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5007 #: freeculture.xml:3489
5009 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
5010 "acting assistant attorney general). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
5014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
5015 #: freeculture.xml:3480
5017 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
5018 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
5019 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
5020 "extend that monopoly. … The question here is how much compensation "
5021 "they should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
5022 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5023 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5027 #: freeculture.xml:3497
5029 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
5030 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
5033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5034 #: freeculture.xml:3501
5036 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
5037 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they "
5038 "<quote>pirated.</quote> In the end, Congress resolved this question in the "
5039 "same way that it resolved the question about record players and player "
5040 "pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they "
5041 "broadcast; but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright "
5042 "owner. The price was set by law, so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise "
5043 "veto power over the emerging technologies of cable. Cable companies thus "
5044 "built their empire in part upon a <quote>piracy</quote> of the value created "
5045 "by broadcasters' content."
5049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5050 #: freeculture.xml:3519
5052 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, <citetitle>The "
5053 "Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free "
5054 "Information</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5055 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #13</ulink>. <quote>The threat of "
5056 "piracy—the use of someone else's creative work without permission or "
5057 "compensation—has grown with the Internet.</quote>"
5060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5061 #: freeculture.xml:3514
5063 "<emphasis role='strong'>These separate stories</emphasis> sing a common "
5064 "theme. If <quote>piracy</quote> means using value from someone else's "
5065 "creative property without permission from that creator—as it is "
5066 "increasingly described today<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
5067 "— then <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry affected by copyright today "
5068 "is the product and beneficiary of a certain kind of piracy. Film, records, "
5069 "radio, cable TV. … The list is long and could well be expanded. Every "
5070 "generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Every generation—until "
5074 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
5075 #: freeculture.xml:3536
5076 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: <quote>Piracy</quote>"
5079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5080 #: freeculture.xml:3538
5082 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is piracy</emphasis> of copyrighted "
5083 "material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in many forms. The most significant "
5084 "is commercial piracy, the unauthorized taking of other people's content "
5085 "within a commercial context. Despite the many justifications that are "
5086 "offered in its defense, this taking is wrong. No one should condone it, and "
5087 "the law should stop it."
5091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
5092 #: freeculture.xml:3546
5094 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of "
5095 "<quote>taking</quote> that is more directly related to the Internet. That "
5096 "taking, too, seems wrong to many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before "
5097 "we paint this taking <quote>piracy,</quote> however, we should understand "
5098 "its nature a bit more. For the harm of this taking is significantly more "
5099 "ambiguous than outright copying, and the law should account for that "
5100 "ambiguity, as it has so often done in the past."
5103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5104 #: freeculture.xml:3556
5108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5109 #: freeculture.xml:3557 freeculture.xml:3637 freeculture.xml:3687 freeculture.xml:14789
5110 msgid "Asia, commercial piracy in"
5113 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5114 #: freeculture.xml:3558 freeculture.xml:4005 freeculture.xml:9511 freeculture.xml:10318 freeculture.xml:14180 freeculture.xml:14771
5118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5119 #: freeculture.xml:3558
5120 msgid "foreign piracy of"
5124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5125 #: freeculture.xml:3566
5127 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), "
5128 "<citetitle>The Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003</citetitle>, "
5129 "July 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
5130 "#14</ulink>. See also Ben Hunt, <quote>Companies Warned on Music Piracy "
5131 "Risk,</quote> <citetitle>Financial Times</citetitle>, 14 February 2003, 11."
5134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5135 #: freeculture.xml:3560
5137 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
5138 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
5139 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
5140 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
5141 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
5142 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
5143 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
5146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5147 #: freeculture.xml:3576
5149 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
5150 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
5151 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
5154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5155 #: freeculture.xml:3582
5157 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
5158 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
5159 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
5160 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
5161 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
5162 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
5166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5167 #: freeculture.xml:3591
5169 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
5170 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
5171 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
5172 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
5173 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
5174 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
5175 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
5176 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
5177 "legal wrong as well."
5181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5182 #: freeculture.xml:3602
5184 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
5185 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose not to "
5186 "protect copyright internationally. We may have been born a pirate nation, "
5187 "but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood."
5190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5191 #: freeculture.xml:3630
5192 msgid "agricultural patents"
5195 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5196 #: freeculture.xml:3631 freeculture.xml:12793 freeculture.xml:13251 freeculture.xml:13258
5197 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
5200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5201 #: freeculture.xml:3615
5203 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: "
5204 "<citetitle>Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New "
5205 "Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual "
5206 "Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement obligates member nations to create "
5207 "administrative and enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights, "
5208 "a costly proposition for developing countries. Additionally, patent rights "
5209 "may lead to higher prices for staple industries such as agriculture. Critics "
5210 "of TRIPS question the disparity between burdens imposed upon developing "
5211 "countries and benefits conferred to industrialized nations. TRIPS does "
5212 "permit governments to use patents for public, noncommercial uses without "
5213 "first obtaining the patent holder's permission. Developing nations may be "
5214 "able to use this to gain the benefits of foreign patents at lower "
5215 "prices. This is a promising strategy for developing nations within the TRIPS "
5216 "framework. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5217 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5221 #: freeculture.xml:3610
5223 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
5224 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
5225 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
5226 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
5227 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
5228 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
5229 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
5232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5233 #: freeculture.xml:3652 freeculture.xml:3926 freeculture.xml:14937
5234 msgid "Liebowitz, Stan"
5237 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5238 #: freeculture.xml:3645
5240 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
5241 "Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle> (New York: "
5242 "Amacom, 2002), 144–90. <quote>In some instances … the impact of "
5243 "piracy on the copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the "
5244 "work will be negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the "
5245 "individual engaging in pirating would not have purchased an original even if "
5246 "pirating were not an option.</quote> Ibid., 149. <placeholder "
5247 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5251 #: freeculture.xml:3639
5253 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
5254 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
5255 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
5256 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
5257 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5261 #: freeculture.xml:3656
5263 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
5264 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
5265 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
5266 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, <quote>You wouldn't go into "
5267 "Barnes & Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why "
5268 "should it be any different with on-line music?</quote> The difference is, of "
5269 "course, that when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less "
5270 "book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, "
5271 "there is not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the "
5272 "intangible are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
5276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5277 #: freeculture.xml:3670
5279 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
5280 "right of a very special sort, it <emphasis>is</emphasis> a property "
5281 "right. Like all property rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to "
5282 "decide the terms under which content is shared. If the copyright owner "
5283 "doesn't want to sell, she doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important "
5284 "statutory licenses that apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish "
5285 "of the copyright owner. Those licenses give people the right to "
5286 "<quote>take</quote> copyrighted content whether or not the copyright owner "
5287 "wants to sell. But where the law does not give people the right to take "
5288 "content, it is wrong to take that content even if the wrong does no harm. If "
5289 "we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the "
5290 "technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the "
5291 "permission of a property owner. That is exactly what <quote>property</quote> "
5295 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5296 #: freeculture.xml:3688 freeculture.xml:14790
5300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5301 #: freeculture.xml:3689
5302 msgid "free software/open-source software (FS/OSS)"
5305 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5306 #: freeculture.xml:3690 freeculture.xml:3720 freeculture.xml:11593 freeculture.xml:13094 freeculture.xml:13695
5307 msgid "GNU/Linux operating system"
5310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5311 #: freeculture.xml:3691 freeculture.xml:3721 freeculture.xml:11595 freeculture.xml:13095 freeculture.xml:13696
5312 msgid "Linux operating system"
5315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
5316 #: freeculture.xml:3692 freeculture.xml:3694 freeculture.xml:3695 freeculture.xml:5375 freeculture.xml:7885 freeculture.xml:13147
5320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5321 #: freeculture.xml:3692
5322 msgid "competitive strategies of"
5325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5326 #: freeculture.xml:3693
5330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5331 #: freeculture.xml:3694
5332 msgid "international software piracy of"
5335 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5336 #: freeculture.xml:3695
5337 msgid "Windows operating system of"
5340 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5341 #: freeculture.xml:3697
5343 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
5344 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese "
5345 "<quote>steal</quote> Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on "
5346 "Microsoft. Microsoft loses the value of the software that was taken. But it "
5347 "gains users who are used to life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the "
5348 "nation grows more wealthy, more and more people will buy software rather "
5349 "than steal it. And hence over time, because that buying will benefit "
5350 "Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from the piracy. If instead of pirating "
5351 "Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system, "
5352 "then these Chinese users would not eventually be buying Microsoft. Without "
5353 "piracy, then, Microsoft would lose."
5356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5357 #: freeculture.xml:3709
5361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5362 #: freeculture.xml:3709
5363 msgid "databases of case reports in"
5366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5367 #: freeculture.xml:3711
5369 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
5370 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
5371 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
5372 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
5373 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
5374 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
5377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5378 #: freeculture.xml:3718
5382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5383 #: freeculture.xml:3719
5384 msgid "Internet Explorer"
5387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5388 #: freeculture.xml:3723
5390 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
5391 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
5392 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
5393 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
5394 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
5395 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
5396 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
5397 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
5398 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
5399 "access, then violating the law is still wrong."
5403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5404 #: freeculture.xml:3737
5406 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
5407 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
5408 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
5409 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
5410 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
5411 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
5412 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
5415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5416 #: freeculture.xml:3747
5418 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
5419 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all <quote>piracy</quote> "
5420 "is. Or at least, not all <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong if that term is "
5421 "understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of "
5422 "<quote>piracy</quote> are useful and productive, to produce either new "
5423 "content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any "
5424 "tradition has ever banned all <quote>piracy</quote> in that sense of the "
5428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5429 #: freeculture.xml:3756
5431 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
5432 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
5433 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
5434 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
5437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5438 #: freeculture.xml:3762
5440 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
5441 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
5442 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
5443 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
5446 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5447 #: freeculture.xml:3768
5449 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
5450 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
5453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5454 #: freeculture.xml:3774
5459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5460 #: freeculture.xml:3779
5462 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
5463 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
5467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5468 #: freeculture.xml:3776
5470 "The key to the <quote>piracy</quote> that the law aims to quash is a use "
5471 "that <quote>rob[s] the author of [his] profit.</quote><placeholder "
5472 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This means we must determine whether and how "
5473 "much p2p sharing harms before we know how strongly the law should seek to "
5474 "either prevent it or find an alternative to assure the author of his profit."
5477 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5478 #: freeculture.xml:3787 freeculture.xml:3795
5482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5483 #: freeculture.xml:3788
5484 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
5487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5488 #: freeculture.xml:3805 freeculture.xml:8479
5489 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
5492 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5493 #: freeculture.xml:3795
5495 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Clayton M. Christensen, "
5496 "<citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller "
5497 "That Changed the Way We Do Business</citetitle> (New York: HarperBusiness, "
5498 "2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that give rise to and "
5499 "dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up with the most "
5500 "creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This job usually "
5501 "falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology in inventive "
5502 "ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence Lessig, "
5503 "<citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 89–92, 139. <placeholder "
5504 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5508 #: freeculture.xml:3790
5510 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
5511 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
5512 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
5513 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
5514 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
5519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5520 #: freeculture.xml:3815
5522 "See Carolyn Lochhead, <quote>Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood "
5523 "Nightmare,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 "
5524 "September 2002, A1; <quote>Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,</quote> <citetitle>New "
5525 "Scientist</citetitle>, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, <quote>Napster "
5526 "Names CEO, Secures New Financing,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
5527 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 23 May 2003, C1; <quote>Napster's Wake-Up "
5528 "Call,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 24 June 2000, 23; John "
5529 "Naughton, <quote>Hollywood at War with the Internet</quote> (London) "
5530 "<citetitle>Times</citetitle>, 26 July 2002, 18."
5533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5534 #: freeculture.xml:3810
5536 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
5537 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
5538 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
5539 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
5540 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
5541 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
5542 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
5543 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
5544 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
5545 "or your 20,000 best friends."
5549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5550 #: freeculture.xml:3837
5552 "See Ipsos-Insight, <citetitle>TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music "
5553 "Distribution</citetitle> (September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of "
5554 "Americans aged twelve and older have downloaded music off of the Internet "
5555 "and 30 percent have listened to digital music files stored on their "
5560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5561 #: freeculture.xml:3846
5563 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,</quote> "
5564 "<citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 6 June 2003, A1."
5567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5568 #: freeculture.xml:3831
5570 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
5571 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
5572 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
5573 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
5574 "by the NPD group quoted in <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> "
5575 "estimated that 43 million citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange "
5576 "content in May 2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast "
5577 "majority of these are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive "
5578 "quantity of content is being <quote>taken</quote> on these networks. The "
5579 "ease and inexpensiveness of file-sharing networks have inspired millions to "
5580 "enjoy music in a way that they hadn't before."
5583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5584 #: freeculture.xml:3855
5586 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
5587 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
5588 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
5589 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
5590 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
5591 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
5595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5596 #: freeculture.xml:3865
5598 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
5599 "kinds into four types."
5603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5604 #: freeculture.xml:3873
5606 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
5607 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
5608 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
5609 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
5610 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
5611 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
5616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5617 #: freeculture.xml:3883
5619 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
5620 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
5621 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
5622 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
5623 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
5624 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
5625 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
5629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5630 #: freeculture.xml:3894
5632 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
5633 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
5634 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
5635 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
5636 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
5637 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
5638 "solid weekend <quote>recalling</quote> old songs. She was astonished at the "
5639 "range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is "
5640 "still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright "
5641 "owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is "
5642 "zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s "
5643 "45-rpm records to a local collector."
5648 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5649 #: freeculture.xml:3911
5651 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
5652 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
5655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5656 #: freeculture.xml:3917
5657 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
5660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5661 #: freeculture.xml:3925
5663 "See Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle>, "
5664 "148–49. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5668 #: freeculture.xml:3920
5670 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
5671 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
5672 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
5673 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
5674 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
5675 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is "
5676 "not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard "
5677 "question to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current "
5678 "rhetoric around the issue suggests."
5681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5682 #: freeculture.xml:3936
5684 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
5685 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
5686 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
5687 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
5688 "type A sharing is a kind of <quote>theft</quote> that is "
5689 "<quote>devastating</quote> the industry."
5692 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5693 #: freeculture.xml:3943 freeculture.xml:3952 freeculture.xml:4309 freeculture.xml:8045 freeculture.xml:8074 freeculture.xml:9772 freeculture.xml:14497
5694 msgid "cassette recording"
5697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5698 #: freeculture.xml:3943 freeculture.xml:4309 freeculture.xml:8045 freeculture.xml:8074 freeculture.xml:9772 freeculture.xml:9773 freeculture.xml:14497 freeculture.xml:14498
5702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5703 #: freeculture.xml:3952
5705 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, "
5706 "<citetitle>Technology Evolution and the Music Industry's Business Model "
5707 "Crisis</citetitle> (2003), 3. This report describes the music industry's "
5708 "effort to stigmatize the budding practice of cassette taping in the 1970s, "
5709 "including an advertising campaign featuring a cassette-shape skull and the "
5710 "caption <quote>Home taping is killing music.</quote> At the time digital "
5711 "audio tape became a threat, the Office of Technical Assessment conducted a "
5712 "survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 percent of consumers older than ten "
5713 "had taped music to a cassette format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology "
5714 "Assessment, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the "
5715 "Law</citetitle>, OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing "
5716 "Office, October 1989), 145–56."
5719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5720 #: freeculture.xml:3945
5722 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
5723 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
5724 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
5725 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "
5726 "<quote>Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels "
5727 "fought it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels "
5728 "claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales "
5729 "fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was "
5730 "proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was "
5734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5735 #: freeculture.xml:3970
5740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5741 #: freeculture.xml:3980
5742 msgid "U.S. Congress, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying</citetitle>, 4."
5745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5746 #: freeculture.xml:3972
5748 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
5749 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record "
5750 "turnaround. <quote>In the end,</quote> Cap Gemini concludes, <quote>the "
5751 "`crisis' … was not the fault of the tapers—who did not [stop "
5752 "after MTV came into being]—but had to a large extent resulted from "
5753 "stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels.</quote><placeholder "
5754 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5757 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5758 #: freeculture.xml:3985
5760 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
5761 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
5762 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
5763 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
5764 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
5765 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also "
5766 "<emphasis>how</emphasis> harmful type A sharing is, and how beneficial the "
5767 "other types of sharing are."
5770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5771 #: freeculture.xml:3995
5773 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
5774 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
5775 "<quote>net harm</quote> to the industry as a whole is the amount by which "
5776 "type A sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records "
5777 "through sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks "
5778 "would actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
5779 "little <emphasis>static</emphasis> reason to resist them."
5782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5783 #: freeculture.xml:4005
5784 msgid "sales levels of"
5787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5788 #: freeculture.xml:4007
5790 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
5791 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
5792 "it might be close."
5796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5797 #: freeculture.xml:4016
5799 "See Recording Industry Association of America, <citetitle>2002 Yearend "
5800 "Statistics</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5801 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #15</ulink>. A later report "
5802 "indicates even greater losses. See Recording Industry Association of "
5803 "America, <citetitle>Some Facts About Music Piracy</citetitle>, 25 June 2003, "
5804 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #16</ulink>: "
5805 "<quote>In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen "
5806 "by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 in the "
5807 "United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues are "
5808 "down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based on "
5809 "U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone from "
5810 "a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 (based "
5811 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments).</quote>"
5814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5815 #: freeculture.xml:4043
5819 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5820 #: freeculture.xml:4040
5822 "Jane Black, <quote>Big Music's Broken Record,</quote> BusinessWeek online, "
5823 "13 February 2003, available at <ulink "
5824 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #17</ulink>. <placeholder "
5825 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5829 #: freeculture.xml:4012
5831 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
5832 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
5833 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
5834 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
5835 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
5836 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
5837 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
5838 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. <quote>From 1999 to "
5839 "2001, the average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to "
5840 "$14.19.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from "
5841 "other forms of media could also account for some of the decline. As Jane "
5842 "Black of <citetitle>BusinessWeek</citetitle> notes, <quote>The soundtrack to "
5843 "the film <citetitle>High Fidelity</citetitle> has a list price of "
5844 "$18.98. You could get the whole movie [on DVD] for "
5845 "$19.99.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
5849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5850 #: freeculture.xml:4058
5852 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
5853 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
5854 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
5855 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
5856 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
5860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5861 #: freeculture.xml:4066
5863 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
5864 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
5865 "industry constantly asks, <quote>What's the difference between downloading a "
5866 "song and stealing a CD?</quote>—but their own numbers reveal the "
5867 "difference. If I steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking "
5868 "is a lost sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is "
5869 "absolutely clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download "
5870 "were a lost sale—if every use of Kazaa <quote>rob[bed] the author of "
5871 "[his] profit</quote>—then the industry would have suffered a 100 "
5872 "percent drop in sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the "
5873 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped "
5874 "by just 6.7 percent, then there is a huge difference between "
5875 "<quote>downloading a song and stealing a CD.</quote>"
5878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5879 #: freeculture.xml:4082
5881 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
5882 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
5883 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
5887 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5888 #: freeculture.xml:4094
5890 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
5891 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
5892 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
5893 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
5894 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
5895 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
5898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5899 #: freeculture.xml:4088
5901 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
5902 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
5903 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
5904 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5905 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
5906 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
5907 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
5908 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
5909 "<emphasis>to the company</emphasis> to make it available."
5912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5913 #: freeculture.xml:4107 freeculture.xml:4115 freeculture.xml:4137 freeculture.xml:4159 freeculture.xml:4663 freeculture.xml:5994 freeculture.xml:5999 freeculture.xml:6051 freeculture.xml:6927 freeculture.xml:6928 freeculture.xml:7270 freeculture.xml:7339 freeculture.xml:7373 freeculture.xml:7589 freeculture.xml:13883 freeculture.xml:14609 freeculture.xml:14610
5917 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5918 #: freeculture.xml:4107 freeculture.xml:4115 freeculture.xml:6928 freeculture.xml:14610
5922 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5923 #: freeculture.xml:4115
5925 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> While there are not good "
5926 "estimates of the number of used record stores in existence, in 2002, there "
5927 "were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, an increase of 20 percent "
5928 "since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, <citetitle>The Quiet Revolution: The "
5929 "Expansion of the Used Book Market</citetitle> (2002), available at <ulink "
5930 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #19</ulink>. Used records "
5931 "accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See National Association of "
5932 "Recording Merchandisers, <quote>2002 Annual Survey Results,</quote> "
5933 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
5936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5937 #: freeculture.xml:4109
5939 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
5940 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
5941 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
5942 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
5943 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
5944 "sell this content, <emphasis>even if the content is still under "
5945 "copyright</emphasis>, the copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and "
5946 "record stores are commercial entities; their owners make money from the "
5947 "content they sell; but as with cable companies before statutory licensing, "
5948 "they don't have to pay the copyright owner for the content they sell."
5951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5952 #: freeculture.xml:4136
5953 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
5956 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5957 #: freeculture.xml:4137 freeculture.xml:5994 freeculture.xml:5999 freeculture.xml:6927 freeculture.xml:14609
5958 msgid "out of print"
5961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5962 #: freeculture.xml:4139
5964 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
5965 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
5966 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
5967 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
5968 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
5969 "of Bernstein's <quote>Two Love Songs,</quote> I still have it. That "
5970 "difference would matter economically if the owner of the copyright were "
5971 "selling the record in competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the "
5972 "class of content that is not currently commercially available. The Internet "
5973 "is making it available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with "
5977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5978 #: freeculture.xml:4152
5980 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
5981 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
5982 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
5983 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
5984 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
5988 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5989 #: freeculture.xml:4159 freeculture.xml:13883
5990 msgid "free on-line releases of"
5994 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5995 #: freeculture.xml:4161
5997 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
5998 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
5999 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
6000 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
6001 "for example, released his first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
6002 "Kingdom</citetitle>, both free on-line and in bookstores on the same "
6003 "day. His (and his publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution "
6004 "would be a great advertisement for the <quote>real</quote> book. People "
6005 "would read part on-line, and then decide whether they liked the book or "
6006 "not. If they liked it, they would be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's "
6007 "content is type D content. If sharing networks enable his work to be spread, "
6008 "then both he and society are better off. (Actually, much better off: It is a "
6012 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6013 #: freeculture.xml:4179
6015 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
6016 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
6017 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
6018 "important in order to protect type A content."
6021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6022 #: freeculture.xml:4185
6024 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
6025 "says, <quote>This is how much we've lost,</quote> we must also ask, "
6026 "<quote>How much has society gained from p2p sharing? What are the "
6027 "efficiencies? What is the content that otherwise would be "
6028 "unavailable?</quote>"
6031 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6032 #: freeculture.xml:4192
6034 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
6035 "of the <quote>piracy</quote> that file sharing enables is plainly legal and "
6036 "good. And like the piracy I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
6037 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"pirates\"/>, much of this piracy is motivated by a "
6038 "new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
6039 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
6040 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
6041 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
6042 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
6043 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
6044 "balance will be found only with time."
6047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6048 #: freeculture.xml:4206
6050 "<quote>But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the "
6051 "target just what you call type A sharing?</quote>"
6055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6056 #: freeculture.xml:4223
6058 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
6059 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
6060 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
6061 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, "
6062 "<citetitle>All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's "
6063 "Napster</citetitle> (New York: Crown Business, 2003), 269–82."
6066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6067 #: freeculture.xml:4210
6069 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
6070 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
6071 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
6072 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
6073 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
6074 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
6075 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements <quote>down to "
6076 "zero.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6080 #: freeculture.xml:4234
6082 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
6083 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
6084 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
6085 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
6086 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
6087 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
6088 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
6089 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
6090 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
6093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6094 #: freeculture.xml:4245
6096 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
6097 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
6098 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
6099 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
6100 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
6101 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
6105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6106 #: freeculture.xml:4254
6107 msgid "composers, copyright protections of"
6110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6111 #: freeculture.xml:4255 freeculture.xml:4256 freeculture.xml:11661
6112 msgid "Congress, U.S."
6115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6116 #: freeculture.xml:4255
6117 msgid "on copyright laws"
6120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6121 #: freeculture.xml:4256
6122 msgid "on recording industry"
6125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6126 #: freeculture.xml:4258
6127 msgid "statutory licenses in"
6130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6131 #: freeculture.xml:4259
6132 msgid "music recordings played on"
6135 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6136 #: freeculture.xml:4260 freeculture.xml:4261 freeculture.xml:4262
6137 msgid "recording industry"
6140 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6141 #: freeculture.xml:4260
6142 msgid "artist remuneration in"
6145 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6146 #: freeculture.xml:4261
6147 msgid "copyright protections in"
6150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
6151 #: freeculture.xml:4262
6152 msgid "radio broadcast and"
6155 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6156 #: freeculture.xml:4263
6157 msgid "statutory licenses"
6160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6161 #: freeculture.xml:4264
6162 msgid "composer's rights vs. producers' rights in"
6165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6166 #: freeculture.xml:4266
6168 "So, as we've seen, when <quote>mechanical reproduction</quote> threatened "
6169 "the interests of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers "
6170 "against the interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to "
6171 "composers, but also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but "
6172 "at a price set by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the "
6173 "recordings made by these recording artists, and they complained to Congress "
6174 "that their <quote>creative property</quote> was not being respected (since "
6175 "the radio station did not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), "
6176 "Congress rejected their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
6179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6180 #: freeculture.xml:4279
6182 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
6183 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
6184 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
6185 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
6186 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
6190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6191 #: freeculture.xml:4290
6193 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
6194 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
6195 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
6196 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
6197 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
6198 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
6199 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
6200 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
6201 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
6202 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
6203 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure "
6204 "<emphasis>compensation</emphasis> without giving the past (broadcasters) "
6205 "control over the future (cable)."
6208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6209 #: freeculture.xml:4308
6213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6214 #: freeculture.xml:4311
6216 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
6217 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
6218 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
6219 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
6220 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
6221 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
6222 "device that Sony built had a <quote>record</quote> button, the device could "
6223 "be used to record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore "
6224 "benefiting from the copyright infringement of its customers. It should "
6225 "therefore, Disney and Universal claimed, be partially liable for that "
6230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6231 #: freeculture.xml:4325
6233 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
6234 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
6235 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
6236 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
6237 "only if there were a special <quote>copy me</quote> signal on the line. It "
6238 "was clear that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone "
6239 "permission to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of "
6240 "shows would not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious "
6241 "preference, Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity "
6242 "for copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
6243 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
6247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6248 #: freeculture.xml:4347
6250 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
6251 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
6252 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
6253 "of America, Inc.)."
6257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6258 #: freeculture.xml:4359
6259 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
6263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6264 #: freeculture.xml:4364
6266 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6267 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 480 F. Supp. 429, (C.D. Cal., 1979)."
6271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6272 #: freeculture.xml:4375
6274 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
6278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6279 #: freeculture.xml:4340
6281 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
6282 "called VCRs <quote>tapeworms.</quote> He warned, <quote>When there are 20, "
6283 "30, 40 million of these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of "
6284 "`tapeworms,' eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious "
6285 "asset the copyright owner has, his copyright.</quote><placeholder "
6286 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <quote>One does not have to be trained in "
6287 "sophisticated marketing and creative judgment,</quote> he told Congress, "
6288 "<quote>to understand the devastation on the after-theater marketplace caused "
6289 "by the hundreds of millions of tapings that will adversely impact on the "
6290 "future of the creative community in this country. It is simply a question of "
6291 "basic economics and plain common sense.</quote><placeholder "
6292 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would later show, 45 percent "
6293 "of VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or more<placeholder "
6294 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would later hold was "
6295 "not <quote>fair.</quote> By <quote>allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
6296 "means of an exemption from copyright infringement without creating a "
6297 "mechanism to compensate copyright owners,</quote> Valenti testified, "
6298 "Congress would <quote>take from the owners the very essence of their "
6299 "property: the exclusive right to control who may use their work, that is, "
6300 "who may copy it and thereby profit from its "
6301 "reproduction.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"3\"/>"
6305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6306 #: freeculture.xml:4392
6308 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6309 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th Cir. 1981)."
6312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
6313 #: freeculture.xml:4395
6314 msgid "Kozinski, Alex"
6317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6318 #: freeculture.xml:4380
6320 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
6321 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
6322 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
6323 "refers to it as the <quote>Hollywood Circuit</quote>—held that Sony "
6324 "would be liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its "
6325 "machines. Under the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar "
6326 "technology—which Jack Valenti had called <quote>the Boston Strangler "
6327 "of the American film industry</quote> (worse yet, it was a "
6328 "<emphasis>Japanese</emphasis> Boston Strangler of the American film "
6329 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6330 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6335 #: freeculture.xml:4398
6337 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
6338 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
6339 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
6343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6344 #: freeculture.xml:4417
6346 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6347 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 431 (1984)."
6350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
6351 #: freeculture.xml:4407
6353 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
6354 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
6355 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
6356 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
6357 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
6358 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6362 #: freeculture.xml:4422
6364 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
6365 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
6366 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
6367 "<quote>taking</quote> notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a "
6371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6372 #: freeculture.xml:4433
6376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6377 #: freeculture.xml:4434
6378 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS <quote>PIRATED</quote>"
6381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6382 #: freeculture.xml:4435
6383 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
6386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6387 #: freeculture.xml:4436
6388 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
6391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6392 #: freeculture.xml:4441
6396 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6397 #: freeculture.xml:4442
6401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6402 #: freeculture.xml:4443 freeculture.xml:4455 freeculture.xml:4461
6403 msgid "No protection"
6406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6407 #: freeculture.xml:4444 freeculture.xml:4456
6408 msgid "Statutory license"
6411 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6412 #: freeculture.xml:4448
6413 msgid "Recording artists"
6416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6417 #: freeculture.xml:4449
6421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6422 #: freeculture.xml:4450 freeculture.xml:4462
6426 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6427 #: freeculture.xml:4454
6428 msgid "Broadcasters"
6431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6432 #: freeculture.xml:4459
6436 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6437 #: freeculture.xml:4460
6438 msgid "Film creators"
6441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6442 #: freeculture.xml:4472
6444 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
6445 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
6446 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
6447 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
6448 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
6449 "<citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. "
6450 "4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not "
6451 "eliminate the opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See "
6452 "Lessig, <citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 71. See also Picker, <quote>From "
6453 "Edison to the Broadcast Flag,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law "
6454 "Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 293–96. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6455 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6458 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6459 #: freeculture.xml:4469
6461 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
6462 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
6463 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a "
6464 "<quote>free ride</quote> on someone else's work."
6468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6469 #: freeculture.xml:4490
6471 "In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these cases did either the courts or "
6472 "Congress eliminate all free riding. In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these "
6473 "cases did the courts or Congress insist that the law should assure that the "
6474 "copyright holder get all the value that his copyright created. In every "
6475 "case, the copyright owners complained of <quote>piracy.</quote> In every "
6476 "case, Congress acted to recognize some of the legitimacy in the behavior of "
6477 "the <quote>pirates.</quote> In each case, Congress allowed some new "
6478 "technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced the interests at "
6482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6483 #: freeculture.xml:4503
6485 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
6486 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
6487 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
6488 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
6489 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
6490 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
6491 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
6492 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
6496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6497 #: freeculture.xml:4520
6499 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6500 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
6503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6504 #: freeculture.xml:4515
6506 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
6507 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
6508 "<quote>has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all "
6509 "possible uses of his work.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6510 "Instead, the particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by "
6511 "balancing the good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the "
6512 "burdens such an exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically "
6513 "been done <emphasis>after</emphasis> a technology has matured, or settled "
6514 "into the mix of technologies that facilitate the distribution of content."
6517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6518 #: freeculture.xml:4531
6520 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
6521 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
6522 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
6523 "become a tool for <quote>stealing</quote> from artists. But neither should "
6524 "the law become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or "
6525 "more accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the "
6526 "last chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we "
6527 "allow the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
6528 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
6529 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
6530 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
6534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6535 #: freeculture.xml:4555
6537 "John Schwartz, <quote>New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software "
6538 "Echoes Past Efforts,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 22 "
6539 "September 2003, C3."
6542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6543 #: freeculture.xml:4547
6545 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
6546 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
6547 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
6548 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
6549 "<quote>potential public benefits,</quote> as John Schwartz writes in "
6550 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, <quote>could be delayed in the "
6551 "P2P fight.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6555 #: freeculture.xml:4560
6557 "<emphasis role='strong'>Yet when anyone</emphasis> begins to talk about "
6558 "<quote>balance,</quote> the copyright warriors raise a different "
6559 "argument. <quote>All this hand waving about balance and incentives,</quote> "
6560 "they say, <quote>misses a fundamental point. Our content,</quote> the "
6561 "warriors insist, <quote>is our <emphasis>property</emphasis>. Why should we "
6562 "wait for Congress to `rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait "
6563 "before calling the police when your car has been stolen? And why should "
6564 "Congress deliberate at all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether "
6565 "the car thief had a good use for the car before we arrest him?</quote>"
6568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6569 #: freeculture.xml:4572
6571 "<quote>It is <emphasis>our property</emphasis>,</quote> the warriors "
6572 "insist. <quote>And it should be protected just as any other property is "
6573 "protected.</quote>"
6576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
6577 #: freeculture.xml:4581
6578 msgid "<quote>PROPERTY</quote>"
6582 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6583 #: freeculture.xml:4586
6585 "<emphasis role='strong'>The copyright warriors</emphasis> are right: A "
6586 "copyright is a kind of property. It can be owned and sold, and the law "
6587 "protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the copyright owner gets to hold out "
6588 "for any price he wants. Markets reckon the supply and demand that partially "
6589 "determine the price she can get."
6592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6593 #: freeculture.xml:4593
6595 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a <quote>property</quote> "
6596 "right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of "
6597 "property. Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression "
6598 "is very odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you "
6599 "put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I "
6600 "take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good "
6601 "<emphasis>idea</emphasis> you had to put a picnic table in the "
6602 "backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting "
6603 "it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking then?"
6607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6608 #: freeculture.xml:4618
6610 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in "
6611 "<citetitle>The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</citetitle>, vol. 6 (Andrew "
6612 "A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
6615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6616 #: freeculture.xml:4605
6618 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
6619 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
6620 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
6621 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
6622 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
6623 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
6624 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
6625 "copy the way someone else dresses), <quote>He who receives an idea from me, "
6626 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
6627 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.</quote><placeholder "
6628 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6631 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6632 #: freeculture.xml:4624
6634 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
6635 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
6636 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
6637 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
6641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6642 #: freeculture.xml:4637
6644 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
6645 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
6646 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
6647 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
6648 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, "
6649 "<quote>What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,</quote> "
6650 "<citetitle>Arizona Law Review</citetitle> 45 (2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
6653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6654 #: freeculture.xml:4632
6656 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
6657 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
6658 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this "
6659 "<quote>property</quote> in its proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6663 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6664 #: freeculture.xml:4647
6666 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
6667 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of <quote>copyright material "
6668 "is property</quote> in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its "
6669 "limits? How does it function in practice? After these stories, the "
6670 "significance of this true statement—<quote>copyright material is "
6671 "property</quote>— will be a bit more clear, and its implications will "
6672 "be revealed as quite different from the implications that the copyright "
6673 "warriors would have us draw."
6676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6677 #: freeculture.xml:4660
6678 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
6681 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6682 #: freeculture.xml:4661
6686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6687 #: freeculture.xml:4662 freeculture.xml:4807
6688 msgid "Branagh, Kenneth"
6691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6692 #: freeculture.xml:4663
6693 msgid "English copyright law developed for"
6696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6697 #: freeculture.xml:4665
6699 "<emphasis role='strong'>William Shakespeare</emphasis> wrote "
6700 "<citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> in 1595. The play was first "
6701 "published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play that Shakespeare had "
6702 "written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, and the plays that "
6703 "he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture ever since. So "
6704 "deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped into our culture "
6705 "that we often don't even recognize their source. I once overheard someone "
6706 "commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: <quote>I liked it, "
6707 "but Shakespeare is so full of clichés.</quote>"
6710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6711 #: freeculture.xml:4681
6715 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6716 #: freeculture.xml:4682
6717 msgid "Dryden, John"
6720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6721 #: freeculture.xml:4681
6723 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6724 "id=\"1\"/> Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with "
6725 "prominent eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and "
6726 "for his handsome <quote>definitive editions</quote> of classic works. In "
6727 "addition to <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle>, he published an "
6728 "astonishing array of works that still remain at the heart of the English "
6729 "canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, "
6730 "and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, <quote>Jacob Tonson, Bookseller,</quote> "
6731 "<citetitle>American Scholar</citetitle> 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
6735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6736 #: freeculture.xml:4694
6738 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6739 "Perspective</citetitle> (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), "
6744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6745 #: freeculture.xml:4677
6747 "In 1774, almost 180 years after <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> was "
6748 "written, the <quote>copy-right</quote> for the work was still thought by "
6749 "many to be the exclusive right of a single London publisher, Jacob "
6750 "Tonson.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most "
6751 "prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<placeholder "
6752 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who controlled bookselling in England during "
6753 "the eighteenth century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "
6754 "<quote>copy</quote> of books that they had acquired from authors. That "
6755 "perpetual right meant that no one else could publish copies of a book to "
6756 "which they held the copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; "
6757 "competition to produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated."
6760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6761 #: freeculture.xml:4706
6762 msgid "British Parliament"
6765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6766 #: freeculture.xml:4717
6768 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely "
6769 "argues, it is erroneous to call this a <quote>copyright law.</quote> See "
6770 "Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 40."
6773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6774 #: freeculture.xml:4708
6776 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
6777 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
6778 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
6779 "<quote>copyright</quote> act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated "
6780 "that all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, "
6781 "renewable once if the author was alive, and that all works already published "
6782 "by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
6783 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, <citetitle>Romeo and "
6784 "Juliet</citetitle> should have been free in 1731. So why was there any issue "
6785 "about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?"
6788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6789 #: freeculture.xml:4724
6790 msgid "Licensing Act (1662)"
6793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6794 #: freeculture.xml:4726
6796 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "
6797 "<quote>copyright</quote> was—indeed, no one had. At the time the "
6798 "English passed the Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing "
6799 "copyrights. The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, "
6800 "had expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as "
6801 "a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published. But "
6802 "after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the publishers, "
6803 "or <quote>Stationers,</quote> had an exclusive right to print books."
6806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6807 #: freeculture.xml:4737
6809 "There was no <emphasis>positive</emphasis> law, but that didn't mean that "
6810 "there was no law. The Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words "
6811 "of legislatures and the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern "
6812 "how people are to behave. We call the words from legislatures "
6813 "<quote>positive law.</quote> We call the words from judges <quote>common "
6814 "law.</quote> The common law sets the background against which legislatures "
6815 "legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that background only if it "
6816 "passes a law to displace it. And so the real question after the licensing "
6817 "statutes had expired was whether the common law protected a copyright, "
6818 "independent of any positive law."
6822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6823 #: freeculture.xml:4749
6825 "This question was important to the publishers, or "
6826 "<quote>booksellers,</quote> as they were called, because there was growing "
6827 "competition from foreign publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were "
6828 "increasingly publishing and exporting books to England. That competition "
6829 "reduced the profits of the Conger, which reacted by demanding that "
6830 "Parliament pass a law to again give them exclusive control over "
6831 "publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in the Statute of Anne."
6834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6835 #: freeculture.xml:4761
6837 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or <quote>proprietor</quote> of a "
6838 "book an exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, "
6839 "however, and to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller "
6840 "that right for a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright "
6841 "<quote>expired,</quote> and the work would then be free and could be "
6842 "published by anyone. Or so the legislature is thought to have believed."
6845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6846 #: freeculture.xml:4770
6848 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
6849 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
6850 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right <emphasis>at "
6854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6855 #: freeculture.xml:4776
6857 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
6858 "strong claim. Take <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> as an example: "
6859 "That play was written by Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into "
6860 "the world. He didn't take anybody's property when he created this play "
6861 "(that's a controversial claim, but never mind), and by his creating this "
6862 "play, he didn't make it any harder for others to craft a play. So why is it "
6863 "that the law would ever allow someone else to come along and take "
6864 "Shakespeare's play without his, or his estate's, permission? What reason is "
6865 "there to allow someone else to <quote>steal</quote> Shakespeare's work?"
6868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6869 #: freeculture.xml:4787
6871 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
6872 "the notion of <quote>copyright</quote> that existed at the time of the "
6873 "Statute of Anne. Second, we have to see something important about "
6874 "<quote>booksellers.</quote>"
6878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6879 #: freeculture.xml:4793
6881 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
6882 "apply the concept of <quote>copyright</quote> ever more broadly. But in "
6883 "1710, it wasn't so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The "
6884 "copyright was born as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others "
6885 "from reprinting a book. In 1710, the <quote>copy-right</quote> was a right "
6886 "to use a particular machine to replicate a particular work. It did not go "
6887 "beyond that very narrow right. It did not control any more generally how a "
6888 "work could be <emphasis>used</emphasis>. Today the right includes a large "
6889 "collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It grants the author "
6890 "the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to distribute, the "
6891 "exclusive right to perform, and so on."
6894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6895 #: freeculture.xml:4809
6897 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
6898 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
6899 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
6900 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
6901 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
6902 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
6903 "<quote>copy-right</quote> was only an exclusive right to print—no "
6904 "less, of course, but also no more."
6907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6908 #: freeculture.xml:4818
6909 msgid "Henry VIII, King of England"
6912 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6913 #: freeculture.xml:4819
6914 msgid "Statute of Monopolies (1656)"
6917 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6918 #: freeculture.xml:4821
6920 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
6921 "had a long and ugly experience with <quote>exclusive rights,</quote> "
6922 "especially <quote>exclusive rights</quote> granted by the Crown. The English "
6923 "had fought a civil war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
6924 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
6925 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
6926 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
6927 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
6928 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
6929 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
6932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6933 #: freeculture.xml:4834
6935 "Thus the <quote>copy-right,</quote> when viewed as a monopoly right, was "
6936 "naturally viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the "
6937 "claim that <quote>it's my property, and I should have it forever,</quote> "
6938 "try sounding convincing when uttering, <quote>It's my monopoly, and I should "
6939 "have it forever.</quote>) The state would protect the exclusive right, but "
6940 "only so long as it benefited society. The British saw the harms from "
6941 "specialinterest favors; they passed a law to stop them."
6944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6945 #: freeculture.xml:4842
6946 msgid "booksellers, English"
6950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6951 #: freeculture.xml:4859
6953 "Philip Wittenberg, <citetitle>The Protection and Marketing of Literary "
6954 "Property</citetitle> (New York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
6957 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6958 #: freeculture.xml:4844
6960 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
6961 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
6962 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
6963 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
6964 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
6965 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
6966 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
6967 "described them as <quote>old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
6968 "book-selling</quote>; they were <quote>men who do not therefore labour in an "
6969 "honest profession to which learning is indetted.</quote><placeholder "
6970 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6974 #: freeculture.xml:4864
6976 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
6977 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
6978 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
6979 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
6980 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
6983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6984 #: freeculture.xml:4872
6986 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
6987 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
6988 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
6989 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
6990 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
6991 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
6992 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
6993 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
6997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6998 #: freeculture.xml:4884
7000 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
7001 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
7002 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
7003 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
7004 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
7005 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
7009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7010 #: freeculture.xml:4893
7012 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
7017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
7018 #: freeculture.xml:4908
7020 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
7021 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
7022 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
7023 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
7024 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
7025 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
7026 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618)."
7029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7030 #: freeculture.xml:4898
7032 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
7033 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
7034 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
7035 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
7036 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
7037 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
7038 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7042 #: freeculture.xml:4919
7044 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
7045 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
7046 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
7047 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
7048 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
7049 "already wrong to take another person's creative <quote>property</quote> and "
7050 "use it without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, "
7051 "didn't change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute "
7052 "of Anne expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: "
7053 "Under the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, "
7054 "even if its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was "
7055 "the only way to protect authors."
7058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
7059 #: freeculture.xml:4933 freeculture.xml:4941 freeculture.xml:4988
7060 msgid "Patterson, Raymond"
7063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7064 #: freeculture.xml:4941
7066 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7067 "id=\"1\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, <quote>Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair "
7068 "Use,</quote> <citetitle>Vanderbilt Law Review</citetitle> 40 (1987): 28. For "
7069 "a wonderfully compelling account, see Vaidhyanathan, 37–48."
7072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7073 #: freeculture.xml:4935
7075 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
7076 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
7077 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, <quote>The publishers "
7078 "… had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
7079 "cattle.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller "
7080 "didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the "
7081 "monopoly profit that the author's work gave."
7085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7086 #: freeculture.xml:4955
7088 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, <citetitle>Authorship and "
7089 "Copyright</citetitle> (London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
7092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7093 #: freeculture.xml:4951
7095 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
7096 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
7097 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7100 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7101 #: freeculture.xml:4959
7102 msgid "Boswell, James"
7105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7106 #: freeculture.xml:4960
7107 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
7110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7111 #: freeculture.xml:4969 freeculture.xml:15033
7115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7116 #: freeculture.xml:4967
7118 "Mark Rose, <citetitle>Authors and Owners</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard "
7119 "University Press, 1993), 92. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7124 #: freeculture.xml:4978
7128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7129 #: freeculture.xml:4962
7131 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
7132 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints "
7133 "<quote>of standard works whose copyright term had expired,</quote> at least "
7134 "under the Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
7135 "Donaldson's publishing house prospered and became <quote>something of a "
7136 "center for literary Scotsmen.</quote> <quote>[A]mong them,</quote> Professor "
7137 "Mark Rose writes, was <quote>the young James Boswell who, together with his "
7138 "friend Andrew Erskine, published an anthology of contemporary Scottish poems "
7139 "with Donaldson.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
7142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7143 #: freeculture.xml:4988
7145 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, "
7146 "<citetitle>Copyright in Historical Perspective</citetitle>, 167 (quoting "
7150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7151 #: freeculture.xml:4982
7153 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
7154 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
7155 "editions <quote>of the most popular English books, in defiance of the "
7156 "supposed common law right of Literary Property.</quote><placeholder "
7157 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to "
7158 "50 percent, and he rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under "
7159 "the Statute of Anne, the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
7162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7163 #: freeculture.xml:4997
7165 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block <quote>piracy</quote> "
7166 "like Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the "
7167 "<quote>pirates,</quote> the most important early victory being "
7168 "<citetitle>Millar</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Taylor</citetitle>."
7171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7172 #: freeculture.xml:5001
7173 msgid "Seasons, The (Thomson)"
7176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7177 #: freeculture.xml:5002
7178 msgid "Taylor, Robert"
7182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7183 #: freeculture.xml:5011
7185 "Howard B. Abrams, <quote>The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
7186 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Wayne Law "
7187 "Review</citetitle> 29 (1983): 1152."
7190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7191 #: freeculture.xml:5004
7193 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
7194 "Thomson's poem <quote>The Seasons.</quote> Millar complied with the "
7195 "requirements of the Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full "
7196 "protection of the statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor "
7197 "began printing a competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common "
7198 "law right, the Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder "
7199 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7202 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7203 #: freeculture.xml:5018
7205 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
7206 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
7207 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
7208 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
7209 "author against subsequent <quote>pirates.</quote> Mansfield's answer was "
7210 "yes: The common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without "
7211 "Millar's permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the "
7212 "booksellers a perpetual right to control the publication of any book "
7217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7218 #: freeculture.xml:5029
7220 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
7221 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
7222 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
7223 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
7224 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
7225 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
7226 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
7227 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
7228 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
7229 "the free culture that we inherited."
7232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7233 #: freeculture.xml:5044
7235 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
7236 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
7239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7240 #: freeculture.xml:5047
7241 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
7245 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7246 #: freeculture.xml:5053
7247 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
7250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7251 #: freeculture.xml:5049
7253 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
7254 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
7255 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
7256 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
7257 "decision in <citetitle>Millar</citetitle>, got an injunction against "
7258 "Donaldson. Donaldson appealed the case to the House of Lords, which "
7259 "functioned much like our own Supreme Court. In February of 1774, that body "
7260 "had the chance to interpret the meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty "
7264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7265 #: freeculture.xml:5063
7267 "As few legal cases ever do, <citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> "
7268 "v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle> drew an enormous amount of attention "
7269 "throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever rights may have "
7270 "existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated those "
7271 "rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal protection for "
7272 "an exclusive right to control publication came from that statute. Thus, they "
7273 "argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne expired, works that "
7274 "had been protected by the statute were no longer protected."
7277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7278 #: freeculture.xml:5073
7280 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
7281 "the House and voted upon first by the <quote>law lords,</quote> members of "
7282 "special legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our "
7283 "Supreme Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally "
7288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7289 #: freeculture.xml:5080
7291 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
7292 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
7293 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
7294 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
7295 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
7296 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
7300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7301 #: freeculture.xml:5098
7302 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
7305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7306 #: freeculture.xml:5099
7307 msgid "Bunyan, John"
7310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7311 #: freeculture.xml:5100
7312 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
7315 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7316 #: freeculture.xml:5101
7317 msgid "Milton, John"
7320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7321 #: freeculture.xml:5090
7323 "<quote>The public domain.</quote> Before the case of "
7324 "<citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle>, there "
7325 "was no clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a "
7326 "strong argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the "
7327 "public domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the "
7328 "legal control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
7329 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
7330 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7331 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
7332 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> "
7333 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/>"
7337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7338 #: freeculture.xml:5115
7342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7343 #: freeculture.xml:5105
7345 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
7346 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
7347 "of the <quote>pirate publishers</quote> did their work, people celebrated "
7348 "the decision in the streets. As the <citetitle>Edinburgh "
7349 "Advertiser</citetitle> reported, <quote>No private cause has so much "
7350 "engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried before the "
7351 "House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
7352 "interested.</quote> <quote>Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over "
7353 "literary property: bonfires and illuminations.</quote><placeholder "
7354 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7358 #: freeculture.xml:5119
7360 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
7361 "strong in the opposite direction. The <citetitle>Morning "
7362 "Chronicle</citetitle> reported:"
7365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7366 #: freeculture.xml:5125
7368 "By the above decision … near 200,000 pounds worth of what was "
7369 "honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property "
7370 "is now reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many "
7371 "of whom sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner "
7372 "ruined, and those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a "
7373 "competency to provide for their families now find themselves without a "
7374 "shilling to devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7380 #: freeculture.xml:5140
7382 "<quote>Ruined</quote> is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an "
7383 "exaggeration to say that the change was profound. The decision of the House "
7384 "of Lords meant that the booksellers could no longer control how culture in "
7385 "England would grow and develop. Culture in England was thereafter "
7386 "<emphasis>free</emphasis>. Not in the sense that copyrights would not be "
7387 "respected, for of course, for a limited time after a work was published, the "
7388 "bookseller had an exclusive right to control the publication of that "
7389 "book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, for even after a "
7390 "copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from someone. But "
7391 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> in the sense that the culture and its growth would "
7392 "no longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
7393 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
7394 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
7395 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
7396 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a "
7397 "<emphasis>competitive context</emphasis>, not a context in which the choices "
7398 "about what culture is available to people and how they get access to it are "
7399 "made by the few despite the wishes of the many."
7402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7403 #: freeculture.xml:5162
7405 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
7406 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
7407 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
7410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7411 #: freeculture.xml:5172
7412 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
7415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7416 #: freeculture.xml:5174
7418 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jon Else</emphasis> is a filmmaker. He is best known "
7419 "for his documentaries and has been very successful in spreading his art. He "
7420 "is also a teacher, and as a teacher myself, I envy the loyalty and "
7421 "admiration that his students feel for him. (I met, by accident, two of his "
7422 "students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
7425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7426 #: freeculture.xml:5181
7428 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
7429 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
7432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7433 #: freeculture.xml:5192 freeculture.xml:5255
7434 msgid "San Francisco Opera"
7437 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7438 #: freeculture.xml:5186
7440 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
7441 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
7442 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
7443 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
7444 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage. <placeholder "
7445 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7449 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7450 #: freeculture.xml:5195
7452 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
7453 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
7454 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
7455 "played Wagner, was <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. As Else judged it, "
7456 "this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special about "
7460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7461 #: freeculture.xml:5204
7463 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
7464 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of <citetitle>The "
7465 "Simpsons</citetitle>. For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and "
7466 "of course, to use copyrighted material you need the permission of the "
7467 "copyright owner, unless <quote>fair use</quote> or some other privilege "
7471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7472 #: freeculture.xml:5210 freeculture.xml:5218
7473 msgid "Gracie Films"
7476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7477 #: freeculture.xml:5212
7479 "Else called <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> creator Matt Groening's office "
7480 "to get permission. Groening approved the shot. The shot was a "
7481 "four-and-a-halfsecond image on a tiny television set in the corner of the "
7482 "room. How could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he "
7483 "told Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program."
7486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7487 #: freeculture.xml:5220
7489 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
7490 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
7491 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
7492 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
7493 "just confirming the permission with Fox."
7496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7497 #: freeculture.xml:5227
7499 "Then, as Else told me, <quote>two things happened. First we discovered "
7500 "… that Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least "
7501 "that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.</quote> And "
7502 "second, Fox <quote>wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to "
7503 "use this four-point-five seconds of … entirely unsolicited "
7504 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> which was in the corner of the shot.</quote>"
7507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7508 #: freeculture.xml:5234
7509 msgid "Herrera, Rebecca"
7512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7513 #: freeculture.xml:5236
7515 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
7516 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
7517 "to her, <quote>There must be some mistake here. … We're asking for "
7518 "your educational rate on this.</quote> That was the educational rate, "
7519 "Herrera told Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he "
7524 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7525 #: freeculture.xml:5244
7527 "<quote>I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,</quote> he told "
7528 "me. <quote>Yes, you have your facts straight,</quote> she said. It would "
7529 "cost $10,000 to use the clip of <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle> in the "
7530 "corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's Ring Cycle. And then, "
7531 "astonishingly, Herrera told Else, <quote>And if you quote me, I'll turn you "
7532 "over to our attorneys.</quote> As an assistant to Herrera told Else later "
7533 "on, <quote>They don't give a shit. They just want the money.</quote>"
7536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7537 #: freeculture.xml:5256
7538 msgid "Day After Trinity, The"
7541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7542 #: freeculture.xml:5258
7544 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
7545 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
7546 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
7547 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
7548 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, <citetitle>The Day "
7549 "After Trinity</citetitle>, from ten years before."
7552 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7553 #: freeculture.xml:5266
7555 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
7556 "copyright to <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. That copyright is their "
7557 "property. To use that copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the "
7558 "permission of the copyright owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of "
7559 "the <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> copyright were one of the uses "
7560 "restricted by the law, then he would need to get the permission of the "
7561 "copyright owner before he could use the work in that way. And in a free "
7562 "market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set the price for any "
7563 "use that the law says the owner gets to control."
7566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7567 #: freeculture.xml:5277
7569 "For example, <quote>public performance</quote> is a use of <citetitle>The "
7570 "Simpsons</citetitle> that the copyright owner gets to control. If you take a "
7571 "selection of favorite episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets "
7572 "to come see <quote>My Favorite <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>,</quote> then "
7573 "you need to get permission from the copyright owner. And the copyright owner "
7574 "(rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she wants—$10 or "
7575 "$1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
7579 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7580 #: freeculture.xml:5289
7582 "For an excellent argument that such use is <quote>fair use,</quote> but that "
7583 "lawyers don't permit recognition that it is <quote>fair use,</quote> see "
7584 "Richard A. Posner with William F. Patry, <quote>Fair Use and Statutory "
7585 "Reform in the Wake of <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle></quote> (draft on file "
7586 "with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August 2003."
7589 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7590 #: freeculture.xml:5286
7592 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
7593 "is <quote>fair use.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's "
7594 "use of just 4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a "
7595 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> episode is clearly a fair use of "
7596 "<citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>—and fair use does not require the "
7597 "permission of anyone."
7601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7602 #: freeculture.xml:5301
7604 "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon <quote>fair use.</quote> Here's "
7608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7609 #: freeculture.xml:5305
7611 "The <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> fiasco was for me a great lesson in the "
7612 "gulf between what lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what "
7613 "is crushingly relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make "
7614 "and broadcast documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was "
7615 "<quote>clearly fair use</quote> in an absolute legal sense. But I couldn't "
7616 "rely on the concept in any concrete way. Here's why:"
7620 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7621 #: freeculture.xml:5315
7623 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
7624 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed <quote>visual cue "
7625 "sheet</quote> listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
7626 "film. They take a dim view of <quote>fair use,</quote> and a claim of "
7627 "<quote>fair use</quote> can grind the application process to a halt."
7630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7631 #: freeculture.xml:5322
7632 msgid "<citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle>"
7635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7636 #: freeculture.xml:5323
7637 msgid "Lucas, George"
7641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7642 #: freeculture.xml:5326
7644 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
7645 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
7646 "stopping unlicensed <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> usage, just as George "
7647 "Lucas had a very high profile litigating <citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle> "
7648 "usage. So I decided to play by the book, thinking that we would be granted "
7649 "free or cheap license to four seconds of <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>. As "
7650 "a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, the last thing "
7651 "I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal trouble, and even to "
7652 "defend a principle."
7657 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7658 #: freeculture.xml:5338
7660 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
7661 "… who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox "
7662 "would <quote>depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,</quote> "
7663 "regardless of the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down "
7664 "to who had the bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
7668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7669 #: freeculture.xml:5348
7671 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
7672 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
7675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7676 #: freeculture.xml:5355
7678 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
7679 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
7680 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
7681 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
7682 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
7683 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
7686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7687 #: freeculture.xml:5363
7689 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
7690 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
7691 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
7692 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
7695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7696 #: freeculture.xml:5372
7697 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
7700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7701 #: freeculture.xml:5373
7705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
7706 #: freeculture.xml:5374 freeculture.xml:5434 freeculture.xml:5619 freeculture.xml:10087 freeculture.xml:14400
7710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7711 #: freeculture.xml:5377
7713 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1993</emphasis>, Alex Alben was a lawyer working "
7714 "at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an innovative company founded by Microsoft "
7715 "cofounder Paul Allen to develop digital entertainment. Long before the "
7716 "Internet became popular, Starwave began investing in new technology for "
7717 "delivering entertainment in anticipation of the power of networks."
7720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7721 #: freeculture.xml:5384
7722 msgid "retrospective compilations on"
7725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7726 #: freeculture.xml:5385
7727 msgid "CD-ROMs, film clips used in"
7730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7731 #: freeculture.xml:5387
7733 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
7734 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
7735 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
7736 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
7737 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
7738 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
7739 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
7742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7743 #: freeculture.xml:5397
7745 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
7746 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
7747 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
7748 "include them on the CD."
7752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7753 #: freeculture.xml:5404
7755 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
7756 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
7757 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
7758 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
7759 "permission for that content."
7762 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7763 #: freeculture.xml:5411
7765 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. <quote>Our "
7766 "goal was that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's "
7767 "films,</quote> Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. <quote>No "
7768 "one had ever really done this before,</quote> Alben explained. <quote>No one "
7769 "had ever tried to do this in the context of an artistic look at an actor's "
7773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7774 #: freeculture.xml:5419
7776 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
7777 "<quote>Well, what will it take?</quote>"
7780 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
7781 #: freeculture.xml:5433
7782 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
7785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7786 #: freeculture.xml:5429
7788 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
7789 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
7790 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden <quote>Rip, Mix, Burn</quote> "
7791 "creativity, as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7792 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7796 #: freeculture.xml:5423
7798 "Alben replied, <quote>Well, we're going to have to clear rights from "
7799 "everyone who appears in these films, and the music and everything else that "
7800 "we want to use in these film clips.</quote> Slade said, <quote>Great! Go for "
7801 "it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7805 #: freeculture.xml:5438
7807 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
7808 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
7809 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
7810 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
7811 "Starwave was to do."
7814 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7815 #: freeculture.xml:5445
7817 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
7818 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
7819 "recounted just what they did:"
7822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7823 #: freeculture.xml:5451
7825 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
7826 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
7827 "going to use the <quote>Make my day</quote> clip from <citetitle>Dirty "
7828 "Harry</citetitle>. But you then need to get the guy on the ground who's "
7829 "wiggling under the gun and you need to get his permission. And then you "
7830 "have to decide what you are going to pay him."
7834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7835 #: freeculture.xml:5460
7837 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
7838 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
7839 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
7840 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
7841 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
7842 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
7843 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
7844 "just started calling people."
7847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7848 #: freeculture.xml:5471
7849 msgid "Sutherland, Donald"
7852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7853 #: freeculture.xml:5473
7855 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
7856 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
7857 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, <quote>Hey, can I pay "
7858 "you $600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?</quote> And "
7859 "they would say, <quote>Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get "
7860 "$1,200.</quote> And some of course were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, "
7861 "in particular). But eventually, Alben and his team had cleared the rights to "
7862 "this retrospective CD-ROM on Clint Eastwood's career."
7865 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7866 #: freeculture.xml:5484
7868 "It was one <emphasis>year</emphasis> later—<quote>and even then we "
7869 "weren't sure whether we were totally in the clear.</quote>"
7872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7873 #: freeculture.xml:5488
7875 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
7876 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
7877 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
7880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7881 #: freeculture.xml:5494
7883 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
7884 "and said, <quote>Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the "
7885 "music, there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the "
7886 "actors.</quote> But we just broke it down. We just put it into its "
7887 "constituent parts and said, <quote>Okay, there's this many actors, this many "
7888 "directors, … this many musicians,</quote> and we just went at it very "
7889 "systematically and cleared the rights."
7893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7894 #: freeculture.xml:5506
7896 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
7897 "and it sold very well."
7900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7901 #: freeculture.xml:5509
7902 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
7906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7907 #: freeculture.xml:5517
7909 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, "
7910 "<citetitle>Seven Steps to Performance-Based Services "
7911 "Acquisition</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
7912 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
7915 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7916 #: freeculture.xml:5511
7918 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
7919 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
7920 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, <quote>There is "
7921 "nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
7922 "all.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I "
7923 "asked Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
7926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7927 #: freeculture.xml:5525
7929 "For, as he acknowledged, <quote>very few … have the time and "
7930 "resources, and the will to do this,</quote> and thus, very few such works "
7931 "would ever be made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of "
7932 "what anybody really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, "
7933 "that you would have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
7936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7937 #: freeculture.xml:5533
7939 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
7940 "gets paid very well. … And then when 30 seconds of that performance "
7941 "is used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I "
7942 "don't think that that person … should be compensated for that."
7945 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7946 #: freeculture.xml:5541
7948 "Or at least, is this <emphasis>how</emphasis> the artist should be "
7949 "compensated? Would it make sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of "
7950 "statutory license that someone could pay and be free to make derivative use "
7951 "of clips like this? Did it really make sense that a follow-on creator would "
7952 "have to track down every artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit "
7953 "permission from each? Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of "
7954 "the creative process could be made to be more clean?"
7958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7959 #: freeculture.xml:5552
7961 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
7962 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
7963 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
7964 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
7965 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
7966 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
7967 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
7968 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
7969 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
7970 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
7971 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
7972 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, <quote>Oh, "
7973 "I want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
7974 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for "
7975 "money,</quote> then it becomes difficult to put one of these things "
7979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7980 #: freeculture.xml:5572
7982 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
7983 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
7984 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
7985 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
7986 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high?"
7989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7990 #: freeculture.xml:5581
7992 "These costs are the burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat "
7993 "for a moment, and get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of "
7994 "these rights, and the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost "
7995 "to negotiate them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and "
7996 "imagine the pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from "
7997 "Los Angeles to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made "
7998 "sense; but as circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, "
7999 "a well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights "
8000 "and ask, <quote>Does this still make sense?</quote>"
8004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8005 #: freeculture.xml:5594
8007 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
8008 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
8009 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
8010 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
8011 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
8012 "Fairbank, had produced."
8015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8016 #: freeculture.xml:5604
8018 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
8019 "century, all framed around the idea of a <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> "
8020 "episode. The execution was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The "
8021 "judges loved every minute of it."
8024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8025 #: freeculture.xml:5609
8026 msgid "Nimmer, David"
8029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8030 #: freeculture.xml:5611
8032 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
8033 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
8034 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
8035 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
8036 "question: <quote>Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in "
8037 "this room?</quote>"
8040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8041 #: freeculture.xml:5618
8042 msgid "Boies, David"
8045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8046 #: freeculture.xml:5621
8048 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
8049 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
8050 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
8051 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
8052 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
8053 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
8054 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
8055 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
8056 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
8057 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
8058 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
8059 "couldn't easily do them legally."
8062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8063 #: freeculture.xml:5636
8065 "We live in a <quote>cut and paste</quote> culture enabled by "
8066 "technology. Anyone building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom "
8067 "that the cut and paste architecture of the Internet created—in a "
8068 "second you can find just about any image you want; in another second, you "
8069 "can have it planted in your presentation."
8072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8073 #: freeculture.xml:5642
8078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8079 #: freeculture.xml:5644
8081 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
8082 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
8083 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
8084 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
8085 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
8086 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
8087 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
8091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8092 #: freeculture.xml:5655
8094 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
8095 "to be <quote>legal,</quote> the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
8096 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
8097 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
8098 "rules, it doesn't get released."
8101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8102 #: freeculture.xml:5662
8104 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
8105 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
8106 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
8107 "the <quote>free</quote> use be free as in <quote>free beer.</quote> Instead, "
8108 "the system could simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate "
8109 "artists without requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for "
8110 "example, that says <quote>the royalty owed the copyright owner of an "
8111 "unregistered work for the derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 "
8112 "percent of net revenues, to be held in escrow for the copyright "
8113 "owner.</quote> Under this rule, the copyright owner could benefit from some "
8114 "royalty, but he would not have the benefit of a full property right (meaning "
8115 "the right to name his own price) unless he registers the work."
8118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8119 #: freeculture.xml:5677
8121 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
8122 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
8123 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
8124 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
8128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8129 #: freeculture.xml:5683
8131 "<emphasis role='strong'>In February 2003</emphasis>, DreamWorks studios "
8132 "announced an agreement with Mike Myers, the comic genius of "
8133 "<citetitle>Saturday Night Live</citetitle> and Austin Powers. According to "
8134 "the announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work together to form a "
8135 "<quote>unique filmmaking pact.</quote> Under the agreement, DreamWorks "
8136 "<quote>will acquire the rights to existing motion picture hits and classics, "
8137 "write new storylines and—with the use of stateof-the-art digital "
8138 "technology—insert Myers and other actors into the film, thereby "
8139 "creating an entirely new piece of entertainment.</quote>"
8142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8143 #: freeculture.xml:5696
8145 "The announcement called this <quote>film sampling.</quote> As Myers "
8146 "explained, <quote>Film Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin "
8147 "on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap "
8148 "artists have been doing this for years with music and now we are able to "
8149 "take that same concept and apply it to film.</quote> Steven Spielberg is "
8150 "quoted as saying, <quote>If anyone can create a way to bring old films to "
8151 "new audiences, it is Mike.</quote>"
8154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8155 #: freeculture.xml:5705
8157 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
8158 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
8159 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
8160 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
8161 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
8162 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
8163 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
8164 "famous—and presumably rich."
8167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8168 #: freeculture.xml:5715
8170 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
8171 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of <quote>fair "
8172 "use.</quote> Much of <quote>sampling</quote> should be considered "
8173 "<quote>fair use.</quote> But few would rely upon so weak a doctrine to "
8174 "create. That leads to the second reason that the privilege is reserved for "
8175 "the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights for the creative reuse of "
8176 "content are astronomically high. These costs mirror the costs with fair "
8177 "use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair use rights or pay a lawyer "
8178 "to track down permissions so you don't have to rely upon fair use "
8179 "rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of paying "
8180 "lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the few."
8183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8184 #: freeculture.xml:5730
8185 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
8188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8189 #: freeculture.xml:5731 freeculture.xml:8885 freeculture.xml:11106 freeculture.xml:11351
8190 msgid "archives, digital"
8193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8194 #: freeculture.xml:5732 freeculture.xml:8184
8198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8199 #: freeculture.xml:5734
8201 "<emphasis role='strong'>In April 1996</emphasis>, millions of "
8202 "<quote>bots</quote>—computer codes designed to <quote>spider,</quote> "
8203 "or automatically search the Internet and copy content—began running "
8204 "across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied Internet-based information "
8205 "onto a small set of computers located in a basement in San Francisco's "
8206 "Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of the Internet, they started "
8207 "again. Over and over again, once every two months, these bits of code took "
8208 "copies of the Internet and stored them."
8211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8212 #: freeculture.xml:5744 freeculture.xml:5775 freeculture.xml:5837
8213 msgid "Way Back Machine"
8216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8217 #: freeculture.xml:5746
8219 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
8220 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
8221 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
8222 "technology called <quote>the Way Back Machine,</quote> you could enter a Web "
8223 "page, and see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those "
8227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8228 #: freeculture.xml:5753
8229 msgid "Orwell, George"
8232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8233 #: freeculture.xml:5755
8235 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
8236 "the dystopia described in <citetitle>1984</citetitle>, old newspapers were "
8237 "constantly updated to assure that the current view of the world, approved of "
8238 "by the government, was not contradicted by previous news reports."
8242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8243 #: freeculture.xml:5763
8245 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
8246 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
8247 "printed on the date published on the paper."
8250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8251 #: freeculture.xml:5768
8253 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
8254 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
8255 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
8256 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
8257 "updated, without any reliable memory."
8260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8261 #: freeculture.xml:5784
8262 msgid "White House press releases"
8265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8266 #: freeculture.xml:5783
8268 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8269 "id=\"1\"/> The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the "
8270 "White House changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, "
8271 "press release stated, <quote>Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.</quote> "
8272 "That was later changed, without notice, to <quote>Major Combat Operations in "
8273 "Iraq Have Ended.</quote> E-mail from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
8276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8277 #: freeculture.xml:5777
8279 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
8280 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
8281 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
8282 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
8283 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8287 #: freeculture.xml:5792
8288 msgid "history, records of"
8291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8292 #: freeculture.xml:5794
8294 "<emphasis role='strong'>We take it</emphasis> for granted that we can go "
8295 "back to see what we remember reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted "
8296 "to study the reaction of your hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts "
8297 "in 1965, or to Bull Connor's water cannon in 1963, you could go to your "
8298 "public library and look at the newspapers. Those papers probably exist on "
8299 "microfiche. If you're lucky, they exist in paper, too. Either way, you are "
8300 "free, using a library, to go back and remember—not just what it is "
8301 "convenient to remember, but remember something close to the truth."
8304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8305 #: freeculture.xml:5805
8307 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
8308 "it. That's not quite correct. We <emphasis>all</emphasis> forget "
8309 "history. The key is whether we have a way to go back to rediscover what we "
8310 "forget. More directly, the key is whether an objective past can keep us "
8311 "honest. Libraries help do that, by collecting content and keeping it, for "
8312 "schoolchildren, for researchers, for grandma. A free society presumes this "
8317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8318 #: freeculture.xml:5814
8320 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
8321 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
8322 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
8323 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
8324 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
8325 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
8326 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
8329 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8330 #: freeculture.xml:5825
8332 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
8333 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
8334 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
8335 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
8336 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
8337 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
8338 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
8339 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
8342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8343 #: freeculture.xml:5834 freeculture.xml:5889
8344 msgid "Library of Congress"
8347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8348 #: freeculture.xml:5835
8349 msgid "Television Archive"
8352 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8353 #: freeculture.xml:5836
8354 msgid "Vanderbilt University"
8357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8358 #: freeculture.xml:5838
8362 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8363 #: freeculture.xml:5838
8364 msgid "archival function of"
8367 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8368 #: freeculture.xml:5841
8370 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
8371 "history. At the end of 2002, it held <quote>two hundred and thirty terabytes "
8372 "of material</quote>—and was <quote>ten times larger than the Library "
8373 "of Congress.</quote> And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle "
8374 "set out to build. In addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been "
8375 "constructing the Television Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more "
8376 "ephemeral than the Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was "
8377 "constructed through television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is "
8378 "available for anyone to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each "
8379 "evening by Vanderbilt University—thanks to a specific exemption in the "
8380 "copyright law. That content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a "
8381 "very low fee. <quote>But other than that, [television] is almost "
8382 "unavailable,</quote> Kahle told me. <quote>If you were Barbara Walters you "
8383 "could get access to [the archives], but if you are just a graduate "
8384 "student?</quote> As Kahle put it,"
8387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8388 #: freeculture.xml:5858
8392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8393 #: freeculture.xml:5859
8398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8399 #: freeculture.xml:5861
8401 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
8402 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
8403 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
8404 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
8405 "between the two, the <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> episode that came out "
8406 "after it … it would be almost impossible. … Those materials "
8407 "are almost unfindable. …"
8410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8411 #: freeculture.xml:5872
8415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8416 #: freeculture.xml:5872
8420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8421 #: freeculture.xml:5874
8423 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
8424 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
8425 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
8426 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
8427 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
8428 "media on twentieth-century America?"
8431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8432 #: freeculture.xml:5882
8434 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
8435 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
8436 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
8437 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
8438 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
8441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8442 #: freeculture.xml:5890 freeculture.xml:5934
8447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8448 #: freeculture.xml:5901
8450 "Doug Herrick, <quote>Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at "
8451 "the Library of Congress,</quote> <citetitle>Film Library "
8452 "Quarterly</citetitle> 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; Anthony Slide, "
8453 "<citetitle>Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United "
8454 "States</citetitle> ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
8457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8458 #: freeculture.xml:5892
8460 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
8461 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
8462 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
8463 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
8464 "more than 5,475 films deposited and <quote>borrowed back.</quote> Thus, when "
8465 "the copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The "
8466 "copy exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the "
8467 "film company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8471 #: freeculture.xml:5909
8473 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
8474 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
8475 "so there was no fear of <quote>theft.</quote> But as technology enabled "
8476 "capturing, broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required "
8477 "they make a copy of each broadcast for the work to be "
8478 "<quote>copyrighted.</quote> But those copies were simply kept by the "
8479 "broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't demand "
8480 "them. The content of this part of American culture is practically invisible "
8481 "to anyone who would look."
8485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8486 #: freeculture.xml:5921
8488 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
8489 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
8490 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
8491 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
8492 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
8493 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
8494 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
8497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8498 #: freeculture.xml:5931
8499 msgid "Movie Archive"
8502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8503 #: freeculture.xml:5932
8507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8508 #: freeculture.xml:5932 freeculture.xml:5935
8509 msgid "Internet Archive"
8512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8513 #: freeculture.xml:5936
8514 msgid "Duck and Cover film"
8517 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8518 #: freeculture.xml:5937
8519 msgid "ephemeral films"
8522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8523 #: freeculture.xml:5938
8524 msgid "Prelinger, Rick"
8527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8528 #: freeculture.xml:5940
8530 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
8531 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 <quote>ephemeral films</quote> "
8532 "(meaning films other than Hollywood movies, films that were never "
8533 "copyrighted), Kahle established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle "
8534 "digitize 1,300 films in this archive and post those films on the Internet to "
8535 "be downloaded for free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies "
8536 "of these films as stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he "
8537 "made a significant chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
8538 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
8539 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
8540 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
8541 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
8542 "<quote>Duck and Cover</quote> film that instructed children how to save "
8543 "themselves in the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can "
8544 "download the film in a few minutes—for free."
8547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8548 #: freeculture.xml:5958
8550 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
8551 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
8552 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
8553 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
8554 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
8557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8558 #: freeculture.xml:5966
8560 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
8561 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
8562 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
8563 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
8564 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
8568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8569 #: freeculture.xml:5974
8571 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
8572 "creative property goes through different <quote>lives.</quote> In its first "
8573 "life, if the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the "
8574 "commercial market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of "
8575 "creative property doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For "
8576 "that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this "
8577 "commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
8580 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8581 #: freeculture.xml:5986
8583 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
8584 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
8585 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
8586 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
8587 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
8588 "even if that information is no longer sold."
8591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8592 #: freeculture.xml:5999
8594 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Dave Barns, <quote>Fledgling "
8595 "Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter "
8596 "by Adopting Business,</quote> <citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 5 "
8597 "September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, "
8598 "only 2.2 percent were in print in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, <quote>The First "
8599 "Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
8600 "College Law Review</citetitle> 44 (2003): 593 n. 51."
8603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8604 #: freeculture.xml:5996
8606 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
8607 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
8608 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
8609 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
8610 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
8611 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
8612 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
8615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8616 #: freeculture.xml:6014
8618 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
8619 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
8620 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
8621 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
8622 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
8623 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
8624 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
8625 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
8629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8630 #: freeculture.xml:6025
8632 "<emphasis role='strong'>For most of</emphasis> the twentieth century, it was "
8633 "economics that made this so. It would have been insanely expensive to "
8634 "collect and make accessible all television and film and music: The cost of "
8635 "analog copies is extraordinarily high. So even though the law in principle "
8636 "would have restricted the ability of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture "
8637 "generally, the real restriction was economics. The market made it impossibly "
8638 "difficult to do anything about this ephemeral culture; the law had little "
8642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8643 #: freeculture.xml:6037
8645 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
8646 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
8647 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
8648 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
8649 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
8650 "moving images and sound."
8653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8654 #: freeculture.xml:6045
8656 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
8657 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
8658 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
8662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><secondary>
8663 #: freeculture.xml:6051
8664 msgid "total number of"
8667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8668 #: freeculture.xml:6053
8670 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
8671 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
8672 "… and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the "
8673 "twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of "
8674 "books. All of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and "
8675 "be able to be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in "
8676 "our history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
8677 "different life, based on this, is … thrilling. It could be one of the "
8678 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
8679 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
8684 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8685 #: freeculture.xml:6068
8687 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
8688 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
8689 "libraries or archives could be. <emphasis>When</emphasis> the commercial "
8690 "life of creative property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it "
8691 "does, Kahle and his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and "
8692 "culture, remains perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand "
8693 "it; some to criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create "
8694 "the past for the future. These technologies promise something that had "
8695 "become unimaginable for much of our past—a future "
8696 "<emphasis>for</emphasis> our past. The technology of digital arts could make "
8697 "the dream of the Library of Alexandria real again."
8700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8701 #: freeculture.xml:6083
8703 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
8704 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
8705 "these <quote>archives,</quote> as warm as the idea of a "
8706 "<quote>library</quote> might seem, the <quote>content</quote> that is "
8707 "collected in these digital spaces is also someone's <quote>property.</quote> "
8708 "And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and others would "
8712 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8713 #: freeculture.xml:6094
8714 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: <quote>Property</quote>"
8717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8718 #: freeculture.xml:6095
8719 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
8722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8723 #: freeculture.xml:6096 freeculture.xml:9843
8724 msgid "Kennedy, John F."
8727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8728 #: freeculture.xml:6098
8730 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jack Valenti</emphasis> has been the president of "
8731 "the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966. He first came to "
8732 "Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's administration—literally. The "
8733 "famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in on Air Force One after the "
8734 "assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in the background. In his "
8735 "almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has established himself as "
8736 "perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in Washington."
8739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8740 #: freeculture.xml:6108
8741 msgid "Sony Pictures Entertainment"
8744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8745 #: freeculture.xml:6109
8749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8750 #: freeculture.xml:6110
8751 msgid "Paramount Pictures"
8754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8755 #: freeculture.xml:6111
8756 msgid "Twentieth Century Fox"
8759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8760 #: freeculture.xml:6112
8761 msgid "Universal Pictures"
8764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8765 #: freeculture.xml:6113 freeculture.xml:7555 freeculture.xml:7726
8766 msgid "Warner Brothers"
8769 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8770 #: freeculture.xml:6115
8772 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
8773 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
8774 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
8775 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
8776 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
8777 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
8778 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
8779 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
8780 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers."
8784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8785 #: freeculture.xml:6128
8787 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
8788 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
8789 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
8790 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
8791 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
8792 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
8793 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
8794 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
8795 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
8798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8799 #: freeculture.xml:6140
8801 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
8802 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
8803 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
8804 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
8805 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
8806 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of "
8807 "<quote>creative property.</quote>"
8810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8811 #: freeculture.xml:6149
8812 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
8816 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
8817 #: freeculture.xml:6163
8819 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
8820 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
8821 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
8822 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
8823 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
8826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8827 #: freeculture.xml:6154
8829 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
8830 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
8831 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
8832 "animates this entire debate: <emphasis>Creative property owners must be "
8833 "accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property "
8834 "owners in the nation</emphasis>. That is the issue. That is the "
8835 "question. And that is the rostrum on which this entire hearing and the "
8836 "debates to follow must rest.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8841 #: freeculture.xml:6173
8843 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
8844 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
8845 "<quote>central theme</quote> to which <quote>reasonable men and "
8846 "women</quote> will return is this: <quote>Creative property owners must be "
8847 "accorded the same rights and protections resident in all other property "
8848 "owners in the nation.</quote> There are no second-class citizens, Valenti "
8849 "might have continued. There should be no second-class property owners."
8852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8853 #: freeculture.xml:6184
8855 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
8856 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
8857 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
8858 "made by <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> who is serious in this debate than this "
8859 "claim of Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is "
8860 "perhaps the nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and "
8861 "scope of <quote>creative property.</quote> His views have "
8862 "<emphasis>no</emphasis> reasonable connection to our actual legal tradition, "
8863 "even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly redefined that "
8864 "tradition, at least in Washington."
8868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8869 #: freeculture.xml:6199
8871 "Lawyers speak of <quote>property</quote> not as an absolute thing, but as a "
8872 "bundle of rights that are sometimes associated with a particular "
8873 "object. Thus, my <quote>property right</quote> to my car gives me the right "
8874 "to exclusive use, but not the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the "
8875 "best effort to connect the ordinary meaning of <quote>property</quote> to "
8876 "<quote>lawyer talk,</quote> see Bruce Ackerman, <citetitle>Private Property "
8877 "and the Constitution</citetitle> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), "
8881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8882 #: freeculture.xml:6196
8884 "While <quote>creative property</quote> is certainly <quote>property</quote> "
8885 "in a nerdy and precise sense that lawyers are trained to "
8886 "understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it has never been the "
8887 "case, nor should it be, that <quote>creative property owners</quote> have "
8888 "been <quote>accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other "
8889 "property owners.</quote> Indeed, if creative property owners were given the "
8890 "same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a radical, and "
8891 "radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
8894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8895 #: freeculture.xml:6214
8897 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
8898 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
8899 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
8900 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
8901 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
8905 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8906 #: freeculture.xml:6222
8908 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
8909 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
8910 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
8911 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
8912 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
8913 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
8914 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
8915 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
8916 "creativity having less than perfect control."
8919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8920 #: freeculture.xml:6237
8922 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
8923 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
8924 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
8925 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
8926 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
8927 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
8931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8932 #: freeculture.xml:6246
8934 "<emphasis role='strong'>To get</emphasis> just a hint that there is "
8935 "something fundamentally wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further "
8936 "than the United States Constitution itself."
8939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8940 #: freeculture.xml:6251
8942 "The framers of our Constitution loved <quote>property.</quote> Indeed, so "
8943 "strongly did they love property that they built into the Constitution an "
8944 "important requirement. If the government takes your property—if it "
8945 "condemns your house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is "
8946 "required, under the Fifth Amendment's <quote>Takings Clause,</quote> to pay "
8947 "you <quote>just compensation</quote> for that taking. The Constitution thus "
8948 "guarantees that property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot "
8949 "<emphasis>ever</emphasis> be taken from the property owner unless the "
8950 "government pays for the privilege."
8954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8955 #: freeculture.xml:6262
8957 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
8958 "calls <quote>creative property.</quote> In the clause granting Congress the "
8959 "power to create <quote>creative property,</quote> the Constitution "
8960 "<emphasis>requires</emphasis> that after a <quote>limited time,</quote> "
8961 "Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set the "
8962 "<quote>creative property</quote> free to the public domain. Yet when "
8963 "Congress does this, when the expiration of a copyright term "
8964 "<quote>takes</quote> your copyright and turns it over to the public domain, "
8965 "Congress does not have any obligation to pay <quote>just "
8966 "compensation</quote> for this <quote>taking.</quote> Instead, the same "
8967 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
8968 "your <quote>creative property</quote> right without any compensation at all."
8971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8972 #: freeculture.xml:6277
8974 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
8975 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
8976 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
8977 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
8978 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
8979 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
8982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8983 #: freeculture.xml:6286
8985 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
8986 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
8987 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
8988 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
8989 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
8990 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
8991 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
8992 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
8993 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
8996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8997 #: freeculture.xml:6298
8999 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
9000 "try to understand <emphasis>why</emphasis>. Why did the framers, fanatical "
9001 "property types that they were, reject the claim that creative property be "
9002 "given the same rights as all other property? Why did they require that for "
9003 "creative property there must be a public domain?"
9006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9007 #: freeculture.xml:6306
9009 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
9010 "these <quote>creative property</quote> rights, and the control that they "
9011 "enabled. Once we see clearly how differently these rights have been "
9012 "defined, we will be in a better position to ask the question that should be "
9013 "at the core of this war: Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> creative property "
9014 "should be protected, but how. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> we will "
9015 "enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but what the "
9016 "particular mix of rights ought to be. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> "
9017 "artists should be paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that "
9018 "artists get paid need also control how culture develops."
9022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9023 #: freeculture.xml:6321
9025 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
9026 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
9027 "narrow language of the law allows. In <citetitle>Code and Other Laws of "
9028 "Cyberspace</citetitle>, I used a simple model to capture this more general "
9029 "perspective. For any particular right or regulation, this model asks how "
9030 "four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the "
9031 "right or regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
9034 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9035 #: freeculture.xml:6330
9037 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
9038 "the right or regulation."
9041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9042 #: freeculture.xml:6331 freeculture.xml:6515 freeculture.xml:6822
9043 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.png\"></graphic>"
9046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9047 #: freeculture.xml:6334
9049 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
9050 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
9051 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
9052 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
9053 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
9054 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
9055 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
9056 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
9057 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
9058 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
9059 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
9060 "by the state. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9064 #: freeculture.xml:6350 freeculture.xml:6409 freeculture.xml:6518
9065 msgid "norms, regulatory influence of"
9068 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9069 #: freeculture.xml:6352
9071 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
9072 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
9073 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
9074 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
9075 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
9076 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
9077 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
9078 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
9081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9082 #: freeculture.xml:6362 freeculture.xml:6408 freeculture.xml:6498 freeculture.xml:6517 freeculture.xml:9468 freeculture.xml:9667
9083 msgid "market constraints"
9086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9087 #: freeculture.xml:6364
9089 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
9090 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
9091 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
9092 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
9093 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
9094 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
9095 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
9098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9099 #: freeculture.xml:6373 freeculture.xml:6407 freeculture.xml:6456 freeculture.xml:6497
9100 msgid "architecture, constraint effected through"
9103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9104 #: freeculture.xml:6375
9106 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
9107 "<quote>architecture</quote>—the physical world as one finds "
9108 "it—is a constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your "
9109 "ability to get across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability "
9110 "of a community to integrate its social life. As with the market, "
9111 "architecture does not effect its constraint through ex post "
9112 "punishments. Instead, also as with the market, architecture effects its "
9113 "constraint through simultaneous conditions. These conditions are imposed not "
9114 "by courts enforcing contracts, or by police punishing theft, but by nature, "
9115 "by <quote>architecture.</quote> If a 500-pound boulder blocks your way, it "
9116 "is the law of gravity that enforces this constraint. If a $500 airplane "
9117 "ticket stands between you and a flight to New York, it is the market that "
9118 "enforces this constraint."
9122 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9123 #: freeculture.xml:6392
9125 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
9126 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
9127 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
9130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9131 #: freeculture.xml:6398
9133 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
9134 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
9135 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
9136 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
9137 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
9138 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
9139 "particular interact."
9142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9143 #: freeculture.xml:6406
9144 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
9147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9148 #: freeculture.xml:6411
9150 "So, for example, consider the <quote>freedom</quote> to drive a car at a "
9151 "high speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that "
9152 "say how fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is "
9153 "in part restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most "
9154 "rational drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum "
9155 "rate at which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the "
9156 "market: Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
9157 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
9158 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
9159 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
9160 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
9164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9165 #: freeculture.xml:6429
9167 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
9168 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
9169 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
9170 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
9171 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>Code: And Other "
9172 "Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle> (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; "
9173 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>The New Chicago School,</quote> <citetitle>Journal "
9174 "of Legal Studies</citetitle>, June 1998."
9178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9179 #: freeculture.xml:6425
9181 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
9182 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
9183 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
9184 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
9185 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
9186 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
9187 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
9188 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
9189 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
9190 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
9191 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
9195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9196 #: freeculture.xml:6453
9197 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
9200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
9201 #: freeculture.xml:6454
9202 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.png\"></graphic>"
9205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9206 #: freeculture.xml:6495
9207 msgid "Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)"
9210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9211 #: freeculture.xml:6496
9212 msgid "Commons, John R."
9215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9216 #: freeculture.xml:6466
9218 "Some people object to this way of talking about <quote>liberty.</quote> They "
9219 "object because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at "
9220 "any particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the "
9221 "government. For instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think "
9222 "it is meaningless to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge "
9223 "has washed out, and it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk "
9224 "about this as a loss of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of "
9225 "politics with the vagaries of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value "
9226 "in this narrower view, which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, "
9227 "however, mean to argue against any insistence that this narrower view is the "
9228 "only proper view of liberty. As I argued in <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, we "
9229 "come from a long tradition of political thought with a broader focus than "
9230 "the narrow question of what the government did when. John Stuart Mill "
9231 "defended freedom of speech, for example, from the tyranny of narrow minds, "
9232 "not from the fear of government prosecution; John Stuart Mill, <citetitle>On "
9233 "Liberty</citetitle> (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. John "
9234 "R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from constraints "
9235 "imposed by the market; John R. Commons, <quote>The Right to Work,</quote> in "
9236 "Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., <citetitle>John R. Commons: "
9237 "Selected Essays</citetitle> (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans "
9238 "with Disabilities Act increases the liberty of people with physical "
9239 "disabilities by changing the architecture of certain public places, thereby "
9240 "making access to those places easier; 42 <citetitle>United States "
9241 "Code</citetitle>, section 12101 (2000). Each of these interventions to "
9242 "change existing conditions changes the liberty of a particular group. The "
9243 "effect of those interventions should be accounted for in order to understand "
9244 "the effective liberty that each of these groups might face. <placeholder "
9245 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
9246 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
9250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9251 #: freeculture.xml:6458
9253 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
9254 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
9255 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
9256 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
9257 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9262 #: freeculture.xml:6502
9263 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
9266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9267 #: freeculture.xml:6504
9269 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
9270 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
9271 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
9275 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9276 #: freeculture.xml:6510
9277 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
9280 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9281 #: freeculture.xml:6514 freeculture.xml:6821
9282 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
9286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9287 #: freeculture.xml:6521
9289 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
9290 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
9291 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
9292 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
9293 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
9294 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
9295 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
9296 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
9297 "this form of infringement."
9300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9301 #: freeculture.xml:6533
9303 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
9304 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
9305 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
9306 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
9307 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
9308 "of anarchy after the Internet."
9312 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9313 #: freeculture.xml:6541
9315 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
9316 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
9317 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
9318 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
9319 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
9323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9324 #: freeculture.xml:6551
9325 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
9328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9329 #: freeculture.xml:6552
9330 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.png\"></graphic>"
9333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9334 #: freeculture.xml:6555
9336 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
9337 "warriors. Indeed, in a <quote>White Paper</quote> prepared by the Commerce "
9338 "Department (one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this "
9339 "mix of regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
9340 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
9341 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
9342 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
9343 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
9344 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
9347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9348 #: freeculture.xml:6566
9349 msgid "steel industry"
9353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9354 #: freeculture.xml:6568
9356 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
9357 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
9358 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
9359 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
9360 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
9361 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
9362 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
9363 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
9364 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
9365 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
9366 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
9367 "U.S. steel industry."
9370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9371 #: freeculture.xml:6585
9373 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
9374 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
9375 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
9376 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
9377 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
9378 "<quote>architecture of revenue.</quote>"
9381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9382 #: freeculture.xml:6592
9383 msgid "railroad industry"
9387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9388 #: freeculture.xml:6604
9390 "See Geoffrey Smith, <quote>Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a "
9391 "Bridge?</quote> BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
9392 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
9393 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, "
9394 "<quote>Can Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?</quote> Forbes.com, 6 October "
9395 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
9399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9400 #: freeculture.xml:6596
9402 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
9403 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
9404 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
9405 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
9406 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
9407 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
9408 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
9409 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
9410 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
9411 "trucks from roads <emphasis>for the purpose of</emphasis> protecting the "
9412 "railroads? Closer to the subject of this book, remote channel changers have "
9413 "weakened the <quote>stickiness</quote> of television advertising (if a "
9414 "boring commercial comes on the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf ), and "
9415 "it may well be that this change has weakened the television advertising "
9416 "market. But does anyone believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce "
9417 "commercial television? (Maybe by limiting them to function only once a "
9418 "second, or to switch to only ten channels within an hour?)"
9421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
9422 #: freeculture.xml:6625 freeculture.xml:14976
9423 msgid "Brezhnev, Leonid"
9426 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9427 #: freeculture.xml:6626 freeculture.xml:13212
9432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9433 #: freeculture.xml:6638
9435 "Fred Warshofsky, <citetitle>The Patent Wars</citetitle> (New York: Wiley, "
9436 "1994), 170–71."
9439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9440 #: freeculture.xml:6628
9442 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
9443 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
9444 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
9445 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
9446 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
9447 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
9448 "patents, <quote>established companies have an interest in excluding future "
9449 "competitors.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative "
9450 "to a startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
9451 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
9452 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
9453 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
9454 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev."
9457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9458 #: freeculture.xml:6649
9460 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
9461 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
9462 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
9463 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
9464 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
9465 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
9466 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
9469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9470 #: freeculture.xml:6659
9472 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
9473 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
9474 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
9475 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
9476 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
9477 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
9478 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
9479 "Constitution: <quote>Congress shall make no law … abridging the "
9480 "freedom of speech.</quote> So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that "
9481 "would <quote>abridge</quote> the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
9482 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
9486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9487 #: freeculture.xml:6673
9489 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
9490 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are "
9491 "<quote>justified.</quote> My argument is about their effect. For before we "
9492 "get to the question of justification, a hard question that depends a great "
9493 "deal upon your values, we should first ask whether we understand the effect "
9494 "of the changes the content industry wants."
9497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9498 #: freeculture.xml:6682
9499 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
9502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9503 #: freeculture.xml:6684
9507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9508 #: freeculture.xml:6685
9509 msgid "Müller, Paul Hermann"
9512 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9513 #: freeculture.xml:6687
9515 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
9516 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
9517 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
9518 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
9519 "increase farm production."
9522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9523 #: freeculture.xml:6694
9525 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
9526 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
9527 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
9530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9531 #: freeculture.xml:6698
9532 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
9535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9536 #: freeculture.xml:6699
9537 msgid "Silent Sprint (Carson)"
9540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9541 #: freeculture.xml:6701
9543 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published <citetitle>Silent Spring</citetitle>, "
9544 "which argued that DDT, whatever its primary benefits, was also having "
9545 "unintended environmental consequences. Birds were losing the ability to "
9546 "reproduce. Whole chains of the ecology were being destroyed."
9549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9550 #: freeculture.xml:6707
9552 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
9553 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
9554 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
9555 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
9556 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
9557 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
9561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9562 #: freeculture.xml:6715
9563 msgid "Boyle, James"
9567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9568 #: freeculture.xml:6721
9570 "See, for example, James Boyle, <quote>A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
9571 "Environmentalism for the Net?</quote> <citetitle>Duke Law "
9572 "Journal</citetitle> 47 (1997): 87."
9576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9577 #: freeculture.xml:6717
9579 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
9580 "appeals when he argues that we need an <quote>environmentalism</quote> for "
9581 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
9582 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
9583 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
9584 "that music should be given away <quote>for free.</quote> The point is that "
9585 "some of the ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended "
9586 "consequences for the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural "
9587 "environment. And just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria "
9588 "or an attack on farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of "
9589 "regulations protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack "
9590 "on authors. It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should "
9591 "be aware of our actions' effects on the environment."
9594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9595 #: freeculture.xml:6738
9597 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
9598 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
9599 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
9600 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
9601 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
9602 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
9603 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
9604 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
9608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9609 #: freeculture.xml:6749
9611 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
9612 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
9615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9616 #: freeculture.xml:6756
9620 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9621 #: freeculture.xml:6758
9623 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
9624 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of <quote>creative "
9625 "property</quote> rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English "
9626 "aim to avoid overly powerful publishers."
9629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9630 #: freeculture.xml:6764
9632 "The power to establish <quote>creative property</quote> rights is granted to "
9633 "Congress in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article "
9634 "I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
9638 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9639 #: freeculture.xml:6769
9641 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
9642 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
9643 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
9644 "<quote>Progress Clause,</quote> for notice what this clause does not say. It "
9645 "does not say Congress has the power to grant <quote>creative property "
9646 "rights.</quote> It says that Congress has the power <emphasis>to promote "
9647 "progress</emphasis>. The grant of power is its purpose, and its purpose is a "
9648 "public one, not the purpose of enriching publishers, nor even primarily the "
9649 "purpose of rewarding authors."
9652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9653 #: freeculture.xml:6782
9655 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
9656 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"founders\"/>, the "
9657 "English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a few would not "
9658 "exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
9659 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
9660 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
9661 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend <quote>to "
9662 "Authors</quote> only."
9665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9666 #: freeculture.xml:6792
9668 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
9669 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
9670 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
9671 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
9672 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
9673 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
9674 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
9675 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
9676 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
9677 "select the president. In each case, a <emphasis>structure</emphasis> built "
9678 "checks and balances into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent "
9679 "otherwise inevitable concentrations of power."
9682 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9683 #: freeculture.xml:6807
9685 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call "
9686 "<quote>copyright</quote> today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond "
9687 "anything they ever considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need "
9688 "to put our <quote>copyright</quote> in context: We need to see how it has "
9689 "changed in the 210 years since they first struck its design."
9693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9694 #: freeculture.xml:6814
9696 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
9697 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
9698 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
9701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9702 #: freeculture.xml:6825
9703 msgid "We will end here:"
9706 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9707 #: freeculture.xml:6828
9708 msgid "<quote>Copyright</quote> today."
9711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9712 #: freeculture.xml:6829
9713 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.png\"></graphic>"
9717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9718 #: freeculture.xml:6832
9719 msgid "Let me explain how."
9722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9723 #: freeculture.xml:6837
9724 msgid "Law: Duration"
9727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9728 #: freeculture.xml:6853
9729 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
9732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9733 #: freeculture.xml:6847
9735 "William W. Crosskey, <citetitle>Politics and the Constitution in the History "
9736 "of the United States</citetitle> (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), "
9737 "vol. 1, 485–86: <quote>extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the "
9738 "supreme Law of the Land,' <emphasis>the perpetual rights which authors had, "
9739 "or were supposed by some to have, under the Common Law</emphasis></quote> "
9740 "(emphasis added). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9744 #: freeculture.xml:6839
9746 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
9747 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
9748 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
9749 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
9750 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
9751 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
9752 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
9753 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
9754 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
9755 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
9756 "to reprint and distribute works."
9759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9760 #: freeculture.xml:6863
9762 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
9763 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
9764 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
9765 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
9766 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
9770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9771 #: freeculture.xml:6871
9773 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
9774 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
9775 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
9776 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
9777 "work passed into the public domain."
9781 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9782 #: freeculture.xml:6886
9784 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
9785 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, <citetitle>A "
9786 "History of Book Publishing in the United States</citetitle>, vol. 1, "
9787 "<citetitle>The Creation of an Industry, 1630–1865</citetitle> (New "
9788 "York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints recorded before 1790, only "
9789 "twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; William J. Maher, "
9790 "<citetitle>Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright Law of "
9791 "1790 in Historical Context</citetitle>, 7–10 (2002), available at "
9792 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
9793 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
9794 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
9795 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
9796 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
9797 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
9800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9801 #: freeculture.xml:6878
9803 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
9804 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
9805 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
9806 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
9807 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
9808 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
9809 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9814 #: freeculture.xml:6902
9816 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
9817 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
9818 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
9819 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
9820 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
9824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9825 #: freeculture.xml:6917
9827 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
9828 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
9829 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
9830 "<quote>Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Studies on "
9831 "Copyright</citetitle>, vol. 1 (New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), "
9832 "618. For a more recent and comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and "
9833 "Richard A. Posner, <quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> "
9834 "<citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 471, "
9835 "498–501, and accompanying figures."
9838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9839 #: freeculture.xml:6911
9841 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
9842 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
9843 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
9844 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9850 #: freeculture.xml:6934
9851 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
9854 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9855 #: freeculture.xml:6930
9857 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
9858 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
9859 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
9860 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
9861 "books are no longer <emphasis>effectively</emphasis> controlled by "
9862 "copyright. The only practical commercial use of the books at that time is to "
9863 "sell the books as used books; that use—because it does not involve "
9864 "publication—is effectively free."
9867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9868 #: freeculture.xml:6942
9870 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
9871 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
9872 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
9873 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
9874 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
9875 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
9878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9879 #: freeculture.xml:6950
9881 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
9882 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
9883 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
9884 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
9885 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
9886 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
9887 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
9888 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
9892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9893 #: freeculture.xml:6960
9895 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
9896 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
9897 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
9898 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
9899 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
9900 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
9904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9905 #: freeculture.xml:6971
9907 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
9908 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
9909 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
9910 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
9911 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
9912 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
9913 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
9916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9917 #: freeculture.xml:6981
9919 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
9920 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
9921 "term. For <quote>natural</quote> authors, that term was life plus fifty "
9922 "years. For corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, "
9923 "Congress abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before "
9924 "1978. All works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term "
9925 "then available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
9928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9929 #: freeculture.xml:6991
9931 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
9932 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
9933 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
9934 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
9935 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be "
9936 "<quote>limited,</quote> we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
9940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9941 #: freeculture.xml:7008
9943 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
9944 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
9945 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
9946 "<quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> loc. cit."
9949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9950 #: freeculture.xml:7000
9952 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
9953 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
9954 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
9955 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
9956 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
9957 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
9958 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9962 #: freeculture.xml:7017
9966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9967 #: freeculture.xml:7019
9969 "The <quote>scope</quote> of a copyright is the range of rights granted by "
9970 "the law. The scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those "
9971 "changes are not necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the "
9972 "changes if we're to keep this debate in context."
9975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9976 #: freeculture.xml:7025
9978 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only <quote>maps, "
9979 "charts, and books.</quote> That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
9980 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
9981 "author the exclusive right to <quote>publish</quote> copyrighted works. That "
9982 "means someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work "
9983 "without the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a "
9984 "copyright was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not "
9985 "extend to what lawyers call <quote>derivative works.</quote> It would not, "
9986 "therefore, interfere with the right of someone other than the author to "
9987 "translate a copyrighted book, or to adapt the story to a different form "
9988 "(such as a drama based on a published book)."
9991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9992 #: freeculture.xml:7038
9994 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
9995 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
9996 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
9997 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
9998 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
9999 "<quote>publish</quote> the work, but also the exclusive right of control "
10000 "over any <quote>copies</quote> of that work. And most significant for our "
10001 "purposes here, the right gives the copyright owner control over not only his "
10002 "or her particular work, but also any <quote>derivative work</quote> that "
10003 "might grow out of the original work. In this way, the right covers more "
10004 "creative work, protects the creative work more broadly, and protects works "
10005 "that are based in a significant way on the initial creative work."
10009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10010 #: freeculture.xml:7053
10012 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
10013 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
10014 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
10015 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
10016 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
10017 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
10018 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
10019 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis>. And for most of the history of American "
10020 "copyright law, there was a requirement that works be deposited with the "
10021 "government before a copyright could be secured."
10024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10025 #: freeculture.xml:7067
10027 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
10028 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
10029 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
10030 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
10031 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
10032 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
10033 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
10034 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
10035 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
10036 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
10040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10041 #: freeculture.xml:7081
10043 "All of these <quote>formalities</quote> were abolished in the American "
10044 "system when we decided to follow European copyright law. There is no "
10045 "requirement that you register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now "
10046 "is automatic; the copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a "
10047 "©; and the copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy "
10048 "available for others to copy."
10051 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10052 #: freeculture.xml:7089
10053 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
10057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10058 #: freeculture.xml:7100
10060 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, <quote>Poets, Pirates, and the "
10061 "Creation of American Literature,</quote> 29 <citetitle>New York University "
10062 "Journal of International Law and Politics</citetitle> 255 (1997), and James "
10063 "Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, 1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., "
10067 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10068 #: freeculture.xml:7093
10070 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
10071 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
10072 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
10073 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
10074 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
10075 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
10076 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
10077 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
10081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10082 #: freeculture.xml:7112
10084 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
10085 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
10086 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
10087 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
10088 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
10089 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
10092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10093 #: freeculture.xml:7121
10095 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
10096 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
10097 "note to your spouse, every doodle, <emphasis>every</emphasis> creative act "
10098 "that's reduced to a tangible form—all of this is automatically "
10099 "copyrighted. There is no need to register or mark your work. The protection "
10100 "follows the creation, not the steps you take to protect it."
10103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10104 #: freeculture.xml:7130
10106 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
10107 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
10108 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
10111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10112 #: freeculture.xml:7135
10114 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
10115 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
10116 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of <quote>derivative "
10117 "rights.</quote> If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your "
10118 "book without permission. No one can translate it without permission. "
10119 "CliffsNotes can't make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of "
10120 "these derivative uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright "
10121 "holder. The copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to "
10122 "your writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large "
10123 "proportion of the writings inspired by them."
10126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10127 #: freeculture.xml:7149
10129 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
10130 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
10131 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
10132 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
10133 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
10134 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
10135 "the verbatim original work."
10138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10139 #: freeculture.xml:7171
10141 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>The Copyright Cage,</quote> <citetitle>Legal "
10142 "Affairs</citetitle>, July/August 2003, available at <ulink "
10143 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>. <placeholder "
10144 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10148 #: freeculture.xml:7161
10150 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
10151 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
10152 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
10153 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
10154 "work. But whatever <emphasis>that</emphasis> wrong is, transforming someone "
10155 "else's work is a different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at "
10156 "all—they believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not "
10157 "protect derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10158 "Whether or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is "
10159 "involved is fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
10162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10163 #: freeculture.xml:7193
10164 msgid "Rubenfeld, Jeb"
10167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10168 #: freeculture.xml:7186
10170 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
10171 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
10172 "First Amendment) between mere <quote>copies</quote> and derivative "
10173 "works. See Jed Rubenfeld, <quote>The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's "
10174 "Constitutionality,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 112 "
10175 "(2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59). <placeholder "
10176 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10180 #: freeculture.xml:7181
10182 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
10183 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
10184 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
10185 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
10186 "my creative work are treated the same."
10189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10190 #: freeculture.xml:7200
10192 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
10193 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
10194 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called "
10195 "<quote>Mickey Mouse,</quote> why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse "
10196 "toys and be the one to trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
10199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10200 #: freeculture.xml:7208
10202 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
10203 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
10204 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
10205 "originally granted."
10208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10209 #: freeculture.xml:7215
10210 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
10214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10215 #: freeculture.xml:7222
10217 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
10218 "regulates more than <quote>copies</quote>—a public performance of a "
10219 "copyrighted song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se "
10220 "doesn't make a copy; 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section "
10221 "106(4). And it certainly sometimes doesn't regulate a <quote>copy</quote>; "
10222 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 112(a). But the "
10223 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates <quote>copies;</quote> "
10224 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 102) is that if there "
10225 "is a copy, there is a right."
10228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10229 #: freeculture.xml:7217
10231 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
10232 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
10233 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
10234 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
10235 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10240 #: freeculture.xml:7234
10242 "<quote>Copies.</quote> That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for "
10243 "<emphasis>copy</emphasis>right law to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's "
10244 "argument at the start of this chapter, that <quote>creative property</quote> "
10245 "deserves the <quote>same rights</quote> as all other property, it is the "
10246 "<emphasis>obvious</emphasis> that we need to be most careful about. For "
10247 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
10248 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
10249 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should <emphasis>not</emphasis> "
10250 "be the trigger for copyright law. More precisely, they should not "
10251 "<emphasis>always</emphasis> be the trigger for copyright law."
10255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10256 #: freeculture.xml:7252
10258 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
10259 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
10260 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
10261 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
10264 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10265 #: freeculture.xml:7247
10267 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
10268 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
10269 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
10270 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10271 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
10272 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
10276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10277 #: freeculture.xml:7263
10279 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
10283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10284 #: freeculture.xml:7267
10285 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
10288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10289 #: freeculture.xml:7268
10290 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.png\"></graphic>"
10293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10294 #: freeculture.xml:7270
10295 msgid "three types of uses of"
10298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10299 #: freeculture.xml:7271
10300 msgid "copies as core issue of"
10303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10304 #: freeculture.xml:7272
10305 msgid "copyright applicability altered by technology of"
10308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10309 #: freeculture.xml:7273
10313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10314 #: freeculture.xml:7273
10315 msgid "copyright intent altered by"
10319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10320 #: freeculture.xml:7278
10322 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
10323 "its potential <emphasis>uses</emphasis>. Most of these uses are unregulated "
10324 "by copyright law, because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, "
10325 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, "
10326 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act "
10327 "is not regulated (copyright law expressly states that after the first sale "
10328 "of a book, the copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the "
10329 "disposition of the book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a "
10330 "lamp or let your puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright "
10331 "law, because those acts do not make a copy."
10334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10335 #: freeculture.xml:7291
10336 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
10339 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10340 #: freeculture.xml:7292
10341 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.png\"></graphic>"
10344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10345 #: freeculture.xml:7295
10347 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
10348 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
10349 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
10350 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
10351 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
10352 "diagram on next page)."
10355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10356 #: freeculture.xml:7305
10358 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
10359 "remain unregulated because the law considers these <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10362 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10363 #: freeculture.xml:7310
10365 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
10366 "copyrighted work."
10369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10370 #: freeculture.xml:7311
10371 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\"></graphic>"
10374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10375 #: freeculture.xml:7314
10377 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
10378 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
10379 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
10380 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
10381 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
10382 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
10383 "over such <quote>fair uses</quote> for public policy (and possibly First "
10384 "Amendment) reasons."
10387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10388 #: freeculture.xml:7324
10389 msgid "Unregulated copying considered <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10393 #: freeculture.xml:7325
10394 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\"></graphic>"
10397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10398 #: freeculture.xml:7329
10400 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
10404 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10405 #: freeculture.xml:7330
10406 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\"></graphic>"
10410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10411 #: freeculture.xml:7334
10413 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
10414 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
10415 "are nonetheless deemed <quote>fair</quote> regardless of the copyright "
10419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10420 #: freeculture.xml:7339 freeculture.xml:7373 freeculture.xml:7589
10421 msgid "on Internet"
10425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10426 #: freeculture.xml:7344
10428 "I don't mean <quote>nature</quote> in the sense that it couldn't be "
10429 "different, but rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical "
10430 "networks need not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital "
10431 "network could be designed to delete anything it copies so that the same "
10432 "number of copies remain."
10435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10436 #: freeculture.xml:7341
10438 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
10439 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10440 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
10441 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
10442 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
10443 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
10444 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
10445 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
10446 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
10447 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
10448 "burden of this shift."
10452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10453 #: freeculture.xml:7362
10455 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
10456 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
10457 "plausible <emphasis>copyright</emphasis>-related argument that the copyright "
10458 "owner could make to control that use of her book. Copyright law would have "
10459 "nothing to say about whether you read the book once, ten times, or every "
10460 "night before you went to bed. None of those instances of "
10461 "use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because none of "
10462 "those uses produced a copy."
10465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10466 #: freeculture.xml:7374
10467 msgid "technological developments and"
10470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10471 #: freeculture.xml:7376
10473 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
10474 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
10475 "only once a month, then <emphasis>copyright law</emphasis> would aid the "
10476 "copyright owner in exercising this degree of control, because of the "
10477 "accidental feature of copyright law that triggers its application upon there "
10478 "being a copy. Now if you read the book ten times and the license says you "
10479 "may read it only five times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion "
10480 "of it) beyond the fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to "
10481 "the copyright owner's wish."
10484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10485 #: freeculture.xml:7388
10487 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
10488 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
10489 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
10493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10494 #: freeculture.xml:7394
10496 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
10497 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
10498 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
10499 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
10500 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
10504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10505 #: freeculture.xml:7403
10507 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
10508 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
10509 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate "
10510 "<emphasis>any</emphasis> transformation you make of creative work using a "
10511 "machine. <quote>Copy and paste</quote> and <quote>cut and paste</quote> "
10512 "become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others exposes the "
10513 "tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However troubling the "
10514 "expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is extraordinarily "
10515 "troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative work."
10519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10520 #: freeculture.xml:7415
10522 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
10523 "on category 3 (<quote>fair use</quote>) that fair use never before had to "
10524 "bear. If a copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read "
10525 "a book on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a "
10526 "violation of my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation "
10527 "about whether I have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, "
10528 "reading did not trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need "
10529 "for a fair use defense. The right to read was effectively protected before "
10530 "because reading was not regulated."
10533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10534 #: freeculture.xml:7434
10536 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
10537 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
10538 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
10539 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
10540 "when the vast majority of uses are <emphasis>unregulated</emphasis>. But "
10541 "when everything becomes presumptively regulated, then the protections of "
10542 "fair use are not enough."
10545 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10546 #: freeculture.xml:7445
10548 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
10549 "business of making <quote>trailer</quote> advertisements for movies "
10550 "available to video stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way "
10551 "to sell videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, "
10552 "put the trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
10555 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
10556 #: freeculture.xml:7451 freeculture.xml:7511 freeculture.xml:13563
10560 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10561 #: freeculture.xml:7453
10563 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
10564 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
10565 "idea was to expand their <quote>selling by sampling</quote> technique by "
10566 "giving on-line stores the same ability to enable <quote>browsing.</quote> "
10567 "Just as in a bookstore you can read a few pages of a book before you buy the "
10568 "book, so, too, you would be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line "
10569 "before you bought it."
10573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10574 #: freeculture.xml:7462
10576 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
10577 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
10578 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
10579 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
10580 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
10581 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
10582 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
10583 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
10584 "was within their <quote>fair use</quote> rights to distribute the clips as "
10585 "they had. So they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these "
10586 "rights were in fact their rights."
10589 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10590 #: freeculture.xml:7477
10592 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
10593 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had <quote>willfully "
10594 "infringed</quote> on Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of "
10595 "willful infringement, it can award damages not on the basis of the actual "
10596 "harm to the copyright owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the "
10597 "statute. Because Video Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of "
10598 "Disney movies to enable video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney "
10599 "was now suing Video Pipeline for $100 million."
10602 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10603 #: freeculture.xml:7487
10605 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
10606 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
10607 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
10608 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
10609 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
10610 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
10611 "Disney's permission."
10614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10615 #: freeculture.xml:7497
10617 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
10618 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
10619 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
10620 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
10621 "<quote>first-sale doctrine</quote> would free the seller to use the video as "
10622 "he wished, including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of "
10623 "the entire movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for "
10624 "Disney to centralize control over access to this content. Because each use "
10625 "of the Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
10626 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
10627 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
10630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10631 #: freeculture.xml:7510
10632 msgid "Barnes & Noble"
10636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10637 #: freeculture.xml:7514
10639 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
10640 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
10641 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
10642 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
10643 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
10644 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
10645 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
10646 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
10647 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
10648 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
10649 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
10650 "are quite slight."
10653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10654 #: freeculture.xml:7529
10656 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
10657 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
10658 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
10659 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
10660 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
10661 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
10664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10665 #: freeculture.xml:7538
10666 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
10669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10670 #: freeculture.xml:7540
10672 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
10673 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
10674 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
10675 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
10678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10679 #: freeculture.xml:7546
10681 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
10682 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
10683 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
10684 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
10685 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
10688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10689 #: freeculture.xml:7553
10693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10694 #: freeculture.xml:7554 freeculture.xml:7725
10695 msgid "Marx Brothers"
10699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10700 #: freeculture.xml:7565
10702 "See David Lange, <quote>Recognizing the Public Domain,</quote> "
10703 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 44 (1981): "
10707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10708 #: freeculture.xml:7557
10710 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
10711 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of "
10712 "<citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>. Warner Brothers objected. They wrote a "
10713 "nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them that there would be serious legal "
10714 "consequences if they went forward with their plan.<placeholder "
10715 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10719 #: freeculture.xml:7574
10721 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, "
10722 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 1–3."
10725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10726 #: freeculture.xml:7570
10728 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
10729 "that the Marx Brothers <quote>were brothers long before you "
10730 "were.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers "
10731 "therefore owned the word <citetitle>brothers</citetitle>, and if Warner "
10732 "Brothers insisted on trying to control <citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>, "
10733 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over "
10734 "<citetitle>brothers</citetitle>."
10737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10738 #: freeculture.xml:7584
10740 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
10741 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
10742 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
10743 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
10746 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10747 #: freeculture.xml:7591
10749 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
10750 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
10751 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
10752 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
10753 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
10754 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
10755 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
10758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10759 #: freeculture.xml:7603
10760 msgid "Adobe eBook Reader"
10763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10764 #: freeculture.xml:7605
10765 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10769 #: freeculture.xml:7608
10771 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
10772 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
10773 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
10774 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
10777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10778 #: freeculture.xml:7615
10779 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10784 #: freeculture.xml:7619
10786 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
10787 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
10788 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, for example, is in the public domain. "
10789 "Some of them reproduce content that is not in the public domain: My own book "
10790 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> is not yet within the public "
10791 "domain. Consider <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> first. If you click on "
10792 "my e-book copy of <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, you'll see a fancy "
10793 "cover, and then a button at the bottom called Permissions."
10796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10797 #: freeculture.xml:7632
10798 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
10801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10802 #: freeculture.xml:7633
10803 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\"></graphic>"
10806 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10807 #: freeculture.xml:7636
10809 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
10810 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
10813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10814 #: freeculture.xml:7640
10815 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
10818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10819 #: freeculture.xml:7641
10820 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\"></graphic>"
10824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10825 #: freeculture.xml:7645
10827 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
10828 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
10829 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
10830 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
10831 "button to hear <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> read aloud through the "
10835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10836 #: freeculture.xml:7652
10840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10841 #: freeculture.xml:7653
10842 msgid "<citetitle>Politics</citetitle>, (Aristotle)"
10845 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10846 #: freeculture.xml:7655
10848 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
10849 "translation): Aristotle's <citetitle>Politics</citetitle>."
10852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10853 #: freeculture.xml:7659
10854 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>"
10857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10858 #: freeculture.xml:7660
10859 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\"></graphic>"
10862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10863 #: freeculture.xml:7663
10865 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
10866 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
10869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10870 #: freeculture.xml:7668
10871 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>."
10874 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10875 #: freeculture.xml:7669
10876 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\"></graphic>"
10879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10880 #: freeculture.xml:7671
10881 msgid "Future of Ideas, The (Lessig)"
10884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10885 #: freeculture.xml:7672
10886 msgid "Lessig, Lawrence"
10889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10890 #: freeculture.xml:7674
10892 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
10893 "e-book version of my last book, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>:"
10896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10897 #: freeculture.xml:7680
10898 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>The Future of Ideas</quote>."
10901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10902 #: freeculture.xml:7681
10903 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\"></graphic>"
10906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10907 #: freeculture.xml:7684
10908 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
10912 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10913 #: freeculture.xml:7694
10915 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
10916 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
10917 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
10918 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
10919 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
10920 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
10923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10924 #: freeculture.xml:7687
10926 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls "
10927 "<quote>permissions</quote>— as if the publisher has the power to "
10928 "control how you use these works. For works under copyright, the copyright "
10929 "owner certainly does have the power—up to the limits of the copyright "
10930 "law. But for work not under copyright, there is no such copyright "
10931 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of "
10932 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> says I have the permission to copy only "
10933 "ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means "
10934 "is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the "
10935 "book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable."
10938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10939 #: freeculture.xml:7709
10941 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
10942 "which the e-book <quote>lives.</quote> Though the e-book says that these are "
10943 "permissions, they are not the sort of <quote>permissions</quote> that most "
10944 "of us deal with. When a teenager gets <quote>permission</quote> to stay out "
10945 "till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out "
10946 "till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the "
10947 "Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text "
10948 "into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the "
10949 "computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: "
10950 "After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the "
10951 "same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud "
10952 "button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if "
10953 "you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine "
10954 "simply won't read aloud."
10958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10959 #: freeculture.xml:7729
10961 "These are <emphasis>controls</emphasis>, not permissions. Imagine a world "
10962 "where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried "
10963 "to type <quote>Warner Brothers,</quote> erased <quote>Brothers</quote> from "
10967 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10968 #: freeculture.xml:7735
10970 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright "
10971 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> as copyright <emphasis>code</emphasis>. The "
10972 "controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by "
10973 "courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded "
10974 "by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are "
10975 "always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the "
10976 "technology have no similar built-in check."
10979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10980 #: freeculture.xml:7744
10982 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
10983 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
10984 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
10985 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
10989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10990 #: freeculture.xml:7751
10992 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
10996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10997 #: freeculture.xml:7754
10998 msgid "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)"
11001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11002 #: freeculture.xml:7755
11003 msgid "e-book restrictions on"
11006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11007 #: freeculture.xml:7757
11009 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
11010 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
11011 "Adobe site was a copy of <citetitle>Alice's Adventures in "
11012 "Wonderland</citetitle>. This wonderful book is in the public domain. Yet "
11013 "when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the following report:"
11016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11017 #: freeculture.xml:7765
11018 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</quote>."
11021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11022 #: freeculture.xml:7767
11023 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\"></graphic>"
11026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11027 #: freeculture.xml:7771
11029 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
11030 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the "
11031 "<quote>permissions</quote> indicated, not allowed to <quote>read "
11035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11036 #: freeculture.xml:7776
11038 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
11039 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
11040 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
11041 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
11042 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
11046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11047 #: freeculture.xml:7784
11049 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
11050 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
11051 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
11052 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
11053 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
11054 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
11055 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
11056 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
11057 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
11058 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
11061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11062 #: freeculture.xml:7799
11064 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
11065 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
11066 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
11067 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
11068 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
11071 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11072 #: freeculture.xml:7809
11074 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
11075 "of mine that makes the same point."
11078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11079 #: freeculture.xml:7812 freeculture.xml:7956 freeculture.xml:8021 freeculture.xml:8129
11080 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
11083 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11084 #: freeculture.xml:7813 freeculture.xml:7957 freeculture.xml:8022 freeculture.xml:8130
11085 msgid "robotic dog"
11088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11089 #: freeculture.xml:7814 freeculture.xml:7958 freeculture.xml:8023 freeculture.xml:8131
11093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11094 #: freeculture.xml:7814 freeculture.xml:7958 freeculture.xml:8023 freeculture.xml:8131
11095 msgid "Aibo robotic dog produced by"
11098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11099 #: freeculture.xml:7816
11101 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named <quote>Aibo.</quote> The Aibo "
11102 "learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and "
11103 "that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
11107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11108 #: freeculture.xml:7821
11110 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
11111 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
11112 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set up aibopet.com "
11113 "(and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site), and on that site he "
11114 "provided information about how to teach an Aibo to do tricks in addition to "
11115 "the ones Sony had taught it."
11118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11119 #: freeculture.xml:7830
11121 "<quote>Teach</quote> here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute "
11122 "computers. You teach a computer how to do something by programming it "
11123 "differently. So to say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to "
11124 "teach the dog to do new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving "
11125 "information to users of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer "
11126 "<quote>dog</quote> to make it do new tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
11129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11130 #: freeculture.xml:7837
11134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11135 #: freeculture.xml:7839
11137 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word "
11138 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> has a particularly unfriendly "
11139 "connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror "
11140 "movies do even worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, "
11141 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> is a much more positive "
11142 "term. <citetitle>Hack</citetitle> just means code that enables the program "
11143 "to do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy a "
11144 "new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer doesn't "
11145 "run, or <quote>drive,</quote> the printer. If you discovered that, you'd "
11146 "later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a "
11147 "driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought."
11150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11151 #: freeculture.xml:7853
11153 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
11154 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
11155 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11156 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
11160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11161 #: freeculture.xml:7860
11163 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
11164 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
11165 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
11166 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
11171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11172 #: freeculture.xml:7870
11174 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
11175 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
11176 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
11177 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
11178 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
11179 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
11180 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
11181 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
11182 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, <emphasis>What possible problem could "
11183 "there be with teaching a robot dog to dance?</emphasis>"
11186 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
11187 #: freeculture.xml:7885
11188 msgid "government case against"
11191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11192 #: freeculture.xml:7887
11194 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
11195 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
11196 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
11197 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
11198 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
11199 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
11200 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
11201 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
11205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11206 #: freeculture.xml:7910 freeculture.xml:10399
11207 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
11210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11211 #: freeculture.xml:7900
11213 "See Pamela Samuelson, <quote>Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to "
11214 "Science,</quote> <citetitle>Science</citetitle> 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan "
11215 "I. Koerner, <quote>Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog "
11216 "New Tricks,</quote> <citetitle>American Prospect</citetitle>, January 2002; "
11217 "<quote>Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,</quote> "
11218 "<citetitle>Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter</citetitle>, 11 "
11219 "December 2001; Bill Holland, <quote>Copyright Act Raising Free-Speech "
11220 "Concerns,</quote> <citetitle>Billboard</citetitle>, May 2001; Janelle Brown, "
11221 "<quote>Is the RIAA Running Scared?</quote> Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic "
11222 "Frontier Foundation, <quote>Frequently Asked Questions about "
11223 "<citetitle>Felten and USENIX</citetitle> v. <citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> "
11224 "Legal Case,</quote> available at <ulink "
11225 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #27</ulink>. <placeholder "
11226 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11230 #: freeculture.xml:7898
11232 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
11233 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
11234 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
11235 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
11236 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
11239 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11240 #: freeculture.xml:7918
11242 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
11243 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
11244 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
11245 "standard that would allow the content owner to say <quote>this music cannot "
11246 "be copied,</quote> and have a computer respect that command. The technology "
11247 "was to be part of a <quote>trusted system</quote> of control that would get "
11248 "content owners to trust the system of the Internet much more."
11251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11252 #: freeculture.xml:7928
11254 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
11255 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
11256 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
11257 "problems to the consortium."
11261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11262 #: freeculture.xml:7935
11264 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
11265 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
11266 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
11267 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
11270 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11271 #: freeculture.xml:7941
11273 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
11274 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
11275 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
11276 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
11277 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
11278 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
11281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11282 #: freeculture.xml:7949
11284 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
11285 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
11286 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
11287 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
11288 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
11291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11292 #: freeculture.xml:7960
11294 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
11295 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
11296 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
11299 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11300 #: freeculture.xml:7967
11302 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
11303 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
11304 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
11307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11308 #: freeculture.xml:7976
11310 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
11311 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
11312 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
11316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11317 #: freeculture.xml:7982
11319 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
11320 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
11321 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
11322 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<quote>DMCA</quote>)."
11325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11326 #: freeculture.xml:7990
11328 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
11329 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
11330 "information an offense."
11333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11334 #: freeculture.xml:7995
11336 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
11337 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
11338 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
11339 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
11340 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
11341 "were designed as <emphasis>code</emphasis> to modify the original "
11342 "<emphasis>code</emphasis> of the Internet, to reestablish some protection "
11343 "for copyright owners."
11346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11347 #: freeculture.xml:8006
11349 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
11350 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, "
11351 "<emphasis>legal code</emphasis> intended to buttress <emphasis>software "
11352 "code</emphasis> which itself was intended to support the <emphasis>legal "
11353 "code of copyright</emphasis>."
11356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11357 #: freeculture.xml:8013
11359 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
11360 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
11361 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
11362 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
11363 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
11364 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
11368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11369 #: freeculture.xml:8025
11371 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
11372 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
11373 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
11374 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
11375 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
11376 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
11377 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
11378 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
11379 "system was circumvented."
11382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11383 #: freeculture.xml:8037
11385 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
11386 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
11387 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
11388 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
11389 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
11390 "others to infringe others' copyright."
11393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11394 #: freeculture.xml:8044 freeculture.xml:8079
11395 msgid "Rogers, Fred"
11398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11399 #: freeculture.xml:8055 freeculture.xml:8092 freeculture.xml:8118
11400 msgid "Conrad, Paul"
11403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11404 #: freeculture.xml:8047
11406 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
11407 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
11408 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
11409 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
11410 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
11411 "<quote><citetitle>Mr. Rogers</citetitle>,</quote> for example, had testified "
11412 "in that case that he wanted people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' "
11413 "Neighborhood. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11417 #: freeculture.xml:8074
11419 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <citetitle>Sony Corporation of "
11420 "America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>., "
11421 "464 U.S. 417, 455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the "
11422 "VCR. See James Lardner, <citetitle>Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, "
11423 "and the Onslaught of the VCR</citetitle> (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), "
11424 "270–71. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
11427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11428 #: freeculture.xml:8059
11430 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
11431 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> at hours when some children cannot use it. I "
11432 "think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such "
11433 "programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with "
11434 "the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "
11435 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "
11436 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> because that's what I produce, that they then "
11437 "become much more active in the programming of their family's television "
11438 "life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My "
11439 "whole approach in broadcasting has always been <quote>You are an important "
11440 "person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.</quote> Maybe "
11441 "I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to "
11442 "be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is "
11443 "important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11448 #: freeculture.xml:8085
11450 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
11451 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
11455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11456 #: freeculture.xml:8090
11458 "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA. "
11459 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11463 #: freeculture.xml:8095
11464 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
11467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11468 #: freeculture.xml:8098
11470 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
11471 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
11472 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
11473 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
11474 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
11475 "use—a good end."
11478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11479 #: freeculture.xml:8105
11484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11485 #: freeculture.xml:8107
11487 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
11488 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
11489 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
11490 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
11493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11494 #: freeculture.xml:8115
11495 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
11498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11499 #: freeculture.xml:8116
11500 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\"></graphic>"
11503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11504 #: freeculture.xml:8120
11506 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
11507 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
11508 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: <emphasis>No one ever died from copyright "
11509 "circumvention</emphasis>. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies "
11510 "absolutely, despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits "
11511 "guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do."
11514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11515 #: freeculture.xml:8133
11517 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
11518 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
11519 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
11520 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
11521 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
11525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11526 #: freeculture.xml:8141
11528 "This is how <emphasis>code</emphasis> becomes <emphasis>law</emphasis>. The "
11529 "controls built into the technology of copy and access protection become "
11530 "rules the violation of which is also a violation of the law. In this way, "
11531 "the code extends the law—increasing its regulation, even if the "
11532 "subject it regulates (activities that would otherwise plainly constitute "
11533 "fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code becomes law; code extends the "
11534 "law; code thus extends the control that copyright owners effect—at "
11535 "least for those copyright holders with the lawyers who can write the nasty "
11536 "letters that Felten and aibopet.com received."
11539 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11540 #: freeculture.xml:8153
11542 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
11543 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
11544 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
11545 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
11546 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
11547 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
11548 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
11549 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
11550 "violate the rules."
11554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11555 #: freeculture.xml:8172
11557 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, <quote>Legal "
11558 "Fictions, Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,</quote> "
11559 "<citetitle>Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal</citetitle> 17 "
11563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11564 #: freeculture.xml:8166
11566 "For example, imagine you were part of a <citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> fan "
11567 "club. You gathered every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of "
11568 "fan fiction about the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain "
11569 "Kirk. The characters would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply "
11570 "continue it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11574 #: freeculture.xml:8178
11576 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
11577 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
11578 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
11579 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
11580 "wished without fear of legal control."
11583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11584 #: freeculture.xml:8186
11586 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
11587 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
11588 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
11589 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
11590 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
11591 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
11592 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
11596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11597 #: freeculture.xml:8196
11599 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
11600 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
11601 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
11602 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
11603 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
11604 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
11607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
11608 #: freeculture.xml:8205
11609 msgid "Market: Concentration"
11613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11614 #: freeculture.xml:8207
11616 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
11617 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
11618 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
11619 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
11620 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
11621 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
11622 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
11623 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
11624 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
11625 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
11626 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
11627 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
11628 "to copyright's control."
11631 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11632 #: freeculture.xml:8225
11634 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
11635 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
11636 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
11637 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
11638 "about all the other changes I have described."
11641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11642 #: freeculture.xml:8232
11644 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
11645 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
11646 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
11647 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
11648 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
11649 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
11650 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
11651 "three companies control more than percent of the media."
11654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11655 #: freeculture.xml:8243
11656 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
11659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11660 #: freeculture.xml:8247
11664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11665 #: freeculture.xml:8248 freeculture.xml:9592
11669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11670 #: freeculture.xml:8249
11671 msgid "McCain, John"
11674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11675 #: freeculture.xml:8250 freeculture.xml:9593
11676 msgid "Universal Music Group"
11679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11680 #: freeculture.xml:8251
11681 msgid "Warner Music Group"
11685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11686 #: freeculture.xml:8257
11688 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
11689 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
11690 "of Senator John McCain)."
11694 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11695 #: freeculture.xml:8264
11697 "Lynette Holloway, <quote>Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to "
11698 "Slide,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 23 December 2002."
11702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11703 #: freeculture.xml:8270
11705 "Molly Ivins, <quote>Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,</quote> "
11706 "<citetitle>Charleston Gazette</citetitle>, 31 May 2003."
11709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11710 #: freeculture.xml:8253
11712 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
11713 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, "
11714 "<quote>five companies control 85 percent of our media "
11715 "sources.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording "
11716 "labels of Universal Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music "
11717 "Group, and EMI control 84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder "
11718 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The <quote>five largest cable companies pipe "
11719 "programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers "
11720 "nationwide.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
11724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11725 #: freeculture.xml:8275
11727 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
11728 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
11729 "seventy-five stations. Today <emphasis>one</emphasis> company owns more than "
11730 "1,200 stations. During that period of consolidation, the total number of "
11731 "radio owners dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest "
11732 "broadcasters control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just "
11733 "four companies control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising "
11737 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11738 #: freeculture.xml:8287
11740 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
11741 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
11742 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
11743 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
11744 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
11745 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
11746 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
11747 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
11751 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11752 #: freeculture.xml:8301 freeculture.xml:8318
11753 msgid "Fallows, James"
11756 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11757 #: freeculture.xml:8298
11759 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
11760 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
11761 "article about Rupert Murdoch, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11765 #: freeculture.xml:8316
11767 "James Fallows, <quote>The Age of Murdoch,</quote> <citetitle>Atlantic "
11768 "Monthly</citetitle> (September 2003): 89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11773 #: freeculture.xml:8305
11775 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
11776 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies … Fox TV shows "
11777 "… Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They "
11778 "sell the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on "
11779 "the broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
11780 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
11781 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
11782 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
11783 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
11784 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11788 #: freeculture.xml:8323
11790 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
11791 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
11792 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
11793 "thousand words could do:"
11796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11797 #: freeculture.xml:8329
11798 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
11801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11802 #: freeculture.xml:8330
11803 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\"></graphic>"
11807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11808 #: freeculture.xml:8334
11810 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
11811 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
11815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11816 #: freeculture.xml:8339
11818 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
11819 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
11820 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
11821 "beginning to change my mind."
11824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11825 #: freeculture.xml:8345
11827 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
11831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11832 #: freeculture.xml:8348
11833 msgid "Lear, Norman"
11836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11837 #: freeculture.xml:8350 freeculture.xml:8413
11838 msgid "All in the Family"
11841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11842 #: freeculture.xml:8352
11844 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for <citetitle>All in the "
11845 "Family</citetitle>. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It "
11846 "was too edgy, they told Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more "
11847 "edgy than the first. ABC was exasperated. You're missing the point, they "
11848 "told Lear. We wanted less edgy, not more."
11852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11853 #: freeculture.xml:8364
11855 "Leonard Hill, <quote>The Axis of Access,</quote> remarks before Weidenbaum "
11856 "Center Forum, <quote>Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,</quote> "
11857 "St. Louis, Missouri, 3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available "
11858 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the "
11859 "Lear story, not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
11860 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
11863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11864 #: freeculture.xml:8359
11866 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
11867 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
11868 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
11869 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11874 #: freeculture.xml:8375
11876 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
11877 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
11878 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
11879 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
11880 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
11881 "<quote>independent</quote> of the networks."
11885 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11886 #: freeculture.xml:8394
11888 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
11889 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
11890 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
11891 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
11892 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
11893 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
11894 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
11897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11898 #: freeculture.xml:8384
11900 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
11901 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
11902 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
11903 "independent television studios remained. <quote>In 1992, only 15 percent of "
11904 "new series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last "
11905 "year, the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
11906 "quintupled to 77 percent.</quote> <quote>In 1992, 16 new series were "
11907 "produced independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
11908 "one.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of "
11909 "prime time television was owned by the networks that ran it. <quote>In the "
11910 "ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television "
11911 "hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the "
11912 "number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent "
11913 "studios decreased 63%.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
11916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11917 #: freeculture.xml:8415
11919 "Today, another Norman Lear with another <citetitle>All in the "
11920 "Family</citetitle> would find that he had the choice either to make the show "
11921 "less edgy or to be fired: The content of any show developed for a network is "
11922 "increasingly owned by the network."
11925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11926 #: freeculture.xml:8420
11927 msgid "Diller, Barry"
11930 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11931 #: freeculture.xml:8421
11932 msgid "Moyers, Bill"
11935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11936 #: freeculture.xml:8423
11938 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
11939 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
11940 "Diller said to Bill Moyers,"
11944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11945 #: freeculture.xml:8438
11947 "<quote>Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,</quote> <citetitle>Now with "
11948 "Bill Moyers</citetitle>, Bill Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript "
11949 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
11952 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11953 #: freeculture.xml:8429
11955 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
11956 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
11957 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
11958 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
11959 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
11960 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11964 #: freeculture.xml:8445
11966 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
11967 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
11968 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
11969 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
11970 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
11971 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
11972 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
11973 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
11974 "the environment for a democracy."
11977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11978 #: freeculture.xml:8456
11979 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
11983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11984 #: freeculture.xml:8465
11986 "Clayton M. Christensen, <citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The "
11987 "Revolutionary National Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do "
11988 "Business</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, "
11989 "1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first suggested by Dean "
11990 "Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, <quote>The Interaction of Design Hierarchies "
11991 "and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,</quote> <citetitle>Research "
11992 "Policy</citetitle> 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see "
11993 "Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, <citetitle>Creative Destruction: Why "
11994 "Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to "
11995 "Successfully Transform Them</citetitle> (New York: Currency/Doubleday, "
11999 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12000 #: freeculture.xml:8458
12002 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
12003 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the "
12004 "<quote>Innovator's Dilemma</quote>: the fact that large traditional firms "
12005 "find it rational to ignore new, breakthrough technologies that compete with "
12006 "their core business. The same analysis could help explain why large, "
12007 "traditional media companies would find it rational to ignore new cultural "
12008 "trends.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only "
12009 "don't, but should not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, "
12010 "there will be far too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12014 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12015 #: freeculture.xml:8482
12017 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
12018 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
12019 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
12022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12023 #: freeculture.xml:8488
12025 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
12029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12030 #: freeculture.xml:8492
12032 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
12033 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
12034 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
12038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12039 #: freeculture.xml:8497
12041 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
12042 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
12043 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
12044 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
12045 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
12046 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
12047 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
12048 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
12049 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
12050 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
12051 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
12052 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
12053 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
12056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12057 #: freeculture.xml:8516
12059 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
12060 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
12061 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
12064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12065 #: freeculture.xml:8523
12067 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
12068 "media campaign as part of the <quote>war on drugs.</quote> The campaign "
12069 "produced scores of short film clips about issues related to illegal "
12070 "drugs. In one series (the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, "
12071 "discussing the idea of legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the "
12072 "collateral damage from the war. One advances an argument in favor of drug "
12073 "legalization. The other responds in a powerful and effective way against the "
12074 "argument of the first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
12075 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
12079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12080 #: freeculture.xml:8535
12082 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
12083 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
12086 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12087 #: freeculture.xml:8539
12089 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
12090 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
12091 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
12092 "war. Can you do it?"
12096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12097 #: freeculture.xml:8545
12099 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
12100 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
12101 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
12105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12106 #: freeculture.xml:8587
12110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12111 #: freeculture.xml:8588
12112 msgid "Marijuana Policy Project"
12115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12116 #: freeculture.xml:8589
12120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12121 #: freeculture.xml:8590
12125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12126 #: freeculture.xml:8591
12130 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12131 #: freeculture.xml:8562
12133 "The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that "
12134 "directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the "
12135 "Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as <quote>against [their] "
12136 "policy.</quote> The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without "
12137 "reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the "
12138 "ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and "
12139 "returned the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. "
12140 "These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for "
12141 "example, Nat Ives, <quote>On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet "
12142 "with Rejection from TV Networks,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
12143 "Times</citetitle>, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time "
12144 "there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to even "
12145 "the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, <quote>Ad Hoc "
12146 "Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and "
12147 "Radio,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law and Policy Review</citetitle> 6 (1988): "
12148 "449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the "
12149 "courts, see <citetitle>Radio-Television News Directors "
12150 "Association</citetitle> v. <citetitle>FCC</citetitle>, 184 F. 3d 872 "
12151 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
12152 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
12153 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
12154 "Matier and Andrew Ross, <quote>Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects "
12155 "Ad,</quote> SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12156 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
12157 "the criticism was <quote>too controversial.</quote> <placeholder "
12158 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
12159 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
12160 "id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> <placeholder "
12161 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"6\"/>"
12164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12165 #: freeculture.xml:8552
12167 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
12168 "<quote>controversial</quote> ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
12169 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
12170 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
12171 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
12172 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
12173 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
12174 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
12175 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12178 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12179 #: freeculture.xml:8596
12181 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
12182 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
12183 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
12184 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
12185 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
12186 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
12187 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
12188 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
12191 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12192 #: freeculture.xml:8609
12196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12197 #: freeculture.xml:8611
12199 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
12200 "warriors that the government should <quote>protect my property.</quote> In "
12201 "the abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No "
12202 "sane sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
12206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12207 #: freeculture.xml:8617
12209 "But when we see how dramatically this <quote>property</quote> has "
12210 "changed— when we recognize how it might now interact with both "
12211 "technology and markets to mean that the effective constraint on the liberty "
12212 "to cultivate our culture is dramatically different—the claim begins to "
12213 "seem less innocent and obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to "
12214 "supplement the law's control, and (2) the power of concentrated markets to "
12215 "weaken the opportunity for dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively "
12216 "expanded <quote>property</quote> rights granted by copyright fundamentally "
12217 "changes the freedom within this culture to cultivate and build upon our "
12218 "past, then we have to ask whether this property should be redefined."
12221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12222 #: freeculture.xml:8633
12224 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
12225 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
12226 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
12230 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12231 #: freeculture.xml:8639
12233 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
12234 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
12235 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
12236 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
12237 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
12238 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
12239 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
12240 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
12241 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
12244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12245 #: freeculture.xml:8651
12247 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
12248 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
12249 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
12250 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
12251 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
12252 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
12253 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be "
12254 "<emphasis>reductions</emphasis> in the scope of copyright, in response to "
12255 "the extraordinary increase in control that technology and the market enable."
12259 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12260 #: freeculture.xml:8663
12262 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
12263 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
12264 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
12265 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: <emphasis>Never in our "
12266 "history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of "
12267 "our culture than now</emphasis>."
12270 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12271 #: freeculture.xml:8687
12273 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a "
12274 "similar point in his <quote>four surrenders</quote> of copyright law in the "
12275 "digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60."
12278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12279 #: freeculture.xml:8672
12281 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
12282 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
12283 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
12284 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
12285 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
12286 "networks. <emphasis>Never</emphasis> has copyright protected such a wide "
12287 "range of rights, against as broad a range of actors, for a term that was "
12288 "remotely as long. This form of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny "
12289 "part of the creative energy of a nation at the founding—is now a "
12290 "massive regulation of the overall creative process. Law plus technology plus "
12291 "the market now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the "
12292 "most significant regulation of culture that our free society has "
12293 "known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12297 #: freeculture.xml:8693
12299 "<emphasis role='strong'>This has been</emphasis> a long chapter. Its point "
12300 "can now be briefly stated."
12303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12304 #: freeculture.xml:8697
12306 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
12307 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
12308 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
12309 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
12310 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
12313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12314 #: freeculture.xml:8709 freeculture.xml:8746
12318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12319 #: freeculture.xml:8710 freeculture.xml:8747 freeculture.xml:8785 freeculture.xml:8817
12323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12324 #: freeculture.xml:8715 freeculture.xml:8752 freeculture.xml:8790 freeculture.xml:8822
12328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12329 #: freeculture.xml:8716 freeculture.xml:8753 freeculture.xml:8754 freeculture.xml:8791 freeculture.xml:8792 freeculture.xml:8823 freeculture.xml:8824 freeculture.xml:8828 freeculture.xml:8829
12333 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12334 #: freeculture.xml:8717 freeculture.xml:8721 freeculture.xml:8722 freeculture.xml:8758 freeculture.xml:8759 freeculture.xml:8797
12338 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12339 #: freeculture.xml:8720 freeculture.xml:8757 freeculture.xml:8795 freeculture.xml:8827
12340 msgid "Noncommercial"
12344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12345 #: freeculture.xml:8729
12347 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
12348 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
12349 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
12350 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
12354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12355 #: freeculture.xml:8738
12356 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
12359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12360 #: freeculture.xml:8766
12362 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
12363 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
12364 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
12365 "essentially free."
12368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12369 #: freeculture.xml:8772
12371 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
12372 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
12373 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
12374 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
12378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12379 #: freeculture.xml:8784 freeculture.xml:8816
12383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12384 #: freeculture.xml:8796
12385 msgid "©/Free"
12388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12389 #: freeculture.xml:8804
12391 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
12392 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
12393 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
12394 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
12399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12400 #: freeculture.xml:8836
12402 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
12403 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
12404 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
12405 "commercial publishers."
12408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12409 #: freeculture.xml:8844
12411 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
12412 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
12413 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
12414 "actually does any good."
12417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12418 #: freeculture.xml:8850
12420 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
12421 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
12422 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
12423 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
12424 "chapters <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/> and "
12425 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"transformers\"/>, one "
12426 "might well wonder whether it does more harm than good for commercial "
12427 "transformation. More commercial transformative work would be created if "
12428 "derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
12431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12432 #: freeculture.xml:8874
12433 msgid "legal realist movement"
12436 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12437 #: freeculture.xml:8868
12439 "It was the single most important contribution of the legal realist movement "
12440 "to demonstrate that all property rights are always crafted to balance public "
12441 "and private interests. See Thomas C. Grey, <quote>The Disintegration of "
12442 "Property,</quote> in <citetitle>Nomos XXII: Property</citetitle>, J. Roland "
12443 "Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds. (New York: New York University Press, "
12444 "1980). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12448 #: freeculture.xml:8862
12450 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
12451 "copyright is a kind of <quote>property,</quote> and of course, as with any "
12452 "property, the state ought to protect it. But first impressions "
12453 "notwithstanding, historically, this property right (as with all property "
12454 "rights<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to "
12455 "balance the important need to give authors and artists incentives with the "
12456 "equally important need to assure access to creative work. This balance has "
12457 "always been struck in light of new technologies. And for almost half of our "
12458 "tradition, the <quote>copyright</quote> did not control <emphasis>at "
12459 "all</emphasis> the freedom of others to build upon or transform a creative "
12460 "work. American culture was born free, and for almost 180 years our country "
12461 "consistently protected a vibrant and rich free culture."
12465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12466 #: freeculture.xml:8887
12468 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
12469 "the scope of the interests protected by <quote>property.</quote> The very "
12470 "birth of <quote>copyright</quote> as a statutory right recognized those "
12471 "limits, by granting copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the "
12472 "story of chapter 6). The tradition of <quote>fair use</quote> is animated by "
12473 "a similar concern that is increasingly under strain as the costs of "
12474 "exercising any fair use right become unavoidably high (the story of chapter "
12475 "7). Adding statutory rights where markets might stifle innovation is another "
12476 "familiar limit on the property right that copyright is (chapter 8). And "
12477 "granting archives and libraries a broad freedom to collect, claims of "
12478 "property notwithstanding, is a crucial part of guaranteeing the soul of a "
12479 "culture (chapter 9). Free cultures, like free markets, are built with "
12480 "property. But the nature of the property that builds a free culture is very "
12481 "different from the extremist vision that dominates the debate today."
12484 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12485 #: freeculture.xml:8906
12487 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
12488 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
12489 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
12490 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
12491 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
12492 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
12493 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
12494 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
12495 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
12499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
12500 #: freeculture.xml:8923
12504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12505 #: freeculture.xml:8927
12506 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
12509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12510 #: freeculture.xml:8928
12514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12515 #: freeculture.xml:8929
12516 msgid "Wells, H. G."
12519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12520 #: freeculture.xml:8930
12521 msgid "<quote>Country of the Blind, The</quote> (Wells)"
12525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12526 #: freeculture.xml:8938
12528 "H. G. Wells, <quote>The Country of the Blind</quote> (1904, 1911). See "
12529 "H. G. Wells, <citetitle>The Country of the Blind and Other "
12530 "Stories</citetitle>, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: Oxford University "
12534 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12535 #: freeculture.xml:8933
12537 "<emphasis role='strong'>In a well-known</emphasis> short story by "
12538 "H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez trips (literally, down an ice "
12539 "slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in the Peruvian "
12540 "Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
12541 "extraordinarily beautiful, with <quote>sweet water, pasture, an even "
12542 "climate, slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an "
12543 "excellent fruit.</quote> But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this "
12544 "as an opportunity. <quote>In the Country of the Blind,</quote> he tells "
12545 "himself, <quote>the One-Eyed Man is King.</quote> So he resolves to live "
12546 "with the villagers to explore life as a king."
12549 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12550 #: freeculture.xml:8950
12552 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
12553 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are "
12554 "<quote>blind.</quote> They don't have the word "
12555 "<citetitle>blind</citetitle>. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
12556 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
12557 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
12558 "becomes increasingly frustrated. <quote>`You don't understand,' he cried, in "
12559 "a voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
12560 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'</quote>"
12564 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12565 #: freeculture.xml:8962
12567 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
12568 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
12569 "a young woman who to him seems <quote>the most beautiful thing in the whole "
12570 "of creation,</quote> understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of "
12571 "what he sees <quote>seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she "
12572 "listened to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet "
12573 "white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.</quote> <quote>She "
12574 "did not believe,</quote> Wells tells us, and <quote>she could only half "
12575 "understand, but she was mysteriously delighted.</quote>"
12578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12579 #: freeculture.xml:8973
12581 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his <quote>mysteriously "
12582 "delighted</quote> love, the father and the village object. <quote>You see, "
12583 "my dear,</quote> her father instructs, <quote>he's an idiot. He has "
12584 "delusions. He can't do anything right.</quote> They take Nunez to the "
12588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12589 #: freeculture.xml:8979
12591 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. <quote>His brain "
12592 "is affected,</quote> he reports."
12595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12596 #: freeculture.xml:8983
12598 "<quote>What affects it?</quote> the father asks. <quote>Those queer things "
12599 "that are called the eyes … are diseased … in such a way as to "
12600 "affect his brain.</quote>"
12603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12604 #: freeculture.xml:8988
12606 "The doctor continues: <quote>I think I may say with reasonable certainty "
12607 "that in order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and "
12608 "easy surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
12612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12613 #: freeculture.xml:8994
12615 "<quote>Thank Heaven for science!</quote> says the father to the doctor. They "
12616 "inform Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. "
12617 "(You'll have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I "
12618 "believe in free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.)"
12622 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12623 #: freeculture.xml:9000
12625 "<emphasis role='strong'>It sometimes</emphasis> happens that the eggs of "
12626 "twins fuse in the mother's womb. That fusion produces a "
12627 "<quote>chimera.</quote> A chimera is a single creature with two sets of "
12628 "DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different from the DNA of "
12629 "the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder "
12630 "mysteries. <quote>But the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was "
12631 "not the person whose blood was at the scene. …</quote>"
12634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12635 #: freeculture.xml:9014
12637 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
12638 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
12639 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
12640 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
12641 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a <quote>person</quote> should "
12642 "reflect this reality."
12645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12646 #: freeculture.xml:9022
12648 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
12649 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
12650 "enough, <quote>the copyright wars,</quote> the more I think we're dealing "
12651 "with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question <quote>What is "
12652 "p2p file sharing?</quote> both sides have it right, and both sides have it "
12653 "wrong. One side says, <quote>File sharing is just like two kids taping each "
12654 "others' records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty "
12655 "years without any question at all.</quote> That's true, at least in "
12656 "part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but "
12657 "rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all "
12658 "relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company "
12659 "no doubt did as a kid: sharing music."
12662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12663 #: freeculture.xml:9036
12665 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
12666 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
12667 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "
12668 "<quote>friends</quote> beyond recognition to say <quote>my ten thousand best "
12669 "friends</quote> can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best "
12670 "friend is what <quote>we have always been allowed to do,</quote> we have not "
12671 "always been allowed to share music with <quote>our ten thousand best "
12675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12676 #: freeculture.xml:9045
12678 "Likewise, when the other side says, <quote>File sharing is just like walking "
12679 "into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with "
12680 "it,</quote> that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) "
12681 "releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free "
12682 "copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower. "
12683 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12688 #: freeculture.xml:9056
12690 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
12691 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
12692 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
12693 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
12694 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
12695 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
12696 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
12699 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12700 #: freeculture.xml:9066
12702 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
12703 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
12704 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
12705 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
12706 "rules should govern it?"
12709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12710 #: freeculture.xml:9082 freeculture.xml:9364 freeculture.xml:10400
12711 msgid "ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by"
12714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12715 #: freeculture.xml:9113
12716 msgid "Conyers, John, Jr."
12719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12720 #: freeculture.xml:9114 freeculture.xml:9835
12721 msgid "Berman, Howard L."
12724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12725 #: freeculture.xml:9082
12727 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For an excellent summary, see the "
12728 "report prepared by GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society "
12729 "at Harvard Law School, <quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
12730 "World,</quote> 27 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12731 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John Conyers "
12732 "Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill that "
12733 "would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
12734 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
12735 "<quote>House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
12736 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 17 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12737 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #34</ulink>. Civil penalties are "
12738 "currently set at $150,000 per copied song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) "
12739 "legal challenge to the RIAA's demand that an ISP reveal the identity of a "
12740 "user accused of sharing more than 600 songs through a family computer, see "
12741 "<citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Verizon Internet Services (In "
12742 "re. Verizon Internet Services)</citetitle>, 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 "
12743 "(D.D.C. 2003). Such a user could face liability ranging as high as $90 "
12744 "million. Such astronomical figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal "
12745 "in its prosecution of file sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to "
12746 "$17,500 for four students accused of heavy file sharing on university "
12747 "networks must have seemed a mere pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA "
12748 "could seek should the matter proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, "
12749 "<quote>Downloading Could Lead to Fines,</quote> redandblack.com, August "
12750 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12751 "#35</ulink>. For an example of the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, "
12752 "and of the subpoenas issued to universities to reveal student file-sharer "
12753 "identities, see James Collins, <quote>RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to "
12754 "Name Students,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 8 August 2003, "
12755 "D3, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12756 "#36</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
12757 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
12760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12761 #: freeculture.xml:9073
12763 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
12764 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
12765 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
12766 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
12767 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
12768 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
12769 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
12773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12774 #: freeculture.xml:9120
12776 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
12777 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
12778 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
12779 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
12780 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
12783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12784 #: freeculture.xml:9127
12786 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
12787 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
12788 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
12789 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
12790 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
12791 "<emphasis>either</emphasis> extreme would be worse than a reasonable "
12792 "alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse "
12793 "of the two extremes."
12797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12798 #: freeculture.xml:9139
12800 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
12801 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
12802 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
12803 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
12804 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
12808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12809 #: freeculture.xml:9147
12811 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to <quote>steal</quote> "
12812 "music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this "
12813 "war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so "
12814 "broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation "
12815 "that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing "
12816 "of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The "
12817 "law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public "
12818 "policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing "
12819 "the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,"
12822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12823 #: freeculture.xml:9160
12825 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
12826 "and we want to protect those rights."
12829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12830 #: freeculture.xml:9164
12832 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
12833 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
12834 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
12835 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
12840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12841 #: freeculture.xml:9181
12843 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
12844 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
12845 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
12846 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
12847 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
12848 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
12851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12852 #: freeculture.xml:9171
12854 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
12855 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
12856 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
12857 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
12858 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
12859 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
12860 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
12861 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12864 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12865 #: freeculture.xml:9195 freeculture.xml:9553
12866 msgid "Vivendi Universal"
12869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12870 #: freeculture.xml:9192
12872 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "
12873 "<quote>the major labels.</quote> Its position on these matters has now "
12874 "changed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12877 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12878 #: freeculture.xml:9198
12880 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
12881 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
12882 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
12885 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12886 #: freeculture.xml:9206
12887 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
12890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12891 #: freeculture.xml:9208
12893 "<emphasis role='strong'>To fight</emphasis> <quote>piracy,</quote> to "
12894 "protect <quote>property,</quote> the content industry has launched a "
12895 "war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought the "
12896 "government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both direct "
12897 "and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages will be "
12898 "suffered most by our own people."
12901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12902 #: freeculture.xml:9216
12904 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
12905 "particular, the consequences for <quote>free culture.</quote> But my aim now "
12906 "is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
12910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12911 #: freeculture.xml:9222
12913 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
12914 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
12915 "the property called <quote>intellectual property</quote> is at its greatest "
12919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12920 #: freeculture.xml:9230
12922 "Yet <quote>common sense</quote> does not see it this way. Common sense is "
12923 "still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme "
12924 "claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical "
12925 "rejection of <quote>piracy</quote> still has play."
12929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12930 #: freeculture.xml:9238
12932 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
12933 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
12934 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
12935 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
12936 "today's monopolists of culture."
12939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12940 #: freeculture.xml:9245
12941 msgid "Constraining Creators"
12944 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12945 #: freeculture.xml:9247
12947 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
12948 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
12949 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
12950 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
12951 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
12952 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
12953 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
12954 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
12955 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
12956 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
12957 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
12958 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
12961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12962 #: freeculture.xml:9262
12964 "This digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> is in part an extension of "
12965 "the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and "
12966 "in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it "
12967 "explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of "
12968 "digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> promises a world of "
12969 "extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly "
12970 "shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a "
12971 "broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and "
12972 "contribute to the culture all around."
12976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12977 #: freeculture.xml:9273
12979 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
12980 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
12981 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
12982 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
12983 "across the globe."
12986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12987 #: freeculture.xml:9283
12989 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
12990 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
12991 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
12992 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
12993 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
12994 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
12995 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
12996 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
12997 "presumptively illegal."
13000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13001 #: freeculture.xml:9293 freeculture.xml:9312
13005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13006 #: freeculture.xml:9307
13008 "See Lynne W. Jeter, <citetitle>Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at "
13009 "WorldCom</citetitle> (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; "
13010 "for details of the settlement, see MCI press release, <quote>MCI Wins "
13011 "U.S. District Court Approval for SEC Settlement</quote> (7 July 2003), "
13012 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>. "
13013 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13017 #: freeculture.xml:9328
13018 msgid "Bush, George W."
13021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13022 #: freeculture.xml:9319
13024 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
13025 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
13026 "overview, see Tanya Albert, <quote>Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be "
13027 "Back,' Say Tort Reformers,</quote> amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at "
13028 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and "
13029 "<quote>Senate Turns Back Malpractice Caps,</quote> CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, "
13030 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13031 "#39</ulink>. President Bush has continued to urge tort reform in recent "
13032 "months. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13036 #: freeculture.xml:9295
13038 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
13039 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
13040 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
13041 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
13042 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 "
13043 "was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search "
13044 "engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which "
13045 "defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in "
13046 "market capitalization of over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere "
13047 "$750 million.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation "
13048 "being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the "
13049 "wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in "
13050 "damages for pain and suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can "
13051 "common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for "
13052 "downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's "
13053 "negligently butchering a patient?"
13056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13057 #: freeculture.xml:9334
13058 msgid "art, underground"
13062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13063 #: freeculture.xml:9355
13065 "See Danit Lidor, <quote>Artists Just Wanna Be Free,</quote> "
13066 "<citetitle>Wired</citetitle>, 7 July 2003, available at <ulink "
13067 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #40</ulink>. For an overview of "
13068 "the exhibition, see <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
13072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13073 #: freeculture.xml:9336
13075 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
13076 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
13077 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
13078 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys "
13079 "<quote>pirates.</quote> We make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a "
13080 "public domain, because the boundaries of the public domain are designed to "
13081 "be unclear. It never pays to do anything except pay for the right to create, "
13082 "and hence only those who can pay are allowed to create. As was the case in "
13083 "the Soviet Union, though for very different reasons, we will begin to see a "
13084 "world of underground art—not because the message is necessarily "
13085 "political, or because the subject is controversial, but because the very act "
13086 "of creating the art is legally fraught. Already, exhibits of <quote>illegal "
13087 "art</quote> tour the United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
13088 "In what does their <quote>illegality</quote> consist? In the act of mixing "
13089 "the culture around us with an expression that is critical or reflective."
13092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13093 #: freeculture.xml:9366
13095 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
13096 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
13097 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>. But an even bigger part has to do "
13098 "with the increasing ease with which infractions can be tracked. As users of "
13099 "file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a trivial matter for "
13100 "copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service providers to reveal "
13101 "who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape player transmitted a "
13102 "list of the songs that you played in the privacy of your own home that "
13103 "anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
13106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13107 #: freeculture.xml:9379
13109 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
13110 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
13111 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
13112 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
13113 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
13114 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
13115 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
13116 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
13117 "them is not similarly free."
13120 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13121 #: freeculture.xml:9390
13123 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
13124 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/>, "
13125 "in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, I have been "
13126 "lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was fair use, and "
13127 "hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
13131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13132 #: freeculture.xml:9401
13134 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
13135 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
13136 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
13137 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
13138 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
13139 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
13140 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
13141 "on the rule of law."
13144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13145 #: freeculture.xml:9411
13147 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
13148 "<quote>breathing room</quote> between regulation by the law and the access "
13149 "the law should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal "
13150 "system has become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that "
13151 "publishers impose upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon "
13152 "filmmakers, the rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these "
13153 "are the real laws governing creativity. And these rules have little "
13154 "relationship to the <quote>law</quote> with which judges comfort themselves."
13157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13158 #: freeculture.xml:9422
13160 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
13161 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
13162 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
13163 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
13164 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
13165 "that pass under the name <quote>copyright</quote> silence speech and "
13166 "creativity. And in that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to "
13167 "continue to believe they live in a culture that is free."
13170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13171 #: freeculture.xml:9433
13172 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
13176 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13177 #: freeculture.xml:9437
13179 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
13180 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
13181 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
13182 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made … you're not going to "
13183 "get it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note "
13184 "from a lawyer saying, <quote>This has been cleared.</quote> You're not even "
13185 "going to get it on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at "
13186 "which they control it."
13189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13190 #: freeculture.xml:9450
13191 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
13194 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13195 #: freeculture.xml:9452
13197 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
13198 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
13199 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
13200 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
13201 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
13205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13206 #: freeculture.xml:9460
13208 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
13209 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
13210 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, 188 "
13211 "pages into a book like this), then you can see this other aspect by "
13212 "substituting <quote>free market</quote> every place I've spoken of "
13213 "<quote>free culture.</quote> The point is the same, even if the interests "
13214 "affecting culture are more fundamental."
13217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13218 #: freeculture.xml:9470
13220 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
13221 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
13222 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
13223 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
13224 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
13225 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
13226 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
13227 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
13228 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
13229 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
13232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13233 #: freeculture.xml:9482 freeculture.xml:9590
13234 msgid "Barry, Hank"
13238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13239 #: freeculture.xml:9484
13241 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
13242 "that I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13243 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>. The consequence of this massive threat of "
13244 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
13245 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
13246 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
13247 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
13248 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
13249 "Barry calls a <quote>nuclear pall</quote> that has fallen over the "
13250 "Valley—has been learned."
13253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13254 #: freeculture.xml:9497
13256 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
13257 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> and which has progressed in a way "
13258 "that even I (pessimist extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
13261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13262 #: freeculture.xml:9501
13263 msgid "Roberts, Michael"
13266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13267 #: freeculture.xml:9503
13269 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
13270 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
13271 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
13272 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
13273 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
13277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13278 #: freeculture.xml:9511
13279 msgid "preference data on"
13282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13283 #: freeculture.xml:9513
13285 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
13286 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
13287 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
13288 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
13292 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13293 #: freeculture.xml:9520
13295 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
13296 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
13297 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
13298 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
13299 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
13300 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
13301 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
13302 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
13303 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
13307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13308 #: freeculture.xml:9532
13310 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
13311 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
13312 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
13313 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
13317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13318 #: freeculture.xml:9542
13320 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
13321 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
13322 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
13323 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
13324 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
13325 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
13326 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
13327 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
13328 "something they had already bought."
13331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13332 #: freeculture.xml:9555
13334 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
13335 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
13336 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
13337 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
13338 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
13339 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
13340 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
13343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13344 #: freeculture.xml:9565
13345 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
13348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13349 #: freeculture.xml:9568
13351 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
13352 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
13353 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
13354 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
13355 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
13356 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
13357 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
13361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13362 #: freeculture.xml:9578
13364 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
13365 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
13366 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
13367 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
13368 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
13369 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
13370 "cost you and your firm dearly."
13373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13374 #: freeculture.xml:9589
13375 msgid "Hummer, John"
13378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13379 #: freeculture.xml:9591
13380 msgid "Hummer Winblad"
13384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13385 #: freeculture.xml:9601
13387 "See Joseph Menn, <quote>Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,</quote> "
13388 "<citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 23 April 2003. For a parallel "
13389 "argument about the effects on innovation in the distribution of music, see "
13390 "Janelle Brown, <quote>The Music Revolution Will Not Be Digitized,</quote> "
13391 "Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
13392 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
13393 "Healey, <quote>Online Music Services Besieged,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
13394 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 28 May 2001."
13397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13398 #: freeculture.xml:9595
13400 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
13401 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
13402 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
13403 "cofounder ( John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
13404 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
13405 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
13406 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
13407 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
13408 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
13409 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
13410 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
13411 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
13412 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
13413 "that touch content. In an article in <citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, "
13414 "Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW:"
13417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13418 #: freeculture.xml:9623
13422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13423 #: freeculture.xml:9624
13424 msgid "cars, MP3 sound system in"
13427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13428 #: freeculture.xml:9639
13429 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
13432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13433 #: freeculture.xml:9635
13435 "Rafe Needleman, <quote>Driving in Cars with MP3s,</quote> "
13436 "<citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
13437 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #43</ulink>. I am grateful to "
13438 "Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
13442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13443 #: freeculture.xml:9626
13445 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
13446 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
13447 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
13448 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
13449 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
13450 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. … <placeholder "
13451 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13455 #: freeculture.xml:9644
13457 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with <quote>your money or your "
13458 "life</quote> offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats "
13459 "that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that "
13460 "will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to "
13461 "start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly "
13462 "threatened by litigation."
13466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13467 #: freeculture.xml:9654
13469 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
13470 "enterprises. The point is the definition of <quote>illegal.</quote> The law "
13471 "is a mess of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to "
13472 "new technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and "
13473 "by embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, "
13474 "that uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
13475 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
13476 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
13477 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
13478 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
13479 "and much less creativity."
13482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13483 #: freeculture.xml:9669
13485 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
13486 "use. Whatever the <quote>real</quote> law is, realism about the effect of "
13487 "law in both contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation "
13488 "will systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
13489 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
13490 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
13491 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
13492 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
13493 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulatedregulated market."
13497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13498 #: freeculture.xml:9681
13500 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
13501 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
13502 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
13503 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
13504 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
13505 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
13506 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
13507 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
13508 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
13509 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
13510 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
13511 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
13512 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
13513 "justifying to justify that result."
13516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13517 #: freeculture.xml:9700
13519 "<emphasis role='strong'>The uncertainty</emphasis> of the law is one burden "
13520 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
13521 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
13522 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
13526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13527 #: freeculture.xml:9707
13529 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
13530 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
13531 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
13532 "<quote>bug.</quote> The efficient spread of content means that content "
13533 "distributors have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. "
13534 "One obvious response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less "
13535 "efficient. If the Internet enables <quote>piracy,</quote> then, this "
13536 "response says, we should break the kneecaps of the Internet."
13540 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13541 #: freeculture.xml:9722
13543 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> "
13544 "GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law "
13545 "School (2003), 33–35, available at <ulink "
13546 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
13550 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13551 #: freeculture.xml:9735
13552 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
13555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13556 #: freeculture.xml:9718
13558 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
13559 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
13560 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
13561 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
13562 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
13563 "explore a mandatory <quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would be required on "
13564 "any device capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and "
13565 "that would disable the copying of any content that is marked with a "
13566 "broadcast flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content "
13567 "providers from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt "
13568 "down copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
13569 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
13573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13574 #: freeculture.xml:9739
13576 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
13577 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
13578 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
13579 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
13580 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
13583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13584 #: freeculture.xml:9748 freeculture.xml:11594
13589 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13590 #: freeculture.xml:9754
13592 "See David McGuire, <quote>Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,</quote> "
13593 "Newsbytes, February 2002 (Entertainment)."
13596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13597 #: freeculture.xml:9750
13599 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
13600 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
13601 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
13602 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
13603 "any protection should not do more harm than good."
13606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13607 #: freeculture.xml:9762
13609 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is one</emphasis> more obvious way in which "
13610 "this war has harmed innovation—again, a story that will be quite "
13611 "familiar to the free market crowd."
13614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13615 #: freeculture.xml:9767
13617 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
13618 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
13619 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
13620 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
13623 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13624 #: freeculture.xml:9781
13626 "Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (Amherst, N.Y.: "
13627 "Prometheus Books, 2001). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13631 #: freeculture.xml:9775
13633 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13634 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, despite this feature of copyright as regulation, "
13635 "and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica Litman in her "
13636 "book <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle>,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13637 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter 10 "
13638 "details, when new technologies have come along, Congress has struck a "
13639 "balance to assure that the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or "
13640 "statutory, licenses have been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the "
13641 "case of the VCR) has been another."
13644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13645 #: freeculture.xml:9792
13647 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
13648 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
13649 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
13650 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
13651 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
13654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13655 #: freeculture.xml:9801
13656 msgid "Grokster, Ltd."
13659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13660 #: freeculture.xml:9801
13662 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The only circuit court exception "
13663 "is found in <citetitle>Recording Industry Association of America "
13664 "(RIAA)</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Diamond Multimedia Systems</citetitle>, 180 "
13665 "F. 3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999). There the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit "
13666 "reasoned that makers of a portable MP3 player were not liable for "
13667 "contributory copyright infringement for a device that is unable to record or "
13668 "redistribute music (a device whose only copying function is to render "
13669 "portable a music file already stored on a user's hard drive). At the "
13670 "district court level, the only exception is found in "
13671 "<citetitle>Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, "
13672 "Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Grokster, Ltd</citetitle>., 259 F. Supp. 2d "
13673 "1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the link between the "
13674 "distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to make the "
13675 "distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement liability."
13678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13679 #: freeculture.xml:9820
13680 msgid "Tauzin, Billy"
13683 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13684 #: freeculture.xml:9836
13685 msgid "Hollings, Fritz"
13688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13689 #: freeculture.xml:9820
13691 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For example, in July 2002, "
13692 "Representative Howard Berman introduced the Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention "
13693 "Act (H.R. 5211), which would immunize copyright holders from liability for "
13694 "damage done to computers when the copyright holders use technology to stop "
13695 "copyright infringement. In August 2002, Representative Billy Tauzin "
13696 "introduced a bill to mandate that technologies capable of rebroadcasting "
13697 "digital copies of films broadcast on TV (i.e., computers) respect a "
13698 "<quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would disable copying of that "
13699 "content. And in March of the same year, Senator Fritz Hollings introduced "
13700 "the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandated "
13701 "copyright protection technology in all digital media devices. See GartnerG2, "
13702 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> 27 June "
13703 "2003, 33–34, available at <ulink "
13704 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>. <placeholder "
13705 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> "
13706 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
13709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13710 #: freeculture.xml:9799
13712 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
13713 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
13714 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
13715 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
13716 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
13717 "demise of Internet radio."
13721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13722 #: freeculture.xml:9847
13724 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13725 "linkend=\"pirates\"/>, when a radio station plays a song, the recording "
13726 "artist doesn't get paid for that <quote>radio performance</quote> unless he "
13727 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
13728 "a version of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote>—to memorialize her famous "
13729 "performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then "
13730 "whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current copyright "
13731 "owners of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> would get some money, whereas "
13732 "Marilyn Monroe would not."
13735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13736 #: freeculture.xml:9858
13738 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
13739 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
13740 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
13741 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
13742 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
13743 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
13744 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
13745 "compensation to the recording artists."
13748 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13749 #: freeculture.xml:9869
13751 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
13752 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
13753 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
13754 "<quote>tune in</quote> to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting "
13755 "in San Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular "
13756 "radio station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
13759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13760 #: freeculture.xml:9878
13762 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
13763 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
13764 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
13765 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
13766 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
13767 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
13768 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
13769 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
13770 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
13771 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
13775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13776 #: freeculture.xml:9894
13778 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
13779 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
13780 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
13781 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
13782 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
13783 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
13787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13788 #: freeculture.xml:9918
13789 msgid "Lessing, 239."
13792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13793 #: freeculture.xml:9904
13795 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
13796 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
13797 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
13798 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
13799 "restrictions. … Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
13800 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
13801 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
13802 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
13803 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
13804 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
13805 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
13806 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13811 #: freeculture.xml:9928
13812 msgid "Ibid., 229."
13815 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13816 #: freeculture.xml:9923
13818 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
13819 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
13820 "<quote>vested interests, habits, customs and legislation</quote><placeholder "
13821 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
13825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13826 #: freeculture.xml:9933
13828 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
13829 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
13830 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
13831 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
13832 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
13836 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13837 #: freeculture.xml:9942
13839 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
13840 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
13841 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
13842 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
13843 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
13844 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
13845 "it plays her hypothetical recording of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> on the "
13846 "air, <emphasis>Internet radio does</emphasis>. Not only is the law not "
13847 "neutral toward Internet radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio "
13848 "more than it burdens terrestrial radio."
13851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13852 #: freeculture.xml:9981
13853 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
13856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13857 #: freeculture.xml:9964
13859 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
13860 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
13861 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
13862 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
13863 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
13864 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
13865 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
13866 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
13867 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>Copyright as "
13868 "Entry Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,</quote> <citetitle>Antitrust "
13869 "Bulletin</citetitle> (Summer/Fall 2002): 461: <quote>This was not confusion, "
13870 "these are just old-fashioned entry barriers. Analog radio stations are "
13871 "protected from digital entrants, reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, "
13872 "this is done in the name of getting royalties to copyright holders, but, "
13873 "absent the play of powerful interests, that could have been done in a "
13874 "media-neutral way.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
13875 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
13878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13879 #: freeculture.xml:9957
13881 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
13882 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
13883 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
13884 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
13885 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
13886 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
13889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13890 #: freeculture.xml:9989
13892 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
13893 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
13894 "would have to collect the following data from <emphasis>every listening "
13895 "transaction</emphasis>:"
13898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13899 #: freeculture.xml:9997
13900 msgid "name of the service;"
13903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13904 #: freeculture.xml:10000
13905 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
13908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13909 #: freeculture.xml:10003
13910 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
13913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13914 #: freeculture.xml:10006
13915 msgid "date of transmission;"
13918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13919 #: freeculture.xml:10009
13920 msgid "time of transmission;"
13923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13924 #: freeculture.xml:10012
13925 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
13928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13929 #: freeculture.xml:10015
13930 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
13933 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13934 #: freeculture.xml:10018
13935 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
13938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13939 #: freeculture.xml:10021
13940 msgid "sound recording title;"
13943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13944 #: freeculture.xml:10024
13945 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
13948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13949 #: freeculture.xml:10027
13951 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
13952 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
13956 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13957 #: freeculture.xml:10030
13958 msgid "featured recording artist;"
13961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13962 #: freeculture.xml:10033
13963 msgid "retail album title;"
13966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13967 #: freeculture.xml:10036
13968 msgid "recording label;"
13971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13972 #: freeculture.xml:10039
13973 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
13976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13977 #: freeculture.xml:10042
13978 msgid "catalog number;"
13981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13982 #: freeculture.xml:10045
13983 msgid "copyright owner information;"
13986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13987 #: freeculture.xml:10048
13988 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
13991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13992 #: freeculture.xml:10051
13993 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
13996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13997 #: freeculture.xml:10054
13998 msgid "channel or program;"
14001 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14002 #: freeculture.xml:10057
14003 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
14006 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14007 #: freeculture.xml:10060
14008 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
14011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14012 #: freeculture.xml:10063
14013 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
14016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14017 #: freeculture.xml:10066
14018 msgid "unique user identifier;"
14021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
14022 #: freeculture.xml:10069
14023 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
14026 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14027 #: freeculture.xml:10074
14029 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
14030 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
14031 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
14032 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
14033 "pay a <emphasis>type of copyright fee</emphasis> that terrestrial radio does "
14037 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14038 #: freeculture.xml:10082
14040 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
14041 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
14042 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
14045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
14046 #: freeculture.xml:10086 freeculture.xml:14770
14047 msgid "Real Networks"
14050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14051 #: freeculture.xml:10089
14053 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
14054 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
14055 "Real Networks, told me,"
14059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14060 #: freeculture.xml:10095
14062 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
14063 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
14064 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
14065 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
14066 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, … <quote>How do you come "
14067 "up with a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? "
14068 "Because here we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, "
14069 "and that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, "
14070 "you're going to drive the small webcasters out of business. …</quote>"
14073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14074 #: freeculture.xml:10111
14076 "And the RIAA experts said, <quote>Well, we don't really model this as an "
14077 "industry with thousands of webcasters, <emphasis>we think it should be an "
14078 "industry with, you know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate "
14079 "and it's a stable, predictable market</emphasis>.</quote> (Emphasis added.)"
14082 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14083 #: freeculture.xml:10120
14085 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
14086 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
14087 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
14088 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
14089 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
14090 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
14093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
14094 #: freeculture.xml:10130
14095 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
14098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14099 #: freeculture.xml:10132
14101 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
14102 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
14103 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
14106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14107 #: freeculture.xml:10138
14109 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
14110 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
14111 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
14115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14116 #: freeculture.xml:10147
14118 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, <quote>The Music Downloading Deluge,</quote> "
14119 "Pew Internet and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
14120 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
14121 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
14122 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
14126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14127 #: freeculture.xml:10143
14129 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
14130 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
14131 "of citizens. According to <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, 43 "
14132 "million Americans downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder "
14133 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 "
14134 "million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 "
14135 "percent of America into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not "
14136 "only the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, but against students building "
14137 "search engines, and increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, "
14138 "the technologies for sharing will advance to further protect and hide "
14139 "illegal use. It is an arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one "
14140 "side inviting a more extreme response by the other."
14144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14145 #: freeculture.xml:10181
14147 "Alex Pham, <quote>The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA "
14148 "Case,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, "
14152 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14153 #: freeculture.xml:10168
14155 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
14156 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
14157 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
14158 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
14159 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
14160 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
14161 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
14162 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
14163 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
14164 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
14165 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
14166 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
14167 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
14168 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
14169 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
14170 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
14171 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
14174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14175 #: freeculture.xml:10192
14176 msgid "alcohol prohibition"
14180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14181 #: freeculture.xml:10204
14183 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, <quote>Alcohol Consumption During "
14184 "Prohibition,</quote> <citetitle>American Economic Review</citetitle> 81, "
14185 "no. 2 (1991): 242."
14189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14190 #: freeculture.xml:10212
14192 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
14193 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
14194 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
14198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14199 #: freeculture.xml:10222
14201 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, <quote>Tax "
14202 "Compliance,</quote> <citetitle>Journal of Economic Literature</citetitle> 36 "
14203 "(1998): 818 (survey of compliance literature)."
14206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14207 #: freeculture.xml:10194
14209 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
14210 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
14211 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
14212 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
14213 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
14214 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
14215 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
14216 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
14217 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
14218 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14219 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
14220 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
14221 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
14222 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
14223 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our <quote>free "
14224 "society,</quote> but an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated "
14225 "within our society. And as a result, a huge proportion of Americans "
14226 "regularly violate at least some law."
14229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14230 #: freeculture.xml:10230
14231 msgid "law schools"
14234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14235 #: freeculture.xml:10232
14237 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
14238 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
14239 "about the importance of <quote>ethics.</quote> As my colleague Charlie "
14240 "Nesson told a class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of "
14241 "students who have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and "
14242 "sometimes drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven "
14243 "cars. These are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the "
14244 "norm. And then we, as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to "
14245 "behave ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds "
14246 "separate, or honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your "
14247 "case is over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some "
14248 "parts of America than in others, but still, everywhere in America "
14249 "today—can't live their lives both normally and legally, since "
14250 "<quote>normally</quote> entails a certain degree of illegality."
14253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14254 #: freeculture.xml:10249
14256 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
14257 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
14258 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
14259 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
14260 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
14261 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
14262 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
14263 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
14267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14268 #: freeculture.xml:10262
14270 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
14271 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
14272 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
14273 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
14274 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
14277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14278 #: freeculture.xml:10269
14280 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
14281 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
14282 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
14283 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
14284 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
14285 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
14286 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
14287 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
14288 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
14289 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of "
14290 "<quote>sharing.</quote> We need to be able to call these twenty million "
14291 "Americans <quote>citizens,</quote> not <quote>felons.</quote>"
14294 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14295 #: freeculture.xml:10283
14297 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
14298 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
14299 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
14300 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
14301 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
14302 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
14303 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
14304 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
14305 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
14308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14309 #: freeculture.xml:10295
14310 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
14314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14315 #: freeculture.xml:10298
14317 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
14318 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
14319 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
14320 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
14321 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That <quote>use</quote> of the "
14322 "recordings is free."
14325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14326 #: freeculture.xml:10309
14328 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
14329 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
14330 "copy-protection technologies, I am <quote>free</quote> to copy, or "
14331 "<quote>rip,</quote> music from my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, "
14332 "Apple Corporation went so far as to suggest that <quote>freedom</quote> was "
14333 "a right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the <quote>Rip, Mix, "
14334 "Burn</quote> capacities of digital technologies."
14337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14338 #: freeculture.xml:10317
14342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14343 #: freeculture.xml:10318
14344 msgid "mix technology and"
14347 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14348 #: freeculture.xml:10320
14350 "This <quote>use</quote> of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a "
14351 "large process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing "
14352 "them in one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program "
14353 "called Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, "
14354 "Baroque, Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
14355 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
14356 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
14357 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
14361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14362 #: freeculture.xml:10331
14364 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
14365 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
14366 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
14367 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
14368 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
14369 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
14370 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
14374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14375 #: freeculture.xml:10341
14377 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
14378 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
14379 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
14380 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
14381 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
14382 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
14383 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
14384 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
14385 "part of a massively complex <quote>digital rights management</quote> system."
14388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14389 #: freeculture.xml:10356
14391 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
14392 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
14393 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
14394 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
14395 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
14396 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
14400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14401 #: freeculture.xml:10365
14403 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
14404 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
14405 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
14406 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
14407 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
14408 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
14409 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
14410 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
14413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14414 #: freeculture.xml:10376
14416 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
14417 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
14418 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
14419 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
14420 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
14421 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
14422 "horse-drawn buggy."
14425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14426 #: freeculture.xml:10385
14428 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
14429 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
14430 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
14431 "as criminals and their own survival."
14435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14436 #: freeculture.xml:10391
14438 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
14439 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
14440 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
14441 "important as our tradition of free culture."
14444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14445 #: freeculture.xml:10402
14447 "<emphasis role='strong'>There's one more</emphasis> aspect to this "
14448 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
14449 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
14450 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the <quote>collateral "
14451 "damage</quote> that <quote>arises whenever you turn a very large percentage "
14452 "of the population into criminals.</quote> This is the collateral damage to "
14453 "civil liberties generally."
14456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14457 #: freeculture.xml:10410 freeculture.xml:10510
14458 msgid "von Lohmann, Fred"
14461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14462 #: freeculture.xml:10412
14464 "<quote>If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,</quote> von "
14465 "Lohmann explains,"
14468 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14469 #: freeculture.xml:10417
14471 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
14472 "one degree or another. … If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
14473 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
14474 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
14475 "continue to receive Internet access? … Our sensibilities change as "
14476 "soon as we think, <quote>Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a "
14477 "lawbreaker.</quote> Well, what this campaign against file sharing has done "
14478 "is turn a remarkable percentage of the American Internet-using population "
14479 "into <quote>lawbreakers.</quote>"
14482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14483 #: freeculture.xml:10429
14485 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
14486 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
14487 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
14490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14491 #: freeculture.xml:10434
14493 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
14494 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
14495 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
14496 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
14497 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
14498 "user is revealed."
14502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14503 #: freeculture.xml:10452
14505 "See Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single "
14506 "Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> "
14507 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, "
14508 "<quote>Worried Parents Pull Plug on File `Stealing'; With the Music Industry "
14509 "Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents are Yanking Software from Home PCs "
14510 "to Avoid Being Sued,</quote> <citetitle>Orlando Sentinel "
14511 "Tribune</citetitle>, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, <quote>Recording "
14512 "Industry Sues Parents,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 15 "
14513 "September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, <quote>She Says She's No Music Pirate. No "
14514 "Snoop Fan, Either,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 25 "
14515 "September 2003, C1; Margo Varadi, <quote>Is Brianna a Criminal?</quote> "
14516 "<citetitle>Toronto Star</citetitle>, 18 September 2003, P7."
14519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14520 #: freeculture.xml:10443
14522 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
14523 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
14524 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
14525 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
14526 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
14527 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
14528 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
14529 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14534 #: freeculture.xml:10470
14536 "See <quote>Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses "
14537 "Some Methods Used,</quote> CNN.com, available at <ulink "
14538 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
14541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14542 #: freeculture.xml:10466
14544 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
14545 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
14546 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
14547 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
14548 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
14549 "MP3s will have the same <quote>fingerprint.</quote>"
14553 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14554 #: freeculture.xml:10491
14556 "See Jeff Adler, <quote>Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not "
14557 "Penitent,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 18 May 2003, City "
14558 "Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, <quote>Four Students Sued over Music Sites; "
14559 "Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,</quote> "
14560 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth "
14561 "Armstrong, <quote>Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at Their Own Risk,</quote> "
14562 "<citetitle>Christian Science Monitor</citetitle>, 2 September 2003, 20; "
14563 "Robert Becker and Angela Rozas, <quote>Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; "
14564 "Two Students Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,</quote> "
14565 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 16 July 2003, 1C; Beth Cox, "
14566 "<quote>RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,</quote> "
14567 "<citetitle>Internet News</citetitle>, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
14568 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
14569 "<quote>Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include "
14570 "Record Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,</quote> <citetitle>San "
14571 "Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 11 August 2003, E11; <quote>Raid, Letters "
14572 "Are Weapons at Universities,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 26 "
14573 "September 2000, 3D."
14576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14577 #: freeculture.xml:10479
14579 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
14580 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
14581 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
14582 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
14583 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
14584 "if the college network is <quote>cooperating</quote> with the RIAA's "
14585 "espionage, and she hasn't properly protected her content from the network "
14586 "(do you know how to do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to "
14587 "identify your daughter as a <quote>criminal.</quote> And under the rules "
14588 "that universities are beginning to deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14589 "id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer "
14590 "network. She can, in some cases, be expelled."
14594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14595 #: freeculture.xml:10512
14597 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
14598 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
14599 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
14600 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
14601 "university might not believe her. It might treat this "
14602 "<quote>contraband</quote> as presumptive of guilt. And as any number of "
14603 "college students have already learned, our presumptions about innocence "
14604 "disappear in the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different. "
14605 "Says von Lohmann,"
14608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14609 #: freeculture.xml:10527
14611 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
14612 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
14613 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
14614 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
14615 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
14616 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
14617 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
14618 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
14619 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
14620 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
14621 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
14622 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
14623 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. … If forty to "
14624 "sixty million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a "
14625 "slippery slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty "
14629 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14630 #: freeculture.xml:10547
14632 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered "
14633 "<quote>criminals</quote> under the law, and when the law could achieve the "
14634 "same objective— securing rights to authors—without these "
14635 "millions being considered <quote>criminals,</quote> who is the villain? "
14636 "Americans or the law? Which is American, a constant war on our own people or "
14637 "a concerted effort through our democracy to change our law?"
14640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
14641 #: freeculture.xml:10560
14645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14646 #: freeculture.xml:10565
14648 "<emphasis role='strong'>So here's</emphasis> the picture: You're standing at "
14649 "the side of the road. Your car is on fire. You are angry and upset because "
14650 "in part you helped start the fire. Now you don't know how to put it "
14651 "out. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline "
14652 "won't put the fire out."
14655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14656 #: freeculture.xml:10572
14658 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
14659 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
14660 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
14661 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
14662 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
14665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14666 #: freeculture.xml:10580
14668 "<emphasis role='strong'>A war</emphasis> about copyright rages all "
14669 "around—and we're all focusing on the wrong thing. No doubt, current "
14670 "technologies threaten existing businesses. No doubt they may threaten "
14671 "artists. But technologies change. The industry and technologists have "
14672 "plenty of ways to use technology to protect themselves against the current "
14673 "threats of the Internet. This is a fire that if let alone would burn itself "
14678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14679 #: freeculture.xml:10590
14681 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
14682 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
14683 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
14684 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
14685 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
14688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14689 #: freeculture.xml:10598
14691 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
14692 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
14696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14697 #: freeculture.xml:10603
14699 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
14700 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
14701 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
14702 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
14705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14706 #: freeculture.xml:10609
14708 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
14709 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
14710 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
14711 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
14714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
14715 #: freeculture.xml:10619
14716 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
14719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14720 #: freeculture.xml:10620
14721 msgid "Hawthorne, Nathaniel"
14724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14725 #: freeculture.xml:10622
14727 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1995</emphasis>, a father was frustrated that his "
14728 "daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one "
14729 "such father, but at least one did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired "
14730 "computer programmer living in New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the "
14731 "Web. An electronic version, Eldred thought, with links to pictures and "
14732 "explanatory text, would make this nineteenth-century author's work come "
14736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14737 #: freeculture.xml:10631
14739 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
14740 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
14741 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
14742 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
14746 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14747 #: freeculture.xml:10640
14749 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
14750 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
14751 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
14752 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
14753 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
14754 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
14755 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
14758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14759 #: freeculture.xml:10651
14761 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
14762 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's <citetitle>Scarlet Letter</citetitle> had passed "
14763 "into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the "
14764 "permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press "
14765 "and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed "
14766 "editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as "
14767 "Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes "
14768 "successfully (<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle>), sometimes not "
14769 "(<citetitle>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</citetitle>, <citetitle>Treasure "
14770 "Planet</citetitle>). These are all commercial publications of public domain "
14774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14775 #: freeculture.xml:10676 freeculture.xml:11693
14776 msgid "pornography"
14779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14780 #: freeculture.xml:10676
14782 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> There's a parallel here with "
14783 "pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but it's a strong one. One "
14784 "phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of noncommercial "
14785 "pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were not making "
14786 "money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a class didn't "
14787 "exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of distributing "
14788 "porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got special attention "
14789 "in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the Communications Decency "
14790 "Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on noncommercial speakers "
14791 "that the statute was found to exceed Congress's power. The same point could "
14792 "have been made about noncommercial publishers after the advent of the "
14793 "Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the Internet were extremely "
14794 "few. Yet one would think it at least as important to protect the Eldreds of "
14795 "the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
14798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14799 #: freeculture.xml:10665
14801 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
14802 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
14803 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
14804 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
14805 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the "
14806 "<quote>noncommercial publishing industry,</quote> which before the Internet "
14807 "was limited to people with large egos or with political or social "
14808 "causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and "
14809 "groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.<placeholder "
14810 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14813 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14814 #: freeculture.xml:10694
14816 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
14817 "of poems <citetitle>New Hampshire</citetitle> was slated to pass into the "
14818 "public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public "
14819 "library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter <xref "
14820 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, in 1998, for the "
14821 "eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing "
14822 "copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add "
14823 "any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no "
14824 "copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not "
14825 "even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same "
14826 "period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain."
14829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14830 #: freeculture.xml:10707 freeculture.xml:10717
14834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14835 #: freeculture.xml:10708 freeculture.xml:10718
14836 msgid "Bono, Sonny"
14839 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14840 #: freeculture.xml:10717
14842 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14843 "id=\"1\"/> The full text is: <quote>Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of "
14844 "copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a "
14845 "change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me "
14846 "to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you "
14847 "know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less "
14848 "one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,</quote> 144 "
14849 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
14852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14853 #: freeculture.xml:10712
14855 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
14856 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
14857 "Mary Bono, says, believed that <quote>copyrights should be "
14858 "forever.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14862 #: freeculture.xml:10730
14864 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
14865 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
14866 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
14867 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
14868 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
14869 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
14872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14873 #: freeculture.xml:10739
14875 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
14876 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
14877 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
14878 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
14879 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
14882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
14883 #: freeculture.xml:10750
14885 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science … by "
14886 "securing for limited Times to Authors … exclusive Right to their "
14887 "… Writings. …"
14890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14891 #: freeculture.xml:10756
14893 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
14894 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
14895 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
14896 "example, to regulate <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> or "
14897 "<quote>declare War.</quote> But here, the <quote>something</quote> is "
14898 "something quite specific—to <quote>promote … "
14899 "Progress</quote>—through means that are also specific— by "
14900 "<quote>securing</quote> <quote>exclusive Rights</quote> (i.e., copyrights) "
14901 "<quote>for limited Times.</quote>"
14904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14905 #: freeculture.xml:10765 freeculture.xml:12255
14906 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
14910 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14911 #: freeculture.xml:10767
14913 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
14914 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
14915 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
14916 "requirement that terms be <quote>limited</quote> will have no practical "
14917 "effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power "
14918 "to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
14919 "forbids—perpetual terms <quote>on the installment plan,</quote> as "
14920 "Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it."
14923 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14924 #: freeculture.xml:10778
14926 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
14927 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
14928 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
14929 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
14930 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
14931 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
14932 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
14933 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
14936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14937 #: freeculture.xml:10789
14939 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
14940 "government. <quote>Corruption</quote> not in the sense that representatives "
14941 "are bribed. Rather, <quote>corruption</quote> in the sense that the system "
14942 "induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to "
14943 "Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so "
14944 "much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must "
14945 "do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
14948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14949 #: freeculture.xml:10798
14951 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
14952 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
14953 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
14954 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
14955 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
14956 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
14957 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
14960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14961 #: freeculture.xml:10808
14963 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
14964 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
14965 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
14966 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
14970 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14971 #: freeculture.xml:10815
14973 "<quote>Next year,</quote> the adviser announces, <quote>our copyrights in "
14974 "works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no "
14975 "longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers "
14976 "of those works.</quote>"
14979 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14980 #: freeculture.xml:10823
14982 "<quote>There's a proposal in Congress, however,</quote> she continues, "
14983 "<quote>that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to "
14984 "extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be "
14985 "extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.</quote>"
14988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14989 #: freeculture.xml:10829
14991 "<quote>Hope?</quote> a fellow board member says. <quote>Can't we be doing "
14992 "something about it?</quote>"
14995 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14996 #: freeculture.xml:10833
14998 "<quote>Well, obviously, yes,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>We could "
14999 "contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure "
15000 "that they support the bill.</quote>"
15003 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15004 #: freeculture.xml:10838
15006 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
15007 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. <quote>How much would we get "
15008 "if this extension were passed?</quote> you ask the adviser. <quote>How much "
15009 "is it worth?</quote>"
15012 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15013 #: freeculture.xml:10844
15015 "<quote>Well,</quote> the adviser says, <quote>if you're confident that you "
15016 "will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you "
15017 "use the `discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 "
15018 "percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.</quote>"
15021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15022 #: freeculture.xml:10850
15024 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
15028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15029 #: freeculture.xml:10854
15031 "<quote>So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than "
15032 "$1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those "
15033 "contributions would assure that the bill was passed?</quote>"
15036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15037 #: freeculture.xml:10860
15039 "<quote>Absolutely,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>It is worth it to "
15040 "you to contribute up to the `present value' of the income you expect from "
15041 "these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.</quote>"
15045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15046 #: freeculture.xml:10866
15048 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
15049 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
15050 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
15051 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
15052 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
15053 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
15057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15058 #: freeculture.xml:10877
15060 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
15061 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
15062 "buy further extensions of copyright."
15066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15067 #: freeculture.xml:10889
15069 "Associated Press, <quote>Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey "
15070 "Mouse Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,</quote> "
15071 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 17 October 1998, 22."
15075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15076 #: freeculture.xml:10896
15078 "See Nick Brown, <quote>Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information "
15079 "Age,</quote> available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15085 #: freeculture.xml:10904
15087 "Alan K. Ota, <quote>Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,</quote> "
15088 "<citetitle>Congressional Quarterly This Week</citetitle>, 8 August 1990, "
15089 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
15092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15093 #: freeculture.xml:10882
15095 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
15096 "Extension Act, this <quote>theory</quote> about incentives was proved "
15097 "real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received "
15098 "the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the "
15099 "Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder "
15100 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have "
15101 "spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out "
15102 "more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15103 "id=\"1\"/> Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to "
15104 "reelection campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
15107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15108 #: freeculture.xml:10911
15110 "<emphasis role='strong'>Constitutional law</emphasis> is not oblivious to "
15111 "the obvious. Or at least, it need not be. So when I was considering Eldred's "
15112 "complaint, this reality about the never-ending incentives to increase the "
15113 "copyright term was central to my thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court "
15114 "committed to interpreting and applying the Constitution of our framers would "
15115 "see that if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then there "
15116 "would be no effective constitutional requirement that terms be "
15117 "<quote>limited.</quote> If they could extend it once, they would extend it "
15118 "again and again and again."
15122 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15123 #: freeculture.xml:10923
15125 "It was also my judgment that <emphasis>this</emphasis> Supreme Court would "
15126 "not allow Congress to extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme "
15127 "Court's work knows, this Court has increasingly restricted the power of "
15128 "Congress when it has viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power "
15129 "granted to it by the Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most "
15130 "famous example of this trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to "
15131 "strike down a law that banned the possession of guns near schools."
15134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15135 #: freeculture.xml:10936
15137 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
15138 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
15139 "only <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> (aka <quote>interstate "
15140 "commerce</quote>), the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include "
15141 "the power to regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
15144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15145 #: freeculture.xml:10946
15147 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
15148 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
15149 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
15150 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
15154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15155 #: freeculture.xml:10952 freeculture.xml:11742
15156 msgid "Rehnquist, William H."
15159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15160 #: freeculture.xml:10954
15162 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
15163 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The "
15164 "government had argued that possessing guns near schools affected interstate "
15165 "commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, crime lowers property values, "
15166 "and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief Justice asked the government "
15167 "whether there was any activity that would not affect interstate commerce "
15168 "under the reasoning the government advanced. The government said there was "
15169 "not; if Congress says an activity affects interstate commerce, then that "
15170 "activity affects interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, the government "
15171 "said, was not in the position to second-guess Congress."
15175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15176 #: freeculture.xml:10969
15178 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>, 514 "
15179 "U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
15183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15184 #: freeculture.xml:10976
15186 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>, 529 "
15190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15191 #: freeculture.xml:10967
15193 "<quote>We pause to consider the implications of the government's "
15194 "arguments,</quote> the Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15195 "id=\"0\"/> If anything Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore "
15196 "be considered interstate commerce, then there would be no limit to "
15197 "Congress's power. The decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> was "
15198 "reaffirmed five years later in <citetitle>United States</citetitle> "
15199 "v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
15203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15204 #: freeculture.xml:10983
15206 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
15207 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
15208 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
15209 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
15210 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
15211 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
15212 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
15213 "copyrights—the limitation to <quote>limited times</quote> "
15218 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15219 #: freeculture.xml:10980
15221 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
15222 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15223 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
15224 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
15225 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no "
15226 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power over terms, though the "
15227 "Constitution expressly states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same "
15228 "principle applied to the power to grant copyrights should entail that "
15229 "Congress is not allowed to extend the term of existing copyrights."
15232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15233 #: freeculture.xml:11004
15235 "<emphasis>If</emphasis>, that is, the principle announced in "
15236 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for a principle. Many believed the "
15237 "decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for politics—a "
15238 "conservative Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its "
15239 "power over Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I "
15240 "rejected that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after "
15241 "the decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the <quote>fidelity</quote> "
15242 "in such an interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme "
15243 "Court decides cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily "
15244 "boring. I was not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if "
15245 "these nine Justices were going to be petty politicians."
15248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15249 #: freeculture.xml:11016
15250 msgid "copyright purpose established in"
15253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15254 #: freeculture.xml:11017
15255 msgid "constitutional purpose of"
15258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15259 #: freeculture.xml:11021
15261 "<emphasis role='strong'>Now let's pause</emphasis> for a moment to make sure "
15262 "we understand what the argument in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was not "
15263 "about. By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously "
15264 "Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was "
15265 "fighting a kind of piracy—piracy of the public domain. When Robert "
15266 "Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum "
15267 "copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost "
15268 "and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their "
15269 "work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution "
15270 "envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they "
15271 "created new work. But now these entities were using their "
15272 "power—expressed through the power of lobbyists' money—to get "
15273 "another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be "
15274 "taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects "
15278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15279 #: freeculture.xml:11038
15280 msgid "Nashville Songwriters Association"
15284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15285 #: freeculture.xml:11046
15287 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, "
15288 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. "
15289 "186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
15290 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
15293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15294 #: freeculture.xml:11040
15296 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
15297 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
15298 "domain is nothing more than <quote>legal piracy.</quote><placeholder "
15299 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; "
15300 "and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
15301 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
15302 "pirate's charter."
15305 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15306 #: freeculture.xml:11056
15308 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
15309 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
15310 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
15311 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
15312 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
15313 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
15314 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
15317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15318 #: freeculture.xml:11068
15320 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is valuable</emphasis> copyrights that are "
15321 "responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and <quote>Rhapsody in "
15322 "Blue.</quote> These works are too valuable for copyright owners to "
15323 "ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not "
15324 "that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert "
15325 "Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing "
15326 "commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these "
15327 "famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not "
15328 "commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
15332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15333 #: freeculture.xml:11086
15335 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
15336 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
15337 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15338 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 7, available at <ulink "
15339 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
15342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15343 #: freeculture.xml:11080
15345 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
15346 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
15347 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
15348 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
15349 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
15350 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15355 #: freeculture.xml:11095
15357 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
15358 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
15359 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
15360 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
15361 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
15365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15366 #: freeculture.xml:11108
15368 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
15369 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
15370 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
15371 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
15372 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
15376 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15377 #: freeculture.xml:11116
15379 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
15380 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
15383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15384 #: freeculture.xml:11120
15386 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
15387 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
15388 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
15391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15392 #: freeculture.xml:11127
15394 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
15395 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
15396 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
15397 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
15398 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
15401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15402 #: freeculture.xml:11136
15404 "<quote>But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,</quote> the "
15405 "apologists for the system respond. <quote>Why should there be a list of "
15406 "copyright owners?</quote>"
15409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15410 #: freeculture.xml:11141
15412 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there <emphasis>are</emphasis> plenty "
15413 "of lists of who owns what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles "
15414 "to cars. And where there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty "
15415 "good at suggesting who the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in "
15416 "your backyard is probably yours.) So formally or informally, we have a "
15417 "pretty good way to know who owns what tangible property."
15421 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15422 #: freeculture.xml:11150
15424 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
15425 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
15426 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
15427 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
15428 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
15429 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
15430 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
15431 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
15432 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
15435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15436 #: freeculture.xml:11165
15438 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
15439 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
15440 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
15441 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
15442 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
15443 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
15444 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
15445 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
15449 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15450 #: freeculture.xml:11177
15452 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
15453 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
15454 "creative works is much more dire."
15457 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15458 #: freeculture.xml:11182
15459 msgid "Agee, Michael"
15462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15463 #: freeculture.xml:11183 freeculture.xml:11618
15464 msgid "Hal Roach Studios"
15467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15468 #: freeculture.xml:11184
15469 msgid "Laurel and Hardy Films"
15472 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15473 #: freeculture.xml:11185
15474 msgid "Lucky Dog, The"
15478 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15479 #: freeculture.xml:11198
15481 "See David G. Savage, <quote>High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright "
15482 "Law,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 6 October 2002; David "
15483 "Streitfeld, <quote>Classic Movies, Songs, Books at Stake; Supreme Court "
15484 "Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down Copyright Extension,</quote> "
15485 "<citetitle>Orlando Sentinel Tribune</citetitle>, 9 October 2002."
15488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15489 #: freeculture.xml:11187
15491 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
15492 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
15493 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
15494 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, <citetitle>The Lucky "
15495 "Dog</citetitle>, is currently out of copyright. But for the CTEA, films made "
15496 "after 1923 would have begun entering the public domain. Because Agee "
15497 "controls the exclusive rights for these popular films, he makes a great deal "
15498 "of money. According to one estimate, <quote>Roach has sold about 60,000 "
15499 "videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's silent "
15500 "films.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15504 #: freeculture.xml:11205
15506 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
15507 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
15508 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
15509 "a whole generation of American film."
15513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15514 #: freeculture.xml:11211
15516 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
15517 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
15518 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
15519 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
15520 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
15521 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
15525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15526 #: freeculture.xml:11229
15528 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
15529 "Petitoners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15530 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), "
15531 "12. See also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the "
15532 "Internet Archive, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15533 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
15534 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
15537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15538 #: freeculture.xml:11222
15540 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
15541 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
15542 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
15543 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
15544 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of mm film.<placeholder "
15545 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15549 #: freeculture.xml:11239
15551 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
15552 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
15553 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
15554 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
15555 "locate the copyright owner."
15558 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15559 #: freeculture.xml:11247
15561 "Or more accurately, <emphasis>owners</emphasis>. As we've seen, there isn't "
15562 "only a single copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't "
15563 "a single person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as "
15564 "many as can hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large "
15565 "number. Thus the costs of clearing the rights to these films is "
15566 "exceptionally high."
15569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15570 #: freeculture.xml:11255
15572 "<quote>But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
15573 "copyright owner when she shows up?</quote> Sure, if you want to commit a "
15574 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
15575 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
15576 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
15577 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
15578 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
15579 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
15580 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
15584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15585 #: freeculture.xml:11266
15587 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
15588 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
15589 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
15590 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
15594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15595 #: freeculture.xml:11277
15597 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
15598 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
15599 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
15600 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
15603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15604 #: freeculture.xml:11285
15606 "<emphasis role='strong'>Of all the</emphasis> creative work produced by "
15607 "humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that "
15608 "tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that "
15609 "tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute "
15610 "the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "
15611 "<quote>engine of free expression.</quote>"
15614 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15615 #: freeculture.xml:11293
15617 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
15618 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
15619 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
15620 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
15621 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
15622 "commercial life ends."
15625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15626 #: freeculture.xml:11303
15628 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
15629 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
15630 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
15631 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
15632 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
15633 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
15634 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
15635 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
15639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15640 #: freeculture.xml:11316
15642 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
15643 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
15644 "context do no good."
15647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15648 #: freeculture.xml:11323
15650 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
15651 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
15652 "<emphasis>copyright-related use</emphasis> that would be inhibited by an "
15653 "exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a "
15654 "publisher. But you could still buy it from a used book store, and when a "
15655 "used book store sells it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the "
15656 "copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its "
15657 "commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law."
15660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15661 #: freeculture.xml:11334
15663 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
15664 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
15665 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
15666 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
15667 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
15668 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
15671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15672 #: freeculture.xml:11343
15674 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
15675 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
15676 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
15677 "interfered with anything."
15680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15681 #: freeculture.xml:11349
15682 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
15685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15686 #: freeculture.xml:11353
15688 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
15689 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
15690 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
15691 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
15692 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
15693 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
15694 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
15695 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
15696 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
15700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15701 #: freeculture.xml:11366
15703 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
15704 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
15705 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
15706 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
15707 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
15708 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
15709 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
15710 "radically different context."
15713 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15714 #: freeculture.xml:11376
15716 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
15717 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
15718 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful "
15719 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis> purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to "
15720 "enable the commercial market that spreads culture. No, we are talking about "
15721 "culture after it has lived its commercial life. In this context, copyright "
15722 "is serving no purpose <emphasis>at all</emphasis> related to the spread of "
15723 "knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
15724 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
15727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15728 #: freeculture.xml:11387
15730 "You may well ask, <quote>But if digital technologies lower the costs for "
15731 "Brewster Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So "
15732 "won't Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture "
15736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15737 #: freeculture.xml:11393
15739 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
15740 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
15741 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
15742 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
15743 "what <quote>the market</quote> would demand. But if you think the role of a "
15744 "library is bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive "
15745 "culture, whether there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or "
15746 "not—then we can't count on the commercial market to do our library "
15751 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15752 #: freeculture.xml:11417
15754 "Jason Schultz, <quote>The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,</quote> "
15755 "20 December 2002, available at <ulink "
15756 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
15759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15760 #: freeculture.xml:11405
15762 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
15763 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
15764 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
15765 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
15766 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
15767 "films, books, and music produced between and 1946 is not commercially "
15768 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
15769 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
15770 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15773 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15774 #: freeculture.xml:11424
15776 "<emphasis role='strong'>In January 1999</emphasis>, we filed a lawsuit on "
15777 "Eric Eldred's behalf in federal district court in Washington, D.C., asking "
15778 "the court to declare the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act "
15779 "unconstitutional. The two central claims that we made were (1) that "
15780 "extending existing terms violated the Constitution's <quote>limited "
15781 "Times</quote> requirement, and (2) that extending terms by another twenty "
15782 "years violated the First Amendment."
15785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15786 #: freeculture.xml:11433
15788 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
15789 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
15790 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
15791 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
15792 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
15795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15796 #: freeculture.xml:11440
15798 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
15799 "be for <quote>limited Times</quote> only. His argument was as elegant as it "
15800 "was simple: If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no "
15801 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power under the Copyright "
15802 "Clause. The power to extend existing terms means Congress is not required to "
15803 "grant terms that are <quote>limited.</quote> Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, "
15804 "the court had to interpret the term <quote>limited Times</quote> to give it "
15805 "meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle argued, would be to "
15806 "deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
15809 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15810 #: freeculture.xml:11451
15812 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
15813 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
15814 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
15815 "the court will sit <quote>en banc</quote> to hear the case."
15818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15819 #: freeculture.xml:11456
15820 msgid "Tatel, David"
15824 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15825 #: freeculture.xml:11458
15827 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
15828 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
15829 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
15830 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
15834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15835 #: freeculture.xml:11467
15837 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
15838 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
15839 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
15840 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
15841 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
15844 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15845 #: freeculture.xml:11474
15847 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
15848 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
15849 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
15852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15853 #: freeculture.xml:11480
15855 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is over</emphasis> a year later as I write these "
15856 "words. It is still astonishingly hard. If you know anything at all about "
15857 "this story, you know that we lost the appeal. And if you know something more "
15858 "than just the minimum, you probably think there was no way this case could "
15859 "have been won. After our defeat, I received literally thousands of missives "
15860 "by well-wishers and supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this "
15861 "noble but doomed cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me "
15862 "than the e-mail from my client, Eric Eldred."
15865 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15866 #: freeculture.xml:11491
15868 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
15869 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
15870 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
15873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15874 #: freeculture.xml:11496 freeculture.xml:11510
15875 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
15879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15880 #: freeculture.xml:11498
15882 "<emphasis role='strong'>The mistake</emphasis> was made early, though it "
15883 "became obvious only at the very end. Our case had been supported from the "
15884 "very beginning by an extraordinary lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law "
15885 "firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great "
15886 "deal of heat from its copyright-protectionist clients for supporting "
15887 "us. They ignored this pressure (something that few law firms today would "
15888 "ever do), and throughout the case, they gave it everything they could."
15891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15892 #: freeculture.xml:11508 freeculture.xml:11871 freeculture.xml:11887 freeculture.xml:11984 freeculture.xml:12204 freeculture.xml:12235 freeculture.xml:12333
15896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15897 #: freeculture.xml:11509
15898 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
15901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15902 #: freeculture.xml:11512
15904 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
15905 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
15906 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
15907 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
15908 "make the issue seem <quote>important</quote> to the Supreme Court. It had to "
15909 "seem as if dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; "
15910 "otherwise, they would never vote against <quote>the most powerful media "
15911 "companies in the world.</quote>"
15914 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15915 #: freeculture.xml:11522
15917 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
15918 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
15919 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
15920 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be "
15921 "<quote>right</quote> as in <quote>true,</quote> I thought, but it is "
15922 "<quote>wrong</quote> as in <quote>it just shouldn't be that way.</quote> As "
15923 "I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the framers of our "
15924 "Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
15925 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
15926 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
15927 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
15928 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
15929 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
15930 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
15931 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
15932 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
15933 "put in the Constitution."
15936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15937 #: freeculture.xml:11543
15939 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
15940 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
15941 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
15942 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
15943 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
15947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15948 #: freeculture.xml:11551
15950 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
15951 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
15952 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
15953 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
15954 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
15955 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
15956 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
15957 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
15958 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
15959 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in "
15960 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> and not politics, then, we tried to gather the "
15961 "widest range of credible critics—credible not because they were rich "
15962 "and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law "
15963 "was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics."
15966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15967 #: freeculture.xml:11569 freeculture.xml:11596
15968 msgid "Eagle Forum"
15971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15972 #: freeculture.xml:11570
15973 msgid "Schlafly, Phyllis"
15976 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15977 #: freeculture.xml:11572
15979 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
15980 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
15981 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
15982 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
15983 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, <quote>Do you sometimes wonder why "
15984 "bills that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide "
15985 "easily through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit "
15986 "the general public seem to get bogged down?</quote> The answer, as the "
15987 "editorial documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
15988 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
15989 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
15993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15994 #: freeculture.xml:11586
15996 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
15997 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
15998 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
15999 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
16000 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
16004 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16005 #: freeculture.xml:11598
16007 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
16008 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
16009 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/ Linux possible). They "
16010 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
16011 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
16012 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
16013 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
16014 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments."
16017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16018 #: freeculture.xml:11610
16019 msgid "American Association of Law Libraries"
16022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16023 #: freeculture.xml:11611
16024 msgid "National Writers Union"
16027 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16028 #: freeculture.xml:11613
16030 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
16031 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
16032 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
16033 "National Writers Union."
16036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16037 #: freeculture.xml:11620
16039 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
16040 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
16041 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
16042 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
16045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16046 #: freeculture.xml:11626
16047 msgid "Akerlof, George"
16050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16051 #: freeculture.xml:11627
16052 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
16055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16056 #: freeculture.xml:11628
16057 msgid "Buchanan, James"
16060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16061 #: freeculture.xml:11629
16062 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
16065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16066 #: freeculture.xml:11630
16067 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
16070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16071 #: freeculture.xml:11632
16073 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
16074 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
16075 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
16076 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
16077 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
16078 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
16079 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than "
16080 "<quote>rent-seeking</quote>—the fancy term economists use to describe "
16081 "special-interest legislation gone wild."
16084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16085 #: freeculture.xml:11642 freeculture.xml:11660 freeculture.xml:11873 freeculture.xml:12236
16086 msgid "Fried, Charles"
16089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16090 #: freeculture.xml:11643
16091 msgid "Morrison, Alan"
16094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16095 #: freeculture.xml:11644
16096 msgid "Public Citizen"
16099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16100 #: freeculture.xml:11645 freeculture.xml:11872 freeculture.xml:12992
16101 msgid "Reagan, Ronald"
16105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16106 #: freeculture.xml:11647
16108 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
16109 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
16110 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
16111 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
16112 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
16113 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
16114 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
16115 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
16116 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried."
16119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
16120 #: freeculture.xml:11661
16121 msgid "constitutional powers of"
16124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
16125 #: freeculture.xml:11662
16126 msgid "Commerce Clause of"
16129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16130 #: freeculture.xml:11664
16132 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
16133 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
16134 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
16135 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
16136 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
16137 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
16138 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
16139 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
16140 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument."
16143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16144 #: freeculture.xml:11676
16146 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
16147 "well. Significantly, however, none of these <quote>friends</quote> included "
16148 "historians or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were "
16149 "written exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright "
16153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16154 #: freeculture.xml:11683
16156 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
16157 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
16158 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
16159 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
16160 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
16161 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
16164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16165 #: freeculture.xml:11691
16166 msgid "Gershwin, George"
16169 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16170 #: freeculture.xml:11692
16171 msgid "Porgy and Bess"
16175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16176 #: freeculture.xml:11702
16178 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
16179 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. (2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
16183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16184 #: freeculture.xml:11710
16186 "Dinitia Smith, <quote>Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse "
16187 "Joins the Fray,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 28 March "
16192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16193 #: freeculture.xml:11695
16195 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
16196 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
16197 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
16198 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to "
16199 "<quote>glorify drugs or to create pornography.</quote><placeholder "
16200 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That was also the motive of the Gershwin "
16201 "estate, which defended its <quote>protection</quote> of the work of George "
16202 "Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to license <citetitle>Porgy and "
16203 "Bess</citetitle> to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
16204 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
16205 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
16206 "help them effect that control."
16209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16210 #: freeculture.xml:11719
16212 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
16213 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
16214 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
16215 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
16216 "Congress and say, <quote>Give us twenty years to control the speech about "
16217 "these icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone "
16218 "else.</quote> Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by "
16219 "giving them what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive "
16220 "right to speak in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is "
16221 "traditionally meant to block."
16224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16225 #: freeculture.xml:11731
16227 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
16228 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
16229 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
16230 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
16231 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak."
16234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16235 #: freeculture.xml:11738
16237 "<emphasis role='strong'>Between February</emphasis> and October, there was "
16238 "little I did beyond preparing for this case. Early on, as I said, I set the "
16242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16243 #: freeculture.xml:11743 freeculture.xml:11929
16244 msgid "O'Connor, Sandra Day"
16247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16248 #: freeculture.xml:11745
16250 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
16251 "<quote>the Conservatives.</quote> The other we called <quote>the "
16252 "Rest.</quote> The Conservatives included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice "
16253 "O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five "
16254 "had been the most consistent in limiting Congress's power. They were the "
16255 "five who had supported the <citetitle>Lopez/Morrison</citetitle> line of "
16256 "cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to assure "
16257 "that Congress's powers had limits."
16260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16261 #: freeculture.xml:11754 freeculture.xml:11779 freeculture.xml:12131 freeculture.xml:12143
16262 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
16265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16266 #: freeculture.xml:11755 freeculture.xml:12095
16267 msgid "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader"
16271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16272 #: freeculture.xml:11757
16274 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
16275 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
16276 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
16277 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
16278 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
16279 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
16280 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
16281 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
16284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16285 #: freeculture.xml:11769
16287 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
16288 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
16289 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
16290 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
16291 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
16292 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
16293 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
16294 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
16297 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16298 #: freeculture.xml:11781
16300 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
16301 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
16302 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
16303 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
16304 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
16307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16308 #: freeculture.xml:11790
16310 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
16311 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
16312 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
16313 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
16314 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
16315 "confident he would recognize limits here."
16318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16319 #: freeculture.xml:11798
16321 "This analysis of <quote>the Rest</quote> showed most clearly where our focus "
16322 "had to be: on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open "
16323 "these five and get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single "
16324 "overriding argument that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' "
16325 "most important jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge "
16326 "Sentelle had relied upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must "
16327 "be interpreted so that its enumerated powers have limits."
16331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16332 #: freeculture.xml:11808
16334 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
16335 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the "
16336 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, under the government's argument here, "
16337 "Congress would always have unlimited power to extend existing terms. If "
16338 "anything was plain about Congress's power under the Progress Clause, it was "
16339 "that this power was supposed to be <quote>limited.</quote> Our aim would be "
16340 "to get the Court to reconcile <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> with "
16341 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was "
16342 "limited, then so, too, must Congress's power to regulate copyright be "
16346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16347 #: freeculture.xml:11822
16349 "<emphasis role='strong'>The argument</emphasis> on the government's side "
16350 "came down to this: Congress has done it before. It should be allowed to do "
16351 "it again. The government claimed that from the very beginning, Congress has "
16352 "been extending the term of existing copyrights. So, the government argued, "
16353 "the Court should not now say that practice is unconstitutional."
16356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16357 #: freeculture.xml:11830
16359 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
16360 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in 1831 and in 1909. And of "
16361 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
16362 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
16365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16366 #: freeculture.xml:11837
16368 "But this <quote>consistency</quote> should be kept in perspective. Congress "
16369 "extended existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It "
16370 "then extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare "
16371 "extensions are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
16372 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
16373 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
16374 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
16375 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
16376 "couldn't intervene here."
16380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16381 #: freeculture.xml:11852
16383 "<emphasis role='strong'>Oral argument</emphasis> was scheduled for the first "
16384 "week in October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During "
16385 "those two weeks, I was repeatedly <quote>mooted</quote> by lawyers who had "
16386 "volunteered to help in the case. Such <quote>moots</quote> are basically "
16387 "practice rounds, where wannabe justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
16390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16391 #: freeculture.xml:11862
16393 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
16394 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
16395 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
16396 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
16397 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
16398 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
16401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16402 #: freeculture.xml:11875
16404 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
16405 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
16406 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
16407 "of the moot, he let his concern speak:"
16410 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16411 #: freeculture.xml:11881
16413 "<quote>I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
16414 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
16415 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
16416 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
16417 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.</quote>"
16420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16421 #: freeculture.xml:11889
16423 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
16424 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
16425 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
16426 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
16427 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
16428 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
16429 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
16430 "politicians learn to see that it was also good."
16434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16435 #: freeculture.xml:11899
16437 "<emphasis role='strong'>The night before</emphasis> the argument, a line of "
16438 "people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The case had become a "
16439 "focus of the press and of the movement to free culture. Hundreds stood in "
16440 "line for the chance to see the proceedings. Scores spent the night on the "
16441 "Supreme Court steps so that they would be assured a seat."
16444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16445 #: freeculture.xml:11909
16447 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
16448 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
16449 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
16450 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
16451 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
16452 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
16453 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
16454 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
16455 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
16456 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
16457 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
16460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16461 #: freeculture.xml:11924
16463 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
16464 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
16465 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
16466 "powers had any limit."
16469 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16470 #: freeculture.xml:11931
16472 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
16473 "was bothering her."
16476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16477 #: freeculture.xml:11936
16479 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
16480 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
16481 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
16485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16486 #: freeculture.xml:11943
16488 "She was quite willing to concede <quote>that this flies directly in the face "
16489 "of what the framers had in mind.</quote> But my response again and again was "
16490 "to emphasize limits on Congress's power."
16494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16495 #: freeculture.xml:11949
16497 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
16498 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
16499 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
16502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16503 #: freeculture.xml:11957
16505 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
16506 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
16509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16510 #: freeculture.xml:11963
16512 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
16513 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
16514 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
16515 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
16516 "evidence for that."
16519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16520 #: freeculture.xml:11971
16522 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
16526 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16527 #: freeculture.xml:11977
16529 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
16530 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
16531 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
16532 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
16533 "under the copyright laws."
16536 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16537 #: freeculture.xml:11986
16539 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
16540 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
16541 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
16542 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
16543 "was a swing and a miss."
16546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16547 #: freeculture.xml:11993
16549 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
16550 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16551 "ruling, and we hoped that he would see this case as its second cousin."
16555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16556 #: freeculture.xml:11998
16558 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
16559 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
16562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16563 #: freeculture.xml:12005
16565 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
16566 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
16569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16570 #: freeculture.xml:12009
16572 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
16573 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
16574 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
16575 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
16578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16579 #: freeculture.xml:12017
16580 msgid "Olson, Theodore B."
16583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16584 #: freeculture.xml:12019
16586 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
16587 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
16591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16592 #: freeculture.xml:12025
16594 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
16595 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
16596 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
16597 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
16600 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16601 #: freeculture.xml:12033
16603 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
16604 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
16605 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
16606 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
16607 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
16608 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
16609 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
16610 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
16611 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
16612 "Court to my side."
16616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16617 #: freeculture.xml:12046
16619 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I left</emphasis> the court that day, I knew "
16620 "there were a hundred points I wished I could remake. There were a hundred "
16621 "questions I wished I had answered differently. But one way of thinking about "
16622 "this case left me optimistic."
16625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16626 #: freeculture.xml:12055
16628 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
16629 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
16630 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
16631 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
16632 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
16633 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
16634 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
16635 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
16636 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
16637 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
16638 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
16639 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
16642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16643 #: freeculture.xml:12070
16645 "<emphasis role='strong'>The morning</emphasis> of January 15, 2003, I was "
16646 "five minutes late to the office and missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the "
16647 "Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the message, I could tell in an instant "
16648 "that she had bad news to report.The Supreme Court had affirmed the decision "
16649 "of the Court of Appeals. Seven justices had voted in the majority. There "
16650 "were two dissents."
16653 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16654 #: freeculture.xml:12078
16656 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
16657 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
16658 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
16661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16662 #: freeculture.xml:12083
16664 "My <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. Here was a case that pitted all the money "
16665 "in the world against <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. And here was the last "
16666 "naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."
16669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16670 #: freeculture.xml:12089
16672 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
16673 "principle in this case from the principle in "
16674 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The argument was nowhere to be found. The case "
16675 "was not even cited. The argument that was the core argument of our case did "
16676 "not even appear in the Court's opinion."
16680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16681 #: freeculture.xml:12099
16683 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
16684 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
16685 "Congress's power not limited here."
16688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16689 #: freeculture.xml:12104
16691 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
16692 "Souter. Neither believes in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. It would be too "
16693 "much to expect them to write an opinion that recognized, much less "
16694 "explained, the doctrine they had worked so hard to defeat."
16697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16698 #: freeculture.xml:12110
16700 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
16701 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
16702 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
16703 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
16704 "simply <emphasis>by not addressing the argument</emphasis>. There was no "
16705 "inconsistency because they would not talk about the two together. There was "
16706 "therefore no principle that followed from the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16707 "case: In that context, Congress's power would be limited, but in this "
16708 "context it would not."
16711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16712 #: freeculture.xml:12121
16714 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
16715 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
16716 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
16717 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
16718 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
16719 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
16720 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
16721 "will respect, that is the system we have."
16724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16725 #: freeculture.xml:12133
16727 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
16728 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
16729 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
16730 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
16731 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
16732 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
16733 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
16734 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
16735 "charge go unanswered."
16739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16740 #: freeculture.xml:12146
16742 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
16743 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
16744 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
16745 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
16746 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
16747 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
16748 "Constitution said a term had to be <quote>limited,</quote> and the existing "
16749 "term was so long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was "
16750 "unconstitutional."
16753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16754 #: freeculture.xml:12157
16756 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
16757 "neither believed in the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, neither was "
16758 "willing to push it as a reason to reject this extension. The case was "
16759 "decided without anyone having addressed the argument that we had carried "
16760 "from Judge Sentelle. It was <citetitle>Hamlet</citetitle> without the "
16764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16765 #: freeculture.xml:12164
16767 "<emphasis role='strong'>Defeat brings depression</emphasis>. They say it is "
16768 "a sign of health when depression gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, "
16769 "but it didn't cure the depression. This anger was of two sorts."
16772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16773 #: freeculture.xml:12169
16774 msgid "originalism"
16777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16778 #: freeculture.xml:12171
16780 "It was first anger with the five <quote>Conservatives.</quote> It would have "
16781 "been one thing for them to have explained why the principle of "
16782 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> didn't apply in this case. That wouldn't have "
16783 "been a very convincing argument, I don't believe, having read it made by "
16784 "others, and having tried to make it myself. But it at least would have been "
16785 "an act of integrity. These justices in particular have repeatedly said that "
16786 "the proper mode of interpreting the Constitution is "
16787 "<quote>originalism</quote>—to first understand the framers' text, "
16788 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
16789 "Constitution. That method had produced <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> and many "
16790 "other <quote>originalist</quote> rulings. Where was their "
16791 "<quote>originalism</quote> now?"
16795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16796 #: freeculture.xml:12184
16798 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
16799 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
16800 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
16801 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
16802 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
16803 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
16804 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
16805 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
16806 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
16807 "consistent with their own principles."
16810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16811 #: freeculture.xml:12199
16813 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
16814 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
16818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16819 #: freeculture.xml:12206
16821 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
16822 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
16823 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
16824 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
16825 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
16826 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
16827 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
16828 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
16833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16834 #: freeculture.xml:12217
16836 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
16837 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
16838 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
16839 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
16840 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
16841 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
16842 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
16843 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
16844 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
16845 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
16846 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
16847 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
16848 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
16849 "on which a court should decide the issue."
16852 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16853 #: freeculture.xml:12238
16855 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
16856 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
16860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16861 #: freeculture.xml:12243
16863 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
16864 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
16865 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
16866 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
16869 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16870 #: freeculture.xml:12249
16872 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
16873 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
16874 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
16875 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
16879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16880 #: freeculture.xml:12257
16882 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
16883 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
16884 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
16885 "was a mistake. <quote>The Court is not ready,</quote> Peter Jaszi said; this "
16886 "issue should not be raised until it is."
16889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16890 #: freeculture.xml:12264
16892 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
16893 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
16894 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
16895 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
16896 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
16897 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
16898 "had made four years before—was wrong."
16902 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16903 #: freeculture.xml:12273
16905 "<emphasis role='strong'>While the reaction</emphasis> to the Sonny Bono Act "
16906 "itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's decision "
16907 "was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that extending the "
16908 "term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over ideas. Where "
16909 "the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had been skeptical "
16910 "of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good thing, even if "
16911 "it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was attacked, it was "
16912 "attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful law. <citetitle>The "
16913 "New York Times</citetitle> wrote in its editorial,"
16916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16917 #: freeculture.xml:12288
16919 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
16920 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
16921 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
16922 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
16923 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
16924 "creative ferment."
16927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><indexterm><primary>
16928 #: freeculture.xml:12302 freeculture.xml:12307
16929 msgid "Bolling, Ruben"
16932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16933 #: freeculture.xml:12297
16935 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
16936 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
16937 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page (<xref "
16938 "linkend=\"fig-18\"/>). The <quote>powerful and wealthy</quote> line is a bit "
16939 "unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like that. <placeholder "
16940 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
16944 #: freeculture.xml:12305
16945 msgid "Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon"
16948 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
16949 #: freeculture.xml:12306
16951 "<graphic fileref=\"images/18.png\"></graphic> <placeholder "
16952 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16956 #: freeculture.xml:12310
16958 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
16959 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>. That <quote>grand "
16960 "experiment</quote> we call the <quote>public domain</quote> is over? When I "
16961 "can make light of it, I think, <quote>Honey, I shrunk the "
16962 "Constitution.</quote> But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
16963 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
16964 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
16965 "have made them see differently."
16968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
16969 #: freeculture.xml:12321
16970 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
16973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16974 #: freeculture.xml:12323
16976 "<emphasis role='strong'>The day</emphasis> <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16977 "decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The "
16978 "day the rehearing petition in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16979 "denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have "
16980 "it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a "
16981 "particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city "
16982 "from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and "
16983 "wrote an op-ed piece."
16986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16987 #: freeculture.xml:12335
16989 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
16990 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
16991 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
16992 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: "
16993 "<quote>For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the "
16994 "useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.</quote> And "
16995 "so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I "
16996 "turned to an argument of politics."
17000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17001 #: freeculture.xml:12345
17003 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> published the piece. In it, I "
17004 "proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the "
17005 "copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small "
17006 "fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of "
17007 "copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain."
17010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17011 #: freeculture.xml:12353
17013 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
17014 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
17015 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
17018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17019 #: freeculture.xml:12358
17021 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
17022 "the <quote>Public Domain Enhancement Act</quote> or the <quote>Copyright "
17023 "Term Deregulation Act.</quote> Either way, the essence of the idea is clear "
17024 "and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking "
17025 "access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows "
17026 "for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let "
17030 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17031 #: freeculture.xml:12366 freeculture.xml:12567
17032 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
17035 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17036 #: freeculture.xml:12368
17038 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
17039 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
17040 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
17041 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
17042 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
17043 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
17044 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
17045 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
17046 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
17049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17050 #: freeculture.xml:12380
17052 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
17053 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
17054 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
17055 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
17056 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
17057 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
17058 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
17059 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
17062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17063 #: freeculture.xml:12390
17064 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
17067 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17068 #: freeculture.xml:12391 freeculture.xml:12432
17069 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
17072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
17073 #: freeculture.xml:12399
17074 msgid "German copyright law"
17077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17078 #: freeculture.xml:12399
17080 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the "
17081 "Berne Convention, national copyright legislation sometimes made protection "
17082 "depend upon compliance with formalities such as registration, deposit, and "
17083 "affixation of notice of the author's claim of copyright. However, starting "
17084 "with the 1908 act, every text of the Convention has provided that <quote>the "
17085 "enjoyment and the exercise</quote> of rights guaranteed by the Convention "
17086 "<quote>shall not be subject to any formality.</quote> The prohibition "
17087 "against formalities is presently embodied in Article 5(2) of the Paris Text "
17088 "of the Berne Convention. Many countries continue to impose some form of "
17089 "deposit or registration requirement, albeit not as a condition of "
17090 "copyright. French law, for example, requires the deposit of copies of works "
17091 "in national repositories, principally the National Museum. Copies of books "
17092 "published in the United Kingdom must be deposited in the British "
17093 "Library. The German Copyright Act provides for a Registrar of Authors where "
17094 "the author's true name can be filed in the case of anonymous or pseudonymous "
17095 "works. Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>International Intellectual Property Law, "
17096 "Cases and Materials</citetitle> (New York: Foundation Press, 2001), "
17100 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17101 #: freeculture.xml:12394
17103 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
17104 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, "
17105 "when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement "
17106 "before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
17107 "Europeans are said to view copyright as a <quote>natural right.</quote> "
17108 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
17109 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
17110 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
17111 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
17112 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
17115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17116 #: freeculture.xml:12426
17118 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
17119 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
17120 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread <quote>Walt "
17121 "Disney creativity</quote> is destroyed when there is no simple way to know "
17122 "what's protected and what's not."
17125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17126 #: freeculture.xml:12434
17128 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
17129 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
17130 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
17131 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
17132 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
17133 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an "
17134 "<citetitle>i</citetitle> or cross a <citetitle>t</citetitle> resulted in the "
17135 "loss of widows' only income."
17138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17139 #: freeculture.xml:12444
17141 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
17142 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
17143 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
17144 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
17145 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
17149 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17150 #: freeculture.xml:12452
17152 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
17153 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
17154 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
17155 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
17156 "imposed upon creators."
17160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17161 #: freeculture.xml:12460
17163 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
17164 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
17165 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
17166 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
17167 "a property right over the table <quote>naturally,</quote> and he can assert "
17168 "that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has "
17169 "informed the government of his ownership of the table."
17172 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17173 #: freeculture.xml:12472
17175 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
17176 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
17177 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
17178 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
17179 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
17180 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
17183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17184 #: freeculture.xml:12481
17186 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
17187 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
17188 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
17189 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
17190 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
17191 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
17192 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
17193 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
17194 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
17195 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
17196 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
17197 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
17198 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
17201 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17202 #: freeculture.xml:12497
17204 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
17205 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
17206 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
17207 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
17208 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
17209 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
17210 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
17211 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
17212 "formalities. Complex, expensive, <emphasis>lawyer</emphasis> transactions "
17213 "take their place. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17216 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17217 #: freeculture.xml:12512
17219 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
17220 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't "
17221 "<quote>get.</quote> Because we live in a system without formalities, there "
17222 "is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright "
17223 "terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, <quote>short,</quote> then "
17224 "this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a "
17225 "work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be "
17226 "presumptively uncontrolled."
17229 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17230 #: freeculture.xml:12522
17232 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
17233 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
17234 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
17235 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
17236 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
17237 "in a way that has never been seen before <emphasis>because there are no "
17238 "formalities</emphasis>."
17241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17242 #: freeculture.xml:12531
17244 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
17245 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
17246 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
17247 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
17248 "extended copyright term."
17251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17252 #: freeculture.xml:12538
17254 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
17255 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
17256 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
17257 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
17258 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
17261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17262 #: freeculture.xml:12545
17264 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
17265 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
17266 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
17270 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17271 #: freeculture.xml:12551
17273 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
17274 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
17275 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
17276 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
17277 "the real problem of <emphasis>governments</emphasis> standing at the core of "
17278 "any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That "
17279 "solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was "
17280 "Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click "
17281 "registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration "
17282 "fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that "
17283 "system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that "
17284 "no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty "
17285 "years. What do you think?"
17288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17289 #: freeculture.xml:12569
17291 "<emphasis role='strong'>When Steve Forbes</emphasis> endorsed the idea, some "
17292 "in Washington began to pay attention. Many people contacted me pointing to "
17293 "representatives who might be willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had "
17294 "a few who directly suggested that they might be willing to take the first "
17298 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17299 #: freeculture.xml:12575
17300 msgid "Lofgren, Zoe"
17303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17304 #: freeculture.xml:12577
17306 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
17307 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
17308 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
17309 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
17310 "the Eldred Act blog, <quote>we are close.</quote> There was a general "
17311 "reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here."
17314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17315 #: freeculture.xml:12586
17317 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
17318 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
17319 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
17320 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
17321 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
17322 "about what this debate is really about."
17326 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17327 #: freeculture.xml:12594
17329 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had <quote>firmly rejected the central "
17330 "concept in the proposed bill</quote>—that copyrights be renewed. That "
17331 "was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's <quote>firm rejection</quote> had "
17332 "occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. "
17333 "Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright "
17334 "owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they "
17335 "argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would "
17336 "encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of "
17337 "work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again "
17338 "this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term "
17339 "unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would "
17340 "impose <quote>enormous</quote> costs, since a registration system is not "
17341 "free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of "
17342 "clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they "
17343 "worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were "
17344 "to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the "
17345 "public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use."
17348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17349 #: freeculture.xml:12615
17351 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
17352 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
17353 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
17354 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
17355 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
17359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17360 #: freeculture.xml:12623
17362 "<emphasis role='strong'>At the beginning</emphasis> of this book, I told two "
17363 "stories about the law reacting to changes in technology. In the one, common "
17364 "sense prevailed. In the other, common sense was delayed. The difference "
17365 "between the two stories was the power of the opposition—the power of "
17366 "the side that fought to defend the status quo. In both cases, a new "
17367 "technology threatened old interests. But in only one case did those "
17368 "interest's have the power to protect themselves against this new competitive "
17372 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17373 #: freeculture.xml:12633
17375 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
17376 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
17377 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
17378 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
17382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17383 #: freeculture.xml:12642
17385 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
17386 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
17387 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
17388 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
17389 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
17390 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
17391 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
17392 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
17396 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17397 #: freeculture.xml:12652
17398 msgid "Kelly, Kevin"
17401 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17402 #: freeculture.xml:12654
17404 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
17405 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
17406 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
17407 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
17408 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
17409 "what Kevin Kelly calls the <quote>Dark Content</quote> that fills archives "
17410 "around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should "
17411 "ask one simple question:"
17414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17415 #: freeculture.xml:12664
17416 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
17419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17420 #: freeculture.xml:12667
17422 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
17423 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
17424 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an "
17425 "effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is "
17426 "another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there "
17427 "will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that "
17428 "there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require "
17429 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> permission first."
17432 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17433 #: freeculture.xml:12678
17435 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
17436 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
17437 "the protection of <quote>property</quote> but the rejection of a tradition. "
17438 "Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. <emphasis>Their aim is to "
17439 "assure that all there is is what is theirs</emphasis>."
17443 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17444 #: freeculture.xml:12686
17446 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
17447 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
17448 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
17449 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
17450 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
17454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17455 #: freeculture.xml:12698
17457 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
17458 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
17459 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
17460 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
17464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17465 #: freeculture.xml:12705
17467 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
17468 "<quote>property</quote> in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, "
17469 "and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of "
17470 "the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing <quote>permission "
17471 "society.</quote> The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the "
17472 "owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be "
17473 "controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
17476 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
17477 #: freeculture.xml:12717
17481 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17482 #: freeculture.xml:12718
17483 msgid "antiretroviral drugs"
17486 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17487 #: freeculture.xml:12719
17488 msgid "HIV/AIDS therapies"
17491 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17492 #: freeculture.xml:12720
17493 msgid "Africa, medications for HIV patients in"
17496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17497 #: freeculture.xml:12722
17499 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are more</emphasis> than 35 million people "
17500 "with the AIDS virus worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in "
17501 "sub-Saharan Africa. Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million "
17502 "Africans is proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More "
17503 "importantly, it is seventeen million Africans."
17506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17507 #: freeculture.xml:12729
17509 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
17510 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
17511 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
17512 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
17513 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
17517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17518 #: freeculture.xml:12744
17520 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, <quote>Final Report: Integrating "
17521 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy</quote> (London, 2002), "
17522 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17523 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
17524 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
17525 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
17528 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17529 #: freeculture.xml:12737
17531 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
17532 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
17533 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
17534 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
17535 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
17536 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17541 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17542 #: freeculture.xml:12755
17544 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
17545 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
17546 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
17547 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
17548 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
17549 "used to keep the prices high."
17552 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17553 #: freeculture.xml:12763
17555 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
17556 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
17557 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
17558 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
17559 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
17560 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
17561 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
17562 "it, at least without other changes."
17565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17566 #: freeculture.xml:12774
17568 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
17569 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
17570 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
17571 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
17575 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17576 #: freeculture.xml:12792 freeculture.xml:13252
17577 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
17580 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17581 #: freeculture.xml:12790
17583 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism: "
17584 "Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New Press, 2003), "
17585 "37. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
17586 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
17589 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17590 #: freeculture.xml:12781
17592 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
17593 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
17594 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
17595 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
17596 "called <quote>parallel importation,</quote> and it is generally permitted "
17597 "under international trade law and is specifically permitted within the "
17598 "European Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17602 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17603 #: freeculture.xml:12803
17605 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17606 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17607 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17608 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 14, available at <ulink "
17609 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #56</ulink>. For a firsthand "
17610 "account of the struggle over South Africa, see Hearing Before the "
17611 "Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, House "
17612 "Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., Ser. No. 106-126 (22 "
17613 "July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
17617 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17618 #: freeculture.xml:12830
17620 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17621 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17622 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17623 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 15."
17626 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17627 #: freeculture.xml:12797
17629 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
17630 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
17631 "characterized it, <quote>The U.S. government pressured South Africa … "
17632 "not to permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.</quote><placeholder "
17633 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
17634 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
17635 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
17636 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
17637 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
17638 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
17639 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
17640 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
17641 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
17642 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
17643 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
17644 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
17645 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
17646 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
17649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17650 #: freeculture.xml:12836
17652 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
17653 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
17654 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
17655 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
17656 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
17657 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
17658 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
17661 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17662 #: freeculture.xml:12846
17664 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
17665 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
17666 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
17667 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
17668 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
17669 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
17672 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17673 #: freeculture.xml:12854
17675 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
17676 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
17677 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
17678 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
17679 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
17680 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
17686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17687 #: freeculture.xml:12869
17689 "See Sabin Russell, <quote>New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's "
17690 "Needs at Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
17691 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 May 1999, A1, available at <ulink "
17692 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> (<quote>compulsory "
17693 "licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system of intellectual "
17694 "property protection</quote>); Robert Weissman, <quote>AIDS and Developing "
17695 "Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,</quote> "
17696 "<citetitle>Foreign Policy in Focus</citetitle> 4:23 (August 1999), available "
17697 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
17698 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, <quote>TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and "
17699 "the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual "
17700 "Property Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,</quote> <citetitle>Widener Law "
17701 "Symposium Journal</citetitle> (Spring 2001): 175."
17704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17705 #: freeculture.xml:12863
17707 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
17708 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
17709 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
17710 "because <quote>intellectual property</quote> would be violated that these "
17711 "drugs should not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance "
17712 "of <quote>intellectual property</quote> that led these government actors to "
17713 "intervene against the South African response to AIDS."
17716 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17717 #: freeculture.xml:12890
17719 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
17720 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
17721 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
17722 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
17723 "would be to uphold the <quote>sanctity</quote> of an idea? What possible "
17724 "justification could there ever be for a policy that results in so many "
17725 "deaths? What exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for "
17726 "such an abstraction?"
17729 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17730 #: freeculture.xml:12900
17732 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
17733 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
17734 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
17735 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
17736 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
17737 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
17740 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17741 #: freeculture.xml:12908
17743 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
17744 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
17745 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
17746 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
17747 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
17748 "could be overcome."
17752 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17753 #: freeculture.xml:12916
17755 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
17756 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
17757 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, <quote>How is it you can sell "
17758 "this HIV drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an "
17759 "American $1,500?</quote> Because there is no <quote>sound bite</quote> "
17760 "answer to that question, its effect would be to induce regulation of prices "
17761 "in America. The drug companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first "
17762 "step. They reinforce the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a "
17763 "rational strategy in an irrational context, with the unintended consequence "
17764 "that perhaps millions die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in "
17765 "terms of this ideal—the sanctity of an idea called <quote>intellectual "
17766 "property.</quote>"
17769 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17770 #: freeculture.xml:12931
17772 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
17773 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
17774 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
17777 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17778 #: freeculture.xml:12937
17780 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
17781 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
17782 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
17783 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
17784 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
17785 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
17786 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
17787 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
17788 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
17791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17792 #: freeculture.xml:12949
17794 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
17795 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
17796 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
17797 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
17798 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
17799 "decision that we as a democracy will make."
17803 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17804 #: freeculture.xml:12960
17806 "<emphasis role='strong'>A simple idea</emphasis> blinds us, and under the "
17807 "cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us "
17808 "looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we "
17809 "don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are "
17810 "dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in "
17811 "culture that we don't even question when the control of that property "
17812 "removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture "
17813 "democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for "
17814 "anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way "
17815 "to make this common sense open its eyes."
17818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17819 #: freeculture.xml:12974
17821 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
17822 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
17823 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
17824 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight <quote>piracy,</quote> "
17825 "and devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of "
17826 "<quote>creative property,</quote> while transforming real creators into "
17827 "modern-day sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should "
17828 "be balanced, even though each of the major players in this content war was "
17829 "itself a beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a "
17830 "city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, "
17831 "complex issues, and MTV attention spans produce the <quote>perfect "
17832 "storm</quote> for free culture."
17835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
17836 #: freeculture.xml:12987
17837 msgid "public projects in"
17840 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17841 #: freeculture.xml:12988
17842 msgid "single nucleotied polymorphisms (SNPs)"
17845 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17846 #: freeculture.xml:12989
17847 msgid "Wellcome Trust"
17850 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17851 #: freeculture.xml:12990
17852 msgid "World Wide Web"
17855 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17856 #: freeculture.xml:12991
17857 msgid "Global Positioning System"
17860 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17861 #: freeculture.xml:12993
17862 msgid "biomedical research"
17866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17867 #: freeculture.xml:12998
17869 "Jonathan Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> "
17870 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, August 2003, E1, available at <ulink "
17871 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #59</ulink>; William New, "
17872 "<quote>Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir,</quote> "
17873 "<citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 August 2003, "
17874 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; "
17875 "William New, <quote>U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at "
17876 "WIPO,</quote> <citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 "
17877 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17881 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17882 #: freeculture.xml:13026 freeculture.xml:13722
17883 msgid "academic journals"
17886 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17887 #: freeculture.xml:13027 freeculture.xml:13096 freeculture.xml:13648
17891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17892 #: freeculture.xml:13028 freeculture.xml:13785
17893 msgid "PLoS (Public Library of Science)"
17896 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17897 #: freeculture.xml:12995
17899 "<emphasis role='strong'>In August 2003</emphasis>, a fight broke out in the "
17900 "United States about a decision by the World Intellectual Property "
17901 "Organization to cancel a meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
17902 "At the request of a wide range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a "
17903 "meeting to discuss <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17904 "goods.</quote> These are projects that have been successful in producing "
17905 "public goods without relying exclusively upon a proprietary use of "
17906 "intellectual property. Examples include the Internet and the World Wide Web, "
17907 "both of which were developed on the basis of protocols in the public "
17908 "domain. It included an emerging trend to support open academic journals, "
17909 "including the Public Library of Science project that I describe in the "
17910 "Afterword. It included a project to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms "
17911 "(SNPs), which are thought to have great significance in biomedical "
17912 "research. (That nonprofit project comprised a consortium of the Wellcome "
17913 "Trust and pharmaceutical and technological companies, including Amersham "
17914 "Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La "
17915 "Roche, Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It "
17916 "included the Global Positioning System, which Ronald Reagan set free in the "
17917 "early 1980s. And it included <quote>open source and free software.</quote> "
17918 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17919 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
17922 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17923 #: freeculture.xml:13032
17925 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
17926 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
17927 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
17928 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
17929 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
17933 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17934 #: freeculture.xml:13040
17936 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
17940 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17941 #: freeculture.xml:13039
17943 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
17944 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
17945 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
17946 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
17947 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
17948 "with intellectual property issues."
17951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17952 #: freeculture.xml:13049 freeculture.xml:13195
17953 msgid "World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)"
17957 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17958 #: freeculture.xml:13051
17960 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
17961 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
17962 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
17963 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
17964 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
17965 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
17966 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
17967 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
17968 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
17969 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
17970 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
17971 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
17972 "no way to talk about an <quote>Information Society</quote> unless one also "
17973 "talked about the range of information and culture that would be free. My "
17974 "talk did not make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt "
17975 "correct that the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily "
17976 "the stuff of WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a "
17977 "conversation about how much intellectual property is needed, since in my "
17978 "view, the very idea of balance in intellectual property had been lost."
17981 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17982 #: freeculture.xml:13075
17984 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
17985 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
17986 "meeting about <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17987 "goods</quote> seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
17990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17991 #: freeculture.xml:13081 freeculture.xml:14768
17992 msgid "Apple Corporation"
17995 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17996 #: freeculture.xml:13083
17998 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
17999 "least among lobbyists. That project is <quote>open source and free "
18000 "software.</quote> Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the "
18001 "subject. From its perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free "
18002 "software would be like a conference to discuss Apple's operating "
18003 "system. Both open source and free software compete with Microsoft's "
18004 "software. And internationally, many governments have begun to explore "
18005 "requirements that they use open source or free software, rather than "
18006 "<quote>proprietary software,</quote> for their own internal uses."
18009 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18010 #: freeculture.xml:13093
18011 msgid "<quote>copyleft</quote> licenses"
18015 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18016 #: freeculture.xml:13109
18018 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
18019 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with "
18020 "<quote>open source</quote> software or software in the public "
18021 "domain. Microsoft's principal opposition is to <quote>free software</quote> "
18022 "licensed under a <quote>copyleft</quote> license, meaning a license that "
18023 "requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any derivative work. See "
18024 "Bradford L. Smith, <quote>The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace "
18025 "to Decide,</quote> <citetitle>Government Policy Toward Open Source "
18026 "Software</citetitle> (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for "
18027 "Regulatory Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy "
18028 "Research, 2002), 69, available at <ulink "
18029 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #62</ulink>. See also Craig "
18030 "Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, <citetitle>The Commercial Software "
18031 "Model</citetitle>, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
18032 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
18033 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
18036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18037 #: freeculture.xml:13098
18039 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
18040 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
18041 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
18042 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
18043 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
18044 "famous bit of <quote>free software</quote>—and IBM is emphatically a "
18045 "commercial entity. Thus, to support <quote>open source and free "
18046 "software</quote> is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to "
18047 "support a mode of software development that is different from "
18048 "Microsoft's.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
18051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18052 #: freeculture.xml:13126
18053 msgid "General Public License (GPL)"
18056 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18057 #: freeculture.xml:13127
18058 msgid "GPL (General Public License)"
18062 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18063 #: freeculture.xml:13129
18065 "More important for our purposes, to support <quote>open source and free "
18066 "software</quote> is not to oppose copyright. <quote>Open source and free "
18067 "software</quote> is not software in the public domain. Instead, like "
18068 "Microsoft's software, the copyright owners of free and open source software "
18069 "insist quite strongly that the terms of their software license be respected "
18070 "by adopters of free and open source software. The terms of that license are "
18071 "no doubt different from the terms of a proprietary software license. Free "
18072 "software licensed under the General Public License (GPL), for example, "
18073 "requires that the source code for the software be made available by anyone "
18074 "who modifies and redistributes the software. But that requirement is "
18075 "effective only if copyright governs software. If copyright did not govern "
18076 "software, then free software could not impose the same kind of requirements "
18077 "on its adopters. It thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does."
18080 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18081 #: freeculture.xml:13146
18082 msgid "Krim, Jonathan"
18085 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18086 #: freeculture.xml:13147
18087 msgid "WIPO meeting opposed by"
18091 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18092 #: freeculture.xml:13157
18094 "Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> available at <ulink "
18095 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
18098 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18099 #: freeculture.xml:13149
18101 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
18102 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
18103 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
18104 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
18105 "to Jonathan Krim of the <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, Microsoft's "
18106 "lobbyists succeeded in getting the United States government to veto the "
18107 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, "
18108 "the meeting was canceled."
18111 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18112 #: freeculture.xml:13163
18114 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
18115 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
18116 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
18117 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
18118 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
18121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18122 #: freeculture.xml:13170 freeculture.xml:13226
18123 msgid "Boland, Lois"
18126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18127 #: freeculture.xml:13172
18129 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
18130 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
18131 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
18132 "that <quote>open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which "
18133 "is to promote intellectual-property rights.</quote> She is quoted as saying, "
18134 "<quote>To hold a meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such "
18135 "rights seems to us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.</quote>"
18138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18139 #: freeculture.xml:13182
18140 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
18143 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18144 #: freeculture.xml:13186
18146 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
18147 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
18148 "<quote>copyright</quote>. Without it, restrictions imposed by those "
18149 "licenses wouldn't work. Thus, to say it <quote>runs counter</quote> to the "
18150 "mission of promoting intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary "
18151 "gap in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a "
18152 "first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official "
18153 "dealing with intellectual property issues."
18156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18157 #: freeculture.xml:13196
18161 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18162 #: freeculture.xml:13196
18163 msgid "pharmaceutical"
18166 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18167 #: freeculture.xml:13197
18168 msgid "generic drugs"
18171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18172 #: freeculture.xml:13198
18176 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18177 #: freeculture.xml:13198
18178 msgid "on pharmaceuticals"
18181 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18182 #: freeculture.xml:13200
18184 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to "
18185 "<quote>promote</quote> intellectual property maximally? As I had been "
18186 "scolded at the preparatory conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only "
18187 "how best to protect intellectual property, but also what the best balance of "
18188 "intellectual property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard "
18189 "question in intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that "
18190 "there should be limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask "
18191 "Ms. Boland, are generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has "
18192 "expired) contrary to the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken "
18193 "intellectual property? Would it have been better if the protocols of the "
18194 "Internet had been patented?"
18197 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18198 #: freeculture.xml:13214
18200 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
18201 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
18202 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
18203 "those rights because, again, they are <emphasis>their</emphasis> rights. If "
18204 "they want to <quote>waive</quote> or <quote>disclaim</quote> their rights, "
18205 "that is, within our tradition, totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives "
18206 "away more than $20 billion to do good in the world, that is not inconsistent "
18207 "with the objectives of the property system. That is, on the contrary, just "
18208 "what a property system is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right "
18209 "to decide what to do with <emphasis>their</emphasis> property."
18213 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18214 #: freeculture.xml:13228
18216 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting "
18217 "<quote>which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,</quote> "
18218 "she's saying that WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of "
18219 "the individuals who own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's "
18220 "objective should be to stop an individual from <quote>waiving</quote> or "
18221 "<quote>disclaiming</quote> an intellectual property right. That the interest "
18222 "of WIPO is not just that intellectual property rights be maximized, but that "
18223 "they also should be exercised in the most extreme and restrictive way "
18227 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18228 #: freeculture.xml:13240
18230 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
18231 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called <quote>feudalism.</quote> Under "
18232 "feudalism, not only was property held by a relatively small number of "
18233 "individuals and entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that "
18234 "property powerful and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest "
18235 "in assuring that property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by "
18236 "liberating people or property within their control to the free "
18237 "market. Feudalism depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought "
18238 "any freedom that might interfere with that control."
18241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18242 #: freeculture.xml:13257
18244 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism</citetitle>, "
18245 "210–20. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18248 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18249 #: freeculture.xml:13254
18251 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
18252 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
18253 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
18254 "only choice now is whether that information society will be "
18255 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> or <emphasis>feudal</emphasis>. The trend is "
18256 "toward the feudal."
18259 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18260 #: freeculture.xml:13266
18262 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
18263 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
18264 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
18265 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
18269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
18270 #: freeculture.xml:13273
18272 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
18273 "should be (<quote>the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should "
18274 "be to promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply "
18275 "to promote intellectual property rights</quote>), not as it is. If we were "
18276 "talking about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
18277 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
18278 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
18282 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18283 #: freeculture.xml:13285
18285 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
18286 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
18287 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
18288 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
18289 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
18290 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
18291 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
18295 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18296 #: freeculture.xml:13296
18298 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
18299 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the "
18300 "<quote>goal</quote> of a government should be <quote>to promote the right "
18301 "balance</quote> of intellectual property. That was obviously silly to "
18302 "him. And it obviously betrayed, he believed, my own silly "
18303 "utopianism. <quote>Typical for an academic,</quote> the poster might well "
18307 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18308 #: freeculture.xml:13304
18310 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
18311 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
18312 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
18315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18316 #: freeculture.xml:13310
18318 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
18319 "should be to <quote>seek balance,</quote> then count me with the silly, for "
18320 "that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be "
18321 "obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the "
18322 "government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea "
18323 "of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea "
18324 "of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just "
18325 "naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, "
18330 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18331 #: freeculture.xml:13321
18333 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
18334 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
18335 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
18336 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
18337 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
18340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18341 #: freeculture.xml:13329
18342 msgid "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon."
18345 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18346 #: freeculture.xml:13333
18347 msgid "Turner, Ted"
18350 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18351 #: freeculture.xml:13335
18353 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are moments</emphasis> of hope in this "
18354 "struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was considering relaxing "
18355 "ownership rules, which would thereby further increase the concentration in "
18356 "media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition formed to fight this "
18357 "change. For perhaps the first time in history, interests as diverse as the "
18358 "NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted Turner, and CodePink Women "
18359 "for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC policy. An astonishing "
18360 "700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more hearings and a "
18361 "different result."
18364 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18365 #: freeculture.xml:13346
18367 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
18368 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
18369 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
18370 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
18371 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
18374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18375 #: freeculture.xml:13354
18377 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
18378 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
18379 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
18380 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
18381 "hamburger from somewhere else."
18384 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18385 #: freeculture.xml:13361
18387 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
18388 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
18389 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
18390 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
18391 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
18392 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
18393 "their bigness bad."
18396 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18397 #: freeculture.xml:13371
18399 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
18400 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
18401 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
18402 "history of fighting <quote>big,</quote> wisely or not. That we could be "
18403 "motivated to fight <quote>big</quote> again is not something new."
18406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18407 #: freeculture.xml:13378
18409 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
18410 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
18411 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote> Not because balance is alien to our "
18412 "tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the "
18413 "muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "
18414 "<quote>property</quote> is not well exercised within this tradition anymore."
18417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18418 #: freeculture.xml:13386
18420 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
18424 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18425 #: freeculture.xml:13389
18430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18431 #: freeculture.xml:13395
18433 "John Borland, <quote>RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,</quote> CNET News.com, "
18434 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
18435 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, "
18436 "<quote>Music Industry Sues Swappers,</quote> CNN/Money, 8 September 2003, "
18437 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; "
18438 "Soni Sangha and Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, <quote>Sued for a Song, "
18439 "N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among 261 Cited as Sharers,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
18440 "Daily News</citetitle>, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's "
18441 "Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl "
18442 "in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 "
18443 "September 2003, E1; Katie Dean, <quote>Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,</quote> "
18444 "<citetitle>Wired News</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18445 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
18449 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18450 #: freeculture.xml:13413
18452 "Jon Wiederhorn, <quote>Eminem Gets Sued … by a Little Old "
18453 "Lady,</quote> mtv.com, 17 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18454 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
18459 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18460 #: freeculture.xml:13420
18462 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, <quote>Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for "
18463 "Dylan Songs,</quote> Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
18464 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
18467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18468 #: freeculture.xml:13391
18470 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I write</emphasis> these final words, the news is "
18471 "filled with stories about the RIAA lawsuits against almost three hundred "
18472 "individuals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been "
18473 "sued for <quote>sampling</quote> someone else's music.<placeholder "
18474 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The story about Bob Dylan "
18475 "<quote>stealing</quote> from a Japanese author has just finished making the "
18476 "rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> An insider from "
18477 "Hollywood—who insists he must remain anonymous—reports <quote>an "
18478 "amazing conversation with these studio guys. They've got extraordinary [old] "
18479 "content that they'd love to use but can't because they can't begin to clear "
18480 "the rights. They've got scores of kids who could do amazing things with the "
18481 "content, but it would take scores of lawyers to clean it first.</quote> "
18482 "Congressmen are talking about deputizing computer viruses to bring down "
18483 "computers thought to violate the law. Universities are threatening expulsion "
18484 "for kids who use a computer to share content."
18487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18488 #: freeculture.xml:13437
18492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18493 #: freeculture.xml:13438
18494 msgid "Brazil, free culture in"
18497 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18498 #: freeculture.xml:13439 freeculture.xml:13801
18499 msgid "Creative Commons"
18502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18503 #: freeculture.xml:13440
18504 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
18507 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18508 #: freeculture.xml:13441
18509 msgid "United Kingdom"
18512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18513 #: freeculture.xml:13441
18514 msgid "public creative archive in"
18518 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18519 #: freeculture.xml:13446
18521 "<quote>BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,</quote> BBC press "
18522 "release, 24 August 2003, available at <ulink "
18523 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #70</ulink>."
18527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18528 #: freeculture.xml:13455
18530 "<quote>Creative Commons and Brazil,</quote> Creative Commons Weblog, 6 "
18531 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
18536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18537 #: freeculture.xml:13443
18539 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
18540 "will build a <quote>Creative Archive,</quote> from which British citizens "
18541 "can download BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder "
18542 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto "
18543 "Gil, himself a folk hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative "
18544 "Commons to release content and free licenses in that Latin American "
18545 "country.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark "
18546 "story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new "
18547 "freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean "
18548 "anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without "
18549 "artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being "
18550 "destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take "
18551 "some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys."
18555 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18556 #: freeculture.xml:13469
18558 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
18559 "potential is ever to be realized."
18562 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
18563 #: freeculture.xml:13477
18568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18569 #: freeculture.xml:13481
18571 "<emphasis role='strong'>At least some</emphasis> who have read this far will "
18572 "agree with me that something must be done to change where we are "
18573 "heading. The balance of this book maps what might be done."
18576 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18577 #: freeculture.xml:13486
18579 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
18580 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
18581 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
18582 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
18585 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18586 #: freeculture.xml:13492
18588 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
18589 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
18590 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
18591 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
18594 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18595 #: freeculture.xml:13499
18597 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
18598 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
18599 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
18600 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
18601 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
18604 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
18605 #: freeculture.xml:13508
18609 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18610 #: freeculture.xml:13510
18612 "<emphasis role='strong'>Common sense</emphasis> is with the copyright "
18613 "warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes—as "
18614 "a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or "
18615 "artists won't be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors "
18619 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18620 #: freeculture.xml:13517
18622 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
18623 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
18624 "believe in maximal copyright—<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote>— "
18625 "and those who reject copyright—<quote>No Rights Reserved.</quote> The "
18626 "<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe that you should ask "
18627 "permission before you <quote>use</quote> a copyrighted work in any way. The "
18628 "<quote>No Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe you should be able to do "
18629 "with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not."
18633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18634 #: freeculture.xml:13527
18636 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
18637 "tilted in the <quote>no rights reserved</quote> direction. Content could be "
18638 "copied perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
18639 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
18640 "original design of the Internet was <quote>no rights reserved.</quote> "
18641 "Content was <quote>taken</quote> regardless of the rights. Any rights were "
18642 "effectively unprotected."
18645 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18646 #: freeculture.xml:13539
18648 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
18649 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
18650 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
18651 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
18652 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
18653 "default <quote>no rights reserved,</quote> the future architecture will make "
18654 "the effective default <quote>all rights reserved.</quote> The architecture "
18655 "and law that surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an "
18656 "environment where all use of content requires permission. The <quote>cut "
18657 "and paste</quote> world that defines the Internet today will become a "
18658 "<quote>get permission to cut and paste</quote> world that is a creator's "
18662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18663 #: freeculture.xml:13553
18665 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither "
18666 "<quote>all rights reserved</quote> nor <quote>no rights reserved</quote> but "
18667 "<quote>some rights reserved</quote>— and thus a way to respect "
18668 "copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other "
18669 "words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take "
18670 "for granted before."
18673 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18674 #: freeculture.xml:13562
18675 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
18678 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18679 #: freeculture.xml:13565
18681 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
18682 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
18683 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
18684 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
18685 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
18686 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The "
18687 "<quote>privacy</quote> of your browsing habits was assured."
18690 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18691 #: freeculture.xml:13575
18692 msgid "What made it assured?"
18695 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18696 #: freeculture.xml:13579
18698 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter <xref "
18699 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, your privacy was "
18700 "assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering data and hence "
18701 "a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather that data. If you "
18702 "were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, no doubt your "
18703 "privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA would (we hope) "
18704 "find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to track you. But "
18705 "for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The highly "
18706 "inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly robust "
18707 "amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not by law "
18708 "(there is no law protecting <quote>privacy</quote> in public places), and in "
18709 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
18710 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
18713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18714 #: freeculture.xml:13594
18718 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18719 #: freeculture.xml:13595
18720 msgid "cookies, Internet"
18723 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18724 #: freeculture.xml:13597
18726 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
18727 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
18728 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
18729 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of <quote>recently "
18730 "viewed</quote> pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the "
18731 "function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than "
18732 "not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any <quote>privacy</quote> "
18733 "protected by the friction disappears, too."
18736 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18737 #: freeculture.xml:13607
18739 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
18740 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
18741 "should have the <quote>right</quote> to browse in a library without the "
18742 "government knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), "
18743 "then this change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it "
18744 "becomes simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then "
18745 "the friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
18749 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18750 #: freeculture.xml:13624
18752 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, <quote>Fair Information Practices and the "
18753 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),</quote> "
18754 "<citetitle>Stanford Technology Law Review</citetitle> 1 (2001): "
18755 "par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
18756 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
18757 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, "
18758 "<citetitle>The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious "
18759 "Age</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between "
18760 "technology and privacy)."
18764 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18765 #: freeculture.xml:13618
18767 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define "
18768 "<quote>privacy</quote> on the Internet. It is the recognition that "
18769 "technology can remove what friction before gave us that leads many to push "
18770 "for laws to do what friction did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
18771 "And whether you're in favor of those laws or not, it is the pattern that is "
18772 "important here. We must take affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom "
18773 "that was passively provided before. A change in technology now forces those "
18774 "who believe in privacy to affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given "
18778 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18779 #: freeculture.xml:13642
18781 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
18782 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
18783 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
18784 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
18785 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
18786 "about controlling their software. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
18790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18791 #: freeculture.xml:13650
18792 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
18795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18796 #: freeculture.xml:13652
18798 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
18799 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
18800 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
18801 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
18802 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
18805 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18806 #: freeculture.xml:13660
18808 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
18809 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
18810 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
18811 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
18812 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
18813 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
18814 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
18815 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
18819 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18820 #: freeculture.xml:13672
18822 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
18823 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
18824 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
18825 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
18826 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
18827 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
18828 "market than it was for you."
18832 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18833 #: freeculture.xml:13681
18835 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
18836 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
18837 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
18838 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
18839 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
18842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18843 #: freeculture.xml:13689
18844 msgid "Torvalds, Linus"
18847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18848 #: freeculture.xml:13691
18850 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
18851 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
18852 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's "
18853 "<quote>Linux</quote> kernel was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating "
18854 "system. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
18855 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18859 #: freeculture.xml:13699
18861 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
18862 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
18863 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
18864 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
18865 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
18866 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
18867 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
18868 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
18871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18872 #: freeculture.xml:13710
18874 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
18875 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
18876 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
18877 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
18878 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
18879 "passively guaranteed."
18882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18883 #: freeculture.xml:13718
18885 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
18886 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
18887 "journals are produced."
18891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18892 #: freeculture.xml:13724
18894 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
18895 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
18896 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
18897 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
18898 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
18899 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
18900 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
18901 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
18902 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
18903 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
18904 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
18905 "opinion through their respective services."
18908 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18909 #: freeculture.xml:13740
18911 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
18912 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
18913 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
18914 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
18915 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
18916 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
18917 "the public domain."
18920 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18921 #: freeculture.xml:13749
18923 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
18924 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
18925 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
18928 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18929 #: freeculture.xml:13754
18931 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
18932 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
18933 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
18934 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
18935 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
18936 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
18937 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
18938 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
18939 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
18943 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18944 #: freeculture.xml:13766
18946 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
18947 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
18948 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
18949 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
18950 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
18953 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18954 #: freeculture.xml:13774
18956 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
18957 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
18958 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
18959 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
18960 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
18961 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
18962 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
18963 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
18964 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free. <placeholder "
18965 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18969 #: freeculture.xml:13788
18971 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
18972 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
18973 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
18974 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
18975 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
18976 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
18979 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18980 #: freeculture.xml:13800
18981 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
18984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18985 #: freeculture.xml:13803
18987 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
18988 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
18991 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18992 #: freeculture.xml:13806
18993 msgid "Stanford University"
18996 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18997 #: freeculture.xml:13808
18999 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
19000 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
19001 "aim is to build a layer of <emphasis>reasonable</emphasis> copyright on top "
19002 "of the extremes that now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to "
19003 "build upon other people's work, by making it simple for creators to express "
19004 "the freedom for others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied "
19005 "to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
19010 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19011 #: freeculture.xml:13819
19013 "<emphasis>Simple</emphasis>—which means without a middleman, or "
19014 "without a lawyer. By developing a free set of licenses that people can "
19015 "attach to their content, Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content "
19016 "that can easily, and reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to "
19017 "machine-readable versions of the license that enable computers automatically "
19018 "to identify content that can easily be shared. These three expressions "
19019 "together—a legal license, a human-readable description, and "
19020 "machine-readable tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A "
19021 "Creative Commons license constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who "
19022 "accesses the license, and more importantly, an expression of the ideal that "
19023 "the person associated with the license believes in something different than "
19024 "the <quote>All</quote> or <quote>No</quote> extremes. Content is marked with "
19025 "the CC mark, which does not mean that copyright is waived, but that certain "
19026 "freedoms are given."
19029 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19030 #: freeculture.xml:13837
19032 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
19033 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
19034 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
19035 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
19036 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
19037 "uses (<quote>share and share alike</quote>). Or any use so long as no "
19038 "derivative use is made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any "
19039 "sampling use, so long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any "
19043 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19044 #: freeculture.xml:13848
19046 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
19047 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
19048 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
19049 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
19050 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
19051 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
19052 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
19053 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
19056 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19057 #: freeculture.xml:13858
19058 msgid "Garlick, Mia"
19062 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19063 #: freeculture.xml:13860
19065 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
19066 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
19067 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
19068 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
19069 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
19070 "movement of consumers and producers of content (<quote>content "
19071 "conducers,</quote> as attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the "
19072 "public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the importance of the public "
19073 "domain to other creativity."
19076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19077 #: freeculture.xml:13872
19079 "The aim is not to fight the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts. The "
19080 "aim is to complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a "
19081 "culture are produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written "
19082 "centuries ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have "
19083 "imagined. The rules may well have made sense against a background of "
19084 "technologies from centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the "
19085 "background of digital technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, "
19086 "expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use them—are "
19087 "needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively to begin to build "
19091 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19092 #: freeculture.xml:13885
19094 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
19095 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
19096 "fiction author. His first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
19097 "Kingdom</citetitle>, was released on-line and for free, under a Creative "
19098 "Commons license, on the same day that it went on sale in bookstores."
19101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19102 #: freeculture.xml:13892
19104 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
19105 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
19106 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
19107 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
19108 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
19109 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
19110 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
19111 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
19112 "will probably <emphasis>increase</emphasis> sales of Cory's book."
19115 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19116 #: freeculture.xml:13904
19118 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
19119 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
19120 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
19123 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19124 #: freeculture.xml:13909
19125 msgid "Free for All (Wayner)"
19128 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19129 #: freeculture.xml:13910
19130 msgid "Wayner, Peter"
19134 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19135 #: freeculture.xml:13912
19137 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
19138 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
19139 "book about the free software movement titled <citetitle>Free for "
19140 "All</citetitle>, made an electronic version of his book free on-line under a "
19141 "Creative Commons license after the book went out of print. He then monitored "
19142 "used book store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of "
19143 "downloads increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well."
19146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19147 #: freeculture.xml:13923
19148 msgid "Public Enemy"
19151 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19152 #: freeculture.xml:13924
19156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19157 #: freeculture.xml:13925
19158 msgid "Leaphart, Walter"
19162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19163 #: freeculture.xml:13942
19165 "<citetitle>Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real "
19166 "Culture Wars</citetitle> (2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg "
19167 "Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre production, available at <ulink "
19168 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink>."
19171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19172 #: freeculture.xml:13927
19174 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
19175 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
19176 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
19177 "the <quote>sampling license</quote> do so because anything else would be "
19178 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
19179 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
19180 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
19181 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
19182 "others. Because the <emphasis>legal</emphasis> costs of sampling are so high "
19183 "(Walter Leaphart, manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born "
19184 "sampling the music of others, has stated that he does not "
19185 "<quote>allow</quote> Public Enemy to sample anymore, because the legal costs "
19186 "are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), these artists release "
19187 "into the creative environment content that others can build upon, so that "
19188 "their form of creativity might grow."
19191 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19192 #: freeculture.xml:13951
19194 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
19195 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
19196 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
19197 "are effectively saying you believe in the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> "
19198 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
19199 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
19200 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
19201 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of <quote>Some Rights "
19202 "Reserved,</quote> and gives many the chance to say it to others."
19206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19207 #: freeculture.xml:13963
19209 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
19210 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
19211 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
19212 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
19213 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
19214 "build content based upon content set free."
19217 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19218 #: freeculture.xml:13973
19220 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
19221 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
19222 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
19223 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
19224 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
19228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19229 #: freeculture.xml:13981
19231 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
19232 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
19233 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
19234 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
19235 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
19236 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
19239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
19240 #: freeculture.xml:13995
19244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19245 #: freeculture.xml:13997
19247 "<emphasis role='strong'>We will</emphasis> not reclaim a free culture by "
19248 "individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We "
19249 "have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and "
19250 "implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build "
19251 "awareness around the changes that we need."
19254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19255 #: freeculture.xml:14004
19257 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
19258 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
19259 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
19263 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19264 #: freeculture.xml:14011
19265 msgid "1. More Formalities"
19268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19269 #: freeculture.xml:14013
19271 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
19272 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
19273 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
19274 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
19278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19279 #: freeculture.xml:14020
19281 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
19282 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
19285 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19286 #: freeculture.xml:14025
19288 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
19289 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
19290 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
19291 "and <quote>formalities</quote> are banished."
19294 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19295 #: freeculture.xml:14031
19299 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19300 #: freeculture.xml:14034
19302 "As I suggested in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19303 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, the motivation to abolish formalities was a good "
19304 "one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a burden "
19305 "on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when the "
19306 "law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
19307 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
19310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19311 #: freeculture.xml:14043
19313 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
19314 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
19315 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
19316 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
19317 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
19318 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
19319 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
19320 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the <emphasis>lack</emphasis> "
19321 "of formalities forces many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
19325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19326 #: freeculture.xml:14057
19328 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
19329 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
19330 "by other countries as well."
19333 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19334 #: freeculture.xml:14055
19336 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
19337 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
19338 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
19339 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
19340 "these formalities."
19343 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19344 #: freeculture.xml:14065
19346 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
19347 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
19348 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
19349 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
19350 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
19351 "approving standards developed by others."
19354 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19355 #: freeculture.xml:14077
19356 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
19359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19360 #: freeculture.xml:14079
19362 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
19363 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
19364 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
19365 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
19366 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
19367 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
19368 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
19369 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
19370 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
19371 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
19374 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19375 #: freeculture.xml:14092
19377 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
19378 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
19379 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
19380 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
19381 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
19382 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
19383 "that the government sets."
19386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19387 #: freeculture.xml:14101
19389 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
19390 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
19391 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
19392 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
19393 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
19394 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
19395 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
19399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19400 #: freeculture.xml:14111
19402 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
19403 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
19404 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
19405 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
19406 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
19407 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
19408 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
19409 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
19410 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
19413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19414 #: freeculture.xml:14126
19418 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19419 #: freeculture.xml:14128
19421 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
19422 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
19423 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
19424 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
19425 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
19426 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
19427 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
19430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19431 #: freeculture.xml:14138
19433 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
19434 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
19435 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
19438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19439 #: freeculture.xml:14144
19441 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
19442 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
19443 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
19444 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
19445 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
19446 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
19447 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
19448 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
19452 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19453 #: freeculture.xml:14161
19455 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
19456 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
19457 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
19461 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19462 #: freeculture.xml:14154
19464 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
19465 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
19466 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
19467 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
19468 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
19469 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
19470 "unmarked work would therefore be <quote>use unless someone "
19471 "complains.</quote> If someone does complain, then the obligation would be to "
19472 "stop using the work in any new work from then on though no penalty would "
19473 "attach for existing uses. This would create a strong incentive for "
19474 "copyright owners to mark their work."
19477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19478 #: freeculture.xml:14174
19480 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
19481 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
19482 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
19483 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
19487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19488 #: freeculture.xml:14180
19489 msgid "copyright marking of"
19492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19493 #: freeculture.xml:14182
19495 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
19496 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
19497 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
19498 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
19499 "and it would base that choice <emphasis>solely</emphasis> upon the "
19500 "consideration of which method could best be integrated into the registration "
19501 "and renewal system. We would not count on the government to innovate; but we "
19502 "would count on the government to keep the product of innovation in line with "
19503 "its other important functions."
19506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19507 #: freeculture.xml:14194
19509 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
19510 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
19511 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
19512 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
19513 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
19517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19518 #: freeculture.xml:14202
19520 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
19521 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
19525 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19526 #: freeculture.xml:14207
19528 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
19529 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
19530 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
19531 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
19532 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
19533 "the appropriate time."
19536 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19537 #: freeculture.xml:14219
19538 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
19541 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19542 #: freeculture.xml:14221
19544 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
19545 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
19550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19551 #: freeculture.xml:14234
19553 "<quote>A Radical Rethink,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 366:8308 "
19554 "(25 January 2003): 15, available at <ulink "
19555 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
19558 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19559 #: freeculture.xml:14226
19561 "In <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>, I proposed a "
19562 "seventy-five-year term, granted in five-year increments with a requirement "
19563 "of renewal every five years. That seemed radical enough at the time. But "
19564 "after we lost <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
19565 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, the proposals became even more "
19566 "radical. <citetitle>The Economist</citetitle> endorsed a proposal for a "
19567 "fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
19568 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
19571 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19572 #: freeculture.xml:14241
19574 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
19575 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
19576 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
19580 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19581 #: freeculture.xml:14249
19583 "<emphasis>Keep it short:</emphasis> The term should be as long as necessary "
19584 "to give incentives to create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong "
19585 "protections for authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from "
19586 "publishers), rights to the same work (not derivative works) might be "
19587 "extended further. The key is not to tie the work up with legal regulations "
19588 "when it no longer benefits an author."
19593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19594 #: freeculture.xml:14258
19596 "<emphasis>Keep it simple:</emphasis> The line between the public domain and "
19597 "protected content must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of "
19598 "<quote>fair use,</quote> and the distinction between <quote>ideas</quote> "
19599 "and <quote>expression.</quote> That kind of law gives them lots of work. But "
19600 "our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected versus unprotected. The "
19601 "value of short terms is that there is little need to build exceptions into "
19602 "copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active "
19603 "<quote>lawyer-free zone</quote> makes the complexities of <quote>fair "
19604 "use</quote> and <quote>idea/expression</quote> less necessary to navigate."
19607 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
19608 #: freeculture.xml:14270
19609 msgid "veterans' pensions"
19613 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
19614 #: freeculture.xml:14281
19616 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
19617 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
19618 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
19621 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19622 #: freeculture.xml:14273
19624 "<emphasis>Keep it alive:</emphasis> Copyright should have to be renewed. "
19625 "Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be "
19626 "required to signal periodically that he wants the protection continued. This "
19627 "need not be an onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly "
19628 "protection has to be granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes "
19629 "for a veteran to apply for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19630 "id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we "
19631 "couldn't require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a "
19636 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19637 #: freeculture.xml:14292
19639 "<emphasis>Keep it prospective:</emphasis> Whatever the term of copyright "
19640 "should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once "
19641 "given should not be extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the "
19642 "law to offer authors only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's "
19643 "possible. If it was a mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer "
19644 "authors to create in 1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct "
19645 "that mistake today by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we "
19646 "will not increase the number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can "
19647 "increase the reward that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase "
19648 "the copyright burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But "
19649 "increasing their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's "
19650 "not done is not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
19653 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19654 #: freeculture.xml:14308
19656 "These changes together should produce an <emphasis>average</emphasis> "
19657 "copyright term that is much shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the "
19658 "average term was just 32.2 years. We should be aiming for the same."
19661 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19662 #: freeculture.xml:14314
19664 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas <quote>radical.</quote> (After "
19665 "all, I call them <quote>extremists.</quote>) But again, the term I "
19666 "recommended was longer than the term under Richard Nixon. How "
19667 "<quote>radical</quote> can it be to ask for a more generous copyright law "
19668 "than Richard Nixon presided over?"
19671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19672 #: freeculture.xml:14324
19673 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
19676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19677 #: freeculture.xml:14328
19679 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
19680 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
19681 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
19682 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
19683 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
19687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19688 #: freeculture.xml:14336
19690 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors <quote>exclusive "
19691 "right</quote> to <quote>their writings.</quote> Congress has given authors "
19692 "an exclusive right to <quote>their writings</quote> plus any derivative "
19693 "writings (made by others) that are sufficiently close to the author's "
19694 "original work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I "
19695 "have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even though that "
19696 "movie is not <quote>my writing.</quote>"
19699 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19700 #: freeculture.xml:14344
19701 msgid "Kaplan, Benjamin"
19705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19706 #: freeculture.xml:14350
19708 "Benjamin Kaplan, <citetitle>An Unhurried View of Copyright</citetitle> (New "
19709 "York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 32."
19712 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19713 #: freeculture.xml:14346
19715 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
19716 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
19717 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
19718 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
19719 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
19720 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan."
19724 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
19725 #: freeculture.xml:14363
19729 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para>
19730 #: freeculture.xml:14359
19732 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
19733 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
19734 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
19735 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19738 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19739 #: freeculture.xml:14368
19741 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
19742 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
19743 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
19744 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
19745 "each limitation in turn."
19748 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19749 #: freeculture.xml:14375
19751 "<emphasis>Term:</emphasis> If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, "
19752 "then that right should be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect "
19753 "John Grisham's right to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at "
19754 "least I'm willing to assume it does); but it does not make sense for that "
19755 "right to run for the same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative "
19756 "right could be important in inducing creativity; it is not important long "
19757 "after the creative work is done. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19760 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19761 #: freeculture.xml:14388
19763 "<emphasis>Scope:</emphasis> Likewise should the scope of derivative rights "
19764 "be narrowed. Again, there are some cases in which derivative rights are "
19765 "important. Those should be specified. But the law should draw clear lines "
19766 "around regulated and unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all "
19767 "<quote>reuse</quote> of creative material was within the control of "
19768 "businesses, perhaps it made sense to require lawyers to negotiate the "
19769 "lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers to negotiate the lines. Think "
19770 "about all the creative possibilities that digital technologies enable; now "
19771 "imagine pouring molasses into the machines. That's what this general "
19772 "requirement of permission does to the creative process. Smothers it."
19775 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19776 #: freeculture.xml:14402
19778 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
19779 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
19780 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
19781 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
19782 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
19785 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19786 #: freeculture.xml:14418
19787 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
19790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19791 #: freeculture.xml:14416
19793 "Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the "
19794 "Celestial Jukebox</citetitle> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), "
19795 "187–216. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19799 #: freeculture.xml:14410
19801 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
19802 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
19803 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
19804 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
19805 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
19808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19809 #: freeculture.xml:14424
19811 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
19812 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
19813 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
19814 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
19815 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
19819 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19820 #: freeculture.xml:14431
19822 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
19823 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
19824 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
19825 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
19826 "would earn artists more income."
19829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19830 #: freeculture.xml:14441
19831 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
19834 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19835 #: freeculture.xml:14443
19837 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
19838 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
19839 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
19840 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
19844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19845 #: freeculture.xml:14450
19847 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
19848 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
19849 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
19850 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
19851 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
19852 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
19855 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19856 #: freeculture.xml:14459
19858 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
19859 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
19860 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
19861 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
19862 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
19865 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19866 #: freeculture.xml:14466
19868 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
19869 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
19870 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter <xref "
19871 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"piracy\"/>, they enable four "
19872 "different kinds of sharing:"
19876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19877 #: freeculture.xml:14475
19879 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
19884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19885 #: freeculture.xml:14480
19887 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
19893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19894 #: freeculture.xml:14486
19896 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19897 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
19898 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
19902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19903 #: freeculture.xml:14492
19905 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19906 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
19910 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19911 #: freeculture.xml:14500
19913 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
19914 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
19915 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
19916 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
19917 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
19921 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19922 #: freeculture.xml:14508
19924 "As I said in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19925 "linkend=\"piracy\"/>, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
19926 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
19927 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
19928 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
19931 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19932 #: freeculture.xml:14516
19934 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
19935 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
19939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19940 #: freeculture.xml:14521
19942 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
19943 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
19944 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
19945 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
19946 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
19947 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
19948 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
19949 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
19950 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
19954 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19955 #: freeculture.xml:14533
19957 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
19958 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
19959 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
19960 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
19961 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
19962 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
19963 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
19964 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
19965 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
19966 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
19967 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
19970 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19971 #: freeculture.xml:14547
19972 msgid "cell phones, music streamed over"
19976 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19977 #: freeculture.xml:14567
19979 "See, for example, <quote>Music Media Watch,</quote> The J@pan "
19980 "Inc. Newsletter, 3 April 2002, available at <ulink "
19981 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #76</ulink>."
19984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19985 #: freeculture.xml:14549
19987 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
19988 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
19989 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
19990 "point: When it is <emphasis>extremely</emphasis> easy to connect to services "
19991 "that give access to content, it will be <emphasis>easier</emphasis> to "
19992 "connect to services that give you access to content than it will be to "
19993 "download and store content <emphasis>on the many devices you will have for "
19994 "playing content</emphasis>. It will be easier, in other words, to subscribe "
19995 "than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
19996 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
19997 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
19998 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
19999 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
20000 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
20001 "<quote>free</quote> content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
20002 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20007 #: freeculture.xml:14574
20009 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
20010 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The <quote>problem</quote> with file "
20011 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
20012 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
20013 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
20014 "to be <quote>solving</quote> this problem in light of a technology that will "
20015 "be gone tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet "
20016 "to eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The "
20017 "question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
20018 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
20019 "twenty-first-century technologies."
20022 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20023 #: freeculture.xml:14590
20025 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different "
20026 "<quote>problems</quote> here to solve. Let's start with type D "
20027 "content—uncopyrighted content or copyrighted content that the artist "
20028 "wants shared. The <quote>problem</quote> with this content is to make sure "
20029 "that the technology that would enable this kind of sharing is not rendered "
20030 "illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones are used to deliver ransom "
20031 "demands, no doubt. But there are many who need to use pay phones who have "
20032 "nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to ban pay phones in order to "
20033 "eliminate kidnapping."
20036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20037 #: freeculture.xml:14601
20039 "Type C content raises a different <quote>problem.</quote> This is content "
20040 "that was, at one time, published and is no longer available. It may be "
20041 "unavailable because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record "
20042 "label he signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the "
20043 "work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate "
20044 "the access to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the "
20048 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20049 #: freeculture.xml:14612
20051 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
20052 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
20053 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
20054 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
20055 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
20056 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this "
20057 "<quote>sharing</quote> of his content without his being compensated is less "
20061 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20062 #: freeculture.xml:14622
20064 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
20065 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
20066 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
20067 "be free, under this rule, to <quote>share</quote> that content, even though "
20068 "the sharing involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the "
20069 "trade; in a context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music "
20070 "should be as free as trading books."
20074 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20075 #: freeculture.xml:14633
20077 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
20078 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
20079 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
20080 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
20081 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
20082 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
20083 "artists would benefit from this trade."
20086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20087 #: freeculture.xml:14643
20089 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
20090 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
20091 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
20092 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
20093 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
20094 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
20095 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
20099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20100 #: freeculture.xml:14653
20102 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
20103 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
20104 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
20105 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
20106 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
20110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20111 #: freeculture.xml:14661
20113 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
20114 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
20117 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20118 #: freeculture.xml:14665
20120 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
20121 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
20122 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
20123 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
20124 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
20125 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
20126 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
20131 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20132 #: freeculture.xml:14676
20134 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
20135 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
20136 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
20137 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
20138 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
20139 "compensate those who are harmed."
20142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
20143 #: freeculture.xml:14683 freeculture.xml:14725
20144 msgid "Promises to Keep (Fisher)"
20147 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
20148 #: freeculture.xml:14723
20149 msgid "Fisher, William"
20152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20153 #: freeculture.xml:14689
20155 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> William Fisher, "
20156 "<citetitle>Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities</citetitle> (last "
20157 "revised: 10 October 2000), available at <ulink "
20158 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
20159 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of "
20160 "Entertainment</citetitle> (forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University "
20161 "Press, 2004), ch. 6, available at <ulink "
20162 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor Netanel "
20163 "has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing from the "
20164 "reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to balance "
20165 "any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, <quote>Impose a Noncommercial Use Levy "
20166 "to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,</quote> available at <ulink "
20167 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
20168 "see Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Who's Holding Back Broadband?</quote> "
20169 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 8 January 2002, A17; Philip "
20170 "S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter to Senator Joseph "
20171 "R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 "
20172 "February 2002, available at <ulink "
20173 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, "
20174 "<citetitle>A Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee "
20175 "(IPUF)</citetitle>, 3 March 2002, available at <ulink "
20176 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson Graham, "
20177 "<quote>Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,</quote> "
20178 "<citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 13 May 2002, available at <ulink "
20179 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, "
20180 "<quote>Getting Copyright Right,</quote> IEEE Spectrum Online, 1 July 2002, "
20181 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; "
20182 "Declan McCullagh, <quote>Verizon's Copyright Campaign,</quote> CNET "
20183 "News.com, 27 August 2002, available at <ulink "
20184 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's proposal "
20185 "is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike Fisher's, "
20186 "Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, though "
20187 "more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is typical "
20188 "with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
20189 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
20190 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
20191 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
20194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20195 #: freeculture.xml:14685
20197 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
20198 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
20199 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
20200 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
20201 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
20202 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
20203 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
20204 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
20205 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
20206 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
20209 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20210 #: freeculture.xml:14739
20212 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
20213 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, "
20214 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep</citetitle>. The modification that I would make "
20215 "is relatively simple: Fisher imagines his proposal replacing the existing "
20216 "copyright system. I imagine it complementing the existing system. The aim "
20217 "of the proposal would be to facilitate compensation to the extent that harm "
20218 "could be shown. This compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating "
20219 "a transition between regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of "
20220 "years. If it continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, "
20221 "supported through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form "
20222 "of protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the "
20223 "old system of controlling access."
20227 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20228 #: freeculture.xml:14756
20230 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
20231 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
20232 "supports the widest range of <quote>semiotic democracy</quote> possible. But "
20233 "the aims of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I "
20234 "described were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative "
20235 "uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden "
20236 "semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to "
20237 "do with the content itself."
20240 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20241 #: freeculture.xml:14769
20245 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20246 #: freeculture.xml:14771
20250 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20251 #: freeculture.xml:14773
20253 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of "
20254 "<quote>harm</quote> to an industry. But the difficulty of making that "
20255 "calculation would be outweighed by the benefit of facilitating "
20256 "innovation. This background system to compensate would also not need to "
20257 "interfere with innovative proposals such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts "
20258 "predicted when Apple launched the MusicStore, it could beat "
20259 "<quote>free</quote> by being easier than free is. This has proven correct: "
20260 "Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price of 99 cents a "
20261 "song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song CD price, "
20262 "though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's move was "
20263 "countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no "
20264 "doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music "
20268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20269 #: freeculture.xml:14788
20270 msgid "cable vs. broadcast"
20273 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20274 #: freeculture.xml:14791
20275 msgid "film industry"
20278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20279 #: freeculture.xml:14791
20280 msgid "luxury theatres vs. video piracy in"
20283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20284 #: freeculture.xml:14793
20286 "This competition has already occurred against the background of "
20287 "<quote>free</quote> music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable "
20288 "television have known for thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for "
20289 "much more than that, there is nothing impossible at all about "
20290 "<quote>competing with free.</quote> Indeed, if anything, the competition "
20291 "spurs the competitors to offer new and better products. This is precisely "
20292 "what the competitive market was to be about. Thus in Singapore, though "
20293 "piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often luxurious—with "
20294 "<quote>first class</quote> seats, and meals served while you watch a "
20295 "movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
20296 "<quote>free.</quote>"
20299 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20300 #: freeculture.xml:14805
20302 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
20303 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
20304 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
20305 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
20306 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
20307 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
20310 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20311 #: freeculture.xml:14814
20312 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
20316 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20317 #: freeculture.xml:14819
20319 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
20320 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
20321 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
20322 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
20325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20326 #: freeculture.xml:14826
20327 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
20331 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20332 #: freeculture.xml:14832
20333 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
20337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20338 #: freeculture.xml:14836
20340 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
20341 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
20345 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20346 #: freeculture.xml:14842
20348 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
20349 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
20352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20353 #: freeculture.xml:14847
20355 "But what if <quote>piracy</quote> doesn't disappear? What if there is a "
20356 "competitive market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number "
20357 "of consumers continue to <quote>take</quote> content for nothing? Should the "
20358 "law do something then?"
20361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20362 #: freeculture.xml:14853
20364 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
20365 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
20366 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
20367 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
20368 "percent secure and produces a market of size <citetitle>x</citetitle>, or "
20369 "(b) to have a technology that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of "
20370 "five times <citetitle>x</citetitle>? Less secure might produce more "
20371 "unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a much bigger market "
20372 "in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to assure artists' "
20373 "compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's assured, then it may "
20374 "well be appropriate to find ways to track down the petty pirates."
20378 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20379 #: freeculture.xml:14867
20381 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
20382 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
20383 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
20384 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
20385 "and creativity that the Internet is."
20388 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20389 #: freeculture.xml:14878
20390 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
20393 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20394 #: freeculture.xml:14880
20396 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
20397 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
20398 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
20399 "the end that I would love to live."
20402 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20403 #: freeculture.xml:14886
20405 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
20406 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
20407 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
20408 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
20409 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
20412 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20413 #: freeculture.xml:14893
20414 msgid "Nimmer, Melville"
20417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20418 #: freeculture.xml:14894
20419 msgid "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) (1998)"
20422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20423 #: freeculture.xml:14894
20424 msgid "Supreme Court challenge of"
20428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20429 #: freeculture.xml:14905
20431 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Copyright's First Amendment</quote> (Melville "
20432 "B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture), <citetitle>UCLA Law Review</citetitle> 48 "
20433 "(2001): 1057, 1069–70."
20436 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20437 #: freeculture.xml:14896
20439 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "
20440 "<quote>radical</quote> by many within the profession, yet the positions that "
20441 "I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and "
20442 "significant figures in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for "
20443 "example, thought crazy the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term "
20444 "Extension Act. Yet just thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and "
20445 "practitioner in the field of copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it "
20446 "obvious.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20449 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20450 #: freeculture.xml:14911
20452 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
20453 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
20454 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
20457 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20458 #: freeculture.xml:14921
20460 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
20461 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
20462 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
20463 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
20464 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
20465 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network "
20466 "Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace</citetitle> (New "
20467 "York: Amacom, 2002), (reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) "
20468 "with Stan J. Liebowitz, <quote>Will MP3s Annihilate the Record "
20469 "Industry?</quote> working paper, June 2003, available at <ulink "
20470 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful "
20471 "analysis is extremely valuable in estimating the effect of file-sharing "
20472 "technology. In my view, however, he underestimates the costs of the legal "
20473 "system. See, for example, <citetitle>Rethinking</citetitle>, 174–76. "
20474 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
20477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20478 #: freeculture.xml:14916
20480 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
20481 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
20482 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
20483 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
20484 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
20485 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
20489 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20490 #: freeculture.xml:14945
20492 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
20493 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
20494 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
20495 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
20496 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
20499 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20500 #: freeculture.xml:14953
20502 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
20503 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
20504 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
20505 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
20506 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
20507 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
20508 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
20509 "and costly cases."
20512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20513 #: freeculture.xml:14963
20515 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
20516 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
20517 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
20518 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
20519 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
20520 "and hence radically more just."
20523 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20524 #: freeculture.xml:14971
20526 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
20527 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
20528 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
20531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20532 #: freeculture.xml:14978
20534 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
20535 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
20536 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
20537 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
20538 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
20539 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
20540 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
20544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20545 #: freeculture.xml:14987
20547 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
20548 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
20549 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
20550 "question: <quote>Will it do good?</quote> When challenged about the "
20551 "expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, <quote>Why not?</quote>"
20554 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20555 #: freeculture.xml:14996
20557 "We should ask, <quote>Why?</quote> Show me why your regulation of culture is "
20558 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
20562 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20563 #: freeculture.xml:15005
20567 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20568 #: freeculture.xml:15007
20570 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
20571 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
20572 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
20573 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
20574 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
20575 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
20576 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
20577 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
20581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20582 #: freeculture.xml:15026
20583 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
20586 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20587 #: freeculture.xml:15028
20589 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
20590 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
20591 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
20592 "this book is dedicated."
20595 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20596 #: freeculture.xml:15035
20598 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
20599 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
20600 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
20601 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
20602 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
20603 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
20604 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
20605 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
20606 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
20607 "her own critical eye on much of this."
20611 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20612 #: freeculture.xml:15048
20614 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
20615 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
20616 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
20617 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
20618 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
20619 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
20620 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
20624 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20625 #: freeculture.xml:15059
20627 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
20628 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
20629 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
20630 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
20631 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
20632 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
20633 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
20634 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
20635 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
20636 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
20637 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
20638 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
20639 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
20640 "Williams, <quote>Wink,</quote> Roger Wood, <quote>Ximmbo da Jazz,</quote> "
20641 "and Richard Yanco. (I apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come "
20642 "glitches, and a crash of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great "
20646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20647 #: freeculture.xml:15079
20649 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
20650 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
20651 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
20652 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
20653 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
20654 "places throughout this book."
20657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20658 #: freeculture.xml:15088
20660 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
20661 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
20662 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
20663 "patience and love."