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:13234
480 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
483 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
484 #: freeculture.xml:400 freeculture.xml:421 freeculture.xml:13235
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:14228
607 msgid "land ownership, air traffic and"
610 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
611 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14229
612 msgid "property rights"
615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
616 #: freeculture.xml:491 freeculture.xml:14229
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:9140 freeculture.xml:12603 freeculture.xml:13338
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:9141 freeculture.xml:12604 freeculture.xml:13339
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:9148 freeculture.xml:9803
773 msgid "Armstrong, Edwin Howard"
776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
777 #: freeculture.xml:607
778 msgid "Bell, Alexander Graham"
781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
782 #: freeculture.xml:608
783 msgid "Edison, Thomas"
786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
787 #: freeculture.xml:609
788 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
792 #: freeculture.xml:610
796 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
797 #: freeculture.xml:610
798 msgid "FM spectrum of"
802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
803 #: freeculture.xml:612
805 "<emphasis role='strong'>Edwin Howard Armstrong</emphasis> is one of "
806 "America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American "
807 "inventor scene just after the titans Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham "
808 "Bell. But his work in the area of radio technology was perhaps the most "
809 "important of any single inventor in the first fifty years of radio. He was "
810 "better educated than Michael Faraday, who as a bookbinder's apprentice had "
811 "discovered electric induction in 1831. But he had the same intuition about "
812 "how the world of radio worked, and on at least three occasions, Armstrong "
813 "invented profoundly important technologies that advanced our understanding "
817 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
818 #: freeculture.xml:625
820 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
821 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
822 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
823 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
824 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
825 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
826 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
830 #: freeculture.xml:635
832 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
833 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
834 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
835 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
836 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
837 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
838 "of an announcer's voice: <quote>This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
839 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.</quote>"
842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
843 #: freeculture.xml:646
844 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
847 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
848 #: freeculture.xml:657
850 "Lawrence Lessing, <citetitle>Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard "
851 "Armstrong</citetitle> (Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
855 #: freeculture.xml:650
857 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
858 "like a glass of water being poured. … A paper was crumpled and torn; "
859 "it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. … Sousa "
860 "marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
861 "performed. … The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
862 "heard before from a radio <quote>music box.</quote><placeholder "
863 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
867 #: freeculture.xml:662
871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
872 #: freeculture.xml:663
876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
877 #: freeculture.xml:663
878 msgid "ownership concentration in"
882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
883 #: freeculture.xml:665
885 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
886 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
887 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
888 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
889 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
894 #: freeculture.xml:673 freeculture.xml:695
895 msgid "Sarnoff, David"
898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
899 #: freeculture.xml:675
901 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
902 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
903 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
904 "from <quote>radio.</quote> But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, "
905 "Sarnoff was not pleased."
908 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
909 #: freeculture.xml:686
911 "See <quote>Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,</quote> "
912 "First Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, "
913 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
916 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
917 #: freeculture.xml:683
919 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
920 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
921 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
926 #: freeculture.xml:694
930 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
931 #: freeculture.xml:697
933 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
934 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
935 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described,"
938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
939 #: freeculture.xml:702
940 msgid "Lessing, Lawrence"
943 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
944 #: freeculture.xml:710
945 msgid "Lessing, 226."
948 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
949 #: freeculture.xml:705
951 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
952 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
953 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
954 "posed … a complete reordering of radio power … and the "
955 "eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had "
956 "grown to power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
959 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
960 #: freeculture.xml:714
964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
965 #: freeculture.xml:714
969 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
970 #: freeculture.xml:716
972 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
973 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
974 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
975 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
976 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
977 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
978 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
979 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
980 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
981 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
982 "Lessing described it,"
985 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
986 #: freeculture.xml:735
987 msgid "Lessing, 256."
990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
991 #: freeculture.xml:731
993 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
994 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
995 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
996 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1000 #: freeculture.xml:740
1004 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1005 #: freeculture.xml:742
1007 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
1008 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
1009 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
1010 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
1011 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
1012 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
1013 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
1016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1017 #: freeculture.xml:754
1019 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
1020 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
1021 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
1022 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
1023 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
1024 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
1025 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
1026 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
1027 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
1031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1032 #: freeculture.xml:768
1034 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
1035 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
1036 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
1037 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
1038 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
1039 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
1040 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
1041 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
1042 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
1043 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
1044 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
1047 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1048 #: freeculture.xml:785 freeculture.xml:1156
1052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1053 #: freeculture.xml:785
1054 msgid "development of"
1057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1058 #: freeculture.xml:793
1060 "Amanda Lenhart, <quote>The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
1061 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,</quote> Pew Internet and American "
1062 "Life Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
1063 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:787
1069 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">There's no</emphasis> single inventor of the "
1070 "Internet. Nor is there any good date upon which to mark its birth. Yet in a "
1071 "very short time, the Internet has become part of ordinary American "
1072 "life. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 58 percent of "
1073 "Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up from 49 percent two years "
1074 "before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That number could well "
1075 "exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
1078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1079 #: freeculture.xml:802
1081 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
1082 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
1083 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
1084 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
1085 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
1086 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
1087 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
1088 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
1089 "is not a book about the Internet."
1092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1093 #: freeculture.xml:813
1095 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
1096 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
1097 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
1098 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
1099 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
1100 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
1103 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1104 #: freeculture.xml:822
1105 msgid "Barlow, Joel"
1108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1109 #: freeculture.xml:823
1113 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1114 #: freeculture.xml:823
1115 msgid "commercial vs. noncommercial"
1118 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1119 #: freeculture.xml:824
1120 msgid "Webster, Noah"
1124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1125 #: freeculture.xml:826
1127 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
1128 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
1129 "<quote>commercial culture</quote> I mean that part of our culture that is "
1130 "produced and sold or produced to be sold. By <quote>noncommercial "
1131 "culture</quote> I mean all the rest. When old men sat around parks or on "
1132 "street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was "
1133 "noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his "
1134 "<quote>Reader,</quote> or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial "
1138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1139 #: freeculture.xml:838
1141 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
1142 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
1143 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
1144 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
1145 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture "
1146 "<quote>free.</quote> The ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared "
1147 "and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from "
1148 "plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making "
1149 "tapes—were left alone by the law."
1152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1153 #: freeculture.xml:848
1154 msgid "Copyright infringement lawsuits"
1157 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1158 #: freeculture.xml:848
1159 msgid "commercial creativity as primary purpose of"
1162 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1163 #: freeculture.xml:864 freeculture.xml:1991 freeculture.xml:2002
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:9696
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:10928
1348 msgid "Constitution, U.S."
1351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1352 #: freeculture.xml:968
1353 msgid "First Amendment to"
1356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><primary>
1357 #: freeculture.xml:969 freeculture.xml:1134
1358 msgid "Copyright law"
1361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1362 #: freeculture.xml:969
1363 msgid "as protection of creators"
1366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1367 #: freeculture.xml:970
1368 msgid "First Amendment"
1371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1372 #: freeculture.xml:971 freeculture.xml:981 freeculture.xml:14627
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:4951
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:3150
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:2959
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:7107
1738 msgid "Zittrain, Jonathan"
1741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1742 #: freeculture.xml:1221
1744 "Lisa Bannon, <quote>The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay "
1745 "Up,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 21 August 1996, "
1746 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; "
1747 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of "
1748 "Property vs. Free Speech, No One Wins,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
1749 "Globe</citetitle>, 24 November 2002. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1754 #: freeculture.xml:1209
1756 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1757 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1758 "theory of creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1759 "—if there is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It "
1760 "is the perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue "
1761 "the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1762 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1763 "<quote>value</quote> (the songs) so there must have been a "
1764 "<quote>right</quote>—even against the Girl Scouts."
1768 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1769 #: freeculture.xml:1233
1771 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1772 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1773 "protecting creative property. But the <quote>if value, then right</quote> "
1774 "theory of creative property has never been America's theory of creative "
1775 "property. It has never taken hold within our law."
1778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1779 #: freeculture.xml:1241 freeculture.xml:1266 freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768
1780 msgid "copyright law"
1783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1784 #: freeculture.xml:1241
1785 msgid "on republishing vs. transformation of original work"
1788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1789 #: freeculture.xml:1242 freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
1793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1794 #: freeculture.xml:1242
1795 msgid "legal restrictions on"
1798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1799 #: freeculture.xml:1244
1801 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1802 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1803 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1804 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1809 #: freeculture.xml:1251
1811 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1812 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1813 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1814 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1815 "copyright law today regulates both."
1818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1819 #: freeculture.xml:1259
1821 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1822 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1823 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1824 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1825 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><indexterm><secondary>
1829 #: freeculture.xml:1266
1830 msgid "creativity impeded by"
1833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1834 #: freeculture.xml:1267 freeculture.xml:1298
1835 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1838 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1839 #: freeculture.xml:1268 freeculture.xml:1299
1840 msgid "Rise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)"
1843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
1844 #: freeculture.xml:1290
1846 "In <citetitle>The Rise of the Creative Class</citetitle> (New York: Basic "
1847 "Books, 2002), Richard Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor "
1848 "toward a labor of creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address "
1849 "the legal conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I "
1850 "certainly agree with him about the importance and significance of this "
1851 "change, but I also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are "
1852 "much more tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
1853 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
1856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1857 #: freeculture.xml:1270
1859 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1860 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1861 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1862 "matter much if copyright law regulated only <quote>copying,</quote> when the "
1863 "law regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1864 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1865 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1866 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1867 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1868 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1869 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1870 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1871 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1872 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1873 "writes, the <quote>Rise of the Creative Class.</quote><placeholder "
1874 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an "
1875 "extraordinary rise of regulation of this creative class."
1878 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
1879 #: freeculture.xml:1306
1881 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1882 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1883 "context the current battles about behavior labeled <quote>piracy.</quote>"
1886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
1887 #: freeculture.xml:1314
1888 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1892 #: freeculture.xml:1315
1893 msgid "animated cartoons"
1896 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1897 #: freeculture.xml:1316
1898 msgid "cartoon films"
1901 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1902 #: freeculture.xml:1317 freeculture.xml:5824 freeculture.xml:5867
1906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
1907 #: freeculture.xml:1317
1911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1912 #: freeculture.xml:1318
1913 msgid "Steamboat Willie"
1916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
1917 #: freeculture.xml:1319 freeculture.xml:7131
1918 msgid "Mickey Mouse"
1921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1922 #: freeculture.xml:1321
1924 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">In 1928</emphasis>, a cartoon character was "
1925 "born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut in May of that year, in a silent "
1926 "flop called <citetitle>Plane Crazy</citetitle>. In November, in New York "
1927 "City's Colony Theater, in the first widely distributed cartoon synchronized "
1928 "with sound, <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle> brought to life the "
1929 "character that would become Mickey Mouse."
1932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1933 #: freeculture.xml:1327 freeculture.xml:1544 freeculture.xml:1598 freeculture.xml:1739 freeculture.xml:1979 freeculture.xml:4436 freeculture.xml:5999 freeculture.xml:7130 freeculture.xml:10550 freeculture.xml:10931
1934 msgid "Disney, Walt"
1937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1938 #: freeculture.xml:1329
1940 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1941 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle>. That success led Walt Disney to copy "
1942 "the technique and mix sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work "
1943 "or, if it did work, whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a "
1944 "test in the summer of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney "
1945 "describes that first experiment,"
1949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1950 #: freeculture.xml:1338
1952 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1953 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1954 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1955 "going to see the picture."
1958 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1959 #: freeculture.xml:1345
1961 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1962 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1963 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1964 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1969 #: freeculture.xml:1358
1971 "Leonard Maltin, <citetitle>Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated "
1972 "Cartoons</citetitle> (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
1976 #: freeculture.xml:1352
1978 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1979 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1980 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1981 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1982 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1986 #: freeculture.xml:1363
1990 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1991 #: freeculture.xml:1365
1993 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1994 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: <quote>I have never been so thrilled in my "
1995 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.</quote>"
1998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
1999 #: freeculture.xml:1370
2001 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
2002 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
2003 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
2004 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
2005 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
2006 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
2010 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2011 #: freeculture.xml:1379 freeculture.xml:1741
2012 msgid "Keaton, Buster"
2015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2016 #: freeculture.xml:1380 freeculture.xml:1611
2017 msgid "Steamboat Bill, Jr."
2020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2021 #: freeculture.xml:1382
2023 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
2024 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
2025 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
2026 "Buster Keaton. The film was <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>."
2029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2030 #: freeculture.xml:1388
2032 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
2033 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
2034 "laughter from his audience. <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. was a "
2035 "classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. "
2036 "The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its "
2040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2041 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552
2042 msgid "derivative works"
2045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2046 #: freeculture.xml:1395 freeculture.xml:1552
2050 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
2051 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555 freeculture.xml:3638 freeculture.xml:14693
2055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2056 #: freeculture.xml:1396 freeculture.xml:1555
2057 msgid "derivative work vs."
2061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2062 #: freeculture.xml:1404
2064 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
2065 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
2066 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
2067 "five songs in <citetitle>Steamboat Willie</citetitle>: <quote>Steamboat "
2068 "Bill,</quote> <quote>The Simpleton</quote> (Delille), <quote>Mischief "
2069 "Makers</quote> (Carbonara), <quote>Joyful Hurry No. 1</quote> (Baron), and "
2070 "<quote>Gawky Rube</quote> (Lakay). A sixth song, <quote>The Turkey in the "
2071 "Straw,</quote> was already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to "
2072 "Harry Surden, 10 July 2003, on file with author."
2075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2076 #: freeculture.xml:1398
2078 "<citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. appeared before Disney's cartoon "
2079 "Steamboat Willie. The coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat "
2080 "Willie is a direct cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder "
2081 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and both are built upon a common song as a "
2082 "source. It is not just from the invention of synchronized sound in "
2083 "<citetitle>The Jazz Singer</citetitle> that we get <citetitle>Steamboat "
2084 "Willie</citetitle>. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat "
2085 "Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song <quote>Steamboat Bill,</quote> that "
2086 "we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
2089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2090 #: freeculture.xml:1424 freeculture.xml:1581
2091 msgid "by transforming previous works"
2094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2095 #: freeculture.xml:1425 freeculture.xml:6040
2096 msgid "Disney, Inc."
2100 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2101 #: freeculture.xml:1431
2103 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, <quote>The Mouse "
2104 "that Ate the Public Domain,</quote> Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
2105 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
2108 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2109 #: freeculture.xml:1427
2111 "This <quote>borrowing</quote> was nothing unique, either for Disney or for "
2112 "the industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream "
2113 "films of his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many "
2114 "others. Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on "
2115 "winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the "
2116 "brilliance of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his "
2117 "animation its spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the "
2118 "production-line cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were "
2119 "built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others "
2120 "before him, creating something new out of something just barely old."
2123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2124 #: freeculture.xml:1445 freeculture.xml:1740 freeculture.xml:10551
2125 msgid "Grimm fairy tales"
2128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2129 #: freeculture.xml:1447
2131 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
2132 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
2133 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
2134 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
2135 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
2136 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
2137 "bedtime or anytime."
2141 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2142 #: freeculture.xml:1456
2144 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
2145 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
2146 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
2147 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
2148 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
2149 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
2150 "together: <citetitle>Snow White</citetitle> (1937), "
2151 "<citetitle>Fantasia</citetitle> (1940), <citetitle>Pinocchio</citetitle> "
2152 "(1940), <citetitle>Dumbo</citetitle> (1941), <citetitle>Bambi</citetitle> "
2153 "(1942), <citetitle>Song of the South</citetitle> (1946), "
2154 "<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle> (1950), <citetitle>Alice in "
2155 "Wonderland</citetitle> (1951), <citetitle>Robin Hood</citetitle> (1952), "
2156 "<citetitle>Peter Pan</citetitle> (1953), <citetitle>Lady and the "
2157 "Tramp</citetitle> (1955), <citetitle>Mulan</citetitle> (1998), "
2158 "<citetitle>Sleeping Beauty</citetitle> (1959), <citetitle>101 "
2159 "Dalmatians</citetitle> (1961), <citetitle>The Sword in the Stone</citetitle> "
2160 "(1963), and <citetitle>The Jungle Book</citetitle> (1967)—not to "
2161 "mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, "
2162 "<citetitle>Treasure Planet</citetitle> (2003). In all of these cases, Disney "
2163 "(or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that "
2164 "creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into "
2165 "the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
2168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2169 #: freeculture.xml:1479
2171 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
2172 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
2173 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
2174 "could call this <quote>Disney creativity,</quote> though that would be a bit "
2175 "misleading. It is, more precisely, <quote>Walt Disney "
2176 "creativity</quote>—a form of expression and genius that builds upon "
2177 "the culture around us and makes it something different."
2180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2181 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:10929 freeculture.xml:10930
2185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2186 #: freeculture.xml:1490 freeculture.xml:10930
2190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2191 #: freeculture.xml:1491 freeculture.xml:1492 freeculture.xml:12895
2192 msgid "public domain"
2195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2196 #: freeculture.xml:1491
2200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2201 #: freeculture.xml:1492
2202 msgid "traditional term for conversion to"
2206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2207 #: freeculture.xml:1499
2209 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
2210 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the "
2211 "<quote>average</quote> term by determining the weighted average of total "
2212 "registrations for any particular year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if "
2213 "100 copyrights are registered in year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the "
2214 "renewal term is 28 years, then the average term is 32.2 years. For the "
2215 "renewal data and other relevant data, see the Web site associated with this "
2216 "book, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2220 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2221 #: freeculture.xml:1493
2223 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
2224 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
2225 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
2226 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
2227 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
2228 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
2229 "work had an <quote>exclusive right</quote> to control certain uses of the "
2230 "work. To use this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission "
2231 "of the copyright owner."
2234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2235 #: freeculture.xml:1516
2237 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
2238 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
2239 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a <quote>lawyer-free zone.</quote> "
2240 "Thus, most of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to "
2241 "use and build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected "
2242 "or not, whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build "
2247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2248 #: freeculture.xml:1527
2250 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
2251 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
2252 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
2253 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
2254 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
2255 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
2256 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
2257 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
2260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2261 #: freeculture.xml:1546
2263 "<emphasis role=\"strong\">Of course</emphasis>, Walt Disney had no monopoly "
2264 "on <quote>Walt Disney creativity.</quote> Nor does America. The norm of free "
2265 "culture has, until recently, and except within totalitarian nations, been "
2266 "broadly exploited and quite universal."
2269 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2270 #: freeculture.xml:1551 freeculture.xml:1655 freeculture.xml:1769
2271 msgid "comics, Japanese"
2274 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2275 #: freeculture.xml:1553 freeculture.xml:1771
2276 msgid "Japanese comics"
2279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2280 #: freeculture.xml:1554 freeculture.xml:1772
2284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2285 #: freeculture.xml:1557
2287 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
2288 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: "
2289 "<citetitle>manga</citetitle>, or comics. The Japanese are fanatics about "
2290 "comics. Some 40 percent of publications are comics, and 30 percent of "
2291 "publication revenue derives from comics. They are everywhere in Japanese "
2292 "society, at every magazine stand, carried by a large proportion of commuters "
2293 "on Japan's extraordinary system of public transportation."
2296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2297 #: freeculture.xml:1566
2299 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
2300 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
2301 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
2302 "that these <quote>graphic novels</quote> tell. For the Japanese, manga cover "
2303 "every aspect of social life. For us, comics are <quote>men in "
2304 "tights.</quote> And anyway, it's not as if the New York subways are filled "
2305 "with readers of Joyce or even Hemingway. People of different cultures "
2306 "distract themselves in different ways, the Japanese in this interestingly "
2310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2311 #: freeculture.xml:1577
2313 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
2314 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
2315 "perspective is quite familiar."
2318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2319 #: freeculture.xml:1582 freeculture.xml:1770
2320 msgid "doujinshi comics"
2324 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2325 #: freeculture.xml:1584
2327 "This is the phenomenon of <citetitle>doujinshi</citetitle>. Doujinshi are "
2328 "also comics, but they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the "
2329 "creation of doujinshi. It is not doujinshi if it is "
2330 "<emphasis>just</emphasis> a copy; the artist must make a contribution to the "
2331 "art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
2332 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
2333 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
2334 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
2335 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently <quote>different.</quote> But they "
2336 "must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there "
2337 "are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject "
2338 "any copycat comic that is merely a copy."
2341 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2342 #: freeculture.xml:1600
2344 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
2345 "huge. More than 33,000 <quote>circles</quote> of creators from across Japan "
2346 "produce these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese "
2347 "come together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, "
2348 "to exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
2349 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
2350 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
2351 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
2352 "competition and despite the law."
2355 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2356 #: freeculture.xml:1610 freeculture.xml:1654 freeculture.xml:1768
2360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2361 #: freeculture.xml:1613
2363 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
2364 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
2365 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
2366 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
2367 "<quote>derivative works.</quote> There is no general practice by doujinshi "
2368 "artists of securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the "
2369 "practice is simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt "
2370 "Disney did with <citetitle>Steamboat Bill, Jr</citetitle>. Under both "
2371 "Japanese and American law, that <quote>taking</quote> without the permission "
2372 "of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an infringement of the "
2373 "original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work without the original "
2374 "copyright owner's permission."
2377 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2378 #: freeculture.xml:1627
2379 msgid "Winick, Judd"
2383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2384 #: freeculture.xml:1639
2386 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, <citetitle>Reinventing "
2387 "Comics</citetitle> (New York: Perennial, 2000)."
2390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2391 #: freeculture.xml:1629
2393 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
2394 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
2395 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, <quote>The "
2396 "early days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
2397 "now. … American comics were born out of copying each other. … "
2398 "That's how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and "
2399 "not tracing them, but looking at them and copying them</quote> and building "
2400 "from them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2403 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2404 #: freeculture.xml:1644
2405 msgid "Superman comics"
2408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2409 #: freeculture.xml:1646
2411 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
2412 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
2413 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, <quote>there are these rules "
2414 "and you have to stick to them.</quote> There are things Superman "
2415 "<quote>cannot</quote> do. <quote>As a creator, it's frustrating having to "
2416 "stick to some parameters which are fifty years old.</quote>"
2419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2420 #: freeculture.xml:1656
2421 msgid "Mehra, Salil"
2425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2426 #: freeculture.xml:1666
2428 "See Salil K. Mehra, <quote>Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain "
2429 "Why All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?</quote> "
2430 "<citetitle>Rutgers Law Review</citetitle> 55 (2002): 155, "
2431 "182. <quote>[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that would "
2432 "lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
2433 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
2434 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
2435 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
2439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2440 #: freeculture.xml:1658
2442 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
2443 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
2444 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
2445 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
2446 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
2447 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
2448 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2452 #: freeculture.xml:1680
2454 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
2455 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
2456 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
2457 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
2458 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
2459 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
2460 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this "
2461 "<quote>free taking</quote> by the doujinshi culture?"
2464 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2465 #: freeculture.xml:1693
2467 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
2468 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
2469 "a major Japanese law firm. <quote>We don't have enough lawyers,</quote> he "
2470 "told me one afternoon. There <quote>just aren't enough resources to "
2471 "prosecute cases like this.</quote>"
2475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2476 #: freeculture.xml:1700
2478 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
2479 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
2480 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
2481 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
2482 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
2483 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
2484 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
2485 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them?"
2488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2489 #: freeculture.xml:1713
2490 msgid "<emphasis role='strong'>Let's pause</emphasis> for a moment."
2493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2494 #: freeculture.xml:1716
2496 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
2497 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
2498 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
2501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2502 #: freeculture.xml:1726 freeculture.xml:2976 freeculture.xml:4652 freeculture.xml:4877 freeculture.xml:7493 freeculture.xml:8600
2503 msgid "Vaidhyanathan, Siva"
2506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2507 #: freeculture.xml:1726
2509 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The term <citetitle>intellectual "
2510 "property</citetitle> is of relatively recent origin. See Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
2511 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 11 (New York: New York "
2512 "University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>The Future of "
2513 "Ideas</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term "
2514 "accurately describes a set of <quote>property</quote> "
2515 "rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and trade-secret—but the "
2516 "nature of those rights is very different."
2519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2520 #: freeculture.xml:1721
2522 "We live in a world that celebrates <quote>property.</quote> I am one of "
2523 "those celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
2524 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
2525 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2526 "id=\"0\"/> A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a "
2527 "large, diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual "
2531 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2532 #: freeculture.xml:1743
2534 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
2535 "value out there that <quote>property</quote> doesn't capture. I don't mean "
2536 "<quote>money can't buy you love,</quote> but rather, value that is plainly "
2537 "part of a process of production, including commercial as well as "
2538 "noncommercial production. If Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils "
2539 "to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd have no hesitation in condemning that taking "
2540 "as wrong— even though trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was "
2541 "nothing wrong, at least under the law of the day, with Disney's taking from "
2542 "Buster Keaton or from the Brothers Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the "
2543 "taking from Keaton because Disney's use would have been considered "
2544 "<quote>fair.</quote> There was nothing wrong with the taking from the Grimms "
2545 "because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
2548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
2549 #: freeculture.xml:1757
2550 msgid "derivative works based on"
2554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2555 #: freeculture.xml:1759
2557 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
2558 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
2559 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
2560 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
2563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2564 #: freeculture.xml:1774
2566 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
2567 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
2568 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
2569 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
2570 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
2571 "whether large or small."
2574 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2575 #: freeculture.xml:1783
2577 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
2578 "the copycat comic artists are <quote>stealing.</quote> This form of Walt "
2579 "Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular "
2580 "find it hard to say why."
2583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
2584 #: freeculture.xml:1794 freeculture.xml:5037
2585 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
2588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2589 #: freeculture.xml:1796
2591 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
2592 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
2593 "or paying for the privilege. (<quote>Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may "
2594 "I have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were "
2595 "wrong about quantum physics?</quote>) Acting companies perform adaptations "
2596 "of the works of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does "
2597 "<emphasis>anyone</emphasis> believe Shakespeare would be better spread "
2598 "within our culture if there were a central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse "
2599 "that all productions of Shakespeare must appeal to first?) And Hollywood "
2600 "goes through cycles with a certain kind of movie: five asteroid films in the "
2601 "late 1990s; two volcano disaster films in 1997."
2605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2606 #: freeculture.xml:1810
2608 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2609 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2610 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2611 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2612 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2613 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2614 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2615 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2619 #: freeculture.xml:1822
2621 "The hard question is therefore not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> a culture is "
2622 "free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard question instead is "
2623 "<quote><emphasis>How</emphasis> free is this culture?</quote> How much, and "
2624 "how broadly, is the culture free for others to take and build upon? Is that "
2625 "freedom limited to party members? To members of the royal family? To the top "
2626 "ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or is that freedom spread "
2627 "broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated with the Met or not? To "
2628 "musicians generally, whether white or not? To filmmakers generally, whether "
2629 "affiliated with a studio or not?"
2632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2633 #: freeculture.xml:1834
2635 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2636 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2637 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
2641 #: freeculture.xml:1843
2642 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: <quote>Mere Copyists</quote>"
2645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2646 #: freeculture.xml:1844 freeculture.xml:2059 freeculture.xml:6527
2647 msgid "camera technology"
2650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2651 #: freeculture.xml:1845
2655 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2656 #: freeculture.xml:1846
2657 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2661 #: freeculture.xml:1848
2663 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1839</emphasis>, Louis Daguerre invented the "
2664 "first practical technology for producing what we would call "
2665 "<quote>photographs.</quote> Appropriately enough, they were called "
2666 "<quote>daguerreotypes.</quote> The process was complicated and expensive, "
2667 "and the field was thus limited to professionals and a few zealous and "
2668 "wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre Association that "
2669 "helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, by keeping "
2670 "competition down so as to keep prices up.)"
2673 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2674 #: freeculture.xml:1857
2675 msgid "Talbot, William"
2678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2679 #: freeculture.xml:1859
2681 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2682 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make <quote>automatic "
2683 "pictures.</quote> William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2684 "<quote>negatives.</quote> But because the negatives were glass, and had to "
2685 "be kept wet, the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the "
2686 "1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of "
2687 "a picture from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it "
2688 "was still not a process within reach of most amateurs."
2691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2692 #: freeculture.xml:1869
2693 msgid "Eastman, George"
2697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2698 #: freeculture.xml:1871
2700 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2701 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2702 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2703 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2704 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2705 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2706 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2707 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2711 #: freeculture.xml:1882
2712 msgid "Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)"
2716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2717 #: freeculture.xml:1889
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:1884
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:1907 freeculture.xml:1931
2738 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2739 #: freeculture.xml:1905
2741 "Brian Coe, <citetitle>The Birth of Photography</citetitle> (New York: "
2742 "Taplinger Publishing, 1977), 53. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
2746 #: freeculture.xml:1894
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:1923
2761 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2766 #: freeculture.xml:1927
2767 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2771 #: freeculture.xml:1912
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:1946
2792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2793 #: freeculture.xml:1935
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><para>
2808 #: freeculture.xml:1950
2810 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2811 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2812 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2813 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2814 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2815 "its <quote>quality</quote>; professionals would discount it as "
2816 "irrelevant. But watch a child study how best to frame a picture and you get "
2817 "a sense of the experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic "
2818 "tools gave ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any "
2819 "tools could have before."
2823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2824 #: freeculture.xml:1972
2826 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, <citetitle>Pavesich</citetitle> "
2827 "v. <citetitle>N.E. Life Ins. Co</citetitle>., 50 S.E. 68 (Ga. 1905); "
2828 "<citetitle>Foster-Milburn Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Chinn</citetitle>, "
2829 "123090 S.W. 364, 366 (Ky. 1909); <citetitle>Corliss</citetitle> "
2830 "v. <citetitle>Walker</citetitle>, 64 F. 280 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1894)."
2833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2834 #: freeculture.xml:1963
2836 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2837 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2838 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2839 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2840 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2841 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2842 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2843 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2848 #: freeculture.xml:1981
2850 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2851 "familiar. The photographer was <quote>taking</quote> something from the "
2852 "person or building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of "
2853 "value. Some even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was "
2854 "not free to take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, "
2855 "too, should these photographers not be free to take images that they thought "
2859 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2860 #: freeculture.xml:2003
2861 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2864 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2865 #: freeculture.xml:2000
2867 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, <quote>The Right to Privacy,</quote> "
2868 "<citetitle>Harvard Law Review</citetitle> 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder "
2869 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2873 #: freeculture.xml:1993
2875 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2876 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2877 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2878 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2879 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2880 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2881 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from <citetitle>Steamboat "
2882 "Bill, Jr</citetitle>. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free "
2883 "to capture an image without compensating the source."
2886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
2887 #: freeculture.xml:2010 freeculture.xml:9290
2888 msgid "images, ownership of"
2892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2893 #: freeculture.xml:2022
2895 "See Melville B. Nimmer, <quote>The Right of Publicity,</quote> "
2896 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 19 (1954): 203; William "
2897 "L. Prosser, <quote>Privacy,</quote> <citetitle>California Law "
2898 "Review</citetitle> 48 (1960) 398–407; <citetitle>White</citetitle> "
2899 "v. <citetitle>Samsung Electronics America, Inc</citetitle>., 971 F. 2d 1395 "
2900 "(9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2904 #: freeculture.xml:2012
2906 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2907 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2908 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2909 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2910 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2911 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2912 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2913 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2914 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2917 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2918 #: freeculture.xml:2030
2920 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2921 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2922 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2923 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2924 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2925 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2926 "<quote>theft</quote> committed by the photographer. Just as Napster "
2927 "benefited from the copyright infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak "
2928 "would be benefiting from the <quote>image-right</quote> infringement of its "
2929 "photographers. We could imagine the law then requiring that some form of "
2930 "permission be demonstrated before a company developed pictures. We could "
2931 "imagine a system developing to demonstrate that permission."
2935 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2936 #: freeculture.xml:2047
2938 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2939 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2940 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2941 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2942 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2943 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2944 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2945 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2946 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2947 "of expression would have been realized."
2950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2951 #: freeculture.xml:2061
2953 "<emphasis role='strong'>If you drive</emphasis> through San Francisco's "
2954 "Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted over with "
2955 "colorful and striking images, and the logo <quote>Just Think!</quote> in "
2956 "place of the name of a school. But there's little that's <quote>just</quote> "
2957 "cerebral in the projects that these busses enable. These buses are filled "
2958 "with technologies that teach kids to tinker with film. Not the film of "
2959 "Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the <quote>film</quote> of "
2960 "digital cameras. Just Think! is a project that enables kids to make films, "
2961 "as a way to understand and critique the filmed culture that they find all "
2962 "around them. Each year, these busses travel to more than thirty schools and "
2963 "enable three hundred to five hundred children to learn something about media "
2964 "by doing something with media. By doing, they think. By tinkering, they "
2969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
2970 #: freeculture.xml:2085
2972 "H. Edward Goldberg, <quote>Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and "
2973 "Software You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,</quote> "
2974 "cadalyst, February 2002, available at <ulink "
2975 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #7</ulink>."
2978 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
2979 #: freeculture.xml:2079
2981 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
2982 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
2983 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, <quote>Five years ago, a good "
2984 "real-time digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get "
2985 "professional quality for $595.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2986 "id=\"0\"/> These buses are filled with technology that would have cost "
2987 "hundreds of thousands just ten years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine "
2988 "not just buses like this, but classrooms across the country where kids are "
2989 "learning more and more of something teachers call <quote>media "
2993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
2994 #: freeculture.xml:2095
2995 msgid "Yanofsky, Dave"
2999 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3000 #: freeculture.xml:2098
3002 "<quote>Media literacy,</quote> as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of "
3003 "Just Think!, puts it, <quote>is the ability … to understand, analyze, "
3004 "and deconstruct media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the "
3005 "way media works, the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the "
3006 "way people access it.</quote>"
3009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3010 #: freeculture.xml:2105
3012 "This may seem like an odd way to think about <quote>literacy.</quote> For "
3013 "most people, literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway "
3014 "and noticing split infinitives are the things that <quote>literate</quote> "
3015 "people know about."
3018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3019 #: freeculture.xml:2110 freeculture.xml:2611 freeculture.xml:6526 freeculture.xml:7362 freeculture.xml:8434 freeculture.xml:8505
3024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3025 #: freeculture.xml:2116
3027 "Judith Van Evra, <citetitle>Television and Child Development</citetitle> "
3028 "(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990); <quote>Findings on "
3029 "Family and TV Study,</quote> <citetitle>Denver Post</citetitle>, 25 May "
3033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3034 #: freeculture.xml:2112
3036 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
3037 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
3038 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
3039 "important to understand the <quote>grammar</quote> of media. For just as "
3040 "there is a grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for "
3041 "media. And just as kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible "
3042 "prose, kids learn how to write media by constructing lots of (at least at "
3043 "first) terrible media."
3046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3047 #: freeculture.xml:2127
3049 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
3050 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
3051 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
3052 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
3053 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
3054 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
3055 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
3059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3060 #: freeculture.xml:2137
3062 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
3063 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
3064 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
3065 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
3066 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
3067 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
3070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3071 #: freeculture.xml:2144
3072 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
3075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3076 #: freeculture.xml:2158 freeculture.xml:2218 freeculture.xml:2225 freeculture.xml:2674
3077 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
3080 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3081 #: freeculture.xml:2159
3082 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
3085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3086 #: freeculture.xml:2156
3088 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
3089 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3095 #: freeculture.xml:2170
3097 "See Scott Steinberg, <quote>Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,</quote> E!online, "
3098 "4 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3099 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #8</ulink>; "
3100 "<quote>Timeline,</quote> 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
3101 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
3104 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3105 #: freeculture.xml:2146
3107 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
3108 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
3109 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
3110 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about <quote>the "
3111 "placement of objects, color, … rhythm, pacing, and "
3112 "texture.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers "
3113 "open up an interactive space where a story is <quote>played</quote> as well "
3114 "as experienced, that grammar changes. The simple control of narrative is "
3115 "lost, and so other techniques are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had "
3116 "mastered the narrative of science fiction. But when he tried to design a "
3117 "computer game based on one of his works, it was a new craft he had to "
3118 "learn. How to lead people through a game without their feeling they have "
3119 "been led was not obvious, even to a wildly successful author.<placeholder "
3120 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3124 #: freeculture.xml:2177
3125 msgid "computer games"
3128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3129 #: freeculture.xml:2179
3131 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
3132 "<quote>people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t "
3133 "is perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If "
3134 "a filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.</quote> If you know "
3135 "you were led through a film, the film has failed."
3138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3139 #: freeculture.xml:2186
3141 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
3142 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
3143 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
3144 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
3147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3148 #: freeculture.xml:2193
3150 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
3151 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
3152 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
3153 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
3156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3157 #: freeculture.xml:2201
3159 "<quote>Read-only.</quote> Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. "
3160 "Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth "
3164 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3165 #: freeculture.xml:2217
3166 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
3170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
3171 #: freeculture.xml:2222 freeculture.xml:4002 freeculture.xml:5069 freeculture.xml:8323
3175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3176 #: freeculture.xml:2206
3178 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
3179 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
3180 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
3181 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
3182 "literacy in particular, is to <quote>empower people to choose the "
3183 "appropriate language for what they need to create or "
3184 "express.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable "
3185 "students <quote>to communicate in the language of the twenty-first "
3186 "century.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3190 #: freeculture.xml:2227
3192 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
3193 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
3194 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
3195 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
3196 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
3197 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
3198 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
3199 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
3200 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
3203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3204 #: freeculture.xml:2239
3206 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
3207 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
3208 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The "
3209 "<quote>kids were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,</quote> "
3210 "said Barish. They were working harder than in any other class to do what "
3211 "education should be about—learning how to express themselves."
3214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3215 #: freeculture.xml:2247
3217 "Using whatever <quote>free web stuff they could find,</quote> and relatively "
3218 "simple tools to enable the kids to mix <quote>image, sound, and "
3219 "text,</quote> Barish said this class produced a series of projects that "
3220 "showed something about gun violence that few would otherwise "
3221 "understand. This was an issue close to the lives of these students. The "
3222 "project <quote>gave them a tool and empowered them to be able to both "
3223 "understand it and talk about it,</quote> Barish explained. That tool "
3224 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
3225 "than could have been created using only text. <quote>If you had said to "
3226 "these students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their "
3227 "hands up and gone and done something else,</quote> Barish described, in "
3228 "part, no doubt, because expressing themselves in text is not something these "
3229 "students can do well. Yet neither is text a form in which "
3230 "<emphasis>these</emphasis> ideas can be expressed well. The power of this "
3231 "message depended upon its connection to this form of expression."
3235 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3236 #: freeculture.xml:2266
3238 "<quote>But isn't education about teaching kids to write?</quote> I asked. In "
3239 "part, of course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, "
3240 "Daley explained, is about giving students a way of <quote>constructing "
3241 "meaning.</quote> To say that that means just writing is like saying teaching "
3242 "writing is only about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and "
3243 "increasingly, not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As "
3244 "Daley explained in the most moving part of our interview,"
3247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3248 #: freeculture.xml:2277
3250 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
3251 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
3252 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
3253 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
3254 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
3255 "comes to school and you say, <quote>Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you "
3256 "can do matters.</quote> Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss "
3257 "you or he [can] dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to "
3258 "dismiss you. [But i]nstead, if you say, <quote>Well, with all these things "
3259 "that you can do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you "
3260 "think reflects that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw "
3261 "for me something that reflects that.</quote> Not by giving a kid a video "
3262 "camera and … saying, <quote>Let's go have fun with the video camera "
3263 "and make a little movie.</quote> But instead, really help you take these "
3264 "elements that you understand, that are your language, and construct meaning "
3265 "about the topic.…"
3268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3269 #: freeculture.xml:2296
3271 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
3272 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, "
3273 "<quote>I need to explain this and I really need to write something.</quote> "
3274 "And as one of the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, "
3275 "6, 7, 8 times, till they got it right."
3279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
3280 #: freeculture.xml:2303
3282 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
3283 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
3284 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
3285 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language."
3288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3289 #: freeculture.xml:2313
3290 msgid "World Trade Center"
3293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3294 #: freeculture.xml:2315
3296 "<emphasis role='strong'>When two planes</emphasis> crashed into the World "
3297 "Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania "
3298 "field, all media around the world shifted to this news. Every moment of just "
3299 "about every day for that week, and for weeks after, television in "
3300 "particular, and media generally, retold the story of the events we had just "
3301 "witnessed. The telling was a retelling, because we had seen the events that "
3302 "were described. The genius of this awful act of terrorism was that the "
3303 "delayed second attack was perfectly timed to assure that the whole world "
3304 "would be watching."
3307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3308 #: freeculture.xml:2327
3310 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
3311 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
3312 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was <quote>balance,</quote> "
3313 "and seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
3314 "come to expect it, <quote>news as entertainment,</quote> even if the "
3315 "entertainment is tragedy."
3318 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3319 #: freeculture.xml:2334 freeculture.xml:8262 freeculture.xml:8499
3323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3324 #: freeculture.xml:2335
3328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3329 #: freeculture.xml:2337
3331 "But in addition to this produced news about the <quote>tragedy of September "
3332 "11,</quote> those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different "
3333 "production as well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same "
3334 "events. Yet these Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people "
3335 "constructed photo pages that captured images from around the world and "
3336 "presented them as slide shows with text. Some offered open letters. There "
3337 "were sound recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts "
3338 "to provide context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn "
3339 "raising, in the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book <citetitle>Cyber "
3340 "Rights</citetitle>, around a news event that had captured the attention of "
3341 "the world. There was ABC and CBS, but there was also the Internet."
3345 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3346 #: freeculture.xml:2351
3348 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
3349 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
3350 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
3351 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
3352 "on the <quote>Just Think!</quote> bus, the visual images could be mixed with "
3356 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3357 #: freeculture.xml:2361
3359 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
3360 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
3361 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
3362 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
3363 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
3364 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
3365 "practically instantaneously."
3368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3369 #: freeculture.xml:2370
3371 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
3372 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
3373 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
3374 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
3375 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
3376 "public way—it's a kind of electronic <citetitle>Jerry "
3377 "Springer</citetitle>, available anywhere in the world."
3380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3381 #: freeculture.xml:2378 freeculture.xml:2451 freeculture.xml:2574
3382 msgid "blogs (Web-logs)"
3385 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3386 #: freeculture.xml:2380
3388 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
3389 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
3390 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
3391 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
3392 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
3393 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
3394 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
3395 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
3396 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
3397 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
3398 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
3402 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3403 #: freeculture.xml:2394
3405 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
3406 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
3407 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
3408 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
3409 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
3410 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
3411 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
3414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3415 #: freeculture.xml:2404
3416 msgid "Tocqueville, Alexis de"
3419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3420 #: freeculture.xml:2405
3425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3426 #: freeculture.xml:2422
3428 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, <citetitle>Democracy in "
3429 "America</citetitle>, bk. 1, trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, "
3433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3434 #: freeculture.xml:2407
3436 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
3437 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
3438 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
3439 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
3440 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
3441 "early <quote>Democracy in America.</quote> It wasn't popular elections that "
3442 "fascinated him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary "
3443 "people the right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most "
3444 "fascinating for him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome "
3445 "they would impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the "
3446 "<quote>right</quote> result; they tried to persuade each other of the "
3447 "<quote>right</quote> result, and in criminal cases at least, they had to "
3448 "agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come to an end.<placeholder "
3449 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3454 #: freeculture.xml:2431
3456 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, <quote>Deliberation Day,</quote> "
3457 "<citetitle>Journal of Political Philosophy</citetitle> 10 (2) (2002): 129."
3460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3461 #: freeculture.xml:2427
3463 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
3464 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
3465 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3466 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
3467 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
3468 "for <quote>democratic deliberation</quote> to occur."
3472 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3473 #: freeculture.xml:2446
3475 "Cass Sunstein, <citetitle>Republic.com</citetitle> (Princeton: Princeton "
3476 "University Press, 2001), 65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
3479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3480 #: freeculture.xml:2439
3482 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
3483 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
3484 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
3485 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
3486 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
3487 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
3488 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
3491 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3492 #: freeculture.xml:2452
3497 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3498 #: freeculture.xml:2454
3500 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
3501 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
3502 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
3503 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
3504 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
3505 "needing to gather in a single public place."
3508 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3509 #: freeculture.xml:2465
3511 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
3512 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
3513 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
3514 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
3515 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
3516 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
3519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3520 #: freeculture.xml:2472
3521 msgid "Dean, Howard"
3524 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3525 #: freeculture.xml:2474
3527 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
3528 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
3529 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
3533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3534 #: freeculture.xml:2479
3538 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3539 #: freeculture.xml:2480
3540 msgid "Thurmond, Strom"
3544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3545 #: freeculture.xml:2493
3547 "Noah Shachtman, <quote>With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the "
3548 "Pot,</quote> New York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
3551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3552 #: freeculture.xml:2482
3554 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
3555 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
3556 "<quote>misspoke</quote> at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially "
3557 "praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that "
3558 "this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight "
3559 "hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The "
3560 "bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of "
3561 "the same <quote>misspeaking</quote> emerged. Finally, the story broke back "
3562 "into the mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate "
3563 "majority leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3567 #: freeculture.xml:2498
3569 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
3570 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
3571 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
3572 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
3575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3576 #: freeculture.xml:2505
3578 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
3579 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
3580 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
3581 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
3582 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
3583 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
3586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3587 #: freeculture.xml:2513
3592 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3593 #: freeculture.xml:2515
3595 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
3596 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
3597 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
3598 "absence of a financial <quote>conflict of interest.</quote> <quote>I think "
3599 "you have to take the conflict of interest</quote> out of journalism, Winer "
3600 "told me. <quote>An amateur journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of "
3601 "interest, or the conflict of interest is so easily disclosed that you know "
3602 "you can sort of get it out of the way.</quote>"
3605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3606 #: freeculture.xml:2525 freeculture.xml:2571
3610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3611 #: freeculture.xml:2526 freeculture.xml:2572 freeculture.xml:5718
3616 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3617 #: freeculture.xml:2534
3618 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
3621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3622 #: freeculture.xml:2528
3624 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
3625 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
3626 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
3627 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
3628 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
3629 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
3630 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
3631 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
3632 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
3633 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
3634 "warranted, they told her that <emphasis>they</emphasis> were writing "
3635 "<quote>the story.</quote>)"
3639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3640 #: freeculture.xml:2552
3642 "John Schwartz, <quote>Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of "
3643 "Information Online,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 2 "
3644 "February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, <quote>Shuttle Disaster Coverage Mixed, "
3645 "but Strong Overall,</quote> Online Journalism Review, 2 February 2003, "
3646 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
3649 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3650 #: freeculture.xml:2544
3652 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the "
3653 "debate—<quote>amateur</quote> not in the sense of inexperienced, but "
3654 "in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning not paid by anyone to give their "
3655 "reports. It allows for a much broader range of input into a story, as "
3656 "reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when hundreds from across the "
3657 "southwest United States turned to the Internet to retell what they had "
3658 "seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it drives readers to read "
3659 "across the range of accounts and <quote>triangulate,</quote> as Winer puts "
3660 "it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are <quote>communicating directly with our "
3661 "constituency, and the middle man is out of it</quote>—with all the "
3662 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
3665 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
3666 #: freeculture.xml:2573
3667 msgid "Olafson, Steve"
3670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3671 #: freeculture.xml:2571
3673 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
3674 "id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder "
3675 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> See Michael Falcone, <quote>Does an Editor's "
3676 "Pencil Ruin a Web Log?</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 29 "
3677 "September 2003, C4. (<quote>Not all news organizations have been as "
3678 "accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq "
3679 "who started a blog about his reporting of the war on March 9, stopped "
3680 "posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year Steve Olafson, a "
3681 "<citetitle>Houston Chronicle</citetitle> reporter, was fired for keeping a "
3682 "personal Web log, published under a pseudonym, that dealt with some of the "
3683 "issues and people he was covering.</quote>)"
3687 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3688 #: freeculture.xml:2564
3690 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
3691 "blogs. <quote>It's going to become an essential skill,</quote> Winer "
3692 "predicts, for public figures and increasingly for private figures as "
3693 "well. It's not clear that <quote>journalism</quote> is happy about "
3694 "this—some journalists have been told to curtail their "
3695 "blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is clear that we "
3696 "are still in transition. <quote>A lot of what we are doing now is warm-up "
3697 "exercises,</quote> Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature before "
3698 "this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in this "
3699 "space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing on "
3700 "copyright), Winer said, <quote>we will be the last thing that gets shut "
3704 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3705 #: freeculture.xml:2594
3707 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because <quote>you "
3708 "don't have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.</quote> "
3709 "That is true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and "
3710 "more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will "
3711 "change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
3712 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
3713 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
3714 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
3715 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
3716 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
3717 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
3718 "something extraordinary to report."
3721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3722 #: freeculture.xml:2610
3723 msgid "Brown, John Seely"
3726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3727 #: freeculture.xml:2613
3729 "<emphasis role='strong'>John Seely Brown</emphasis> is the chief scientist "
3730 "of the Xerox Corporation. His work, as his Web site describes it, is "
3731 "<quote>human learning and … the creation of knowledge ecologies for "
3732 "creating … innovation.</quote>"
3735 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3736 #: freeculture.xml:2619
3738 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3739 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3740 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3741 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3746 #: freeculture.xml:2626
3748 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When <quote>a lot of us grew "
3749 "up,</quote> he explains, that tinkering was done <quote>on motorcycle "
3750 "engines, lawnmower engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.</quote> But "
3751 "digital technologies enable a different kind of tinkering—with "
3752 "abstract ideas though in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only "
3753 "think about how a commercial portrays a politician; using digital "
3754 "technology, they can take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker "
3755 "with it to see how it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind "
3756 "of bricolage, or <quote>free collage,</quote> as Brown calls it. Many get to "
3757 "add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3760 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3761 #: freeculture.xml:2639
3763 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3764 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3765 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3766 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3767 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3771 #: freeculture.xml:2646
3773 "This opportunity creates a <quote>completely new kind of learning "
3774 "platform,</quote> as Brown describes. <quote>As soon as you start doing "
3775 "that, you … unleash a free collage on the community, so that other "
3776 "people can start looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, "
3777 "seeing if they can improve it.</quote> Each effort is a kind of "
3778 "apprenticeship. <quote>Open source becomes a major apprenticeship "
3782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3783 #: freeculture.xml:2654
3785 "In this process, <quote>the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. "
3786 "They are code.</quote> Kids are <quote>shifting to the ability to tinker in "
3787 "the abstract, and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that "
3788 "you're doing in your garage. You are tinkering with a community "
3789 "platform. … You are tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you "
3790 "tinker the more you improve.</quote> The more you improve, the more you "
3794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3795 #: freeculture.xml:2663
3797 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3798 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3799 "<quote>the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3800 "intelligence.</quote> Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3801 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3802 "text. <quote>The Web … says if you are musical, if you are artistic, "
3803 "if you are visual, if you are interested in film … [then] there is a "
3804 "lot you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3805 "multiple forms of intelligence.</quote>"
3809 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3810 #: freeculture.xml:2676
3812 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3813 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3814 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3819 #: freeculture.xml:2684
3821 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3822 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3823 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3824 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3825 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3826 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3827 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3831 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
3832 #: freeculture.xml:2700
3834 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, <quote>Technological "
3835 "Access Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,</quote> "
3836 "<citetitle>Communications of the Association for Computer "
3837 "Machinery</citetitle> 43 (2000): 9."
3840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3841 #: freeculture.xml:2693
3843 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3844 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter <xref "
3845 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>) has developed a "
3846 "powerful argument in favor of the <quote>right to tinker</quote> as it "
3847 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3848 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3849 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3850 "because of the law."
3853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3854 #: freeculture.xml:2708
3856 "<quote>This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,</quote> "
3857 "Brown explains. We need to <quote>understand how kids who grow up digital "
3858 "think and want to learn.</quote>"
3861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3862 #: freeculture.xml:2713
3864 "<quote>Yet,</quote> as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will "
3865 "evince, <quote>we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the "
3866 "natural tendencies of today's digital kids. … We're building an "
3867 "architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system "
3868 "that closes down that part of the brain.</quote>"
3871 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3872 #: freeculture.xml:2721
3874 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3875 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3876 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3880 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3881 #: freeculture.xml:2727
3883 "<quote>No way to run a culture,</quote> as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet "
3884 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"collectors\"/>, "
3885 "quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3888 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
3889 #: freeculture.xml:2734
3890 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3894 #: freeculture.xml:2735
3898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
3899 #: freeculture.xml:2735 freeculture.xml:2736
3900 msgid "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)"
3903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3904 #: freeculture.xml:2738
3906 "<emphasis role='strong'>In the fall</emphasis> of 2002, Jesse Jordan of "
3907 "Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic "
3908 "Institute, in Troy, New York. His major at RPI was information "
3909 "technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October Jesse decided to begin "
3910 "to tinker with search engine technology that was available on the RPI "
3914 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3915 #: freeculture.xml:2746
3917 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
3918 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
3919 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
3920 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
3921 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
3922 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
3925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3926 #: freeculture.xml:2754
3928 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
3929 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
3930 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
3931 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
3932 "access to other members of the RPI community."
3936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3937 #: freeculture.xml:2761
3939 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
3940 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
3941 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
3942 "idea of <quote>intranet</quote> search engines, search engines that search "
3943 "within the network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that "
3944 "institution with better access to material from that institution. "
3945 "Businesses do this all the time, enabling employees to have access to "
3946 "material that people outside the business can't get. Universities do it as "
3950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3951 #: freeculture.xml:2773
3953 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
3954 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
3955 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
3956 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
3957 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
3958 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
3961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3962 #: freeculture.xml:2782
3964 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
3965 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
3966 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
3967 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
3968 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
3969 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
3970 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
3971 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
3972 "file was still on-line."
3975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3976 #: freeculture.xml:2794
3978 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
3979 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
3980 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
3981 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
3986 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3987 #: freeculture.xml:2801
3989 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
3990 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
3991 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
3992 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
3993 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
3996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
3997 #: freeculture.xml:2810
3999 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
4000 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
4001 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
4002 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
4003 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
4004 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
4005 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
4006 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
4007 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
4008 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
4009 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
4013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4014 #: freeculture.xml:2825
4016 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
4017 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
4018 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
4019 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
4020 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
4021 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
4024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4025 #: freeculture.xml:2834
4027 "<quote>It was absurd,</quote> he told me. <quote>I don't think I did "
4028 "anything wrong. … I don't think there's anything wrong with the "
4029 "search engine that I ran or … what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't "
4030 "modified it in any way that promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just "
4031 "modified the search engine in a way that would make it easier to "
4032 "use</quote>—again, a <emphasis>search engine</emphasis>, which Jesse "
4033 "had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, which Jesse had "
4034 "not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to get access to "
4035 "content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and the vast "
4036 "majority of which had nothing to do with music."
4039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4040 #: freeculture.xml:2846
4041 msgid "statutory damages"
4045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4046 #: freeculture.xml:2848
4048 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
4049 "had therefore <quote>willfully</quote> violated copyright laws. They "
4050 "demanded that he pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of "
4051 "<quote>willful infringement,</quote> the Copyright Act specifies something "
4052 "lawyers call <quote>statutory damages.</quote> These damages permit a "
4053 "copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement. As the RIAA alleged more "
4054 "than one hundred specific copyright infringements, they therefore demanded "
4055 "that Jesse pay them at least $15,000,000."
4058 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4059 #: freeculture.xml:2858
4060 msgid "Princeton University"
4063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4064 #: freeculture.xml:2859
4065 msgid "Michigan Technical University"
4069 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4070 #: freeculture.xml:2873
4072 "Tim Goral, <quote>Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
4073 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,</quote> <citetitle>Professional Media "
4074 "Group LCC</citetitle> 6 (2003): 5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
4077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4078 #: freeculture.xml:2861
4080 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
4081 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
4082 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
4083 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
4084 "demands for <quote>damages</quote> that the RIAA claimed it was entitled "
4085 "to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in "
4086 "the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 "
4087 "<emphasis>billion</emphasis>—six times the <emphasis>total</emphasis> "
4088 "profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4093 #: freeculture.xml:2880
4095 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
4096 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
4097 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
4098 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
4101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
4102 #: freeculture.xml:2886
4103 msgid "Oppenheimer, Matt"
4106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4107 #: freeculture.xml:2888
4109 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
4110 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
4111 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
4112 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
4113 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
4114 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, <quote>You don't want to "
4115 "pay another visit to a dentist like me.</quote>) And throughout, the RIAA "
4116 "insisted it would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had "
4121 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4122 #: freeculture.xml:2899
4124 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
4125 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
4126 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
4127 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
4128 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
4129 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
4133 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4134 #: freeculture.xml:2909
4136 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
4137 "$12,000 and a settlement."
4140 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4141 #: freeculture.xml:2912 freeculture.xml:3268 freeculture.xml:4203 freeculture.xml:5319 freeculture.xml:5368 freeculture.xml:9755 freeculture.xml:9853 freeculture.xml:10022 freeculture.xml:14592 freeculture.xml:14657
4145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
4146 #: freeculture.xml:2912 freeculture.xml:3268 freeculture.xml:4203 freeculture.xml:9755 freeculture.xml:9853 freeculture.xml:10022 freeculture.xml:14592 freeculture.xml:14657
4147 msgid "recording industry payments to"
4151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4152 #: freeculture.xml:2922
4154 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
4155 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
4156 "the Arts, <citetitle>More Than One in a Blue Moon</citetitle> (2000)."
4160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
4161 #: freeculture.xml:2930
4163 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in <quote>KaZaA and "
4164 "Punishment,</quote> <citetitle>Wall Street Journal</citetitle>, 10 September "
4168 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4169 #: freeculture.xml:2914
4171 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
4172 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
4173 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
4174 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
4175 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
4176 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
4177 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
4178 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
4179 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4183 #: freeculture.xml:2935
4185 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
4186 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
4187 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
4190 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
4191 #: freeculture.xml:2942
4193 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
4194 "activist. … [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
4195 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
4199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4200 #: freeculture.xml:2949
4202 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
4203 "father told me, Jesse <quote>considers himself very conservative, and so do "
4204 "I. … He's not a tree hugger. … I think it's bizarre that they "
4205 "would pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the "
4206 "wrong message. And he wants to correct the record.</quote>"
4209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4210 #: freeculture.xml:2958
4211 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: <quote>Pirates</quote>"
4214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4215 #: freeculture.xml:2961
4217 "<emphasis role='strong'>If <quote>piracy</quote> means</emphasis> using the "
4218 "creative property of others without their permission—if <quote>if "
4219 "value, then right</quote> is true—then the history of the content "
4220 "industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of <quote>big "
4221 "media</quote> today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
4222 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
4223 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
4226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4227 #: freeculture.xml:2972
4231 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4232 #: freeculture.xml:2976
4234 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> I am grateful to Peter DiMauro "
4235 "for pointing me to this extraordinary history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, "
4236 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 87–93, which details "
4237 "Edison's <quote>adventures</quote> with copyright and patent."
4241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4242 #: freeculture.xml:2974
4244 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
4245 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
4246 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
4247 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
4248 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "
4249 "<quote>trust,</quote> the Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on "
4250 "Thomas Edison's creative property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to "
4251 "exercise the rights this creative property gave him, and the MPPC was "
4252 "serious about the control it demanded."
4255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4256 #: freeculture.xml:2992
4257 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
4260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4261 #: freeculture.xml:2996
4263 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
4264 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
4265 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
4266 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
4267 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
4268 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
4271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4272 #: freeculture.xml:3004
4273 msgid "Fox, William"
4276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
4277 #: freeculture.xml:3005
4278 msgid "General Film Company"
4281 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4282 #: freeculture.xml:3006 freeculture.xml:3286 freeculture.xml:4418 freeculture.xml:9895
4283 msgid "Picker, Randal C."
4286 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4287 #: freeculture.xml:3030 freeculture.xml:4417 freeculture.xml:9629 freeculture.xml:9750
4288 msgid "broadcast flag"
4291 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4292 #: freeculture.xml:3019
4294 "J. A. Aberdeen, <citetitle>Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent "
4295 "Motion Picture Producers</citetitle> (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and "
4296 "expanded texts posted at <quote>The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion "
4297 "Picture Patents Company vs. the Independent Outlaws,</quote> available at "
4298 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a "
4299 "discussion of the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits "
4300 "imposed by Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison "
4301 "to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the "
4302 "Propertization of Copyright</quote> (September 2002), University of Chicago "
4303 "Law School, James M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper "
4304 "No. 159. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4307 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4308 #: freeculture.xml:3008
4310 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
4311 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
4312 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
4313 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
4314 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
4315 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
4316 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
4317 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
4318 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
4319 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4323 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4324 #: freeculture.xml:3041
4326 "Marc Wanamaker, <quote>The First Studios,</quote> <citetitle>The Silents "
4327 "Majority</citetitle>, archived at <ulink "
4328 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
4331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4332 #: freeculture.xml:3035
4334 "The Napsters of those days, the <quote>independents,</quote> were companies "
4335 "like Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously "
4336 "resisted. <quote>Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and "
4337 "`accidents' resulting in loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and "
4338 "sometimes life and limb frequently occurred.</quote><placeholder "
4339 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the independents to flee the East "
4340 "Coast. California was remote enough from Edison's reach that filmmakers "
4341 "there could pirate his inventions without fear of the law. And the leaders "
4342 "of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most prominently, did just that."
4346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4347 #: freeculture.xml:3051
4349 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
4350 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
4351 "truly <quote>limited</quote> monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), "
4352 "by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new "
4353 "industry had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative "
4357 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
4358 #: freeculture.xml:3062
4359 msgid "Recorded Music"
4362 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4363 #: freeculture.xml:3064
4365 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
4366 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
4369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4370 #: freeculture.xml:3067
4371 msgid "Fourneaux, Henri"
4374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4375 #: freeculture.xml:3068
4376 msgid "Russel, Phil"
4379 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4380 #: freeculture.xml:3070
4382 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
4383 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
4384 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
4385 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
4386 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit <quote>Happy "
4387 "Mose,</quote> the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy "
4388 "of the musical score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform "
4392 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4393 #: freeculture.xml:3079 freeculture.xml:3230
4397 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4398 #: freeculture.xml:3081
4400 "But what if I wanted to record <quote>Happy Mose,</quote> using Edison's "
4401 "phonograph or Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear "
4402 "enough that I would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I "
4403 "performed in making this recording. And it was clear enough that I would "
4404 "have to pay for any public performance of the work I was recording. But it "
4405 "wasn't totally clear that I would have to pay for a <quote>public "
4406 "performance</quote> if I recorded the song in my own house (even today, you "
4407 "don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing their songs in the shower), or if "
4408 "I recorded the song from memory (copies in your brain are "
4409 "not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I simply sang the "
4410 "song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, it wasn't clear "
4411 "that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it wasn't clear "
4412 "whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of those "
4413 "recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
4414 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
4417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4418 #: freeculture.xml:3104 freeculture.xml:3121
4419 msgid "Kittredge, Alfred"
4422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4423 #: freeculture.xml:3100
4425 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
4426 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it, <placeholder "
4427 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4430 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4431 #: freeculture.xml:3115
4433 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
4434 "and H.R. 19853 Before the ( Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
4435 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
4436 "chairman), reprinted in <citetitle>Legislative History of the Copyright "
4437 "Act</citetitle>, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South "
4438 "Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4443 #: freeculture.xml:3108
4445 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
4446 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
4447 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
4448 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
4449 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4454 #: freeculture.xml:3125
4455 msgid "Sousa, John Philip"
4459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4460 #: freeculture.xml:3131
4462 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
4463 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4467 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4468 #: freeculture.xml:3137
4470 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
4471 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
4475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4476 #: freeculture.xml:3144
4478 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
4479 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
4482 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4483 #: freeculture.xml:3127
4485 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
4486 "were <quote>sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of "
4487 "American composers,</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the "
4488 "<quote>music publishing industry</quote> was thereby <quote>at the complete "
4489 "mercy of this one pirate.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
4490 "As John Philip Sousa put it, in as direct a way as possible, <quote>When "
4491 "they make money out of my pieces, I want a share of it.</quote><placeholder "
4492 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4496 #: freeculture.xml:3148
4497 msgid "American Graphophone Company"
4500 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4501 #: freeculture.xml:3149
4502 msgid "player pianos"
4506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4507 #: freeculture.xml:3160
4509 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
4510 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
4511 "Company of New York)."
4515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4516 #: freeculture.xml:3171
4518 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
4519 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
4520 "Graphophone Company Association)."
4523 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4524 #: freeculture.xml:3152
4526 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
4527 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
4528 "argued that <quote>it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
4529 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
4530 "before their introduction.</quote> Rather, the machines increased the sales "
4531 "of sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
4532 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was <quote>to consider first the "
4533 "interest of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they "
4534 "are.</quote> <quote>All talk about `theft,'</quote> the general counsel of "
4535 "the American Graphophone Company wrote, <quote>is the merest claptrap, for "
4536 "there exists no property in ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as "
4537 "defined by statute.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
4541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4542 #: freeculture.xml:3177
4544 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer "
4545 "<emphasis>and</emphasis> the recording artist. Congress amended the law to "
4546 "make sure that composers would be paid for the <quote>mechanical "
4547 "reproductions</quote> of their music. But rather than simply granting the "
4548 "composer complete control over the right to make mechanical reproductions, "
4549 "Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, at a price set "
4550 "by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded once. This is the "
4551 "part of copyright law that makes cover songs possible. Once a composer "
4552 "authorizes a recording of his song, others are free to record the same song, "
4553 "so long as they pay the original composer a fee set by the law."
4556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4557 #: freeculture.xml:3192
4559 "American law ordinarily calls this a <quote>compulsory license,</quote> but "
4560 "I will refer to it as a <quote>statutory license.</quote> A statutory "
4561 "license is a license whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's "
4562 "amendment of the Copyright Act in 1909, record companies were free to "
4563 "distribute copies of recordings so long as they paid the composer (or "
4564 "copyright holder) the fee set by the statute."
4567 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
4568 #: freeculture.xml:3207 freeculture.xml:14288
4569 msgid "Grisham, John"
4572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4573 #: freeculture.xml:3200
4575 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
4576 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
4577 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
4578 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
4579 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
4580 "work except with permission of Grisham. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4585 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4586 #: freeculture.xml:3224
4588 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
4589 "H.R. 11794 Before the ( Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
4590 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
4591 "<citetitle>Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act</citetitle>, "
4592 "E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman "
4596 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4597 #: freeculture.xml:3210
4599 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
4600 "effect, the law <emphasis>subsidizes</emphasis> the recording industry "
4601 "through a kind of piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right "
4602 "than it otherwise gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over "
4603 "their creative work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less "
4604 "control are the recording industry and the public. The recording industry "
4605 "gets something of value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public "
4606 "gets access to a much wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress "
4607 "was quite explicit about its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was "
4608 "the monopoly power of rights holders, and that that power would stifle "
4609 "follow-on creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4610 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4613 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4614 #: freeculture.xml:3233
4616 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
4617 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
4618 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
4622 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4623 #: freeculture.xml:3255
4625 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
4626 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
4627 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
4630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4631 #: freeculture.xml:3240
4633 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
4634 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
4635 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
4636 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
4637 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
4638 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
4639 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
4640 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
4641 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
4642 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
4643 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
4644 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4648 #: freeculture.xml:3262
4650 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
4651 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
4654 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4655 #: freeculture.xml:3267 freeculture.xml:4382
4659 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4660 #: freeculture.xml:3270
4661 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
4664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4665 #: freeculture.xml:3285
4666 msgid "Hand, Learned"
4669 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4670 #: freeculture.xml:3276
4672 "See 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, sections 106 and 110. At "
4673 "the beginning, record companies printed <quote>Not Licensed for Radio "
4674 "Broadcast</quote> and other messages purporting to restrict the ability to "
4675 "play a record on a radio station. Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument "
4676 "that a warning attached to a record might restrict the rights of the radio "
4677 "station. See <citetitle>RCA Manufacturing "
4678 "Co</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Whiteman</citetitle>, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd "
4679 "Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, <quote>From Edison to the Broadcast "
4680 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
4681 "Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> "
4682 "70 (2003): 281. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4683 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4686 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4687 #: freeculture.xml:3273
4689 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a "
4690 "<quote>public performance</quote> of the composer's work.<placeholder "
4691 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the "
4692 "composer (or copyright holder) an exclusive right to public performances of "
4693 "his work. The radio station thus owes the composer money for that "
4697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4698 #: freeculture.xml:3303 freeculture.xml:8964 freeculture.xml:9423 freeculture.xml:12417
4699 msgid "Lovett, Lyle"
4703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4704 #: freeculture.xml:3293
4706 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
4707 "of the <emphasis>composer's</emphasis> work. The radio station is also "
4708 "performing a copy of the <emphasis>recording artist's</emphasis> work. It's "
4709 "one thing to have <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> sung on the radio by the "
4710 "local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung by the Rolling "
4711 "Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the value of the "
4712 "composition performed on the radio station. And if the law were perfectly "
4713 "consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording artist for his "
4714 "work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work. <placeholder "
4715 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4719 #: freeculture.xml:3308
4721 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
4722 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
4723 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
4724 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
4725 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
4728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
4729 #: freeculture.xml:3315 freeculture.xml:3820 freeculture.xml:6281
4733 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4734 #: freeculture.xml:3317
4736 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
4737 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
4738 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
4739 "she has to get your permission."
4742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4743 #: freeculture.xml:3323
4745 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
4746 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
4747 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
4748 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
4749 "public performance of her recording is not a <quote>protected</quote> "
4750 "right. The radio station thus gets to <emphasis>pirate</emphasis> the value "
4751 "of Madonna's work without paying her anything."
4754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4755 #: freeculture.xml:3334
4757 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
4758 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
4759 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
4760 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
4761 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
4765 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
4766 #: freeculture.xml:3344 freeculture.xml:4388
4770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
4771 #: freeculture.xml:3345 freeculture.xml:4216 freeculture.xml:8159 freeculture.xml:8198 freeculture.xml:14690
4772 msgid "cable television"
4775 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4776 #: freeculture.xml:3347
4777 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
4781 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4782 #: freeculture.xml:3350
4784 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
4785 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
4786 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
4787 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
4788 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
4789 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
4790 "the content it enabled others to give away."
4793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4794 #: freeculture.xml:3360
4795 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
4798 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
4799 #: freeculture.xml:3361
4800 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
4803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4804 #: freeculture.xml:3362 freeculture.xml:3373
4805 msgid "Hyde, Rosel H."
4808 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4809 #: freeculture.xml:3368
4811 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
4812 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
4813 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
4814 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission). <placeholder "
4815 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4819 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4820 #: freeculture.xml:3380
4822 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
4823 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
4826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4827 #: freeculture.xml:3364
4829 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
4830 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of <quote>unfair "
4831 "and potentially destructive competition.</quote><placeholder "
4832 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There may have been a <quote>public "
4833 "interest</quote> in spreading the reach of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, "
4834 "general counsel to the National Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator "
4835 "Quentin Burdick during testimony, <quote>Does public interest dictate that "
4836 "you use somebody else's property?</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4837 "id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster put it,"
4841 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4842 #: freeculture.xml:3391
4844 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
4845 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
4848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4849 #: freeculture.xml:3387
4851 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
4852 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
4853 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4857 #: freeculture.xml:3397
4858 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
4862 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4863 #: freeculture.xml:3406
4865 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
4866 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
4867 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
4870 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4871 #: freeculture.xml:3401
4873 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
4874 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
4875 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
4876 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4879 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4880 #: freeculture.xml:3412 freeculture.xml:3420
4881 msgid "Heston, Charlton"
4884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4885 #: freeculture.xml:3418
4887 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
4888 "president of the Screen Actors Guild). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4893 #: freeculture.xml:3414
4895 "These were <quote>free-ride[rs],</quote> Screen Actor's Guild president "
4896 "Charlton Heston said, who were <quote>depriving actors of "
4897 "compensation.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4901 #: freeculture.xml:3425
4903 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
4904 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
4907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><indexterm><primary>
4908 #: freeculture.xml:3441 freeculture.xml:3443
4909 msgid "Zimmerman, Edwin"
4912 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4913 #: freeculture.xml:3439
4915 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
4916 "acting assistant attorney general). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4920 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
4921 #: freeculture.xml:3430
4923 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
4924 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
4925 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
4926 "extend that monopoly. … The question here is how much compensation "
4927 "they should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
4928 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
4929 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4933 #: freeculture.xml:3447
4935 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
4936 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
4939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4940 #: freeculture.xml:3451
4942 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
4943 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they "
4944 "<quote>pirated.</quote> In the end, Congress resolved this question in the "
4945 "same way that it resolved the question about record players and player "
4946 "pianos. Yes, cable companies would have to pay for the content that they "
4947 "broadcast; but the price they would have to pay was not set by the copyright "
4948 "owner. The price was set by law, so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise "
4949 "veto power over the emerging technologies of cable. Cable companies thus "
4950 "built their empire in part upon a <quote>piracy</quote> of the value created "
4951 "by broadcasters' content."
4955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
4956 #: freeculture.xml:3469
4958 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, <citetitle>The "
4959 "Engine of Free Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free "
4960 "Information</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
4961 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #13</ulink>. <quote>The threat of "
4962 "piracy—the use of someone else's creative work without permission or "
4963 "compensation—has grown with the Internet.</quote>"
4966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
4967 #: freeculture.xml:3464
4969 "<emphasis role='strong'>These separate stories</emphasis> sing a common "
4970 "theme. If <quote>piracy</quote> means using value from someone else's "
4971 "creative property without permission from that creator—as it is "
4972 "increasingly described today<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
4973 "— then <emphasis>every</emphasis> industry affected by copyright today "
4974 "is the product and beneficiary of a certain kind of piracy. Film, records, "
4975 "radio, cable TV. … The list is long and could well be expanded. Every "
4976 "generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Every generation—until "
4980 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
4981 #: freeculture.xml:3486
4982 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: <quote>Piracy</quote>"
4985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4986 #: freeculture.xml:3488
4988 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is piracy</emphasis> of copyrighted "
4989 "material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in many forms. The most significant "
4990 "is commercial piracy, the unauthorized taking of other people's content "
4991 "within a commercial context. Despite the many justifications that are "
4992 "offered in its defense, this taking is wrong. No one should condone it, and "
4993 "the law should stop it."
4997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
4998 #: freeculture.xml:3496
5000 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of "
5001 "<quote>taking</quote> that is more directly related to the Internet. That "
5002 "taking, too, seems wrong to many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before "
5003 "we paint this taking <quote>piracy,</quote> however, we should understand "
5004 "its nature a bit more. For the harm of this taking is significantly more "
5005 "ambiguous than outright copying, and the law should account for that "
5006 "ambiguity, as it has so often done in the past."
5009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5010 #: freeculture.xml:3506
5014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5015 #: freeculture.xml:3507 freeculture.xml:3587 freeculture.xml:3637 freeculture.xml:14692
5016 msgid "Asia, commercial piracy in"
5019 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5020 #: freeculture.xml:3508 freeculture.xml:3955 freeculture.xml:9424 freeculture.xml:10231 freeculture.xml:14083 freeculture.xml:14674
5024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5025 #: freeculture.xml:3508
5026 msgid "foreign piracy of"
5030 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5031 #: freeculture.xml:3516
5033 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), "
5034 "<citetitle>The Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003</citetitle>, "
5035 "July 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
5036 "#14</ulink>. See also Ben Hunt, <quote>Companies Warned on Music Piracy "
5037 "Risk,</quote> <citetitle>Financial Times</citetitle>, 14 February 2003, 11."
5040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5041 #: freeculture.xml:3510
5043 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
5044 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
5045 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
5046 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
5047 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
5048 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
5049 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
5052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5053 #: freeculture.xml:3526
5055 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
5056 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
5057 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
5060 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5061 #: freeculture.xml:3532
5063 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
5064 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
5065 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
5066 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
5067 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
5068 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
5072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5073 #: freeculture.xml:3541
5075 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
5076 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
5077 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
5078 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
5079 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
5080 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
5081 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
5082 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
5083 "legal wrong as well."
5087 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5088 #: freeculture.xml:3552
5090 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
5091 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose not to "
5092 "protect copyright internationally. We may have been born a pirate nation, "
5093 "but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood."
5096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5097 #: freeculture.xml:3580
5098 msgid "agricultural patents"
5101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5102 #: freeculture.xml:3581 freeculture.xml:12701 freeculture.xml:13154 freeculture.xml:13161
5103 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
5106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5107 #: freeculture.xml:3565
5109 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: "
5110 "<citetitle>Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New "
5111 "Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual "
5112 "Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement obligates member nations to create "
5113 "administrative and enforcement mechanisms for intellectual property rights, "
5114 "a costly proposition for developing countries. Additionally, patent rights "
5115 "may lead to higher prices for staple industries such as agriculture. Critics "
5116 "of TRIPS question the disparity between burdens imposed upon developing "
5117 "countries and benefits conferred to industrialized nations. TRIPS does "
5118 "permit governments to use patents for public, noncommercial uses without "
5119 "first obtaining the patent holder's permission. Developing nations may be "
5120 "able to use this to gain the benefits of foreign patents at lower "
5121 "prices. This is a promising strategy for developing nations within the TRIPS "
5122 "framework. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
5123 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5127 #: freeculture.xml:3560
5129 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
5130 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
5131 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
5132 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
5133 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
5134 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
5135 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
5138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5139 #: freeculture.xml:3602 freeculture.xml:3876 freeculture.xml:14840
5140 msgid "Liebowitz, Stan"
5143 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5144 #: freeculture.xml:3595
5146 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
5147 "Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle> (New York: "
5148 "Amacom, 2002), 144–90. <quote>In some instances … the impact of "
5149 "piracy on the copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the "
5150 "work will be negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the "
5151 "individual engaging in pirating would not have purchased an original even if "
5152 "pirating were not an option.</quote> Ibid., 149. <placeholder "
5153 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5157 #: freeculture.xml:3589
5159 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
5160 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
5161 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
5162 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
5163 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5167 #: freeculture.xml:3606
5169 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
5170 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
5171 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
5172 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, <quote>You wouldn't go into "
5173 "Barnes & Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why "
5174 "should it be any different with on-line music?</quote> The difference is, of "
5175 "course, that when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less "
5176 "book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, "
5177 "there is not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the "
5178 "intangible are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
5182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5183 #: freeculture.xml:3620
5185 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
5186 "right of a very special sort, it <emphasis>is</emphasis> a property "
5187 "right. Like all property rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to "
5188 "decide the terms under which content is shared. If the copyright owner "
5189 "doesn't want to sell, she doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important "
5190 "statutory licenses that apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish "
5191 "of the copyright owner. Those licenses give people the right to "
5192 "<quote>take</quote> copyrighted content whether or not the copyright owner "
5193 "wants to sell. But where the law does not give people the right to take "
5194 "content, it is wrong to take that content even if the wrong does no harm. If "
5195 "we have a property system, and that system is properly balanced to the "
5196 "technology of a time, then it is wrong to take property without the "
5197 "permission of a property owner. That is exactly what <quote>property</quote> "
5201 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5202 #: freeculture.xml:3638 freeculture.xml:14693
5206 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5207 #: freeculture.xml:3639
5208 msgid "free software/open-source software (FS/OSS)"
5211 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5212 #: freeculture.xml:3640 freeculture.xml:3670 freeculture.xml:11505 freeculture.xml:13000 freeculture.xml:13598
5213 msgid "GNU/Linux operating system"
5216 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5217 #: freeculture.xml:3641 freeculture.xml:3671 freeculture.xml:11507 freeculture.xml:13001 freeculture.xml:13599
5218 msgid "Linux operating system"
5221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
5222 #: freeculture.xml:3642 freeculture.xml:3644 freeculture.xml:3645 freeculture.xml:5310 freeculture.xml:7798 freeculture.xml:13053
5226 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5227 #: freeculture.xml:3642
5228 msgid "competitive strategies of"
5231 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5232 #: freeculture.xml:3643
5236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5237 #: freeculture.xml:3644
5238 msgid "international software piracy of"
5241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5242 #: freeculture.xml:3645
5243 msgid "Windows operating system of"
5246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5247 #: freeculture.xml:3647
5249 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
5250 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese "
5251 "<quote>steal</quote> Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on "
5252 "Microsoft. Microsoft loses the value of the software that was taken. But it "
5253 "gains users who are used to life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the "
5254 "nation grows more wealthy, more and more people will buy software rather "
5255 "than steal it. And hence over time, because that buying will benefit "
5256 "Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from the piracy. If instead of pirating "
5257 "Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system, "
5258 "then these Chinese users would not eventually be buying Microsoft. Without "
5259 "piracy, then, Microsoft would lose."
5262 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5263 #: freeculture.xml:3659
5267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5268 #: freeculture.xml:3659
5269 msgid "databases of case reports in"
5272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5273 #: freeculture.xml:3661
5275 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
5276 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
5277 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
5278 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
5279 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
5280 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
5283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5284 #: freeculture.xml:3668
5288 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5289 #: freeculture.xml:3669
5290 msgid "Internet Explorer"
5293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5294 #: freeculture.xml:3673
5296 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
5297 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
5298 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
5299 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
5300 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
5301 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
5302 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
5303 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
5304 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
5305 "access, then violating the law is still wrong."
5309 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5310 #: freeculture.xml:3687
5312 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
5313 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
5314 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
5315 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
5316 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
5317 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
5318 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
5321 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5322 #: freeculture.xml:3697
5324 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
5325 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all <quote>piracy</quote> "
5326 "is. Or at least, not all <quote>piracy</quote> is wrong if that term is "
5327 "understood in the way it is increasingly used today. Many kinds of "
5328 "<quote>piracy</quote> are useful and productive, to produce either new "
5329 "content or new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition nor any "
5330 "tradition has ever banned all <quote>piracy</quote> in that sense of the "
5334 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5335 #: freeculture.xml:3706
5337 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
5338 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
5339 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
5340 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
5343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5344 #: freeculture.xml:3712
5346 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
5347 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
5348 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
5349 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
5352 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5353 #: freeculture.xml:3718
5355 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
5356 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
5359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
5360 #: freeculture.xml:3724
5365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5366 #: freeculture.xml:3729
5368 "<citetitle>Bach</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Longman</citetitle>, 98 "
5369 "Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
5373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5374 #: freeculture.xml:3726
5376 "The key to the <quote>piracy</quote> that the law aims to quash is a use "
5377 "that <quote>rob[s] the author of [his] profit.</quote><placeholder "
5378 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This means we must determine whether and how "
5379 "much p2p sharing harms before we know how strongly the law should seek to "
5380 "either prevent it or find an alternative to assure the author of his profit."
5383 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5384 #: freeculture.xml:3737 freeculture.xml:3745
5388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5389 #: freeculture.xml:3738
5390 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
5393 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
5394 #: freeculture.xml:3755 freeculture.xml:8392
5395 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
5398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5399 #: freeculture.xml:3745
5401 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Clayton M. Christensen, "
5402 "<citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National Bestseller "
5403 "That Changed the Way We Do Business</citetitle> (New York: HarperBusiness, "
5404 "2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that give rise to and "
5405 "dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up with the most "
5406 "creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This job usually "
5407 "falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology in inventive "
5408 "ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence Lessig, "
5409 "<citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 89–92, 139. <placeholder "
5410 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
5413 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5414 #: freeculture.xml:3740
5416 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
5417 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
5418 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
5419 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
5420 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
5425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5426 #: freeculture.xml:3765
5428 "See Carolyn Lochhead, <quote>Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood "
5429 "Nightmare,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 "
5430 "September 2002, A1; <quote>Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,</quote> <citetitle>New "
5431 "Scientist</citetitle>, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, <quote>Napster "
5432 "Names CEO, Secures New Financing,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
5433 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 23 May 2003, C1; <quote>Napster's Wake-Up "
5434 "Call,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 24 June 2000, 23; John "
5435 "Naughton, <quote>Hollywood at War with the Internet</quote> (London) "
5436 "<citetitle>Times</citetitle>, 26 July 2002, 18."
5439 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5440 #: freeculture.xml:3760
5442 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
5443 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
5444 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
5445 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
5446 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
5447 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
5448 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
5449 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
5450 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
5451 "or your 20,000 best friends."
5455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5456 #: freeculture.xml:3787
5458 "See Ipsos-Insight, <citetitle>TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music "
5459 "Distribution</citetitle> (September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of "
5460 "Americans aged twelve and older have downloaded music off of the Internet "
5461 "and 30 percent have listened to digital music files stored on their "
5466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5467 #: freeculture.xml:3796
5469 "Amy Harmon, <quote>Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,</quote> "
5470 "<citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 6 June 2003, A1."
5473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5474 #: freeculture.xml:3781
5476 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
5477 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
5478 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
5479 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
5480 "by the NPD group quoted in <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> "
5481 "estimated that 43 million citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange "
5482 "content in May 2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast "
5483 "majority of these are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive "
5484 "quantity of content is being <quote>taken</quote> on these networks. The "
5485 "ease and inexpensiveness of file-sharing networks have inspired millions to "
5486 "enjoy music in a way that they hadn't before."
5489 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5490 #: freeculture.xml:3805
5492 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
5493 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
5494 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
5495 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
5496 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
5497 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
5501 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5502 #: freeculture.xml:3815
5504 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
5505 "kinds into four types."
5509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5510 #: freeculture.xml:3823
5512 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
5513 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
5514 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
5515 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
5516 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
5517 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
5522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5523 #: freeculture.xml:3833
5525 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
5526 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
5527 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
5528 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
5529 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
5530 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
5531 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
5535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5536 #: freeculture.xml:3844
5538 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
5539 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
5540 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
5541 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
5542 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
5543 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
5544 "solid weekend <quote>recalling</quote> old songs. She was astonished at the "
5545 "range and mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is "
5546 "still technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright "
5547 "owner is not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is "
5548 "zero—the same harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s "
5549 "45-rpm records to a local collector."
5554 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
5555 #: freeculture.xml:3861
5557 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
5558 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
5561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5562 #: freeculture.xml:3867
5563 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
5566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5567 #: freeculture.xml:3875
5569 "See Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network Economy</citetitle>, "
5570 "148–49. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5574 #: freeculture.xml:3870
5576 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
5577 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
5578 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
5579 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
5580 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
5581 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is "
5582 "not otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard "
5583 "question to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current "
5584 "rhetoric around the issue suggests."
5587 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5588 #: freeculture.xml:3886
5590 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
5591 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
5592 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
5593 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
5594 "type A sharing is a kind of <quote>theft</quote> that is "
5595 "<quote>devastating</quote> the industry."
5598 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5599 #: freeculture.xml:3893 freeculture.xml:3902 freeculture.xml:4245 freeculture.xml:7958 freeculture.xml:7987 freeculture.xml:9685 freeculture.xml:14400
5600 msgid "cassette recording"
5603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5604 #: freeculture.xml:3893 freeculture.xml:4245 freeculture.xml:7958 freeculture.xml:7987 freeculture.xml:9685 freeculture.xml:9686 freeculture.xml:14400 freeculture.xml:14401
5608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5609 #: freeculture.xml:3902
5611 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, "
5612 "<citetitle>Technology Evolution and the Music Industry's Business Model "
5613 "Crisis</citetitle> (2003), 3. This report describes the music industry's "
5614 "effort to stigmatize the budding practice of cassette taping in the 1970s, "
5615 "including an advertising campaign featuring a cassette-shape skull and the "
5616 "caption <quote>Home taping is killing music.</quote> At the time digital "
5617 "audio tape became a threat, the Office of Technical Assessment conducted a "
5618 "survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 percent of consumers older than ten "
5619 "had taped music to a cassette format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology "
5620 "Assessment, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the "
5621 "Law</citetitle>, OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing "
5622 "Office, October 1989), 145–56."
5625 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5626 #: freeculture.xml:3895
5628 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
5629 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
5630 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
5631 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, "
5632 "<quote>Rather than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels "
5633 "fought it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels "
5634 "claimed that every album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales "
5635 "fell by 11.4 percent in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was "
5636 "proved. Technology was the problem, and banning or regulating technology was "
5640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5641 #: freeculture.xml:3920
5646 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5647 #: freeculture.xml:3930
5648 msgid "U.S. Congress, <citetitle>Copyright and Home Copying</citetitle>, 4."
5651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5652 #: freeculture.xml:3922
5654 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
5655 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record "
5656 "turnaround. <quote>In the end,</quote> Cap Gemini concludes, <quote>the "
5657 "`crisis' … was not the fault of the tapers—who did not [stop "
5658 "after MTV came into being]—but had to a large extent resulted from "
5659 "stagnation in musical innovation at the major labels.</quote><placeholder "
5660 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5663 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5664 #: freeculture.xml:3935
5666 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
5667 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
5668 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
5669 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
5670 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
5671 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also "
5672 "<emphasis>how</emphasis> harmful type A sharing is, and how beneficial the "
5673 "other types of sharing are."
5676 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5677 #: freeculture.xml:3945
5679 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
5680 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
5681 "<quote>net harm</quote> to the industry as a whole is the amount by which "
5682 "type A sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records "
5683 "through sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks "
5684 "would actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
5685 "little <emphasis>static</emphasis> reason to resist them."
5688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
5689 #: freeculture.xml:3955
5690 msgid "sales levels of"
5693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5694 #: freeculture.xml:3957
5696 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
5697 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
5698 "it might be close."
5702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5703 #: freeculture.xml:3966
5705 "See Recording Industry Association of America, <citetitle>2002 Yearend "
5706 "Statistics</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
5707 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #15</ulink>. A later report "
5708 "indicates even greater losses. See Recording Industry Association of "
5709 "America, <citetitle>Some Facts About Music Piracy</citetitle>, 25 June 2003, "
5710 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #16</ulink>: "
5711 "<quote>In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have fallen "
5712 "by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 in the "
5713 "United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues are "
5714 "down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based on "
5715 "U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone from "
5716 "a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 (based "
5717 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments).</quote>"
5720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
5721 #: freeculture.xml:3993
5725 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5726 #: freeculture.xml:3990
5728 "Jane Black, <quote>Big Music's Broken Record,</quote> BusinessWeek online, "
5729 "13 February 2003, available at <ulink "
5730 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #17</ulink>. <placeholder "
5731 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
5734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5735 #: freeculture.xml:3962
5737 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
5738 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
5739 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
5740 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
5741 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
5742 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
5743 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
5744 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. <quote>From 1999 to "
5745 "2001, the average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to "
5746 "$14.19.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from "
5747 "other forms of media could also account for some of the decline. As Jane "
5748 "Black of <citetitle>BusinessWeek</citetitle> notes, <quote>The soundtrack to "
5749 "the film <citetitle>High Fidelity</citetitle> has a list price of "
5750 "$18.98. You could get the whole movie [on DVD] for "
5751 "$19.99.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
5755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5756 #: freeculture.xml:4008
5758 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
5759 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
5760 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
5761 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
5762 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
5766 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5767 #: freeculture.xml:4016
5769 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
5770 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
5771 "industry constantly asks, <quote>What's the difference between downloading a "
5772 "song and stealing a CD?</quote>—but their own numbers reveal the "
5773 "difference. If I steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking "
5774 "is a lost sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is "
5775 "absolutely clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download "
5776 "were a lost sale—if every use of Kazaa <quote>rob[bed] the author of "
5777 "[his] profit</quote>—then the industry would have suffered a 100 "
5778 "percent drop in sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the "
5779 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped "
5780 "by just 6.7 percent, then there is a huge difference between "
5781 "<quote>downloading a song and stealing a CD.</quote>"
5784 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5785 #: freeculture.xml:4032
5787 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
5788 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
5789 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
5793 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5794 #: freeculture.xml:4044
5796 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
5797 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
5798 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
5799 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
5800 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
5801 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
5804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5805 #: freeculture.xml:4038
5807 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
5808 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
5809 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
5810 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5811 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
5812 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
5813 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
5814 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
5815 "<emphasis>to the company</emphasis> to make it available."
5818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
5819 #: freeculture.xml:4057 freeculture.xml:4065 freeculture.xml:4087 freeculture.xml:4109 freeculture.xml:4598 freeculture.xml:5927 freeculture.xml:5932 freeculture.xml:5984 freeculture.xml:6860 freeculture.xml:6861 freeculture.xml:7203 freeculture.xml:7265 freeculture.xml:7299 freeculture.xml:7508 freeculture.xml:13786 freeculture.xml:14512 freeculture.xml:14513
5823 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5824 #: freeculture.xml:4057 freeculture.xml:4065 freeculture.xml:6861 freeculture.xml:14513
5828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5829 #: freeculture.xml:4065
5831 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> While there are not good "
5832 "estimates of the number of used record stores in existence, in 2002, there "
5833 "were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, an increase of 20 percent "
5834 "since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, <citetitle>The Quiet Revolution: The "
5835 "Expansion of the Used Book Market</citetitle> (2002), available at <ulink "
5836 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #19</ulink>. Used records "
5837 "accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See National Association of "
5838 "Recording Merchandisers, <quote>2002 Annual Survey Results,</quote> "
5839 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
5842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5843 #: freeculture.xml:4059
5845 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
5846 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
5847 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
5848 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
5849 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
5850 "sell this content, <emphasis>even if the content is still under "
5851 "copyright</emphasis>, the copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and "
5852 "record stores are commercial entities; their owners make money from the "
5853 "content they sell; but as with cable companies before statutory licensing, "
5854 "they don't have to pay the copyright owner for the content they sell."
5857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
5858 #: freeculture.xml:4086
5859 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
5862 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5863 #: freeculture.xml:4087 freeculture.xml:5927 freeculture.xml:5932 freeculture.xml:6860 freeculture.xml:14512
5864 msgid "out of print"
5867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5868 #: freeculture.xml:4089
5870 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
5871 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
5872 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
5873 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
5874 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
5875 "of Bernstein's <quote>Two Love Songs,</quote> I still have it. That "
5876 "difference would matter economically if the owner of the copyright were "
5877 "selling the record in competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the "
5878 "class of content that is not currently commercially available. The Internet "
5879 "is making it available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with "
5883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5884 #: freeculture.xml:4102
5886 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
5887 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
5888 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
5889 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
5890 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
5894 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
5895 #: freeculture.xml:4109 freeculture.xml:13786
5896 msgid "free on-line releases of"
5900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5901 #: freeculture.xml:4111
5903 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
5904 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
5905 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
5906 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
5907 "for example, released his first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
5908 "Kingdom</citetitle>, both free on-line and in bookstores on the same "
5909 "day. His (and his publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution "
5910 "would be a great advertisement for the <quote>real</quote> book. People "
5911 "would read part on-line, and then decide whether they liked the book or "
5912 "not. If they liked it, they would be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's "
5913 "content is type D content. If sharing networks enable his work to be spread, "
5914 "then both he and society are better off. (Actually, much better off: It is a "
5918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5919 #: freeculture.xml:4129
5921 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
5922 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
5923 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
5924 "important in order to protect type A content."
5927 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5928 #: freeculture.xml:4135
5930 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
5931 "says, <quote>This is how much we've lost,</quote> we must also ask, "
5932 "<quote>How much has society gained from p2p sharing? What are the "
5933 "efficiencies? What is the content that otherwise would be "
5934 "unavailable?</quote>"
5937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5938 #: freeculture.xml:4142
5940 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
5941 "of the <quote>piracy</quote> that file sharing enables is plainly legal and "
5942 "good. And like the piracy I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
5943 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"pirates\"/>, much of this piracy is motivated by a "
5944 "new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
5945 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
5946 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
5947 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
5948 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
5949 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
5950 "balance will be found only with time."
5953 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5954 #: freeculture.xml:4156
5956 "<quote>But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the "
5957 "target just what you call type A sharing?</quote>"
5961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
5962 #: freeculture.xml:4173
5964 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
5965 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
5966 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
5967 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, "
5968 "<citetitle>All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's "
5969 "Napster</citetitle> (New York: Crown Business, 2003), 269–82."
5972 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5973 #: freeculture.xml:4160
5975 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
5976 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
5977 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
5978 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
5979 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
5980 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
5981 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements <quote>down to "
5982 "zero.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
5986 #: freeculture.xml:4184
5988 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
5989 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
5990 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
5991 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
5992 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
5993 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
5994 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
5995 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
5996 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
5999 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6000 #: freeculture.xml:4195
6002 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
6003 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
6004 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
6005 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
6006 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
6007 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
6011 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6012 #: freeculture.xml:4205
6014 "So, as we've seen, when <quote>mechanical reproduction</quote> threatened "
6015 "the interests of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers "
6016 "against the interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to "
6017 "composers, but also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but "
6018 "at a price set by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the "
6019 "recordings made by these recording artists, and they complained to Congress "
6020 "that their <quote>creative property</quote> was not being respected (since "
6021 "the radio station did not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), "
6022 "Congress rejected their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
6025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6026 #: freeculture.xml:4218
6028 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
6029 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
6030 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
6031 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
6032 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
6036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6037 #: freeculture.xml:4228
6039 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
6040 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
6041 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
6042 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
6043 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
6044 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
6045 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
6046 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
6047 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
6048 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
6049 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure "
6050 "<emphasis>compensation</emphasis> without giving the past (broadcasters) "
6051 "control over the future (cable)."
6054 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
6055 #: freeculture.xml:4244
6059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6060 #: freeculture.xml:4247
6062 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
6063 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
6064 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
6065 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
6066 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
6067 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
6068 "device that Sony built had a <quote>record</quote> button, the device could "
6069 "be used to record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore "
6070 "benefiting from the copyright infringement of its customers. It should "
6071 "therefore, Disney and Universal claimed, be partially liable for that "
6076 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6077 #: freeculture.xml:4260
6079 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
6080 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
6081 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
6082 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
6083 "only if there were a special <quote>copy me</quote> signal on the line. It "
6084 "was clear that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone "
6085 "permission to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of "
6086 "shows would not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious "
6087 "preference, Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity "
6088 "for copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
6089 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
6093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6094 #: freeculture.xml:4282
6096 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
6097 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
6098 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
6099 "of America, Inc.)."
6103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6104 #: freeculture.xml:4294
6105 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
6109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6110 #: freeculture.xml:4299
6112 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6113 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 480 F. Supp. 429, (C.D. Cal., 1979)."
6117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6118 #: freeculture.xml:4310
6120 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
6124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6125 #: freeculture.xml:4275
6127 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
6128 "called VCRs <quote>tapeworms.</quote> He warned, <quote>When there are 20, "
6129 "30, 40 million of these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of "
6130 "`tapeworms,' eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious "
6131 "asset the copyright owner has, his copyright.</quote><placeholder "
6132 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> <quote>One does not have to be trained in "
6133 "sophisticated marketing and creative judgment,</quote> he told Congress, "
6134 "<quote>to understand the devastation on the after-theater marketplace caused "
6135 "by the hundreds of millions of tapings that will adversely impact on the "
6136 "future of the creative community in this country. It is simply a question of "
6137 "basic economics and plain common sense.</quote><placeholder "
6138 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would later show, percent of "
6139 "VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or more<placeholder "
6140 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would later hold was "
6141 "not <quote>fair.</quote> By <quote>allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
6142 "means of an exemption from copyright infringementwithout creating a "
6143 "mechanism to compensate copyrightowners,</quote> Valenti testified, Congress "
6144 "would <quote>take from the owners the very essence of their property: the "
6145 "exclusive right to control who may use their work, that is, who may copy it "
6146 "and thereby profit from its reproduction.</quote><placeholder "
6147 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"3\"/>"
6151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6152 #: freeculture.xml:4327
6154 "<citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Sony "
6155 "Corp. of America</citetitle>, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th Cir. 1981)."
6158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><indexterm><primary>
6159 #: freeculture.xml:4330
6160 msgid "Kozinski, Alex"
6163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6164 #: freeculture.xml:4315
6166 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
6167 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
6168 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
6169 "refers to it as the <quote>Hollywood Circuit</quote>—held that Sony "
6170 "would be liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its "
6171 "machines. Under the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar "
6172 "technology—which Jack Valenti had called <quote>the Boston Strangler "
6173 "of the American film industry</quote> (worse yet, it was a "
6174 "<emphasis>Japanese</emphasis> Boston Strangler of the American film "
6175 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6176 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6180 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6181 #: freeculture.xml:4333
6183 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
6184 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
6185 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
6189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6190 #: freeculture.xml:4352
6192 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6193 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, 431 (1984)."
6196 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
6197 #: freeculture.xml:4342
6199 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
6200 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
6201 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
6202 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
6203 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
6204 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6207 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6208 #: freeculture.xml:4357
6210 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
6211 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
6212 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
6213 "<quote>taking</quote> notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a "
6217 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6218 #: freeculture.xml:4368
6222 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6223 #: freeculture.xml:4369
6224 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS <quote>PIRATED</quote>"
6227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6228 #: freeculture.xml:4370
6229 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
6232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
6233 #: freeculture.xml:4371
6234 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
6237 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6238 #: freeculture.xml:4376
6242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6243 #: freeculture.xml:4377
6247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6248 #: freeculture.xml:4378 freeculture.xml:4390 freeculture.xml:4396
6249 msgid "No protection"
6252 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6253 #: freeculture.xml:4379 freeculture.xml:4391
6254 msgid "Statutory license"
6257 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6258 #: freeculture.xml:4383
6259 msgid "Recording artists"
6262 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6263 #: freeculture.xml:4384
6267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6268 #: freeculture.xml:4385 freeculture.xml:4397
6272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6273 #: freeculture.xml:4389
6274 msgid "Broadcasters"
6277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6278 #: freeculture.xml:4394
6282 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
6283 #: freeculture.xml:4395
6284 msgid "Film creators"
6287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6288 #: freeculture.xml:4407
6290 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
6291 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
6292 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
6293 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
6294 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
6295 "<citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. "
6296 "4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not "
6297 "eliminate the opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See "
6298 "Lessig, <citetitle>Future</citetitle>, 71. See also Picker, <quote>From "
6299 "Edison to the Broadcast Flag,</quote> <citetitle>University of Chicago Law "
6300 "Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 293–96. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6301 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
6304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6305 #: freeculture.xml:4404
6307 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
6308 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
6309 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a "
6310 "<quote>free ride</quote> on someone else's work."
6314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6315 #: freeculture.xml:4425
6317 "In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these cases did either the courts or "
6318 "Congress eliminate all free riding. In <emphasis>none</emphasis> of these "
6319 "cases did the courts or Congress insist that the law should assure that the "
6320 "copyright holder get all the value that his copyright created. In every "
6321 "case, the copyright owners complained of <quote>piracy.</quote> In every "
6322 "case, Congress acted to recognize some of the legitimacy in the behavior of "
6323 "the <quote>pirates.</quote> In each case, Congress allowed some new "
6324 "technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced the interests at "
6328 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6329 #: freeculture.xml:4438
6331 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
6332 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
6333 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
6334 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
6335 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
6336 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
6337 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
6338 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
6342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6343 #: freeculture.xml:4455
6345 "<citetitle>Sony Corp. of America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City "
6346 "Studios, Inc</citetitle>., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
6349 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6350 #: freeculture.xml:4450
6352 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
6353 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
6354 "<quote>has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all "
6355 "possible uses of his work.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6356 "Instead, the particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by "
6357 "balancing the good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the "
6358 "burdens such an exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically "
6359 "been done <emphasis>after</emphasis> a technology has matured, or settled "
6360 "into the mix of technologies that facilitate the distribution of content."
6363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6364 #: freeculture.xml:4466
6366 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
6367 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
6368 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
6369 "become a tool for <quote>stealing</quote> from artists. But neither should "
6370 "the law become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or "
6371 "more accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the "
6372 "last chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we "
6373 "allow the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
6374 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
6375 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
6376 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
6380 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
6381 #: freeculture.xml:4490
6383 "John Schwartz, <quote>New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software "
6384 "Echoes Past Efforts,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 22 "
6385 "September 2003, C3."
6388 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6389 #: freeculture.xml:4482
6391 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
6392 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
6393 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
6394 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
6395 "<quote>potential public benefits,</quote> as John Schwartz writes in "
6396 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, <quote>could be delayed in the "
6397 "P2P fight.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6401 #: freeculture.xml:4495
6403 "<emphasis role='strong'>Yet when anyone</emphasis> begins to talk about "
6404 "<quote>balance,</quote> the copyright warriors raise a different "
6405 "argument. <quote>All this hand waving about balance and incentives,</quote> "
6406 "they say, <quote>misses a fundamental point. Our content,</quote> the "
6407 "warriors insist, <quote>is our <emphasis>property</emphasis>. Why should we "
6408 "wait for Congress to `rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait "
6409 "before calling the police when your car has been stolen? And why should "
6410 "Congress deliberate at all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether "
6411 "the car thief had a good use for the car before we arrest him?</quote>"
6414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
6415 #: freeculture.xml:4507
6417 "<quote>It is <emphasis>our property</emphasis>,</quote> the warriors "
6418 "insist. <quote>And it should be protected just as any other property is "
6419 "protected.</quote>"
6422 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
6423 #: freeculture.xml:4516
6424 msgid "<quote>PROPERTY</quote>"
6428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6429 #: freeculture.xml:4521
6431 "<emphasis role='strong'>The copyright warriors</emphasis> are right: A "
6432 "copyright is a kind of property. It can be owned and sold, and the law "
6433 "protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the copyright owner gets to hold out "
6434 "for any price he wants. Markets reckon the supply and demand that partially "
6435 "determine the price she can get."
6438 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6439 #: freeculture.xml:4528
6441 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a <quote>property</quote> "
6442 "right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of "
6443 "property. Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression "
6444 "is very odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you "
6445 "put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I "
6446 "take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good "
6447 "<emphasis>idea</emphasis> you had to put a picnic table in the "
6448 "backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting "
6449 "it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking then?"
6453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6454 #: freeculture.xml:4553
6456 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in "
6457 "<citetitle>The Writings of Thomas Jefferson</citetitle>, vol. 6 (Andrew "
6458 "A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
6461 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6462 #: freeculture.xml:4540
6464 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
6465 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
6466 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
6467 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
6468 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
6469 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
6470 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
6471 "copy the way someone else dresses), <quote>He who receives an idea from me, "
6472 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
6473 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.</quote><placeholder "
6474 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6477 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6478 #: freeculture.xml:4559
6480 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
6481 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
6482 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
6483 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
6487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para><footnote><para>
6488 #: freeculture.xml:4572
6490 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
6491 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
6492 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
6493 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
6494 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, "
6495 "<quote>What Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,</quote> "
6496 "<citetitle>Arizona Law Review</citetitle> 45 (2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
6499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6500 #: freeculture.xml:4567
6502 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
6503 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
6504 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this "
6505 "<quote>property</quote> in its proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6509 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
6510 #: freeculture.xml:4582
6512 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
6513 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of <quote>copyright material "
6514 "is property</quote> in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its "
6515 "limits? How does it function in practice? After these stories, the "
6516 "significance of this true statement—<quote>copyright material is "
6517 "property</quote>— will be a bit more clear, and its implications will "
6518 "be revealed as quite different from the implications that the copyright "
6519 "warriors would have us draw."
6522 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
6523 #: freeculture.xml:4595
6524 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
6527 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6528 #: freeculture.xml:4596
6532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6533 #: freeculture.xml:4597 freeculture.xml:4742
6534 msgid "Branagh, Kenneth"
6537 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
6538 #: freeculture.xml:4598
6539 msgid "English copyright law developed for"
6542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6543 #: freeculture.xml:4600
6545 "<emphasis role='strong'>William Shakespeare</emphasis> wrote "
6546 "<citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> in 1595. The play was first "
6547 "published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play that Shakespeare had "
6548 "written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, and the plays that "
6549 "he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture ever since. So "
6550 "deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped into our culture "
6551 "that we often don't even recognize their source. I once overheard someone "
6552 "commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: <quote>I liked it, "
6553 "but Shakespeare is so full of clichés.</quote>"
6556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6557 #: freeculture.xml:4616
6561 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6562 #: freeculture.xml:4617
6563 msgid "Dryden, John"
6566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6567 #: freeculture.xml:4616
6569 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6570 "id=\"1\"/> Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with "
6571 "prominent eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and "
6572 "for his handsome <quote>definitive editions</quote> of classic works. In "
6573 "addition to <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle>, he published an "
6574 "astonishing array of works that still remain at the heart of the English "
6575 "canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Milton, "
6576 "and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, <quote>Jacob Tonson, Bookseller,</quote> "
6577 "<citetitle>American Scholar</citetitle> 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
6581 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6582 #: freeculture.xml:4629
6584 "Lyman Ray Patterson, <citetitle>Copyright in Historical "
6585 "Perspective</citetitle> (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), "
6590 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6591 #: freeculture.xml:4612
6593 "In 1774, almost 180 years after <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> was "
6594 "written, the <quote>copy-right</quote> for the work was still thought by "
6595 "many to be the exclusive right of a single London publisher, Jacob "
6596 "Tonson.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most "
6597 "prominent of a small group of publishers called the Conger<placeholder "
6598 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who controlled bookselling in England during "
6599 "the eighteenth century. The Conger claimed a perpetual right to control the "
6600 "<quote>copy</quote> of books that they had acquired from authors. That "
6601 "perpetual right meant that no one else could publish copies of a book to "
6602 "which they held the copyright. Prices of the classics were thus kept high; "
6603 "competition to produce better or cheaper editions was eliminated."
6606 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6607 #: freeculture.xml:4641
6608 msgid "British Parliament"
6611 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6612 #: freeculture.xml:4652
6614 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely "
6615 "argues, it is erroneous to call this a <quote>copyright law.</quote> See "
6616 "Vaidhyanathan, <citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 40."
6619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6620 #: freeculture.xml:4643
6622 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
6623 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
6624 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
6625 "<quote>copyright</quote> act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated "
6626 "that all published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, "
6627 "renewable once if the author was alive, and that all works already published "
6628 "by 1710 would get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
6629 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, <citetitle>Romeo and "
6630 "Juliet</citetitle> should have been free in 1731. So why was there any issue "
6631 "about it still being under Tonson's control in 1774?"
6634 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6635 #: freeculture.xml:4659
6636 msgid "Licensing Act (1662)"
6639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6640 #: freeculture.xml:4661
6642 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a "
6643 "<quote>copyright</quote> was—indeed, no one had. At the time the "
6644 "English passed the Statute of Anne, there was no other legislation governing "
6645 "copyrights. The last law regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, "
6646 "had expired in 1695. That law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as "
6647 "a way to make it easier for the Crown to control what was published. But "
6648 "after it expired, there was no positive law that said that the publishers, "
6649 "or <quote>Stationers,</quote> had an exclusive right to print books."
6652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6653 #: freeculture.xml:4672
6655 "There was no <emphasis>positive</emphasis> law, but that didn't mean that "
6656 "there was no law. The Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words "
6657 "of legislatures and the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern "
6658 "how people are to behave. We call the words from legislatures "
6659 "<quote>positive law.</quote> We call the words from judges <quote>common "
6660 "law.</quote> The common law sets the background against which legislatures "
6661 "legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that background only if it "
6662 "passes a law to displace it. And so the real question after the licensing "
6663 "statutes had expired was whether the common law protected a copyright, "
6664 "independent of any positive law."
6668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6669 #: freeculture.xml:4684
6671 "This question was important to the publishers, or "
6672 "<quote>booksellers,</quote> as they were called, because there was growing "
6673 "competition from foreign publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were "
6674 "increasingly publishing and exporting books to England. That competition "
6675 "reduced the profits of the Conger, which reacted by demanding that "
6676 "Parliament pass a law to again give them exclusive control over "
6677 "publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in the Statute of Anne."
6680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6681 #: freeculture.xml:4696
6683 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or <quote>proprietor</quote> of a "
6684 "book an exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, "
6685 "however, and to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller "
6686 "that right for a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright "
6687 "<quote>expired,</quote> and the work would then be free and could be "
6688 "published by anyone. Or so the legislature is thought to have believed."
6691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6692 #: freeculture.xml:4705
6694 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
6695 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
6696 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right <emphasis>at "
6700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6701 #: freeculture.xml:4711
6703 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
6704 "strong claim. Take <citetitle>Romeo and Juliet</citetitle> as an example: "
6705 "That play was written by Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into "
6706 "the world. He didn't take anybody's property when he created this play "
6707 "(that's a controversial claim, but never mind), and by his creating this "
6708 "play, he didn't make it any harder for others to craft a play. So why is it "
6709 "that the law would ever allow someone else to come along and take "
6710 "Shakespeare's play without his, or his estate's, permission? What reason is "
6711 "there to allow someone else to <quote>steal</quote> Shakespeare's work?"
6714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6715 #: freeculture.xml:4722
6717 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
6718 "the notion of <quote>copyright</quote> that existed at the time of the "
6719 "Statute of Anne. Second, we have to see something important about "
6720 "<quote>booksellers.</quote>"
6724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6725 #: freeculture.xml:4728
6727 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
6728 "apply the concept of <quote>copyright</quote> ever more broadly. But in "
6729 "1710, it wasn't so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The "
6730 "copyright was born as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others "
6731 "from reprinting a book. In 1710, the <quote>copy-right</quote> was a right "
6732 "to use a particular machine to replicate a particular work. It did not go "
6733 "beyond that very narrow right. It did not control any more generally how a "
6734 "work could be <emphasis>used</emphasis>. Today the right includes a large "
6735 "collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It grants the author "
6736 "the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to distribute, the "
6737 "exclusive right to perform, and so on."
6740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6741 #: freeculture.xml:4744
6743 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
6744 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
6745 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
6746 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
6747 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
6748 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
6749 "<quote>copy-right</quote> was only an exclusive right to print—no "
6750 "less, of course, but also no more."
6753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6754 #: freeculture.xml:4753
6755 msgid "Henry VIII, King of England"
6758 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6759 #: freeculture.xml:4754
6760 msgid "Statute of Monopolies (1656)"
6763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6764 #: freeculture.xml:4756
6766 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
6767 "had a long and ugly experience with <quote>exclusive rights,</quote> "
6768 "especially <quote>exclusive rights</quote> granted by the Crown. The English "
6769 "had fought a civil war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
6770 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
6771 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
6772 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
6773 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
6774 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
6775 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
6778 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6779 #: freeculture.xml:4769
6781 "Thus the <quote>copy-right,</quote> when viewed as a monopoly right, was "
6782 "naturally viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the "
6783 "claim that <quote>it's my property, and I should have it forever,</quote> "
6784 "try sounding convincing when uttering, <quote>It's my monopoly, and I should "
6785 "have it forever.</quote>) The state would protect the exclusive right, but "
6786 "only so long as it benefited society. The British saw the harms from "
6787 "specialinterest favors; they passed a law to stop them."
6790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6791 #: freeculture.xml:4777
6792 msgid "booksellers, English"
6796 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6797 #: freeculture.xml:4794
6799 "Philip Wittenberg, <citetitle>The Protection and Marketing of Literary "
6800 "Property</citetitle> (New York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
6803 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6804 #: freeculture.xml:4779
6806 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
6807 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
6808 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
6809 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
6810 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
6811 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
6812 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
6813 "described them as <quote>old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
6814 "book-selling</quote>; they were <quote>men who do not therefore labour in an "
6815 "honest profession to which learning is indetted.</quote><placeholder "
6816 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6819 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6820 #: freeculture.xml:4799
6822 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
6823 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
6824 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
6825 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
6826 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
6829 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6830 #: freeculture.xml:4807
6832 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
6833 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
6834 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
6835 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
6836 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
6837 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
6838 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
6839 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
6843 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6844 #: freeculture.xml:4819
6846 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
6847 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
6848 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
6849 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
6850 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
6851 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
6855 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6856 #: freeculture.xml:4828
6858 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
6863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
6864 #: freeculture.xml:4843
6866 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
6867 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
6868 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
6869 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
6870 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
6871 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
6872 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618)."
6875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
6876 #: freeculture.xml:4833
6878 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
6879 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
6880 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
6881 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
6882 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
6883 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
6884 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6887 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6888 #: freeculture.xml:4854
6890 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
6891 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
6892 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
6893 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
6894 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
6895 "already wrong to take another person's creative <quote>property</quote> and "
6896 "use it without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, "
6897 "didn't change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute "
6898 "of Anne expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: "
6899 "Under the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, "
6900 "even if its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was "
6901 "the only way to protect authors."
6904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6905 #: freeculture.xml:4868 freeculture.xml:4876 freeculture.xml:4923
6906 msgid "Patterson, Raymond"
6909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6910 #: freeculture.xml:4876
6912 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6913 "id=\"1\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, <quote>Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair "
6914 "Use,</quote> <citetitle>Vanderbilt Law Review</citetitle> 40 (1987): 28. For "
6915 "a wonderfully compelling account, see Vaidhyanathan, 37–48."
6918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6919 #: freeculture.xml:4870
6921 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
6922 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
6923 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, <quote>The publishers "
6924 "… had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
6925 "cattle.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller "
6926 "didn't care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the "
6927 "monopoly profit that the author's work gave."
6931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6932 #: freeculture.xml:4890
6934 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, <citetitle>Authorship and "
6935 "Copyright</citetitle> (London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
6938 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6939 #: freeculture.xml:4886
6941 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
6942 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
6943 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6946 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6947 #: freeculture.xml:4894
6948 msgid "Boswell, James"
6951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6952 #: freeculture.xml:4895
6953 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
6956 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
6957 #: freeculture.xml:4904 freeculture.xml:14936
6961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6962 #: freeculture.xml:4902
6964 "Mark Rose, <citetitle>Authors and Owners</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard "
6965 "University Press, 1993), 92. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6969 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6970 #: freeculture.xml:4913
6974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6975 #: freeculture.xml:4897
6977 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
6978 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints "
6979 "<quote>of standard works whose copyright term had expired,</quote> at least "
6980 "under the Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
6981 "Donaldson's publishing house prospered and became <quote>something of a "
6982 "center for literary Scotsmen.</quote> <quote>[A]mong them,</quote> Professor "
6983 "Mark Rose writes, was <quote>the young James Boswell who, together with his "
6984 "friend Andrew Erskine, published an anthology of contemporary Scottish poems "
6985 "with Donaldson.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
6988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
6989 #: freeculture.xml:4923
6991 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Lyman Ray Patterson, "
6992 "<citetitle>Copyright in Historical Perspective</citetitle>, 167 (quoting "
6996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
6997 #: freeculture.xml:4917
6999 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
7000 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
7001 "editions <quote>of the most popular English books, in defiance of the "
7002 "supposed common law right of Literary Property.</quote><placeholder "
7003 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to "
7004 "50 percent, and he rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under "
7005 "the Statute of Anne, the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
7008 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7009 #: freeculture.xml:4932
7011 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block <quote>piracy</quote> "
7012 "like Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the "
7013 "<quote>pirates,</quote> the most important early victory being "
7014 "<citetitle>Millar</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Taylor</citetitle>."
7017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7018 #: freeculture.xml:4936
7019 msgid "Seasons, The (Thomson)"
7022 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7023 #: freeculture.xml:4937
7024 msgid "Taylor, Robert"
7028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7029 #: freeculture.xml:4946
7031 "Howard B. Abrams, <quote>The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
7032 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Wayne Law "
7033 "Review</citetitle> 29 (1983): 1152."
7036 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7037 #: freeculture.xml:4939
7039 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
7040 "Thomson's poem <quote>The Seasons.</quote> Millar complied with the "
7041 "requirements of the Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full "
7042 "protection of the statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor "
7043 "began printing a competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common "
7044 "law right, the Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder "
7045 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7048 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7049 #: freeculture.xml:4953
7051 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
7052 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
7053 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
7054 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
7055 "author against subsequent <quote>pirates.</quote> Mansfield's answer was "
7056 "yes: The common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without "
7057 "Millar's permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the "
7058 "booksellers a perpetual right to control the publication of any book "
7063 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7064 #: freeculture.xml:4964
7066 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
7067 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
7068 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
7069 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
7070 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
7071 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
7072 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
7073 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
7074 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
7075 "the free culture that we inherited."
7078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7079 #: freeculture.xml:4979
7081 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
7082 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
7085 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7086 #: freeculture.xml:4982
7087 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
7091 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7092 #: freeculture.xml:4988
7093 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
7096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7097 #: freeculture.xml:4984
7099 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
7100 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
7101 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
7102 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
7103 "decision in <citetitle>Millar</citetitle>, got an injunction against "
7104 "Donaldson. Donaldson appealed the case to the House of Lords, which "
7105 "functioned much like our own Supreme Court. In February of 1774, that body "
7106 "had the chance to interpret the meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty "
7110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7111 #: freeculture.xml:4998
7113 "As few legal cases ever do, <citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> "
7114 "v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle> drew an enormous amount of attention "
7115 "throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever rights may have "
7116 "existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated those "
7117 "rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal protection for "
7118 "an exclusive right to control publication came from that statute. Thus, they "
7119 "argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne expired, works that "
7120 "had been protected by the statute were no longer protected."
7123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7124 #: freeculture.xml:5008
7126 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
7127 "the House and voted upon first by the <quote>law lords,</quote> members of "
7128 "special legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our "
7129 "Supreme Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally "
7134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7135 #: freeculture.xml:5015
7137 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
7138 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
7139 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
7140 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
7141 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
7142 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
7146 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7147 #: freeculture.xml:5033
7148 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
7151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7152 #: freeculture.xml:5034
7153 msgid "Bunyan, John"
7156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7157 #: freeculture.xml:5035
7158 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
7161 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7162 #: freeculture.xml:5036
7163 msgid "Milton, John"
7166 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7167 #: freeculture.xml:5025
7169 "<quote>The public domain.</quote> Before the case of "
7170 "<citetitle>Donaldson</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Beckett</citetitle>, there "
7171 "was no clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a "
7172 "strong argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the "
7173 "public domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the "
7174 "legal control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
7175 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
7176 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7177 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
7178 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> "
7179 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/>"
7183 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7184 #: freeculture.xml:5050
7188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7189 #: freeculture.xml:5040
7191 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
7192 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
7193 "of the <quote>pirate publishers</quote> did their work, people celebrated "
7194 "the decision in the streets. As the <citetitle>Edinburgh "
7195 "Advertiser</citetitle> reported, <quote>No private cause has so much "
7196 "engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried before the "
7197 "House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
7198 "interested.</quote> <quote>Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over "
7199 "literary property: bonfires and illuminations.</quote><placeholder "
7200 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7204 #: freeculture.xml:5054
7206 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
7207 "strong in the opposite direction. The <citetitle>Morning "
7208 "Chronicle</citetitle> reported:"
7211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7212 #: freeculture.xml:5060
7214 "By the above decision … near 200,000 pounds worth of what was "
7215 "honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property "
7216 "is now reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many "
7217 "of whom sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner "
7218 "ruined, and those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a "
7219 "competency to provide for their families now find themselves without a "
7220 "shilling to devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7226 #: freeculture.xml:5075
7228 "<quote>Ruined</quote> is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an "
7229 "exaggeration to say that the change was profound. The decision of the House "
7230 "of Lords meant that the booksellers could no longer control how culture in "
7231 "England would grow and develop. Culture in England was thereafter "
7232 "<emphasis>free</emphasis>. Not in the sense that copyrights would not be "
7233 "respected, for of course, for a limited time after a work was published, the "
7234 "bookseller had an exclusive right to control the publication of that "
7235 "book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, for even after a "
7236 "copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from someone. But "
7237 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> in the sense that the culture and its growth would "
7238 "no longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
7239 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
7240 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
7241 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
7242 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a "
7243 "<emphasis>competitive context</emphasis>, not a context in which the choices "
7244 "about what culture is available to people and how they get access to it are "
7245 "made by the few despite the wishes of the many."
7248 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7249 #: freeculture.xml:5097
7251 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
7252 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
7253 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
7256 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7257 #: freeculture.xml:5107
7258 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
7261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7262 #: freeculture.xml:5109
7264 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jon Else</emphasis> is a filmmaker. He is best known "
7265 "for his documentaries and has been very successful in spreading his art. He "
7266 "is also a teacher, and as a teacher myself, I envy the loyalty and "
7267 "admiration that his students feel for him. (I met, by accident, two of his "
7268 "students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
7271 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7272 #: freeculture.xml:5116
7274 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
7275 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
7278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7279 #: freeculture.xml:5127 freeculture.xml:5190
7280 msgid "San Francisco Opera"
7283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7284 #: freeculture.xml:5121
7286 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
7287 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
7288 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
7289 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
7290 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage. <placeholder "
7291 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7296 #: freeculture.xml:5130
7298 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
7299 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
7300 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
7301 "played Wagner, was <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. As Else judged it, "
7302 "this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special about "
7306 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7307 #: freeculture.xml:5139
7309 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
7310 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of <citetitle>The "
7311 "Simpsons</citetitle>. For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and "
7312 "of course, to use copyrighted material you need the permission of the "
7313 "copyright owner, unless <quote>fair use</quote> or some other privilege "
7317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7318 #: freeculture.xml:5145 freeculture.xml:5153
7319 msgid "Gracie Films"
7322 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7323 #: freeculture.xml:5147
7325 "Else called <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> creator Matt Groening's office "
7326 "to get permission. Groening approved the shot. The shot was a "
7327 "four-and-a-halfsecond image on a tiny television set in the corner of the "
7328 "room. How could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he "
7329 "told Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program."
7332 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7333 #: freeculture.xml:5155
7335 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
7336 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
7337 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
7338 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
7339 "just confirming the permission with Fox."
7342 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7343 #: freeculture.xml:5162
7345 "Then, as Else told me, <quote>two things happened. First we discovered "
7346 "… that Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least "
7347 "that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.</quote> And "
7348 "second, Fox <quote>wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to "
7349 "use this four-point-five seconds of … entirely unsolicited "
7350 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> which was in the corner of the shot.</quote>"
7353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7354 #: freeculture.xml:5169
7355 msgid "Herrera, Rebecca"
7358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7359 #: freeculture.xml:5171
7361 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
7362 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
7363 "to her, <quote>There must be some mistake here. … We're asking for "
7364 "your educational rate on this.</quote> That was the educational rate, "
7365 "Herrera told Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he "
7370 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7371 #: freeculture.xml:5179
7373 "<quote>I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,</quote> he told "
7374 "me. <quote>Yes, you have your facts straight,</quote> she said. It would "
7375 "cost $10,000 to use the clip of <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle> in the "
7376 "corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's Ring Cycle. And then, "
7377 "astonishingly, Herrera told Else, <quote>And if you quote me, I'll turn you "
7378 "over to our attorneys.</quote> As an assistant to Herrera told Else later "
7379 "on, <quote>They don't give a shit. They just want the money.</quote>"
7382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7383 #: freeculture.xml:5191
7384 msgid "Day After Trinity, The"
7387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7388 #: freeculture.xml:5193
7390 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
7391 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
7392 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
7393 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
7394 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, <citetitle>The Day "
7395 "After Trinity</citetitle>, from ten years before."
7398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7399 #: freeculture.xml:5201
7401 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
7402 "copyright to <citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>. That copyright is their "
7403 "property. To use that copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the "
7404 "permission of the copyright owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of "
7405 "the <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> copyright were one of the uses "
7406 "restricted by the law, then he would need to get the permission of the "
7407 "copyright owner before he could use the work in that way. And in a free "
7408 "market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set the price for any "
7409 "use that the law says the owner gets to control."
7412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7413 #: freeculture.xml:5212
7415 "For example, <quote>public performance</quote> is a use of <citetitle>The "
7416 "Simpsons</citetitle> that the copyright owner gets to control. If you take a "
7417 "selection of favorite episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets "
7418 "to come see <quote>My Favorite <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>,</quote> then "
7419 "you need to get permission from the copyright owner. And the copyright owner "
7420 "(rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she wants—$10 or "
7421 "$1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
7425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7426 #: freeculture.xml:5224
7428 "For an excellent argument that such use is <quote>fair use,</quote> but that "
7429 "lawyers don't permit recognition that it is <quote>fair use,</quote> see "
7430 "Richard A. Posner with William F. Patry, <quote>Fair Use and Statutory "
7431 "Reform in the Wake of <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle></quote> (draft on file "
7432 "with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August 2003."
7435 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7436 #: freeculture.xml:5221
7438 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
7439 "is <quote>fair use.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's "
7440 "use of just 4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a "
7441 "<citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> episode is clearly a fair use of "
7442 "<citetitle>The Simpsons</citetitle>—and fair use does not require the "
7443 "permission of anyone."
7447 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7448 #: freeculture.xml:5236
7450 "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon <quote>fair use.</quote> Here's "
7454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7455 #: freeculture.xml:5240
7457 "The <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> fiasco was for me a great lesson in the "
7458 "gulf between what lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what "
7459 "is crushingly relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make "
7460 "and broadcast documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was "
7461 "<quote>clearly fair use</quote> in an absolute legal sense. But I couldn't "
7462 "rely on the concept in any concrete way. Here's why:"
7466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7467 #: freeculture.xml:5250
7469 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
7470 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed <quote>visual cue "
7471 "sheet</quote> listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
7472 "film. They take a dim view of <quote>fair use,</quote> and a claim of "
7473 "<quote>fair use</quote> can grind the application process to a halt."
7476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7477 #: freeculture.xml:5257
7478 msgid "<citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle>"
7481 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
7482 #: freeculture.xml:5258
7483 msgid "Lucas, George"
7487 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7488 #: freeculture.xml:5261
7490 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
7491 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
7492 "stopping unlicensed <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle> usage, just as George "
7493 "Lucas had a very high profile litigating <citetitle>Star Wars</citetitle> "
7494 "usage. So I decided to play by the book, thinking that we would be granted "
7495 "free or cheap license to four seconds of <citetitle>Simpsons</citetitle>. As "
7496 "a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, the last thing "
7497 "I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal trouble, and even to "
7498 "defend a principle."
7503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7504 #: freeculture.xml:5273
7506 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
7507 "… who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox "
7508 "would <quote>depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,</quote> "
7509 "regardless of the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down "
7510 "to who had the bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
7514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
7515 #: freeculture.xml:5283
7517 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
7518 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
7521 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7522 #: freeculture.xml:5290
7524 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
7525 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
7526 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
7527 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
7528 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
7529 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
7532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7533 #: freeculture.xml:5298
7535 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
7536 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
7537 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
7538 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
7541 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
7542 #: freeculture.xml:5307
7543 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
7546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7547 #: freeculture.xml:5308
7551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
7552 #: freeculture.xml:5309 freeculture.xml:5369 freeculture.xml:5554 freeculture.xml:10000 freeculture.xml:14303
7556 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7557 #: freeculture.xml:5312
7559 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1993</emphasis>, Alex Alben was a lawyer working "
7560 "at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an innovative company founded by Microsoft "
7561 "cofounder Paul Allen to develop digital entertainment. Long before the "
7562 "Internet became popular, Starwave began investing in new technology for "
7563 "delivering entertainment in anticipation of the power of networks."
7566 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
7567 #: freeculture.xml:5319
7568 msgid "retrospective compilations on"
7571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7572 #: freeculture.xml:5320
7573 msgid "CD-ROMs, film clips used in"
7576 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7577 #: freeculture.xml:5322
7579 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
7580 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
7581 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
7582 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
7583 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
7584 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
7585 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
7588 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7589 #: freeculture.xml:5332
7591 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
7592 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
7593 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
7594 "include them on the CD."
7598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7599 #: freeculture.xml:5339
7601 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
7602 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
7603 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
7604 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
7605 "permission for that content."
7608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7609 #: freeculture.xml:5346
7611 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. <quote>Our "
7612 "goal was that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's "
7613 "films,</quote> Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. <quote>No "
7614 "one had ever really done this before,</quote> Alben explained. <quote>No one "
7615 "had ever tried to do this in the context of an artistic look at an actor's "
7619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7620 #: freeculture.xml:5354
7622 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
7623 "<quote>Well, what will it take?</quote>"
7626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
7627 #: freeculture.xml:5368
7628 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
7631 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7632 #: freeculture.xml:5364
7634 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
7635 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
7636 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden <quote>Rip, Mix, Burn</quote> "
7637 "creativity, as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7638 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7641 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7642 #: freeculture.xml:5358
7644 "Alben replied, <quote>Well, we're going to have to clear rights from "
7645 "everyone who appears in these films, and the music and everything else that "
7646 "we want to use in these film clips.</quote> Slade said, <quote>Great! Go for "
7647 "it.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7651 #: freeculture.xml:5373
7653 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
7654 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
7655 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
7656 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
7657 "Starwave was to do."
7660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7661 #: freeculture.xml:5380
7663 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
7664 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
7665 "recounted just what they did:"
7668 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7669 #: freeculture.xml:5386
7671 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
7672 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
7673 "going to use the <quote>Make my day</quote> clip from <citetitle>Dirty "
7674 "Harry</citetitle>. But you then need to get the guy on the ground who's "
7675 "wiggling under the gun and you need to get his permission. And then you "
7676 "have to decide what you are going to pay him."
7680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7681 #: freeculture.xml:5395
7683 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
7684 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
7685 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
7686 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
7687 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
7688 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
7689 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
7690 "just started calling people."
7693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7694 #: freeculture.xml:5406
7695 msgid "Sutherland, Donald"
7698 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7699 #: freeculture.xml:5408
7701 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
7702 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
7703 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, <quote>Hey, can I pay "
7704 "you $600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?</quote> And "
7705 "they would say, <quote>Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get "
7706 "$1,200.</quote> And some of course were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, "
7707 "in particular). But eventually, Alben and his team had cleared the rights to "
7708 "this retrospective CD-ROM on Clint Eastwood's career."
7711 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7712 #: freeculture.xml:5419
7714 "It was one <emphasis>year</emphasis> later—<quote>and even then we "
7715 "weren't sure whether we were totally in the clear.</quote>"
7718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7719 #: freeculture.xml:5423
7721 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
7722 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
7723 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
7726 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7727 #: freeculture.xml:5429
7729 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
7730 "and said, <quote>Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the "
7731 "music, there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the "
7732 "actors.</quote> But we just broke it down. We just put it into its "
7733 "constituent parts and said, <quote>Okay, there's this many actors, this many "
7734 "directors, … this many musicians,</quote> and we just went at it very "
7735 "systematically and cleared the rights."
7739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7740 #: freeculture.xml:5441
7742 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
7743 "and it sold very well."
7746 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7747 #: freeculture.xml:5444
7748 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
7752 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
7753 #: freeculture.xml:5452
7755 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, "
7756 "<citetitle>Seven Steps to Performance-Based Services "
7757 "Acquisition</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
7758 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
7761 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7762 #: freeculture.xml:5446
7764 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
7765 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
7766 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, <quote>There is "
7767 "nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
7768 "all.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I "
7769 "asked Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
7772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7773 #: freeculture.xml:5460
7775 "For, as he acknowledged, <quote>very few … have the time and "
7776 "resources, and the will to do this,</quote> and thus, very few such works "
7777 "would ever be made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of "
7778 "what anybody really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, "
7779 "that you would have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
7782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7783 #: freeculture.xml:5468
7785 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
7786 "gets paid very well. … And then when 30 seconds of that performance "
7787 "is used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I "
7788 "don't think that that person … should be compensated for that."
7791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7792 #: freeculture.xml:5476
7794 "Or at least, is this <emphasis>how</emphasis> the artist should be "
7795 "compensated? Would it make sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of "
7796 "statutory license that someone could pay and be free to make derivative use "
7797 "of clips like this? Did it really make sense that a follow-on creator would "
7798 "have to track down every artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit "
7799 "permission from each? Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of "
7800 "the creative process could be made to be more clean?"
7804 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
7805 #: freeculture.xml:5487
7807 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
7808 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
7809 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
7810 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
7811 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
7812 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
7813 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
7814 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
7815 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
7816 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
7817 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
7818 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, <quote>Oh, "
7819 "I want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
7820 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for "
7821 "money,</quote> then it becomes difficult to put one of these things "
7825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7826 #: freeculture.xml:5507
7828 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
7829 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
7830 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
7831 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
7832 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high?"
7835 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7836 #: freeculture.xml:5516
7838 "These costs are the burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat "
7839 "for a moment, and get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of "
7840 "these rights, and the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost "
7841 "to negotiate them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and "
7842 "imagine the pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from "
7843 "Los Angeles to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made "
7844 "sense; but as circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, "
7845 "a well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights "
7846 "and ask, <quote>Does this still make sense?</quote>"
7850 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7851 #: freeculture.xml:5529
7853 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
7854 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
7855 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
7856 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
7857 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
7858 "Fairbank, had produced."
7861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7862 #: freeculture.xml:5539
7864 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
7865 "century, all framed around the idea of a <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> "
7866 "episode. The execution was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The "
7867 "judges loved every minute of it."
7870 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7871 #: freeculture.xml:5544
7872 msgid "Nimmer, David"
7875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7876 #: freeculture.xml:5546
7878 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
7879 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
7880 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
7881 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
7882 "question: <quote>Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in "
7883 "this room?</quote>"
7886 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7887 #: freeculture.xml:5553
7888 msgid "Boies, David"
7891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7892 #: freeculture.xml:5556
7894 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
7895 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
7896 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
7897 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
7898 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
7899 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
7900 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
7901 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
7902 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
7903 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
7904 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
7905 "couldn't easily do them legally."
7908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7909 #: freeculture.xml:5571
7911 "We live in a <quote>cut and paste</quote> culture enabled by "
7912 "technology. Anyone building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom "
7913 "that the cut and paste architecture of the Internet created—in a "
7914 "second you can find just about any image you want; in another second, you "
7915 "can have it planted in your presentation."
7918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
7919 #: freeculture.xml:5577
7924 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7925 #: freeculture.xml:5579
7927 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
7928 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
7929 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
7930 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
7931 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
7932 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
7933 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
7937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7938 #: freeculture.xml:5590
7940 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
7941 "to be <quote>legal,</quote> the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
7942 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
7943 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
7944 "rules, it doesn't get released."
7947 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7948 #: freeculture.xml:5597
7950 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
7951 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
7952 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
7953 "the <quote>free</quote> use be free as in <quote>free beer.</quote> Instead, "
7954 "the system could simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate "
7955 "artists without requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for "
7956 "example, that says <quote>the royalty owed the copyright owner of an "
7957 "unregistered work for the derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 "
7958 "percent of net revenues, to be held in escrow for the copyright "
7959 "owner.</quote> Under this rule, the copyright owner could benefit from some "
7960 "royalty, but he would not have the benefit of a full property right (meaning "
7961 "the right to name his own price) unless he registers the work."
7964 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7965 #: freeculture.xml:5612
7967 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
7968 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
7969 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
7970 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
7974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7975 #: freeculture.xml:5618
7977 "<emphasis role='strong'>In February 2003</emphasis>, DreamWorks studios "
7978 "announced an agreement with Mike Myers, the comic genius of "
7979 "<citetitle>Saturday Night Live</citetitle> and Austin Powers. According to "
7980 "the announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work together to form a "
7981 "<quote>unique filmmaking pact.</quote> Under the agreement, DreamWorks "
7982 "<quote>will acquire the rights to existing motion picture hits and classics, "
7983 "write new storylines and—with the use of stateof-the-art digital "
7984 "technology—insert Myers and other actors into the film, thereby "
7985 "creating an entirely new piece of entertainment.</quote>"
7988 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
7989 #: freeculture.xml:5631
7991 "The announcement called this <quote>film sampling.</quote> As Myers "
7992 "explained, <quote>Film Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin "
7993 "on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap "
7994 "artists have been doing this for years with music and now we are able to "
7995 "take that same concept and apply it to film.</quote> Steven Spielberg is "
7996 "quoted as saying, <quote>If anyone can create a way to bring old films to "
7997 "new audiences, it is Mike.</quote>"
8000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8001 #: freeculture.xml:5640
8003 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
8004 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
8005 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
8006 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
8007 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
8008 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
8009 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
8010 "famous—and presumably rich."
8013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8014 #: freeculture.xml:5650
8016 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
8017 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of <quote>fair "
8018 "use.</quote> Much of <quote>sampling</quote> should be considered "
8019 "<quote>fair use.</quote> But few would rely upon so weak a doctrine to "
8020 "create. That leads to the second reason that the privilege is reserved for "
8021 "the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights for the creative reuse of "
8022 "content are astronomically high. These costs mirror the costs with fair "
8023 "use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair use rights or pay a lawyer "
8024 "to track down permissions so you don't have to rely upon fair use "
8025 "rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of paying "
8026 "lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the few."
8029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8030 #: freeculture.xml:5665
8031 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
8034 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8035 #: freeculture.xml:5666 freeculture.xml:8798 freeculture.xml:11018 freeculture.xml:11263
8036 msgid "archives, digital"
8039 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8040 #: freeculture.xml:5667 freeculture.xml:8097
8044 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8045 #: freeculture.xml:5669
8047 "<emphasis role='strong'>In April 1996</emphasis>, millions of "
8048 "<quote>bots</quote>—computer codes designed to <quote>spider,</quote> "
8049 "or automatically search the Internet and copy content—began running "
8050 "across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied Internet-based information "
8051 "onto a small set of computers located in a basement in San Francisco's "
8052 "Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of the Internet, they started "
8053 "again. Over and over again, once every two months, these bits of code took "
8054 "copies of the Internet and stored them."
8057 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8058 #: freeculture.xml:5679 freeculture.xml:5710 freeculture.xml:5772
8059 msgid "Way Back Machine"
8062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8063 #: freeculture.xml:5681
8065 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
8066 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
8067 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
8068 "technology called <quote>the Way Back Machine,</quote> you could enter a Web "
8069 "page, and see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those "
8073 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8074 #: freeculture.xml:5688
8075 msgid "Orwell, George"
8078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8079 #: freeculture.xml:5690
8081 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
8082 "the dystopia described in <citetitle>1984</citetitle>, old newspapers were "
8083 "constantly updated to assure that the current view of the world, approved of "
8084 "by the government, was not contradicted by previous news reports."
8088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8089 #: freeculture.xml:5698
8091 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
8092 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
8093 "printed on the date published on the paper."
8096 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8097 #: freeculture.xml:5703
8099 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
8100 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
8101 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
8102 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
8103 "updated, without any reliable memory."
8106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8107 #: freeculture.xml:5719
8108 msgid "White House press releases"
8111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8112 #: freeculture.xml:5718
8114 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
8115 "id=\"1\"/> The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the "
8116 "White House changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, "
8117 "press release stated, <quote>Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.</quote> "
8118 "That was later changed, without notice, to <quote>Major Combat Operations in "
8119 "Iraq Have Ended.</quote> E-mail from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
8122 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8123 #: freeculture.xml:5712
8125 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
8126 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
8127 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
8128 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
8129 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8132 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8133 #: freeculture.xml:5727
8134 msgid "history, records of"
8137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8138 #: freeculture.xml:5729
8140 "<emphasis role='strong'>We take it</emphasis> for granted that we can go "
8141 "back to see what we remember reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted "
8142 "to study the reaction of your hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts "
8143 "in 1965, or to Bull Connor's water cannon in 1963, you could go to your "
8144 "public library and look at the newspapers. Those papers probably exist on "
8145 "microfiche. If you're lucky, they exist in paper, too. Either way, you are "
8146 "free, using a library, to go back and remember—not just what it is "
8147 "convenient to remember, but remember something close to the truth."
8150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8151 #: freeculture.xml:5740
8153 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
8154 "it. That's not quite correct. We <emphasis>all</emphasis> forget "
8155 "history. The key is whether we have a way to go back to rediscover what we "
8156 "forget. More directly, the key is whether an objective past can keep us "
8157 "honest. Libraries help do that, by collecting content and keeping it, for "
8158 "schoolchildren, for researchers, for grandma. A free society presumes this "
8163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8164 #: freeculture.xml:5749
8166 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
8167 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
8168 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
8169 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
8170 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
8171 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
8172 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
8175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8176 #: freeculture.xml:5760
8178 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
8179 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
8180 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
8181 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
8182 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
8183 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
8184 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
8185 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
8188 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8189 #: freeculture.xml:5769 freeculture.xml:5823
8190 msgid "Library of Congress"
8193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8194 #: freeculture.xml:5770
8195 msgid "Television Archive"
8198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8199 #: freeculture.xml:5771
8200 msgid "Vanderbilt University"
8203 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8204 #: freeculture.xml:5773
8208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8209 #: freeculture.xml:5773
8210 msgid "archival function of"
8213 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8214 #: freeculture.xml:5775
8216 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
8217 "history. At the end of 2002, it held <quote>two hundred and thirty terabytes "
8218 "of material</quote>—and was <quote>ten times larger than the Library "
8219 "of Congress.</quote> And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle "
8220 "set out to build. In addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been "
8221 "constructing the Television Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more "
8222 "ephemeral than the Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was "
8223 "constructed through television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is "
8224 "available for anyone to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each "
8225 "evening by Vanderbilt University—thanks to a specific exemption in the "
8226 "copyright law. That content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a "
8227 "very low fee. <quote>But other than that, [television] is almost "
8228 "unavailable,</quote> Kahle told me. <quote>If you were Barbara Walters you "
8229 "could get access to [the archives], but if you are just a graduate "
8230 "student?</quote> As Kahle put it,"
8233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8234 #: freeculture.xml:5792
8238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
8239 #: freeculture.xml:5793
8244 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8245 #: freeculture.xml:5795
8247 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
8248 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
8249 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
8250 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
8251 "between the two, the <citetitle>60 Minutes</citetitle> episode that came out "
8252 "after it … it would be almost impossible. … Those materials "
8253 "are almost unfindable. …"
8256 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8257 #: freeculture.xml:5806
8261 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8262 #: freeculture.xml:5806
8266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8267 #: freeculture.xml:5808
8269 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
8270 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
8271 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
8272 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
8273 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
8274 "media on twentieth-century America?"
8277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8278 #: freeculture.xml:5816
8280 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
8281 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
8282 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
8283 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
8284 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
8287 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
8288 #: freeculture.xml:5824 freeculture.xml:5867
8293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8294 #: freeculture.xml:5835
8296 "Doug Herrick, <quote>Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at "
8297 "the Library of Congress,</quote> <citetitle>Film Library "
8298 "Quarterly</citetitle> 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; Anthony Slide, "
8299 "<citetitle>Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United "
8300 "States</citetitle> ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
8303 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8304 #: freeculture.xml:5826
8306 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
8307 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
8308 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
8309 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
8310 "more than 5,475 films deposited and <quote>borrowed back.</quote> Thus, when "
8311 "the copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The "
8312 "copy exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the "
8313 "film company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8316 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8317 #: freeculture.xml:5843
8319 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
8320 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
8321 "so there was no fear of <quote>theft.</quote> But as technology enabled "
8322 "capturing, broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required "
8323 "they make a copy of each broadcast for the work to be "
8324 "<quote>copyrighted.</quote> But those copies were simply kept by the "
8325 "broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't demand "
8326 "them. The content of this part of American culture is practically invisible "
8327 "to anyone who would look."
8330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8331 #: freeculture.xml:5853
8332 msgid "September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of"
8336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8337 #: freeculture.xml:5855
8339 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
8340 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
8341 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
8342 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
8343 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
8344 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
8345 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
8348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8349 #: freeculture.xml:5865
8350 msgid "Movie Archive"
8353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8354 #: freeculture.xml:5866
8358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8359 #: freeculture.xml:5866 freeculture.xml:5868
8360 msgid "Internet Archive"
8363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8364 #: freeculture.xml:5869
8365 msgid "Duck and Cover film"
8368 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8369 #: freeculture.xml:5870
8370 msgid "ephemeral films"
8373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8374 #: freeculture.xml:5871
8375 msgid "Prelinger, Rick"
8378 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8379 #: freeculture.xml:5873
8381 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
8382 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 <quote>ephemeral films</quote> "
8383 "(meaning films other than Hollywood movies, films that were never "
8384 "copyrighted), Kahle established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle "
8385 "digitize 1,300 films in this archive and post those films on the Internet to "
8386 "be downloaded for free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies "
8387 "of these films as stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he "
8388 "made a significant chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
8389 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
8390 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
8391 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
8392 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
8393 "<quote>Duck and Cover</quote> film that instructed children how to save "
8394 "themselves in the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can "
8395 "download the film in a few minutes—for free."
8398 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8399 #: freeculture.xml:5891
8401 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
8402 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
8403 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
8404 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
8405 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
8408 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8409 #: freeculture.xml:5899
8411 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
8412 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
8413 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
8414 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
8415 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
8419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8420 #: freeculture.xml:5907
8422 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
8423 "creative property goes through different <quote>lives.</quote> In its first "
8424 "life, if the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the "
8425 "commercial market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of "
8426 "creative property doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For "
8427 "that content, commercial life is extremely important. Without this "
8428 "commercial market, there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
8431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8432 #: freeculture.xml:5919
8434 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
8435 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
8436 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
8437 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
8438 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
8439 "even if that information is no longer sold."
8442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8443 #: freeculture.xml:5932
8445 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Dave Barns, <quote>Fledgling "
8446 "Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter "
8447 "by Adopting Business,</quote> <citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 5 "
8448 "September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, "
8449 "only 2.2 percent were in print in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, <quote>The First "
8450 "Sale Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks,</quote> <citetitle>Boston "
8451 "College Law Review</citetitle> 44 (2003): 593 n. 51."
8454 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8455 #: freeculture.xml:5929
8457 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
8458 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
8459 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
8460 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
8461 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
8462 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
8463 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
8466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8467 #: freeculture.xml:5947
8469 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
8470 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
8471 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
8472 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
8473 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
8474 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
8475 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
8476 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
8480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8481 #: freeculture.xml:5958
8483 "<emphasis role='strong'>For most of</emphasis> the twentieth century, it was "
8484 "economics that made this so. It would have been insanely expensive to "
8485 "collect and make accessible all television and film and music: The cost of "
8486 "analog copies is extraordinarily high. So even though the law in principle "
8487 "would have restricted the ability of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture "
8488 "generally, the real restriction was economics. The market made it impossibly "
8489 "difficult to do anything about this ephemeral culture; the law had little "
8493 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8494 #: freeculture.xml:5970
8496 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
8497 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
8498 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
8499 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
8500 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
8501 "moving images and sound."
8504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8505 #: freeculture.xml:5978
8507 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
8508 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
8509 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
8513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><indexterm><secondary>
8514 #: freeculture.xml:5984
8515 msgid "total number of"
8518 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8519 #: freeculture.xml:5986
8521 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
8522 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
8523 "… and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the "
8524 "twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of "
8525 "books. All of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and "
8526 "be able to be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in "
8527 "our history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
8528 "different life, based on this, is … thrilling. It could be one of the "
8529 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
8530 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
8535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8536 #: freeculture.xml:6001
8538 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
8539 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
8540 "libraries or archives could be. <emphasis>When</emphasis> the commercial "
8541 "life of creative property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it "
8542 "does, Kahle and his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and "
8543 "culture, remains perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand "
8544 "it; some to criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create "
8545 "the past for the future. These technologies promise something that had "
8546 "become unimaginable for much of our past—a future "
8547 "<emphasis>for</emphasis> our past. The technology of digital arts could make "
8548 "the dream of the Library of Alexandria real again."
8551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8552 #: freeculture.xml:6016
8554 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
8555 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
8556 "these <quote>archives,</quote> as warm as the idea of a "
8557 "<quote>library</quote> might seem, the <quote>content</quote> that is "
8558 "collected in these digital spaces is also someone's <quote>property.</quote> "
8559 "And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and others would "
8563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
8564 #: freeculture.xml:6027
8565 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: <quote>Property</quote>"
8568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8569 #: freeculture.xml:6028
8570 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
8573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8574 #: freeculture.xml:6029 freeculture.xml:9756
8575 msgid "Kennedy, John F."
8578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8579 #: freeculture.xml:6031
8581 "<emphasis role='strong'>Jack Valenti</emphasis> has been the president of "
8582 "the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966. He first came to "
8583 "Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's administration—literally. The "
8584 "famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in on Air Force One after the "
8585 "assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in the background. In his "
8586 "almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has established himself as "
8587 "perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in Washington."
8590 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8591 #: freeculture.xml:6041
8592 msgid "Sony Pictures Entertainment"
8595 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8596 #: freeculture.xml:6042
8600 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8601 #: freeculture.xml:6043
8602 msgid "Paramount Pictures"
8605 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8606 #: freeculture.xml:6044
8607 msgid "Twentieth Century Fox"
8610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8611 #: freeculture.xml:6045
8612 msgid "Universal Pictures"
8615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8616 #: freeculture.xml:6046 freeculture.xml:7474
8617 msgid "Warner Brothers"
8620 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8621 #: freeculture.xml:6048
8623 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
8624 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
8625 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
8626 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
8627 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
8628 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
8629 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
8630 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
8631 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers."
8635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8636 #: freeculture.xml:6061
8638 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
8639 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
8640 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
8641 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
8642 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
8643 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
8644 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
8645 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
8646 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
8649 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8650 #: freeculture.xml:6073
8652 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
8653 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
8654 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
8655 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
8656 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
8657 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of "
8658 "<quote>creative property.</quote>"
8661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8662 #: freeculture.xml:6082
8663 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
8667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
8668 #: freeculture.xml:6096
8670 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
8671 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
8672 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
8673 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
8674 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
8677 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
8678 #: freeculture.xml:6087
8680 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
8681 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
8682 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
8683 "animates this entire debate: <emphasis>Creative property owners must be "
8684 "accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other property "
8685 "owners in the nation</emphasis>. That is the issue. That is the "
8686 "question. And that is the rostrum on which this entire hearing and the "
8687 "debates to follow must rest.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8691 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8692 #: freeculture.xml:6106
8694 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
8695 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
8696 "<quote>central theme</quote> to which <quote>reasonable men and "
8697 "women</quote> will return is this: <quote>Creative property owners must be "
8698 "accorded the same rights and protections resident in all other property "
8699 "owners in the nation.</quote> There are no second-class citizens, Valenti "
8700 "might have continued. There should be no second-class property owners."
8703 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8704 #: freeculture.xml:6117
8706 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
8707 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
8708 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
8709 "made by <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> who is serious in this debate than this "
8710 "claim of Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is "
8711 "perhaps the nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and "
8712 "scope of <quote>creative property.</quote> His views have "
8713 "<emphasis>no</emphasis> reasonable connection to our actual legal tradition, "
8714 "even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly redefined that "
8715 "tradition, at least in Washington."
8719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
8720 #: freeculture.xml:6132
8722 "Lawyers speak of <quote>property</quote> not as an absolute thing, but as a "
8723 "bundle of rights that are sometimes associated with a particular "
8724 "object. Thus, my <quote>property right</quote> to my car gives me the right "
8725 "to exclusive use, but not the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the "
8726 "best effort to connect the ordinary meaning of <quote>property</quote> to "
8727 "<quote>lawyer talk,</quote> see Bruce Ackerman, <citetitle>Private Property "
8728 "and the Constitution</citetitle> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), "
8732 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8733 #: freeculture.xml:6129
8735 "While <quote>creative property</quote> is certainly <quote>property</quote> "
8736 "in a nerdy and precise sense that lawyers are trained to "
8737 "understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it has never been the "
8738 "case, nor should it be, that <quote>creative property owners</quote> have "
8739 "been <quote>accorded the same rights and protection resident in all other "
8740 "property owners.</quote> Indeed, if creative property owners were given the "
8741 "same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a radical, and "
8742 "radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
8745 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8746 #: freeculture.xml:6147
8748 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
8749 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
8750 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
8751 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
8752 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
8756 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8757 #: freeculture.xml:6155
8759 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
8760 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
8761 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
8762 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
8763 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
8764 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
8765 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
8766 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
8767 "creativity having less than perfect control."
8770 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8771 #: freeculture.xml:6170
8773 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
8774 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
8775 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
8776 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
8777 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
8778 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
8782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8783 #: freeculture.xml:6179
8785 "<emphasis role='strong'>To get</emphasis> just a hint that there is "
8786 "something fundamentally wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further "
8787 "than the United States Constitution itself."
8790 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8791 #: freeculture.xml:6184
8793 "The framers of our Constitution loved <quote>property.</quote> Indeed, so "
8794 "strongly did they love property that they built into the Constitution an "
8795 "important requirement. If the government takes your property—if it "
8796 "condemns your house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is "
8797 "required, under the Fifth Amendment's <quote>Takings Clause,</quote> to pay "
8798 "you <quote>just compensation</quote> for that taking. The Constitution thus "
8799 "guarantees that property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot "
8800 "<emphasis>ever</emphasis> be taken from the property owner unless the "
8801 "government pays for the privilege."
8805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8806 #: freeculture.xml:6195
8808 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
8809 "calls <quote>creative property.</quote> In the clause granting Congress the "
8810 "power to create <quote>creative property,</quote> the Constitution "
8811 "<emphasis>requires</emphasis> that after a <quote>limited time,</quote> "
8812 "Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set the "
8813 "<quote>creative property</quote> free to the public domain. Yet when "
8814 "Congress does this, when the expiration of a copyright term "
8815 "<quote>takes</quote> your copyright and turns it over to the public domain, "
8816 "Congress does not have any obligation to pay <quote>just "
8817 "compensation</quote> for this <quote>taking.</quote> Instead, the same "
8818 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
8819 "your <quote>creative property</quote> right without any compensation at all."
8822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8823 #: freeculture.xml:6210
8825 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
8826 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
8827 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
8828 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
8829 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
8830 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
8833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8834 #: freeculture.xml:6219
8836 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
8837 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
8838 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
8839 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
8840 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
8841 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
8842 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
8843 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
8844 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
8847 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8848 #: freeculture.xml:6231
8850 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
8851 "try to understand <emphasis>why</emphasis>. Why did the framers, fanatical "
8852 "property types that they were, reject the claim that creative property be "
8853 "given the same rights as all other property? Why did they require that for "
8854 "creative property there must be a public domain?"
8857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8858 #: freeculture.xml:6239
8860 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
8861 "these <quote>creative property</quote> rights, and the control that they "
8862 "enabled. Once we see clearly how differently these rights have been "
8863 "defined, we will be in a better position to ask the question that should be "
8864 "at the core of this war: Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> creative property "
8865 "should be protected, but how. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> we will "
8866 "enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but what the "
8867 "particular mix of rights ought to be. Not <emphasis>whether</emphasis> "
8868 "artists should be paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that "
8869 "artists get paid need also control how culture develops."
8873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8874 #: freeculture.xml:6254
8876 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
8877 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
8878 "narrow language of the law allows. In <citetitle>Code and Other Laws of "
8879 "Cyberspace</citetitle>, I used a simple model to capture this more general "
8880 "perspective. For any particular right or regulation, this model asks how "
8881 "four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the "
8882 "right or regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
8885 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
8886 #: freeculture.xml:6263
8888 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
8889 "the right or regulation."
8892 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
8893 #: freeculture.xml:6264 freeculture.xml:6448 freeculture.xml:6755
8894 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.png\"></graphic>"
8897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8898 #: freeculture.xml:6267
8900 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
8901 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
8902 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
8903 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
8904 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
8905 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
8906 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
8907 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
8908 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
8909 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
8910 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
8911 "by the state. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
8914 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8915 #: freeculture.xml:6283 freeculture.xml:6342 freeculture.xml:6451
8916 msgid "norms, regulatory influence of"
8919 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8920 #: freeculture.xml:6285
8922 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
8923 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
8924 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
8925 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
8926 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
8927 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
8928 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
8929 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
8932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
8933 #: freeculture.xml:6295 freeculture.xml:6341 freeculture.xml:6431 freeculture.xml:6450 freeculture.xml:9381 freeculture.xml:9580
8934 msgid "market constraints"
8937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8938 #: freeculture.xml:6297
8940 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
8941 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
8942 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
8943 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
8944 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
8945 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
8946 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
8949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8950 #: freeculture.xml:6306 freeculture.xml:6340 freeculture.xml:6389 freeculture.xml:6430
8951 msgid "architecture, constraint effected through"
8954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8955 #: freeculture.xml:6308
8957 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
8958 "<quote>architecture</quote>—the physical world as one finds "
8959 "it—is a constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your "
8960 "ability to get across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability "
8961 "of a community to integrate its social life. As with the market, "
8962 "architecture does not effect its constraint through ex post "
8963 "punishments. Instead, also as with the market, architecture effects its "
8964 "constraint through simultaneous conditions. These conditions are imposed not "
8965 "by courts enforcing contracts, or by police punishing theft, but by nature, "
8966 "by <quote>architecture.</quote> If a 500-pound boulder blocks your way, it "
8967 "is the law of gravity that enforces this constraint. If a $500 airplane "
8968 "ticket stands between you and a flight to New York, it is the market that "
8969 "enforces this constraint."
8973 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8974 #: freeculture.xml:6325
8976 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
8977 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
8978 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
8981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8982 #: freeculture.xml:6331
8984 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
8985 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
8986 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
8987 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
8988 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
8989 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
8990 "particular interact."
8993 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
8994 #: freeculture.xml:6339
8995 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
8998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
8999 #: freeculture.xml:6344
9001 "So, for example, consider the <quote>freedom</quote> to drive a car at a "
9002 "high speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that "
9003 "say how fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is "
9004 "in part restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most "
9005 "rational drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum "
9006 "rate at which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the "
9007 "market: Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
9008 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
9009 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
9010 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
9011 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
9015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9016 #: freeculture.xml:6362
9018 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
9019 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
9020 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
9021 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
9022 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, <citetitle>Code: And Other "
9023 "Laws of Cyberspace</citetitle> (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; "
9024 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>The New Chicago School,</quote> <citetitle>Journal "
9025 "of Legal Studies</citetitle>, June 1998."
9029 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9030 #: freeculture.xml:6358
9032 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
9033 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
9034 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
9035 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
9036 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
9037 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
9038 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
9039 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
9040 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
9041 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
9042 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
9046 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
9047 #: freeculture.xml:6386
9048 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
9051 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
9052 #: freeculture.xml:6387
9053 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.png\"></graphic>"
9056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9057 #: freeculture.xml:6428
9058 msgid "Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)"
9061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9062 #: freeculture.xml:6429
9063 msgid "Commons, John R."
9066 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
9067 #: freeculture.xml:6399
9069 "Some people object to this way of talking about <quote>liberty.</quote> They "
9070 "object because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at "
9071 "any particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the "
9072 "government. For instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think "
9073 "it is meaningless to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge "
9074 "has washed out, and it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk "
9075 "about this as a loss of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of "
9076 "politics with the vagaries of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value "
9077 "in this narrower view, which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, "
9078 "however, mean to argue against any insistence that this narrower view is the "
9079 "only proper view of liberty. As I argued in <citetitle>Code</citetitle>, we "
9080 "come from a long tradition of political thought with a broader focus than "
9081 "the narrow question of what the government did when. John Stuart Mill "
9082 "defended freedom of speech, for example, from the tyranny of narrow minds, "
9083 "not from the fear of government prosecution; John Stuart Mill, <citetitle>On "
9084 "Liberty</citetitle> (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. John "
9085 "R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from constraints "
9086 "imposed by the market; John R. Commons, <quote>The Right to Work,</quote> in "
9087 "Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., <citetitle>John R. Commons: "
9088 "Selected Essays</citetitle> (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans "
9089 "with Disabilities Act increases the liberty of people with physical "
9090 "disabilities by changing the architecture of certain public places, thereby "
9091 "making access to those places easier; 42 <citetitle>United States "
9092 "Code</citetitle>, section 12101 (2000). Each of these interventions to "
9093 "change existing conditions changes the liberty of a particular group. The "
9094 "effect of those interventions should be accounted for in order to understand "
9095 "the effective liberty that each of these groups might face. <placeholder "
9096 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
9097 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
9101 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
9102 #: freeculture.xml:6391
9104 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
9105 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
9106 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
9107 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
9108 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9112 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9113 #: freeculture.xml:6435
9114 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
9117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9118 #: freeculture.xml:6437
9120 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
9121 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
9122 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
9126 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9127 #: freeculture.xml:6443
9128 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
9131 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9132 #: freeculture.xml:6447 freeculture.xml:6754
9133 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
9137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9138 #: freeculture.xml:6454
9140 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
9141 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
9142 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
9143 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
9144 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
9145 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
9146 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
9147 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
9148 "this form of infringement."
9151 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9152 #: freeculture.xml:6466
9154 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
9155 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
9156 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
9157 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
9158 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
9159 "of anarchy after the Internet."
9163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9164 #: freeculture.xml:6474
9166 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
9167 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
9168 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
9169 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
9170 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
9174 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9175 #: freeculture.xml:6484
9176 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
9179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9180 #: freeculture.xml:6485
9181 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.png\"></graphic>"
9184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9185 #: freeculture.xml:6488
9187 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
9188 "warriors. Indeed, in a <quote>White Paper</quote> prepared by the Commerce "
9189 "Department (one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this "
9190 "mix of regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
9191 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
9192 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
9193 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
9194 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
9195 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
9198 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9199 #: freeculture.xml:6499
9200 msgid "steel industry"
9204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9205 #: freeculture.xml:6501
9207 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
9208 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
9209 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
9210 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
9211 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
9212 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
9213 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
9214 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
9215 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
9216 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
9217 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
9218 "U.S. steel industry."
9221 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9222 #: freeculture.xml:6518
9224 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
9225 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
9226 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
9227 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
9228 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
9229 "<quote>architecture of revenue.</quote>"
9232 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9233 #: freeculture.xml:6525
9234 msgid "railroad industry"
9238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9239 #: freeculture.xml:6537
9241 "See Geoffrey Smith, <quote>Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a "
9242 "Bridge?</quote> BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
9243 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
9244 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, "
9245 "<quote>Can Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?</quote> Forbes.com, 6 October "
9246 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
9250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9251 #: freeculture.xml:6529
9253 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
9254 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
9255 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
9256 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
9257 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
9258 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
9259 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
9260 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
9261 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
9262 "trucks from roads <emphasis>for the purpose of</emphasis> protecting the "
9263 "railroads? Closer to the subject of this book, remote channel changers have "
9264 "weakened the <quote>stickiness</quote> of television advertising (if a "
9265 "boring commercial comes on the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf ), and "
9266 "it may well be that this change has weakened the television advertising "
9267 "market. But does anyone believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce "
9268 "commercial television? (Maybe by limiting them to function only once a "
9269 "second, or to switch to only ten channels within an hour?)"
9272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
9273 #: freeculture.xml:6558 freeculture.xml:14879
9274 msgid "Brezhnev, Leonid"
9277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
9278 #: freeculture.xml:6559 freeculture.xml:13115
9283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9284 #: freeculture.xml:6571
9286 "Fred Warshofsky, <citetitle>The Patent Wars</citetitle> (New York: Wiley, "
9287 "1994), 170–71."
9290 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9291 #: freeculture.xml:6561
9293 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
9294 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
9295 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
9296 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
9297 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
9298 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
9299 "patents, <quote>established companies have an interest in excluding future "
9300 "competitors.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative "
9301 "to a startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
9302 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
9303 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
9304 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
9305 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev."
9308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9309 #: freeculture.xml:6582
9311 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
9312 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
9313 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
9314 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
9315 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
9316 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
9317 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
9320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9321 #: freeculture.xml:6592
9323 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
9324 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
9325 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
9326 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
9327 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
9328 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
9329 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
9330 "Constitution: <quote>Congress shall make no law … abridging the "
9331 "freedom of speech.</quote> So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that "
9332 "would <quote>abridge</quote> the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
9333 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
9337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9338 #: freeculture.xml:6606
9340 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
9341 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are "
9342 "<quote>justified.</quote> My argument is about their effect. For before we "
9343 "get to the question of justification, a hard question that depends a great "
9344 "deal upon your values, we should first ask whether we understand the effect "
9345 "of the changes the content industry wants."
9348 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9349 #: freeculture.xml:6615
9350 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
9353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9354 #: freeculture.xml:6617
9358 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9359 #: freeculture.xml:6618
9360 msgid "Müller, Paul Hermann"
9363 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9364 #: freeculture.xml:6620
9366 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
9367 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
9368 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
9369 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
9370 "increase farm production."
9373 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9374 #: freeculture.xml:6627
9376 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
9377 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
9378 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
9381 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9382 #: freeculture.xml:6631
9383 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
9386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9387 #: freeculture.xml:6632
9388 msgid "Silent Sprint (Carson)"
9391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9392 #: freeculture.xml:6634
9394 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published <citetitle>Silent Spring</citetitle>, "
9395 "which argued that DDT, whatever its primary benefits, was also having "
9396 "unintended environmental consequences. Birds were losing the ability to "
9397 "reproduce. Whole chains of the ecology were being destroyed."
9400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9401 #: freeculture.xml:6640
9403 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
9404 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
9405 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
9406 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
9407 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
9408 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
9412 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
9413 #: freeculture.xml:6648
9414 msgid "Boyle, James"
9418 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9419 #: freeculture.xml:6654
9421 "See, for example, James Boyle, <quote>A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
9422 "Environmentalism for the Net?</quote> <citetitle>Duke Law "
9423 "Journal</citetitle> 47 (1997): 87."
9427 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9428 #: freeculture.xml:6650
9430 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
9431 "appeals when he argues that we need an <quote>environmentalism</quote> for "
9432 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
9433 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
9434 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
9435 "that music should be given away <quote>for free.</quote> The point is that "
9436 "some of the ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended "
9437 "consequences for the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural "
9438 "environment. And just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria "
9439 "or an attack on farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of "
9440 "regulations protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack "
9441 "on authors. It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should "
9442 "be aware of our actions' effects on the environment."
9445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9446 #: freeculture.xml:6671
9448 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
9449 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
9450 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
9451 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
9452 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
9453 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
9454 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
9455 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
9459 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9460 #: freeculture.xml:6682
9462 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
9463 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
9466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9467 #: freeculture.xml:6689
9471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9472 #: freeculture.xml:6691
9474 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
9475 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of <quote>creative "
9476 "property</quote> rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English "
9477 "aim to avoid overly powerful publishers."
9480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9481 #: freeculture.xml:6697
9483 "The power to establish <quote>creative property</quote> rights is granted to "
9484 "Congress in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article "
9485 "I, section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
9489 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9490 #: freeculture.xml:6702
9492 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
9493 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
9494 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
9495 "<quote>Progress Clause,</quote> for notice what this clause does not say. It "
9496 "does not say Congress has the power to grant <quote>creative property "
9497 "rights.</quote> It says that Congress has the power <emphasis>to promote "
9498 "progress</emphasis>. The grant of power is its purpose, and its purpose is a "
9499 "public one, not the purpose of enriching publishers, nor even primarily the "
9500 "purpose of rewarding authors."
9503 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9504 #: freeculture.xml:6715
9506 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
9507 "chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"founders\"/>, the "
9508 "English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a few would not "
9509 "exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
9510 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
9511 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
9512 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend <quote>to "
9513 "Authors</quote> only."
9516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9517 #: freeculture.xml:6725
9519 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
9520 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
9521 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
9522 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
9523 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
9524 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
9525 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
9526 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
9527 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
9528 "select the president. In each case, a <emphasis>structure</emphasis> built "
9529 "checks and balances into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent "
9530 "otherwise inevitable concentrations of power."
9533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9534 #: freeculture.xml:6740
9536 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call "
9537 "<quote>copyright</quote> today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond "
9538 "anything they ever considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need "
9539 "to put our <quote>copyright</quote> in context: We need to see how it has "
9540 "changed in the 210 years since they first struck its design."
9544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9545 #: freeculture.xml:6747
9547 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
9548 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
9549 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
9552 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9553 #: freeculture.xml:6758
9554 msgid "We will end here:"
9557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
9558 #: freeculture.xml:6761
9559 msgid "<quote>Copyright</quote> today."
9562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
9563 #: freeculture.xml:6762
9564 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.png\"></graphic>"
9568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9569 #: freeculture.xml:6765
9570 msgid "Let me explain how."
9573 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9574 #: freeculture.xml:6770
9575 msgid "Law: Duration"
9578 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9579 #: freeculture.xml:6786
9580 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
9583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9584 #: freeculture.xml:6780
9586 "William W. Crosskey, <citetitle>Politics and the Constitution in the History "
9587 "of the United States</citetitle> (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), "
9588 "vol. 1, 485–86: <quote>extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the "
9589 "supreme Law of the Land,' <emphasis>the perpetual rights which authors had, "
9590 "or were supposed by some to have, under the Common Law</emphasis></quote> "
9591 "(emphasis added). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9595 #: freeculture.xml:6772
9597 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
9598 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
9599 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
9600 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
9601 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
9602 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
9603 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
9604 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
9605 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
9606 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
9607 "to reprint and distribute works."
9610 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9611 #: freeculture.xml:6796
9613 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
9614 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
9615 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
9616 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
9617 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
9621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9622 #: freeculture.xml:6804
9624 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
9625 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
9626 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
9627 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
9628 "work passed into the public domain."
9632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9633 #: freeculture.xml:6819
9635 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
9636 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, <citetitle>A "
9637 "History of Book Publishing in the United States</citetitle>, vol. 1, "
9638 "<citetitle>The Creation of an Industry, 1630–1865</citetitle> (New "
9639 "York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints recorded before 1790, only "
9640 "twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; William J. Maher, "
9641 "<citetitle>Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright Law of "
9642 "1790 in Historical Context</citetitle>, 7–10 (2002), available at "
9643 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
9644 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
9645 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
9646 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
9647 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
9648 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
9651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9652 #: freeculture.xml:6811
9654 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
9655 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
9656 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
9657 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
9658 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
9659 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
9660 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9664 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9665 #: freeculture.xml:6835
9667 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
9668 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
9669 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
9670 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
9671 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
9675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9676 #: freeculture.xml:6850
9678 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
9679 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
9680 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
9681 "<quote>Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,</quote> <citetitle>Studies on "
9682 "Copyright</citetitle>, vol. 1 (New York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), "
9683 "618. For a more recent and comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and "
9684 "Richard A. Posner, <quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> "
9685 "<citetitle>University of Chicago Law Review</citetitle> 70 (2003): 471, "
9686 "498–501, and accompanying figures."
9689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9690 #: freeculture.xml:6844
9692 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
9693 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
9694 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
9695 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9701 #: freeculture.xml:6867
9702 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
9705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9706 #: freeculture.xml:6863
9708 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
9709 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
9710 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
9711 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
9712 "books are no longer <emphasis>effectively</emphasis> controlled by "
9713 "copyright. The only practical commercial use of the books at that time is to "
9714 "sell the books as used books; that use—because it does not involve "
9715 "publication—is effectively free."
9718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9719 #: freeculture.xml:6875
9721 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
9722 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
9723 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
9724 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
9725 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
9726 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
9729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9730 #: freeculture.xml:6883
9732 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
9733 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
9734 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
9735 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
9736 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
9737 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
9738 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
9739 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
9743 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9744 #: freeculture.xml:6893
9746 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
9747 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
9748 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
9749 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
9750 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
9751 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
9755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9756 #: freeculture.xml:6904
9758 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
9759 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
9760 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
9761 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
9762 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
9763 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
9764 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
9767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9768 #: freeculture.xml:6914
9770 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
9771 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
9772 "term. For <quote>natural</quote> authors, that term was life plus fifty "
9773 "years. For corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, "
9774 "Congress abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before "
9775 "1978. All works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term "
9776 "then available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
9779 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9780 #: freeculture.xml:6924
9782 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
9783 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
9784 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
9785 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
9786 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be "
9787 "<quote>limited,</quote> we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
9791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9792 #: freeculture.xml:6941
9794 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
9795 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
9796 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
9797 "<quote>Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,</quote> loc. cit."
9800 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9801 #: freeculture.xml:6933
9803 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
9804 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
9805 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
9806 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
9807 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
9808 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
9809 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
9813 #: freeculture.xml:6950
9817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9818 #: freeculture.xml:6952
9820 "The <quote>scope</quote> of a copyright is the range of rights granted by "
9821 "the law. The scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those "
9822 "changes are not necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the "
9823 "changes if we're to keep this debate in context."
9826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9827 #: freeculture.xml:6958
9829 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only <quote>maps, "
9830 "charts, and books.</quote> That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
9831 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
9832 "author the exclusive right to <quote>publish</quote> copyrighted works. That "
9833 "means someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work "
9834 "without the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a "
9835 "copyright was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not "
9836 "extend to what lawyers call <quote>derivative works.</quote> It would not, "
9837 "therefore, interfere with the right of someone other than the author to "
9838 "translate a copyrighted book, or to adapt the story to a different form "
9839 "(such as a drama based on a published book)."
9842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9843 #: freeculture.xml:6971
9845 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
9846 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
9847 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
9848 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
9849 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
9850 "<quote>publish</quote> the work, but also the exclusive right of control "
9851 "over any <quote>copies</quote> of that work. And most significant for our "
9852 "purposes here, the right gives the copyright owner control over not only his "
9853 "or her particular work, but also any <quote>derivative work</quote> that "
9854 "might grow out of the original work. In this way, the right covers more "
9855 "creative work, protects the creative work more broadly, and protects works "
9856 "that are based in a significant way on the initial creative work."
9860 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9861 #: freeculture.xml:6986
9863 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
9864 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
9865 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
9866 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
9867 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
9868 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
9869 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
9870 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis>. And for most of the history of American "
9871 "copyright law, there was a requirement that works be deposited with the "
9872 "government before a copyright could be secured."
9875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9876 #: freeculture.xml:7000
9878 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
9879 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
9880 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
9881 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
9882 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
9883 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
9884 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
9885 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
9886 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
9887 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
9891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9892 #: freeculture.xml:7014
9894 "All of these <quote>formalities</quote> were abolished in the American "
9895 "system when we decided to follow European copyright law. There is no "
9896 "requirement that you register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now "
9897 "is automatic; the copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a "
9898 "©; and the copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy "
9899 "available for others to copy."
9902 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9903 #: freeculture.xml:7022
9904 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
9908 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9909 #: freeculture.xml:7033
9911 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, <quote>Poets, Pirates, and the "
9912 "Creation of American Literature,</quote> 29 <citetitle>New York University "
9913 "Journal of International Law and Politics</citetitle> 255 (1997), and James "
9914 "Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, 1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., "
9918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9919 #: freeculture.xml:7026
9921 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
9922 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
9923 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
9924 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
9925 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
9926 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
9927 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
9928 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
9932 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9933 #: freeculture.xml:7045
9935 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
9936 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
9937 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
9938 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
9939 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
9940 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
9943 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9944 #: freeculture.xml:7054
9946 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
9947 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
9948 "note to your spouse, every doodle, <emphasis>every</emphasis> creative act "
9949 "that's reduced to a tangible form—all of this is automatically "
9950 "copyrighted. There is no need to register or mark your work. The protection "
9951 "follows the creation, not the steps you take to protect it."
9954 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9955 #: freeculture.xml:7063
9957 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
9958 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
9959 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
9962 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9963 #: freeculture.xml:7068
9965 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
9966 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
9967 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of <quote>derivative "
9968 "rights.</quote> If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your "
9969 "book without permission. No one can translate it without permission. "
9970 "CliffsNotes can't make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of "
9971 "these derivative uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright "
9972 "holder. The copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to "
9973 "your writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large "
9974 "proportion of the writings inspired by them."
9977 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9978 #: freeculture.xml:7082
9980 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
9981 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
9982 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
9983 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
9984 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
9985 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
9986 "the verbatim original work."
9989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
9990 #: freeculture.xml:7104
9992 "Jonathan Zittrain, <quote>The Copyright Cage,</quote> <citetitle>Legal "
9993 "Affairs</citetitle>, July/August 2003, available at <ulink "
9994 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>. <placeholder "
9995 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9998 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
9999 #: freeculture.xml:7094
10001 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
10002 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
10003 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
10004 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
10005 "work. But whatever <emphasis>that</emphasis> wrong is, transforming someone "
10006 "else's work is a different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at "
10007 "all—they believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not "
10008 "protect derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10009 "Whether or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is "
10010 "involved is fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
10013 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
10014 #: freeculture.xml:7126
10015 msgid "Rubenfeld, Jeb"
10018 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10019 #: freeculture.xml:7119
10021 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
10022 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
10023 "First Amendment) between mere <quote>copies</quote> and derivative "
10024 "works. See Jed Rubenfeld, <quote>The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's "
10025 "Constitutionality,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law Journal</citetitle> 112 "
10026 "(2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59). <placeholder "
10027 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
10030 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10031 #: freeculture.xml:7114
10033 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
10034 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
10035 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
10036 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
10037 "my creative work are treated the same."
10040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10041 #: freeculture.xml:7133
10043 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
10044 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
10045 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called "
10046 "<quote>Mickey Mouse,</quote> why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse "
10047 "toys and be the one to trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
10050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10051 #: freeculture.xml:7141
10053 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
10054 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
10055 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
10056 "originally granted."
10059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10060 #: freeculture.xml:7148
10061 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
10065 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10066 #: freeculture.xml:7155
10068 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
10069 "regulates more than <quote>copies</quote>—a public performance of a "
10070 "copyrighted song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se "
10071 "doesn't make a copy; 17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section "
10072 "106(4). And it certainly sometimes doesn't regulate a <quote>copy</quote>; "
10073 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 112(a). But the "
10074 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates <quote>copies;</quote> "
10075 "17 <citetitle>United States Code</citetitle>, section 102) is that if there "
10076 "is a copy, there is a right."
10079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10080 #: freeculture.xml:7150
10082 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
10083 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
10084 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
10085 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
10086 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10091 #: freeculture.xml:7167
10093 "<quote>Copies.</quote> That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for "
10094 "<emphasis>copy</emphasis>right law to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's "
10095 "argument at the start of this chapter, that <quote>creative property</quote> "
10096 "deserves the <quote>same rights</quote> as all other property, it is the "
10097 "<emphasis>obvious</emphasis> that we need to be most careful about. For "
10098 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
10099 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
10100 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should <emphasis>not</emphasis> "
10101 "be the trigger for copyright law. More precisely, they should not "
10102 "<emphasis>always</emphasis> be the trigger for copyright law."
10106 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10107 #: freeculture.xml:7185
10109 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
10110 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
10111 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
10112 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
10115 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10116 #: freeculture.xml:7180
10118 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
10119 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
10120 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
10121 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10122 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
10123 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
10127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10128 #: freeculture.xml:7196
10130 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
10134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10135 #: freeculture.xml:7200
10136 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
10139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10140 #: freeculture.xml:7201
10141 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.png\"></graphic>"
10144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10145 #: freeculture.xml:7203
10146 msgid "three types of uses of"
10150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10151 #: freeculture.xml:7206
10153 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
10154 "its potential <emphasis>uses</emphasis>. Most of these uses are unregulated "
10155 "by copyright law, because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, "
10156 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, "
10157 "that act is not regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act "
10158 "is not regulated (copyright law expressly states that after the first sale "
10159 "of a book, the copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the "
10160 "disposition of the book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a "
10161 "lamp or let your puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright "
10162 "law, because those acts do not make a copy."
10165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10166 #: freeculture.xml:7219
10167 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
10170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10171 #: freeculture.xml:7220
10172 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.png\"></graphic>"
10175 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10176 #: freeculture.xml:7223
10178 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
10179 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
10180 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
10181 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
10182 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
10183 "diagram on next page)."
10186 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10187 #: freeculture.xml:7231
10189 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
10190 "remain unregulated because the law considers these <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10194 #: freeculture.xml:7236
10196 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
10197 "copyrighted work."
10200 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10201 #: freeculture.xml:7237
10202 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\"></graphic>"
10205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10206 #: freeculture.xml:7240
10208 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
10209 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
10210 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
10211 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
10212 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
10213 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
10214 "over such <quote>fair uses</quote> for public policy (and possibly First "
10215 "Amendment) reasons."
10218 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10219 #: freeculture.xml:7250
10220 msgid "Unregulated copying considered <quote>fair uses.</quote>"
10223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10224 #: freeculture.xml:7251
10225 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\"></graphic>"
10228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10229 #: freeculture.xml:7255
10231 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
10235 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10236 #: freeculture.xml:7256
10237 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\"></graphic>"
10241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10242 #: freeculture.xml:7260
10244 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
10245 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
10246 "are nonetheless deemed <quote>fair</quote> regardless of the copyright "
10250 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10251 #: freeculture.xml:7265 freeculture.xml:7299 freeculture.xml:7508
10252 msgid "on Internet"
10256 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10257 #: freeculture.xml:7270
10259 "I don't mean <quote>nature</quote> in the sense that it couldn't be "
10260 "different, but rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical "
10261 "networks need not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital "
10262 "network could be designed to delete anything it copies so that the same "
10263 "number of copies remain."
10266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10267 #: freeculture.xml:7267
10269 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
10270 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
10271 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
10272 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
10273 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
10274 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
10275 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
10276 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
10277 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
10278 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
10279 "burden of this shift."
10283 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10284 #: freeculture.xml:7288
10286 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
10287 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
10288 "plausible <emphasis>copyright</emphasis>-related argument that the copyright "
10289 "owner could make to control that use of her book. Copyright law would have "
10290 "nothing to say about whether you read the book once, ten times, or every "
10291 "night before you went to bed. None of those instances of "
10292 "use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because none of "
10293 "those uses produced a copy."
10296 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10297 #: freeculture.xml:7301
10299 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
10300 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
10301 "only once a month, then <emphasis>copyright law</emphasis> would aid the "
10302 "copyright owner in exercising this degree of control, because of the "
10303 "accidental feature of copyright law that triggers its application upon there "
10304 "being a copy. Now if you read the book ten times and the license says you "
10305 "may read it only five times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion "
10306 "of it) beyond the fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to "
10307 "the copyright owner's wish."
10310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10311 #: freeculture.xml:7313
10313 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
10314 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
10315 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
10319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10320 #: freeculture.xml:7319
10322 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
10323 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
10324 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
10325 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
10326 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
10330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10331 #: freeculture.xml:7327
10333 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
10334 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
10335 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate "
10336 "<emphasis>any</emphasis> transformation you make of creative work using a "
10337 "machine. <quote>Copy and paste</quote> and <quote>cut and paste</quote> "
10338 "become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others exposes the "
10339 "tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However troubling the "
10340 "expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is extraordinarily "
10341 "troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative work."
10345 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10346 #: freeculture.xml:7339
10348 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
10349 "on category 3 (<quote>fair use</quote>) that fair use never before had to "
10350 "bear. If a copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read "
10351 "a book on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a "
10352 "violation of my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation "
10353 "about whether I have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, "
10354 "reading did not trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need "
10355 "for a fair use defense. The right to read was effectively protected before "
10356 "because reading was not regulated."
10359 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10360 #: freeculture.xml:7353
10362 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
10363 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
10364 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
10365 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
10366 "when the vast majority of uses are <emphasis>unregulated</emphasis>. But "
10367 "when everything becomes presumptively regulated, then the protections of "
10368 "fair use are not enough."
10371 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10372 #: freeculture.xml:7364
10374 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
10375 "business of making <quote>trailer</quote> advertisements for movies "
10376 "available to video stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way "
10377 "to sell videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, "
10378 "put the trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
10381 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
10382 #: freeculture.xml:7370 freeculture.xml:7430 freeculture.xml:13466
10386 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10387 #: freeculture.xml:7372
10389 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
10390 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
10391 "idea was to expand their <quote>selling by sampling</quote> technique by "
10392 "giving on-line stores the same ability to enable <quote>browsing.</quote> "
10393 "Just as in a bookstore you can read a few pages of a book before you buy the "
10394 "book, so, too, you would be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line "
10395 "before you bought it."
10399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10400 #: freeculture.xml:7381
10402 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
10403 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
10404 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
10405 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
10406 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
10407 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
10408 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
10409 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
10410 "was within their <quote>fair use</quote> rights to distribute the clips as "
10411 "they had. So they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these "
10412 "rights were in fact their rights."
10415 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10416 #: freeculture.xml:7396
10418 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
10419 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had <quote>willfully "
10420 "infringed</quote> on Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of "
10421 "willful infringement, it can award damages not on the basis of the actual "
10422 "harm to the copyright owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the "
10423 "statute. Because Video Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of "
10424 "Disney movies to enable video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney "
10425 "was now suing Video Pipeline for $100 million."
10428 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10429 #: freeculture.xml:7406
10431 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
10432 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
10433 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
10434 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
10435 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
10436 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
10437 "Disney's permission."
10440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10441 #: freeculture.xml:7416
10443 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
10444 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
10445 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
10446 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
10447 "<quote>first-sale doctrine</quote> would free the seller to use the video as "
10448 "he wished, including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of "
10449 "the entire movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for "
10450 "Disney to centralize control over access to this content. Because each use "
10451 "of the Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
10452 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
10453 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
10456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10457 #: freeculture.xml:7429
10458 msgid "Barnes & Noble"
10462 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10463 #: freeculture.xml:7433
10465 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
10466 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
10467 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
10468 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
10469 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
10470 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
10471 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
10472 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
10473 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
10474 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
10475 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
10476 "are quite slight."
10479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10480 #: freeculture.xml:7448
10482 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
10483 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
10484 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
10485 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
10486 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
10487 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
10490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
10491 #: freeculture.xml:7457
10492 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
10495 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10496 #: freeculture.xml:7459
10498 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
10499 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
10500 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
10501 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
10504 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10505 #: freeculture.xml:7465
10507 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
10508 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
10509 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
10510 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
10511 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
10514 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10515 #: freeculture.xml:7472
10519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10520 #: freeculture.xml:7473 freeculture.xml:7642
10521 msgid "Marx Brothers"
10525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10526 #: freeculture.xml:7484
10528 "See David Lange, <quote>Recognizing the Public Domain,</quote> "
10529 "<citetitle>Law and Contemporary Problems</citetitle> 44 (1981): "
10533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10534 #: freeculture.xml:7476
10536 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
10537 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of "
10538 "<citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>. Warner Brothers objected. They wrote a "
10539 "nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them that there would be serious legal "
10540 "consequences if they went forward with their plan.<placeholder "
10541 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10545 #: freeculture.xml:7493
10547 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, "
10548 "<citetitle>Copyrights and Copywrongs</citetitle>, 1–3."
10551 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10552 #: freeculture.xml:7489
10554 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
10555 "that the Marx Brothers <quote>were brothers long before you "
10556 "were.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers "
10557 "therefore owned the word <citetitle>brothers</citetitle>, and if Warner "
10558 "Brothers insisted on trying to control <citetitle>Casablanca</citetitle>, "
10559 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over "
10560 "<citetitle>brothers</citetitle>."
10563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10564 #: freeculture.xml:7503
10566 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
10567 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
10568 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
10569 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
10572 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10573 #: freeculture.xml:7510
10575 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
10576 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
10577 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
10578 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
10579 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
10580 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
10581 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
10584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10585 #: freeculture.xml:7522
10586 msgid "Adobe eBook Reader"
10589 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10590 #: freeculture.xml:7524
10591 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10595 #: freeculture.xml:7527
10597 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
10598 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
10599 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
10600 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
10603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10604 #: freeculture.xml:7534
10605 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
10609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10610 #: freeculture.xml:7538
10612 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
10613 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
10614 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, for example, is in the public domain. "
10615 "Some of them reproduce content that is not in the public domain: My own book "
10616 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> is not yet within the public "
10617 "domain. Consider <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> first. If you click on "
10618 "my e-book copy of <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle>, you'll see a fancy "
10619 "cover, and then a button at the bottom called Permissions."
10622 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10623 #: freeculture.xml:7551
10624 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
10627 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10628 #: freeculture.xml:7552
10629 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\"></graphic>"
10632 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10633 #: freeculture.xml:7555
10635 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
10636 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
10639 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10640 #: freeculture.xml:7559
10641 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
10644 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10645 #: freeculture.xml:7560
10646 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\"></graphic>"
10650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10651 #: freeculture.xml:7564
10653 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
10654 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
10655 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
10656 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
10657 "button to hear <citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> read aloud through the "
10661 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10662 #: freeculture.xml:7571
10666 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10667 #: freeculture.xml:7572
10668 msgid "<citetitle>Politics</citetitle>, (Aristotle)"
10671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10672 #: freeculture.xml:7574
10674 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
10675 "translation): Aristotle's <citetitle>Politics</citetitle>."
10678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10679 #: freeculture.xml:7578
10680 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>"
10683 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10684 #: freeculture.xml:7579
10685 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\"></graphic>"
10688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10689 #: freeculture.xml:7582
10691 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
10692 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
10695 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10696 #: freeculture.xml:7587
10697 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s <quote>Politics</quote>."
10700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10701 #: freeculture.xml:7588
10702 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\"></graphic>"
10705 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10706 #: freeculture.xml:7591
10708 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
10709 "e-book version of my last book, <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>:"
10712 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10713 #: freeculture.xml:7597
10714 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>The Future of Ideas</quote>."
10717 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10718 #: freeculture.xml:7598
10719 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\"></graphic>"
10722 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10723 #: freeculture.xml:7601
10724 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
10728 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
10729 #: freeculture.xml:7611
10731 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
10732 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
10733 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
10734 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
10735 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
10736 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
10739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10740 #: freeculture.xml:7604
10742 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls "
10743 "<quote>permissions</quote>— as if the publisher has the power to "
10744 "control how you use these works. For works under copyright, the copyright "
10745 "owner certainly does have the power—up to the limits of the copyright "
10746 "law. But for work not under copyright, there is no such copyright "
10747 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of "
10748 "<citetitle>Middlemarch</citetitle> says I have the permission to copy only "
10749 "ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really means "
10750 "is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I use the "
10751 "book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would enable."
10754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10755 #: freeculture.xml:7626
10757 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
10758 "which the e-book <quote>lives.</quote> Though the e-book says that these are "
10759 "permissions, they are not the sort of <quote>permissions</quote> that most "
10760 "of us deal with. When a teenager gets <quote>permission</quote> to stay out "
10761 "till midnight, she knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out "
10762 "till 2 A.M., but will suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the "
10763 "Adobe eBook Reader says I have the permission to make ten copies of the text "
10764 "into the computer's memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the "
10765 "computer will not make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: "
10766 "After ten pages, the eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the "
10767 "same with the silly restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud "
10768 "button to read my book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if "
10769 "you do; instead, if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine "
10770 "simply won't read aloud."
10774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10775 #: freeculture.xml:7645
10777 "These are <emphasis>controls</emphasis>, not permissions. Imagine a world "
10778 "where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when you tried "
10779 "to type <quote>Warner Brothers,</quote> erased <quote>Brothers</quote> from "
10783 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10784 #: freeculture.xml:7651
10786 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright "
10787 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> as copyright <emphasis>code</emphasis>. The "
10788 "controls over access to content will not be controls that are ratified by "
10789 "courts; the controls over access to content will be controls that are coded "
10790 "by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into the law are "
10791 "always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built into the "
10792 "technology have no similar built-in check."
10795 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10796 #: freeculture.xml:7660
10798 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
10799 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
10800 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
10801 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
10805 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10806 #: freeculture.xml:7667
10808 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
10812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10813 #: freeculture.xml:7670
10814 msgid "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)"
10817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10818 #: freeculture.xml:7672
10820 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
10821 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
10822 "Adobe site was a copy of <citetitle>Alice's Adventures in "
10823 "Wonderland</citetitle>. This wonderful book is in the public domain. Yet "
10824 "when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the following report:"
10827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
10828 #: freeculture.xml:7680
10829 msgid "List of the permissions for <quote>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</quote>."
10832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
10833 #: freeculture.xml:7682
10834 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\"></graphic>"
10837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10838 #: freeculture.xml:7686
10840 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
10841 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the "
10842 "<quote>permissions</quote> indicated, not allowed to <quote>read "
10846 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10847 #: freeculture.xml:7691
10849 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
10850 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
10851 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
10852 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
10853 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
10857 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10858 #: freeculture.xml:7699
10860 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
10861 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
10862 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
10863 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
10864 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
10865 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
10866 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
10867 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
10868 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
10869 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
10872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10873 #: freeculture.xml:7712
10875 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
10876 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
10877 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
10878 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
10879 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
10882 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10883 #: freeculture.xml:7722
10885 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
10886 "of mine that makes the same point."
10889 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10890 #: freeculture.xml:7725 freeculture.xml:7869 freeculture.xml:7934 freeculture.xml:8042
10891 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
10894 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10895 #: freeculture.xml:7726 freeculture.xml:7870 freeculture.xml:7935 freeculture.xml:8043
10896 msgid "robotic dog"
10899 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10900 #: freeculture.xml:7727 freeculture.xml:7871 freeculture.xml:7936 freeculture.xml:8044
10904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10905 #: freeculture.xml:7727 freeculture.xml:7871 freeculture.xml:7936 freeculture.xml:8044
10906 msgid "Aibo robotic dog produced by"
10909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10910 #: freeculture.xml:7729
10912 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named <quote>Aibo.</quote> The Aibo "
10913 "learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and "
10914 "that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
10918 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10919 #: freeculture.xml:7734
10921 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
10922 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
10923 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set up aibopet.com "
10924 "(and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site), and on that site he "
10925 "provided information about how to teach an Aibo to do tricks in addition to "
10926 "the ones Sony had taught it."
10929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10930 #: freeculture.xml:7743
10932 "<quote>Teach</quote> here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute "
10933 "computers. You teach a computer how to do something by programming it "
10934 "differently. So to say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to "
10935 "teach the dog to do new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving "
10936 "information to users of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer "
10937 "<quote>dog</quote> to make it do new tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
10940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
10941 #: freeculture.xml:7750
10945 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10946 #: freeculture.xml:7752
10948 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word "
10949 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> has a particularly unfriendly "
10950 "connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror "
10951 "movies do even worse. But to programmers, or coders, as I call them, "
10952 "<citetitle>hack</citetitle> is a much more positive "
10953 "term. <citetitle>Hack</citetitle> just means code that enables the program "
10954 "to do something it wasn't originally intended or enabled to do. If you buy a "
10955 "new printer for an old computer, you might find the old computer doesn't "
10956 "run, or <quote>drive,</quote> the printer. If you discovered that, you'd "
10957 "later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by someone who has written a "
10958 "driver to enable the computer to drive the printer you just bought."
10961 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10962 #: freeculture.xml:7766
10964 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
10965 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
10966 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
10967 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
10971 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10972 #: freeculture.xml:7773
10974 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
10975 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
10976 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
10977 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
10982 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
10983 #: freeculture.xml:7783
10985 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
10986 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
10987 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
10988 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
10989 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
10990 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
10991 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
10992 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
10993 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, <emphasis>What possible problem could "
10994 "there be with teaching a robot dog to dance?</emphasis>"
10997 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
10998 #: freeculture.xml:7798
10999 msgid "government case against"
11002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11003 #: freeculture.xml:7800
11005 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
11006 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
11007 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
11008 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
11009 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
11010 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
11011 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
11012 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
11016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11017 #: freeculture.xml:7823 freeculture.xml:10312
11018 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
11021 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11022 #: freeculture.xml:7813
11024 "See Pamela Samuelson, <quote>Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to "
11025 "Science,</quote> <citetitle>Science</citetitle> 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan "
11026 "I. Koerner, <quote>Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog "
11027 "New Tricks,</quote> <citetitle>American Prospect</citetitle>, January 2002; "
11028 "<quote>Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,</quote> "
11029 "<citetitle>Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter</citetitle>, 11 "
11030 "December 2001; Bill Holland, <quote>Copyright Act Raising Free-Speech "
11031 "Concerns,</quote> <citetitle>Billboard</citetitle>, May 2001; Janelle Brown, "
11032 "<quote>Is the RIAA Running Scared?</quote> Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic "
11033 "Frontier Foundation, <quote>Frequently Asked Questions about "
11034 "<citetitle>Felten and USENIX</citetitle> v. <citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> "
11035 "Legal Case,</quote> available at <ulink "
11036 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #27</ulink>. <placeholder "
11037 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11041 #: freeculture.xml:7811
11043 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
11044 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
11045 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
11046 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
11047 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
11050 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11051 #: freeculture.xml:7831
11053 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
11054 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
11055 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
11056 "standard that would allow the content owner to say <quote>this music cannot "
11057 "be copied,</quote> and have a computer respect that command. The technology "
11058 "was to be part of a <quote>trusted system</quote> of control that would get "
11059 "content owners to trust the system of the Internet much more."
11062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11063 #: freeculture.xml:7841
11065 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
11066 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
11067 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
11068 "problems to the consortium."
11072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11073 #: freeculture.xml:7848
11075 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
11076 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
11077 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
11078 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
11081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11082 #: freeculture.xml:7854
11084 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
11085 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
11086 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
11087 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
11088 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
11089 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
11092 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11093 #: freeculture.xml:7862
11095 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
11096 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
11097 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
11098 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
11099 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
11102 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11103 #: freeculture.xml:7873
11105 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
11106 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
11107 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
11110 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11111 #: freeculture.xml:7880
11113 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
11114 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
11115 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
11118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11119 #: freeculture.xml:7889
11121 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
11122 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
11123 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
11127 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11128 #: freeculture.xml:7895
11130 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
11131 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
11132 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
11133 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<quote>DMCA</quote>)."
11136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11137 #: freeculture.xml:7903
11139 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
11140 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
11141 "information an offense."
11144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11145 #: freeculture.xml:7908
11147 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
11148 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
11149 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
11150 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
11151 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
11152 "were designed as <emphasis>code</emphasis> to modify the original "
11153 "<emphasis>code</emphasis> of the Internet, to reestablish some protection "
11154 "for copyright owners."
11157 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11158 #: freeculture.xml:7919
11160 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
11161 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, "
11162 "<emphasis>legal code</emphasis> intended to buttress <emphasis>software "
11163 "code</emphasis> which itself was intended to support the <emphasis>legal "
11164 "code of copyright</emphasis>."
11167 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11168 #: freeculture.xml:7926
11170 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
11171 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
11172 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
11173 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
11174 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
11175 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
11179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11180 #: freeculture.xml:7938
11182 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
11183 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
11184 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
11185 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
11186 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
11187 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
11188 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
11189 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
11190 "system was circumvented."
11193 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11194 #: freeculture.xml:7950
11196 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
11197 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
11198 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
11199 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
11200 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
11201 "others to infringe others' copyright."
11204 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11205 #: freeculture.xml:7957 freeculture.xml:7992
11206 msgid "Rogers, Fred"
11209 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11210 #: freeculture.xml:7968 freeculture.xml:8005 freeculture.xml:8031
11211 msgid "Conrad, Paul"
11214 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11215 #: freeculture.xml:7960
11217 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
11218 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
11219 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
11220 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
11221 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
11222 "<quote><citetitle>Mr. Rogers</citetitle>,</quote> for example, had testified "
11223 "in that case that he wanted people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' "
11224 "Neighborhood. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11228 #: freeculture.xml:7987
11230 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <citetitle>Sony Corporation of "
11231 "America</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Universal City Studios, Inc</citetitle>., "
11232 "464 U.S. 417, 455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the "
11233 "VCR. See James Lardner, <citetitle>Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, "
11234 "and the Onslaught of the VCR</citetitle> (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), "
11235 "270–71. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
11238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11239 #: freeculture.xml:7972
11241 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
11242 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> at hours when some children cannot use it. I "
11243 "think that it's a real service to families to be able to record such "
11244 "programs and show them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with "
11245 "the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "
11246 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "
11247 "<quote>Neighborhood</quote> because that's what I produce, that they then "
11248 "become much more active in the programming of their family's television "
11249 "life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My "
11250 "whole approach in broadcasting has always been <quote>You are an important "
11251 "person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.</quote> Maybe "
11252 "I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to "
11253 "be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is "
11254 "important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11259 #: freeculture.xml:7998
11261 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
11262 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
11266 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11267 #: freeculture.xml:8003
11269 "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA. "
11270 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11274 #: freeculture.xml:8008
11275 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
11278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11279 #: freeculture.xml:8011
11281 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
11282 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
11283 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
11284 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
11285 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
11286 "use—a good end."
11289 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11290 #: freeculture.xml:8018
11295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11296 #: freeculture.xml:8020
11298 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
11299 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
11300 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
11301 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
11304 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11305 #: freeculture.xml:8028
11306 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
11309 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11310 #: freeculture.xml:8029
11311 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\"></graphic>"
11314 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11315 #: freeculture.xml:8033
11317 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
11318 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
11319 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: <emphasis>No one ever died from copyright "
11320 "circumvention</emphasis>. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies "
11321 "absolutely, despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits "
11322 "guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do."
11325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11326 #: freeculture.xml:8046
11328 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
11329 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
11330 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
11331 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
11332 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
11336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11337 #: freeculture.xml:8054
11339 "This is how <emphasis>code</emphasis> becomes <emphasis>law</emphasis>. The "
11340 "controls built into the technology of copy and access protection become "
11341 "rules the violation of which is also a violation of the law. In this way, "
11342 "the code extends the law—increasing its regulation, even if the "
11343 "subject it regulates (activities that would otherwise plainly constitute "
11344 "fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code becomes law; code extends the "
11345 "law; code thus extends the control that copyright owners effect—at "
11346 "least for those copyright holders with the lawyers who can write the nasty "
11347 "letters that Felten and aibopet.com received."
11350 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11351 #: freeculture.xml:8066
11353 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
11354 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
11355 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
11356 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
11357 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
11358 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
11359 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
11360 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
11361 "violate the rules."
11365 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11366 #: freeculture.xml:8085
11368 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, <quote>Legal "
11369 "Fictions, Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,</quote> "
11370 "<citetitle>Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal</citetitle> 17 "
11374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11375 #: freeculture.xml:8079
11377 "For example, imagine you were part of a <citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> fan "
11378 "club. You gathered every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of "
11379 "fan fiction about the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain "
11380 "Kirk. The characters would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply "
11381 "continue it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11385 #: freeculture.xml:8091
11387 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
11388 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
11389 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
11390 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
11391 "wished without fear of legal control."
11394 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11395 #: freeculture.xml:8099
11397 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
11398 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
11399 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
11400 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
11401 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
11402 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
11403 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
11407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11408 #: freeculture.xml:8109
11410 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
11411 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
11412 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
11413 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
11414 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
11415 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
11418 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
11419 #: freeculture.xml:8118
11420 msgid "Market: Concentration"
11424 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11425 #: freeculture.xml:8120
11427 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
11428 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
11429 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
11430 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
11431 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
11432 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
11433 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
11434 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
11435 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
11436 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
11437 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
11438 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
11439 "to copyright's control."
11442 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11443 #: freeculture.xml:8138
11445 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
11446 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
11447 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
11448 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
11449 "about all the other changes I have described."
11452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11453 #: freeculture.xml:8145
11455 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
11456 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
11457 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
11458 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
11459 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
11460 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
11461 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
11462 "three companies control more than percent of the media."
11465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11466 #: freeculture.xml:8156
11467 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
11470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11471 #: freeculture.xml:8160
11475 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11476 #: freeculture.xml:8161 freeculture.xml:9505
11480 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11481 #: freeculture.xml:8162
11482 msgid "McCain, John"
11485 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11486 #: freeculture.xml:8163 freeculture.xml:9506
11487 msgid "Universal Music Group"
11490 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11491 #: freeculture.xml:8164
11492 msgid "Warner Music Group"
11496 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11497 #: freeculture.xml:8170
11499 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
11500 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
11501 "of Senator John McCain)."
11505 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11506 #: freeculture.xml:8177
11508 "Lynette Holloway, <quote>Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to "
11509 "Slide,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 23 December 2002."
11513 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11514 #: freeculture.xml:8183
11516 "Molly Ivins, <quote>Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,</quote> "
11517 "<citetitle>Charleston Gazette</citetitle>, 31 May 2003."
11520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11521 #: freeculture.xml:8166
11523 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
11524 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, "
11525 "<quote>five companies control 85 percent of our media "
11526 "sources.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording "
11527 "labels of Universal Music Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music "
11528 "Group, and EMI control 84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder "
11529 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The <quote>five largest cable companies pipe "
11530 "programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers "
11531 "nationwide.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
11535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11536 #: freeculture.xml:8188
11538 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
11539 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
11540 "seventy-five stations. Today <emphasis>one</emphasis> company owns more than "
11541 "1,200 stations. During that period of consolidation, the total number of "
11542 "radio owners dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest "
11543 "broadcasters control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just "
11544 "four companies control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising "
11548 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11549 #: freeculture.xml:8200
11551 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
11552 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
11553 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
11554 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
11555 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
11556 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
11557 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
11558 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
11562 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11563 #: freeculture.xml:8214 freeculture.xml:8231
11564 msgid "Fallows, James"
11567 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11568 #: freeculture.xml:8211
11570 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
11571 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
11572 "article about Rupert Murdoch, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11575 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11576 #: freeculture.xml:8229
11578 "James Fallows, <quote>The Age of Murdoch,</quote> <citetitle>Atlantic "
11579 "Monthly</citetitle> (September 2003): 89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11583 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11584 #: freeculture.xml:8218
11586 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
11587 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies … Fox TV shows "
11588 "… Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They "
11589 "sell the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on "
11590 "the broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
11591 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
11592 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
11593 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
11594 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
11595 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11599 #: freeculture.xml:8236
11601 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
11602 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
11603 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
11604 "thousand words could do:"
11607 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure><title>
11608 #: freeculture.xml:8242
11609 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
11612 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><figure>
11613 #: freeculture.xml:8243
11614 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\"></graphic>"
11618 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11619 #: freeculture.xml:8247
11621 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
11622 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
11626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11627 #: freeculture.xml:8252
11629 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
11630 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
11631 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
11632 "beginning to change my mind."
11635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11636 #: freeculture.xml:8258
11638 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
11642 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11643 #: freeculture.xml:8261
11644 msgid "Lear, Norman"
11647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11648 #: freeculture.xml:8263 freeculture.xml:8326
11649 msgid "All in the Family"
11652 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11653 #: freeculture.xml:8265
11655 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for <citetitle>All in the "
11656 "Family</citetitle>. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It "
11657 "was too edgy, they told Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more "
11658 "edgy than the first. ABC was exasperated. You're missing the point, they "
11659 "told Lear. We wanted less edgy, not more."
11663 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11664 #: freeculture.xml:8277
11666 "Leonard Hill, <quote>The Axis of Access,</quote> remarks before Weidenbaum "
11667 "Center Forum, <quote>Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,</quote> "
11668 "St. Louis, Missouri, 3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available "
11669 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the "
11670 "Lear story, not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
11671 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
11674 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11675 #: freeculture.xml:8272
11677 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
11678 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
11679 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
11680 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11684 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11685 #: freeculture.xml:8288
11687 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
11688 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
11689 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
11690 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
11691 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
11692 "<quote>independent</quote> of the networks."
11696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11697 #: freeculture.xml:8307
11699 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
11700 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
11701 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
11702 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
11703 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
11704 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
11705 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
11708 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11709 #: freeculture.xml:8297
11711 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
11712 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
11713 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
11714 "independent television studios remained. <quote>In 1992, only 15 percent of "
11715 "new series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last "
11716 "year, the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
11717 "quintupled to 77 percent.</quote> <quote>In 1992, 16 new series were "
11718 "produced independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
11719 "one.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of "
11720 "prime time television was owned by the networks that ran it. <quote>In the "
11721 "ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television "
11722 "hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the "
11723 "number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent "
11724 "studios decreased 63%.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
11727 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11728 #: freeculture.xml:8328
11730 "Today, another Norman Lear with another <citetitle>All in the "
11731 "Family</citetitle> would find that he had the choice either to make the show "
11732 "less edgy or to be fired: The content of any show developed for a network is "
11733 "increasingly owned by the network."
11736 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11737 #: freeculture.xml:8333
11738 msgid "Diller, Barry"
11741 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11742 #: freeculture.xml:8334
11743 msgid "Moyers, Bill"
11746 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11747 #: freeculture.xml:8336
11749 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
11750 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
11751 "Diller said to Bill Moyers,"
11755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11756 #: freeculture.xml:8351
11758 "<quote>Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,</quote> <citetitle>Now with "
11759 "Bill Moyers</citetitle>, Bill Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript "
11760 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
11763 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
11764 #: freeculture.xml:8342
11766 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
11767 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
11768 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
11769 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
11770 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
11771 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11774 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11775 #: freeculture.xml:8358
11777 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
11778 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
11779 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
11780 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
11781 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
11782 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
11783 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
11784 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
11785 "the environment for a democracy."
11788 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
11789 #: freeculture.xml:8369
11790 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
11794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11795 #: freeculture.xml:8378
11797 "Clayton M. Christensen, <citetitle>The Innovator's Dilemma: The "
11798 "Revolutionary National Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do "
11799 "Business</citetitle> (Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, "
11800 "1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first suggested by Dean "
11801 "Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, <quote>The Interaction of Design Hierarchies "
11802 "and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,</quote> <citetitle>Research "
11803 "Policy</citetitle> 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see "
11804 "Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, <citetitle>Creative Destruction: Why "
11805 "Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—and How to "
11806 "Successfully Transform Them</citetitle> (New York: Currency/Doubleday, "
11810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11811 #: freeculture.xml:8371
11813 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
11814 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the "
11815 "<quote>Innovator's Dilemma</quote>: the fact that large traditional firms "
11816 "find it rational to ignore new, breakthrough technologies that compete with "
11817 "their core business. The same analysis could help explain why large, "
11818 "traditional media companies would find it rational to ignore new cultural "
11819 "trends.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only "
11820 "don't, but should not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, "
11821 "there will be far too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11825 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11826 #: freeculture.xml:8395
11828 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
11829 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
11830 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
11833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11834 #: freeculture.xml:8401
11836 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
11840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11841 #: freeculture.xml:8405
11843 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
11844 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
11845 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
11849 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11850 #: freeculture.xml:8410
11852 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
11853 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
11854 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
11855 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
11856 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
11857 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
11858 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
11859 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
11860 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
11861 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
11862 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
11863 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
11864 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
11867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11868 #: freeculture.xml:8429
11870 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
11871 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
11872 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
11875 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11876 #: freeculture.xml:8436
11878 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
11879 "media campaign as part of the <quote>war on drugs.</quote> The campaign "
11880 "produced scores of short film clips about issues related to illegal "
11881 "drugs. In one series (the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, "
11882 "discussing the idea of legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the "
11883 "collateral damage from the war. One advances an argument in favor of drug "
11884 "legalization. The other responds in a powerful and effective way against the "
11885 "argument of the first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
11886 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
11890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11891 #: freeculture.xml:8448
11893 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
11894 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
11897 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11898 #: freeculture.xml:8452
11900 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
11901 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
11902 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
11903 "war. Can you do it?"
11907 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11908 #: freeculture.xml:8458
11910 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
11911 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
11912 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
11916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11917 #: freeculture.xml:8500
11921 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11922 #: freeculture.xml:8501
11923 msgid "Marijuana Policy Project"
11926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11927 #: freeculture.xml:8502
11931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11932 #: freeculture.xml:8503
11936 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11937 #: freeculture.xml:8504
11941 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
11942 #: freeculture.xml:8475
11944 "The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that "
11945 "directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the "
11946 "Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as <quote>against [their] "
11947 "policy.</quote> The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without "
11948 "reviewing them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the "
11949 "ads and accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and "
11950 "returned the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. "
11951 "These restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for "
11952 "example, Nat Ives, <quote>On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet "
11953 "with Rejection from TV Networks,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
11954 "Times</citetitle>, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of election-related air time "
11955 "there is very little that the FCC or the courts are willing to do to even "
11956 "the playing field. For a general overview, see Rhonda Brown, <quote>Ad Hoc "
11957 "Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on Television and "
11958 "Radio,</quote> <citetitle>Yale Law and Policy Review</citetitle> 6 (1988): "
11959 "449–79, and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the "
11960 "courts, see <citetitle>Radio-Television News Directors "
11961 "Association</citetitle> v. <citetitle>FCC</citetitle>, 184 F. 3d 872 "
11962 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
11963 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
11964 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
11965 "Matier and Andrew Ross, <quote>Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects "
11966 "Ad,</quote> SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
11967 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
11968 "the criticism was <quote>too controversial.</quote> <placeholder "
11969 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> "
11970 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
11971 "id=\"3\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/> <placeholder "
11972 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"5\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"6\"/>"
11975 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11976 #: freeculture.xml:8465
11978 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
11979 "<quote>controversial</quote> ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
11980 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
11981 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
11982 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
11983 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
11984 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
11985 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
11986 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
11990 #: freeculture.xml:8509
11992 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
11993 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
11994 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
11995 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
11996 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
11997 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
11998 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
11999 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
12002 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12003 #: freeculture.xml:8522
12007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12008 #: freeculture.xml:8524
12010 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
12011 "warriors that the government should <quote>protect my property.</quote> In "
12012 "the abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No "
12013 "sane sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
12017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12018 #: freeculture.xml:8530
12020 "But when we see how dramatically this <quote>property</quote> has "
12021 "changed— when we recognize how it might now interact with both "
12022 "technology and markets to mean that the effective constraint on the liberty "
12023 "to cultivate our culture is dramatically different—the claim begins to "
12024 "seem less innocent and obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to "
12025 "supplement the law's control, and (2) the power of concentrated markets to "
12026 "weaken the opportunity for dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively "
12027 "expanded <quote>property</quote> rights granted by copyright fundamentally "
12028 "changes the freedom within this culture to cultivate and build upon our "
12029 "past, then we have to ask whether this property should be redefined."
12032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12033 #: freeculture.xml:8546
12035 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
12036 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
12037 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
12041 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12042 #: freeculture.xml:8552
12044 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
12045 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
12046 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
12047 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
12048 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
12049 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
12050 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
12051 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
12052 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
12055 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12056 #: freeculture.xml:8564
12058 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
12059 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
12060 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
12061 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
12062 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
12063 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
12064 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be "
12065 "<emphasis>reductions</emphasis> in the scope of copyright, in response to "
12066 "the extraordinary increase in control that technology and the market enable."
12070 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12071 #: freeculture.xml:8576
12073 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
12074 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
12075 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
12076 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: <emphasis>Never in our "
12077 "history have fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of "
12078 "our culture than now</emphasis>."
12081 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12082 #: freeculture.xml:8600
12084 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a "
12085 "similar point in his <quote>four surrenders</quote> of copyright law in the "
12086 "digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60."
12089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12090 #: freeculture.xml:8585
12092 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
12093 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
12094 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
12095 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
12096 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
12097 "networks. <emphasis>Never</emphasis> has copyright protected such a wide "
12098 "range of rights, against as broad a range of actors, for a term that was "
12099 "remotely as long. This form of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny "
12100 "part of the creative energy of a nation at the founding—is now a "
12101 "massive regulation of the overall creative process. Law plus technology plus "
12102 "the market now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the "
12103 "most significant regulation of culture that our free society has "
12104 "known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12107 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12108 #: freeculture.xml:8606
12110 "<emphasis role='strong'>This has been</emphasis> a long chapter. Its point "
12111 "can now be briefly stated."
12114 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12115 #: freeculture.xml:8610
12117 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
12118 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
12119 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
12120 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
12121 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
12124 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12125 #: freeculture.xml:8622 freeculture.xml:8659
12129 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12130 #: freeculture.xml:8623 freeculture.xml:8660 freeculture.xml:8698 freeculture.xml:8730
12134 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12135 #: freeculture.xml:8628 freeculture.xml:8665 freeculture.xml:8703 freeculture.xml:8735
12139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12140 #: freeculture.xml:8629 freeculture.xml:8666 freeculture.xml:8667 freeculture.xml:8704 freeculture.xml:8705 freeculture.xml:8736 freeculture.xml:8737 freeculture.xml:8741 freeculture.xml:8742
12144 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12145 #: freeculture.xml:8630 freeculture.xml:8634 freeculture.xml:8635 freeculture.xml:8671 freeculture.xml:8672 freeculture.xml:8710
12149 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12150 #: freeculture.xml:8633 freeculture.xml:8670 freeculture.xml:8708 freeculture.xml:8740
12151 msgid "Noncommercial"
12155 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12156 #: freeculture.xml:8642
12158 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
12159 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
12160 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
12161 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
12165 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12166 #: freeculture.xml:8651
12167 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
12170 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12171 #: freeculture.xml:8679
12173 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
12174 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
12175 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
12176 "essentially free."
12179 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12180 #: freeculture.xml:8685
12182 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
12183 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
12184 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
12185 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
12189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
12190 #: freeculture.xml:8697 freeculture.xml:8729
12194 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><informaltable><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
12195 #: freeculture.xml:8709
12196 msgid "©/Free"
12199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12200 #: freeculture.xml:8717
12202 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
12203 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
12204 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
12205 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
12210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12211 #: freeculture.xml:8749
12213 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
12214 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
12215 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
12216 "commercial publishers."
12219 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12220 #: freeculture.xml:8757
12222 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
12223 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
12224 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
12225 "actually does any good."
12228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12229 #: freeculture.xml:8763
12231 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
12232 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
12233 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
12234 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
12235 "chapters <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/> and "
12236 "<xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"transformers\"/>, one "
12237 "might well wonder whether it does more harm than good for commercial "
12238 "transformation. More commercial transformative work would be created if "
12239 "derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
12242 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12243 #: freeculture.xml:8787
12244 msgid "legal realist movement"
12247 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12248 #: freeculture.xml:8781
12250 "It was the single most important contribution of the legal realist movement "
12251 "to demonstrate that all property rights are always crafted to balance public "
12252 "and private interests. See Thomas C. Grey, <quote>The Disintegration of "
12253 "Property,</quote> in <citetitle>Nomos XXII: Property</citetitle>, J. Roland "
12254 "Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds. (New York: New York University Press, "
12255 "1980). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12258 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12259 #: freeculture.xml:8775
12261 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
12262 "copyright is a kind of <quote>property,</quote> and of course, as with any "
12263 "property, the state ought to protect it. But first impressions "
12264 "notwithstanding, historically, this property right (as with all property "
12265 "rights<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to "
12266 "balance the important need to give authors and artists incentives with the "
12267 "equally important need to assure access to creative work. This balance has "
12268 "always been struck in light of new technologies. And for almost half of our "
12269 "tradition, the <quote>copyright</quote> did not control <emphasis>at "
12270 "all</emphasis> the freedom of others to build upon or transform a creative "
12271 "work. American culture was born free, and for almost 180 years our country "
12272 "consistently protected a vibrant and rich free culture."
12276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12277 #: freeculture.xml:8800
12279 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
12280 "the scope of the interests protected by <quote>property.</quote> The very "
12281 "birth of <quote>copyright</quote> as a statutory right recognized those "
12282 "limits, by granting copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the "
12283 "story of chapter 6). The tradition of <quote>fair use</quote> is animated by "
12284 "a similar concern that is increasingly under strain as the costs of "
12285 "exercising any fair use right become unavoidably high (the story of chapter "
12286 "7). Adding statutory rights where markets might stifle innovation is another "
12287 "familiar limit on the property right that copyright is (chapter 8). And "
12288 "granting archives and libraries a broad freedom to collect, claims of "
12289 "property notwithstanding, is a crucial part of guaranteeing the soul of a "
12290 "culture (chapter 9). Free cultures, like free markets, are built with "
12291 "property. But the nature of the property that builds a free culture is very "
12292 "different from the extremist vision that dominates the debate today."
12295 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12296 #: freeculture.xml:8819
12298 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
12299 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
12300 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
12301 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
12302 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
12303 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
12304 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
12305 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
12306 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
12310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
12311 #: freeculture.xml:8836
12315 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12316 #: freeculture.xml:8840
12317 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
12320 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12321 #: freeculture.xml:8841
12325 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12326 #: freeculture.xml:8842
12327 msgid "Wells, H. G."
12330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
12331 #: freeculture.xml:8843
12332 msgid "<quote>Country of the Blind, The</quote> (Wells)"
12336 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12337 #: freeculture.xml:8851
12339 "H. G. Wells, <quote>The Country of the Blind</quote> (1904, 1911). See "
12340 "H. G. Wells, <citetitle>The Country of the Blind and Other "
12341 "Stories</citetitle>, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: Oxford University "
12345 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12346 #: freeculture.xml:8846
12348 "<emphasis role='strong'>In a well-known</emphasis> short story by "
12349 "H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez trips (literally, down an ice "
12350 "slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in the Peruvian "
12351 "Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
12352 "extraordinarily beautiful, with <quote>sweet water, pasture, an even "
12353 "climate, slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an "
12354 "excellent fruit.</quote> But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this "
12355 "as an opportunity. <quote>In the Country of the Blind,</quote> he tells "
12356 "himself, <quote>the One-Eyed Man is King.</quote> So he resolves to live "
12357 "with the villagers to explore life as a king."
12360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12361 #: freeculture.xml:8863
12363 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
12364 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are "
12365 "<quote>blind.</quote> They don't have the word "
12366 "<citetitle>blind</citetitle>. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
12367 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
12368 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
12369 "becomes increasingly frustrated. <quote>`You don't understand,' he cried, in "
12370 "a voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
12371 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'</quote>"
12375 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12376 #: freeculture.xml:8875
12378 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
12379 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
12380 "a young woman who to him seems <quote>the most beautiful thing in the whole "
12381 "of creation,</quote> understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of "
12382 "what he sees <quote>seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she "
12383 "listened to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet "
12384 "white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.</quote> <quote>She "
12385 "did not believe,</quote> Wells tells us, and <quote>she could only half "
12386 "understand, but she was mysteriously delighted.</quote>"
12389 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12390 #: freeculture.xml:8886
12392 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his <quote>mysteriously "
12393 "delighted</quote> love, the father and the village object. <quote>You see, "
12394 "my dear,</quote> her father instructs, <quote>he's an idiot. He has "
12395 "delusions. He can't do anything right.</quote> They take Nunez to the "
12399 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12400 #: freeculture.xml:8892
12402 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. <quote>His brain "
12403 "is affected,</quote> he reports."
12406 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12407 #: freeculture.xml:8896
12409 "<quote>What affects it?</quote> the father asks. <quote>Those queer things "
12410 "that are called the eyes … are diseased … in such a way as to "
12411 "affect his brain.</quote>"
12414 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12415 #: freeculture.xml:8901
12417 "The doctor continues: <quote>I think I may say with reasonable certainty "
12418 "that in order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and "
12419 "easy surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
12423 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12424 #: freeculture.xml:8907
12426 "<quote>Thank Heaven for science!</quote> says the father to the doctor. They "
12427 "inform Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. "
12428 "(You'll have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I "
12429 "believe in free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.)"
12433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12434 #: freeculture.xml:8913
12436 "<emphasis role='strong'>It sometimes</emphasis> happens that the eggs of "
12437 "twins fuse in the mother's womb. That fusion produces a "
12438 "<quote>chimera.</quote> A chimera is a single creature with two sets of "
12439 "DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different from the DNA of "
12440 "the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder "
12441 "mysteries. <quote>But the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was "
12442 "not the person whose blood was at the scene. …</quote>"
12445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12446 #: freeculture.xml:8927
12448 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
12449 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
12450 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
12451 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
12452 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a <quote>person</quote> should "
12453 "reflect this reality."
12456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12457 #: freeculture.xml:8935
12459 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
12460 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
12461 "enough, <quote>the copyright wars,</quote> the more I think we're dealing "
12462 "with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question <quote>What is "
12463 "p2p file sharing?</quote> both sides have it right, and both sides have it "
12464 "wrong. One side says, <quote>File sharing is just like two kids taping each "
12465 "others' records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty "
12466 "years without any question at all.</quote> That's true, at least in "
12467 "part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but "
12468 "rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all "
12469 "relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company "
12470 "no doubt did as a kid: sharing music."
12473 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12474 #: freeculture.xml:8949
12476 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
12477 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
12478 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "
12479 "<quote>friends</quote> beyond recognition to say <quote>my ten thousand best "
12480 "friends</quote> can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best "
12481 "friend is what <quote>we have always been allowed to do,</quote> we have not "
12482 "always been allowed to share music with <quote>our ten thousand best "
12486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12487 #: freeculture.xml:8958
12489 "Likewise, when the other side says, <quote>File sharing is just like walking "
12490 "into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with "
12491 "it,</quote> that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) "
12492 "releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free "
12493 "copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower. "
12494 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12498 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12499 #: freeculture.xml:8969
12501 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
12502 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
12503 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
12504 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
12505 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
12506 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
12507 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
12510 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12511 #: freeculture.xml:8979
12513 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
12514 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
12515 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
12516 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
12517 "rules should govern it?"
12520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12521 #: freeculture.xml:8995 freeculture.xml:9277 freeculture.xml:10313
12522 msgid "ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by"
12525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12526 #: freeculture.xml:9026
12527 msgid "Conyers, John, Jr."
12530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12531 #: freeculture.xml:9027 freeculture.xml:9748
12532 msgid "Berman, Howard L."
12535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
12536 #: freeculture.xml:8995
12538 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For an excellent summary, see the "
12539 "report prepared by GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society "
12540 "at Harvard Law School, <quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
12541 "World,</quote> 27 June 2003, available at <ulink "
12542 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John Conyers "
12543 "Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill that "
12544 "would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
12545 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
12546 "<quote>House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
12547 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 17 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12548 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #34</ulink>. Civil penalties are "
12549 "currently set at $150,000 per copied song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) "
12550 "legal challenge to the RIAA's demand that an ISP reveal the identity of a "
12551 "user accused of sharing more than 600 songs through a family computer, see "
12552 "<citetitle>RIAA</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Verizon Internet Services (In "
12553 "re. Verizon Internet Services)</citetitle>, 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 "
12554 "(D.D.C. 2003). Such a user could face liability ranging as high as $90 "
12555 "million. Such astronomical figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal "
12556 "in its prosecution of file sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to "
12557 "$17,500 for four students accused of heavy file sharing on university "
12558 "networks must have seemed a mere pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA "
12559 "could seek should the matter proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, "
12560 "<quote>Downloading Could Lead to Fines,</quote> redandblack.com, August "
12561 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12562 "#35</ulink>. For an example of the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, "
12563 "and of the subpoenas issued to universities to reveal student file-sharer "
12564 "identities, see James Collins, <quote>RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to "
12565 "Name Students,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 8 August 2003, "
12566 "D3, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12567 "#36</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
12568 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
12571 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12572 #: freeculture.xml:8986
12574 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
12575 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
12576 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
12577 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
12578 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
12579 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
12580 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
12584 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12585 #: freeculture.xml:9033
12587 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
12588 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
12589 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
12590 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
12591 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
12594 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12595 #: freeculture.xml:9040
12597 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
12598 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
12599 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
12600 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
12601 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
12602 "<emphasis>either</emphasis> extreme would be worse than a reasonable "
12603 "alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse "
12604 "of the two extremes."
12608 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12609 #: freeculture.xml:9052
12611 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
12612 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
12613 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
12614 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
12615 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
12619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12620 #: freeculture.xml:9060
12622 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to <quote>steal</quote> "
12623 "music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this "
12624 "war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so "
12625 "broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation "
12626 "that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing "
12627 "of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The "
12628 "law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public "
12629 "policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing "
12630 "the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,"
12633 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12634 #: freeculture.xml:9073
12636 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
12637 "and we want to protect those rights."
12640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12641 #: freeculture.xml:9077
12643 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
12644 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
12645 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
12646 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
12651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
12652 #: freeculture.xml:9094
12654 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
12655 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
12656 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
12657 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
12658 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
12659 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
12662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
12663 #: freeculture.xml:9084
12665 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
12666 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
12667 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
12668 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
12669 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
12670 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
12671 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
12672 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12675 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12676 #: freeculture.xml:9108 freeculture.xml:9466
12677 msgid "Vivendi Universal"
12680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12681 #: freeculture.xml:9105
12683 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "
12684 "<quote>the major labels.</quote> Its position on these matters has now "
12685 "changed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12689 #: freeculture.xml:9111
12691 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
12692 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
12693 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
12696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
12697 #: freeculture.xml:9119
12698 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
12701 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12702 #: freeculture.xml:9121
12704 "<emphasis role='strong'>To fight</emphasis> <quote>piracy,</quote> to "
12705 "protect <quote>property,</quote> the content industry has launched a "
12706 "war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought the "
12707 "government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both direct "
12708 "and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages will be "
12709 "suffered most by our own people."
12712 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12713 #: freeculture.xml:9129
12715 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
12716 "particular, the consequences for <quote>free culture.</quote> But my aim now "
12717 "is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
12721 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12722 #: freeculture.xml:9135
12724 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
12725 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
12726 "the property called <quote>intellectual property</quote> is at its greatest "
12730 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12731 #: freeculture.xml:9143
12733 "Yet <quote>common sense</quote> does not see it this way. Common sense is "
12734 "still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme "
12735 "claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical "
12736 "rejection of <quote>piracy</quote> still has play."
12740 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
12741 #: freeculture.xml:9151
12743 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
12744 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
12745 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
12746 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
12747 "today's monopolists of culture."
12750 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
12751 #: freeculture.xml:9158
12752 msgid "Constraining Creators"
12755 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12756 #: freeculture.xml:9160
12758 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
12759 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
12760 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
12761 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
12762 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
12763 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
12764 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
12765 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
12766 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
12767 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
12768 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
12769 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
12772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12773 #: freeculture.xml:9175
12775 "This digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> is in part an extension of "
12776 "the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and "
12777 "in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it "
12778 "explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of "
12779 "digital <quote>capturing and sharing</quote> promises a world of "
12780 "extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly "
12781 "shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a "
12782 "broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and "
12783 "contribute to the culture all around."
12787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12788 #: freeculture.xml:9186
12790 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
12791 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
12792 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
12793 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
12794 "across the globe."
12797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12798 #: freeculture.xml:9196
12800 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
12801 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
12802 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
12803 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
12804 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
12805 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
12806 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
12807 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
12808 "presumptively illegal."
12811 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12812 #: freeculture.xml:9206 freeculture.xml:9225
12816 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12817 #: freeculture.xml:9220
12819 "See Lynne W. Jeter, <citetitle>Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at "
12820 "WorldCom</citetitle> (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; "
12821 "for details of the settlement, see MCI press release, <quote>MCI Wins "
12822 "U.S. District Court Approval for SEC Settlement</quote> (7 July 2003), "
12823 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>. "
12824 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
12828 #: freeculture.xml:9241
12829 msgid "Bush, George W."
12832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12833 #: freeculture.xml:9232
12835 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
12836 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
12837 "overview, see Tanya Albert, <quote>Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be "
12838 "Back,' Say Tort Reformers,</quote> amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at "
12839 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and "
12840 "<quote>Senate Turns Back Malpractice Caps,</quote> CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, "
12841 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12842 "#39</ulink>. President Bush has continued to urge tort reform in recent "
12843 "months. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12846 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12847 #: freeculture.xml:9208
12849 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
12850 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
12851 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
12852 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
12853 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 "
12854 "was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search "
12855 "engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which "
12856 "defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in "
12857 "market capitalization of over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere "
12858 "$750 million.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation "
12859 "being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the "
12860 "wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in "
12861 "damages for pain and suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can "
12862 "common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for "
12863 "downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's "
12864 "negligently butchering a patient?"
12867 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
12868 #: freeculture.xml:9247
12869 msgid "art, underground"
12873 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
12874 #: freeculture.xml:9268
12876 "See Danit Lidor, <quote>Artists Just Wanna Be Free,</quote> "
12877 "<citetitle>Wired</citetitle>, 7 July 2003, available at <ulink "
12878 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #40</ulink>. For an overview of "
12879 "the exhibition, see <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
12883 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12884 #: freeculture.xml:9249
12886 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
12887 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
12888 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
12889 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys "
12890 "<quote>pirates.</quote> We make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a "
12891 "public domain, because the boundaries of the public domain are designed to "
12892 "be unclear. It never pays to do anything except pay for the right to create, "
12893 "and hence only those who can pay are allowed to create. As was the case in "
12894 "the Soviet Union, though for very different reasons, we will begin to see a "
12895 "world of underground art—not because the message is necessarily "
12896 "political, or because the subject is controversial, but because the very act "
12897 "of creating the art is legally fraught. Already, exhibits of <quote>illegal "
12898 "art</quote> tour the United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
12899 "In what does their <quote>illegality</quote> consist? In the act of mixing "
12900 "the culture around us with an expression that is critical or reflective."
12903 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12904 #: freeculture.xml:9279
12906 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
12907 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: "
12908 "labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>. But an even bigger part has to do "
12909 "with the increasing ease with which infractions can be tracked. As users of "
12910 "file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a trivial matter for "
12911 "copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service providers to reveal "
12912 "who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape player transmitted a "
12913 "list of the songs that you played in the privacy of your own home that "
12914 "anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
12917 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12918 #: freeculture.xml:9292
12920 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
12921 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
12922 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
12923 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
12924 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
12925 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
12926 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
12927 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
12928 "them is not similarly free."
12931 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12932 #: freeculture.xml:9303
12934 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
12935 "in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"recorders\"/>, "
12936 "in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, I have been "
12937 "lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was fair use, and "
12938 "hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
12942 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12943 #: freeculture.xml:9314
12945 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
12946 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
12947 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
12948 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
12949 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
12950 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
12951 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
12952 "on the rule of law."
12955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12956 #: freeculture.xml:9324
12958 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
12959 "<quote>breathing room</quote> between regulation by the law and the access "
12960 "the law should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal "
12961 "system has become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that "
12962 "publishers impose upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon "
12963 "filmmakers, the rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these "
12964 "are the real laws governing creativity. And these rules have little "
12965 "relationship to the <quote>law</quote> with which judges comfort themselves."
12968 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12969 #: freeculture.xml:9335
12971 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
12972 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
12973 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
12974 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
12975 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
12976 "that pass under the name <quote>copyright</quote> silence speech and "
12977 "creativity. And in that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to "
12978 "continue to believe they live in a culture that is free."
12981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
12982 #: freeculture.xml:9346
12983 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
12987 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
12988 #: freeculture.xml:9350
12990 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
12991 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
12992 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
12993 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made … you're not going to "
12994 "get it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note "
12995 "from a lawyer saying, <quote>This has been cleared.</quote> You're not even "
12996 "going to get it on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at "
12997 "which they control it."
13000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13001 #: freeculture.xml:9363
13002 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
13005 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13006 #: freeculture.xml:9365
13008 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
13009 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
13010 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
13011 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
13012 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
13016 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13017 #: freeculture.xml:9373
13019 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
13020 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
13021 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, 188 "
13022 "pages into a book like this), then you can see this other aspect by "
13023 "substituting <quote>free market</quote> every place I've spoken of "
13024 "<quote>free culture.</quote> The point is the same, even if the interests "
13025 "affecting culture are more fundamental."
13028 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13029 #: freeculture.xml:9383
13031 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
13032 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
13033 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
13034 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
13035 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
13036 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
13037 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
13038 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
13039 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
13040 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
13043 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13044 #: freeculture.xml:9395 freeculture.xml:9503
13045 msgid "Barry, Hank"
13049 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13050 #: freeculture.xml:9397
13052 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
13053 "that I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13054 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>. The consequence of this massive threat of "
13055 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
13056 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
13057 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
13058 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
13059 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
13060 "Barry calls a <quote>nuclear pall</quote> that has fallen over the "
13061 "Valley—has been learned."
13064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13065 #: freeculture.xml:9410
13067 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
13068 "<citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle> and which has progressed in a way "
13069 "that even I (pessimist extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
13072 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13073 #: freeculture.xml:9414
13074 msgid "Roberts, Michael"
13077 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13078 #: freeculture.xml:9416
13080 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
13081 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
13082 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
13083 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
13084 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
13088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
13089 #: freeculture.xml:9424
13090 msgid "preference data on"
13093 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13094 #: freeculture.xml:9426
13096 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
13097 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
13098 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
13099 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
13103 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13104 #: freeculture.xml:9433
13106 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
13107 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
13108 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
13109 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
13110 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
13111 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
13112 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
13113 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
13114 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
13118 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13119 #: freeculture.xml:9445
13121 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
13122 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
13123 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
13124 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
13128 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13129 #: freeculture.xml:9455
13131 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
13132 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
13133 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
13134 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
13135 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
13136 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
13137 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
13138 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
13139 "something they had already bought."
13142 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13143 #: freeculture.xml:9468
13145 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
13146 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
13147 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
13148 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
13149 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
13150 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
13151 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
13154 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13155 #: freeculture.xml:9478
13156 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
13159 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13160 #: freeculture.xml:9481
13162 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
13163 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
13164 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
13165 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
13166 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
13167 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
13168 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
13172 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13173 #: freeculture.xml:9491
13175 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
13176 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
13177 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
13178 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
13179 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
13180 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
13181 "cost you and your firm dearly."
13184 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13185 #: freeculture.xml:9502
13186 msgid "Hummer, John"
13189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13190 #: freeculture.xml:9504
13191 msgid "Hummer Winblad"
13195 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13196 #: freeculture.xml:9514
13198 "See Joseph Menn, <quote>Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,</quote> "
13199 "<citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 23 April 2003. For a parallel "
13200 "argument about the effects on innovation in the distribution of music, see "
13201 "Janelle Brown, <quote>The Music Revolution Will Not Be Digitized,</quote> "
13202 "Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
13203 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
13204 "Healey, <quote>Online Music Services Besieged,</quote> <citetitle>Los "
13205 "Angeles Times</citetitle>, 28 May 2001."
13208 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13209 #: freeculture.xml:9508
13211 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
13212 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
13213 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
13214 "cofounder ( John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
13215 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
13216 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
13217 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
13218 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
13219 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
13220 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
13221 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
13222 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
13223 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
13224 "that touch content. In an article in <citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, "
13225 "Rafe Needleman describes a discussion with BMW:"
13228 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13229 #: freeculture.xml:9536
13233 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
13234 #: freeculture.xml:9537
13235 msgid "cars, MP3 sound system in"
13238 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13239 #: freeculture.xml:9552
13240 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
13243 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13244 #: freeculture.xml:9548
13246 "Rafe Needleman, <quote>Driving in Cars with MP3s,</quote> "
13247 "<citetitle>Business 2.0</citetitle>, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
13248 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #43</ulink>. I am grateful to "
13249 "Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
13253 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13254 #: freeculture.xml:9539
13256 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
13257 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
13258 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
13259 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
13260 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
13261 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. … <placeholder "
13262 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13265 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13266 #: freeculture.xml:9557
13268 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with <quote>your money or your "
13269 "life</quote> offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats "
13270 "that the law empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that "
13271 "will obviously and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to "
13272 "start a company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly "
13273 "threatened by litigation."
13277 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13278 #: freeculture.xml:9567
13280 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
13281 "enterprises. The point is the definition of <quote>illegal.</quote> The law "
13282 "is a mess of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to "
13283 "new technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and "
13284 "by embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, "
13285 "that uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
13286 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
13287 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
13288 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
13289 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
13290 "and much less creativity."
13293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13294 #: freeculture.xml:9582
13296 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
13297 "use. Whatever the <quote>real</quote> law is, realism about the effect of "
13298 "law in both contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation "
13299 "will systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
13300 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
13301 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
13302 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
13303 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
13304 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulatedregulated market."
13308 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13309 #: freeculture.xml:9594
13311 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
13312 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
13313 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
13314 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
13315 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
13316 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
13317 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
13318 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
13319 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
13320 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
13321 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
13322 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
13323 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
13324 "justifying to justify that result."
13327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13328 #: freeculture.xml:9613
13330 "<emphasis role='strong'>The uncertainty</emphasis> of the law is one burden "
13331 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
13332 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
13333 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
13337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13338 #: freeculture.xml:9620
13340 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
13341 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
13342 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
13343 "<quote>bug.</quote> The efficient spread of content means that content "
13344 "distributors have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. "
13345 "One obvious response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less "
13346 "efficient. If the Internet enables <quote>piracy,</quote> then, this "
13347 "response says, we should break the kneecaps of the Internet."
13351 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13352 #: freeculture.xml:9635
13354 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> "
13355 "GartnerG2 and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law "
13356 "School (2003), 33–35, available at <ulink "
13357 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
13361 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13362 #: freeculture.xml:9648
13363 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
13366 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13367 #: freeculture.xml:9631
13369 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
13370 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
13371 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
13372 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
13373 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
13374 "explore a mandatory <quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would be required on "
13375 "any device capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and "
13376 "that would disable the copying of any content that is marked with a "
13377 "broadcast flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content "
13378 "providers from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt "
13379 "down copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
13380 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
13384 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13385 #: freeculture.xml:9652
13387 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
13388 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
13389 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
13390 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
13391 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
13394 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
13395 #: freeculture.xml:9661 freeculture.xml:11506
13400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13401 #: freeculture.xml:9667
13403 "See David McGuire, <quote>Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,</quote> "
13404 "Newsbytes, February 2002 (Entertainment)."
13407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13408 #: freeculture.xml:9663
13410 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
13411 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
13412 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
13413 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
13414 "any protection should not do more harm than good."
13417 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13418 #: freeculture.xml:9675
13420 "<emphasis role='strong'>There is one</emphasis> more obvious way in which "
13421 "this war has harmed innovation—again, a story that will be quite "
13422 "familiar to the free market crowd."
13425 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13426 #: freeculture.xml:9680
13428 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
13429 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
13430 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
13431 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
13434 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13435 #: freeculture.xml:9694
13437 "Jessica Litman, <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle> (Amherst, N.Y.: "
13438 "Prometheus Books, 2001). <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13441 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13442 #: freeculture.xml:9688
13444 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13445 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, despite this feature of copyright as regulation, "
13446 "and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica Litman in her "
13447 "book <citetitle>Digital Copyright</citetitle>,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13448 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter 10 "
13449 "details, when new technologies have come along, Congress has struck a "
13450 "balance to assure that the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or "
13451 "statutory, licenses have been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the "
13452 "case of the VCR) has been another."
13455 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13456 #: freeculture.xml:9705
13458 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
13459 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
13460 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
13461 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
13462 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
13465 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13466 #: freeculture.xml:9714
13467 msgid "Grokster, Ltd."
13470 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13471 #: freeculture.xml:9714
13473 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> The only circuit court exception "
13474 "is found in <citetitle>Recording Industry Association of America "
13475 "(RIAA)</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Diamond Multimedia Systems</citetitle>, 180 "
13476 "F. 3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999). There the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit "
13477 "reasoned that makers of a portable MP3 player were not liable for "
13478 "contributory copyright infringement for a device that is unable to record or "
13479 "redistribute music (a device whose only copying function is to render "
13480 "portable a music file already stored on a user's hard drive). At the "
13481 "district court level, the only exception is found in "
13482 "<citetitle>Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, "
13483 "Inc</citetitle>. v. <citetitle>Grokster, Ltd</citetitle>., 259 F. Supp. 2d "
13484 "1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the link between the "
13485 "distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to make the "
13486 "distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement liability."
13489 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13490 #: freeculture.xml:9733
13491 msgid "Tauzin, Billy"
13494 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13495 #: freeculture.xml:9749
13496 msgid "Hollings, Fritz"
13499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13500 #: freeculture.xml:9733
13502 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> For example, in July 2002, "
13503 "Representative Howard Berman introduced the Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention "
13504 "Act (H.R. 5211), which would immunize copyright holders from liability for "
13505 "damage done to computers when the copyright holders use technology to stop "
13506 "copyright infringement. In August 2002, Representative Billy Tauzin "
13507 "introduced a bill to mandate that technologies capable of rebroadcasting "
13508 "digital copies of films broadcast on TV (i.e., computers) respect a "
13509 "<quote>broadcast flag</quote> that would disable copying of that "
13510 "content. And in March of the same year, Senator Fritz Hollings introduced "
13511 "the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, which mandated "
13512 "copyright protection technology in all digital media devices. See GartnerG2, "
13513 "<quote>Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,</quote> 27 June "
13514 "2003, 33–34, available at <ulink "
13515 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>. <placeholder "
13516 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> "
13517 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
13520 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13521 #: freeculture.xml:9712
13523 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
13524 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
13525 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
13526 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
13527 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
13528 "demise of Internet radio."
13532 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13533 #: freeculture.xml:9760
13535 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
13536 "linkend=\"pirates\"/>, when a radio station plays a song, the recording "
13537 "artist doesn't get paid for that <quote>radio performance</quote> unless he "
13538 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
13539 "a version of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote>—to memorialize her famous "
13540 "performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then "
13541 "whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current copyright "
13542 "owners of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> would get some money, whereas "
13543 "Marilyn Monroe would not."
13546 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13547 #: freeculture.xml:9771
13549 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
13550 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
13551 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
13552 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
13553 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
13554 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
13555 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
13556 "compensation to the recording artists."
13559 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13560 #: freeculture.xml:9782
13562 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
13563 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
13564 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
13565 "<quote>tune in</quote> to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting "
13566 "in San Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular "
13567 "radio station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
13570 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13571 #: freeculture.xml:9791
13573 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
13574 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
13575 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
13576 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
13577 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
13578 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
13579 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
13580 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
13581 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
13582 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
13586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13587 #: freeculture.xml:9807
13589 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
13590 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
13591 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
13592 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
13593 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
13594 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
13598 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
13599 #: freeculture.xml:9831
13600 msgid "Lessing, 239."
13603 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13604 #: freeculture.xml:9817
13606 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
13607 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
13608 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
13609 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
13610 "restrictions. … Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
13611 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
13612 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
13613 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
13614 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
13615 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
13616 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
13617 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13621 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13622 #: freeculture.xml:9841
13623 msgid "Ibid., 229."
13626 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13627 #: freeculture.xml:9836
13629 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
13630 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
13631 "<quote>vested interests, habits, customs and legislation</quote><placeholder "
13632 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
13636 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13637 #: freeculture.xml:9846
13639 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
13640 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
13641 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
13642 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
13643 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
13647 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13648 #: freeculture.xml:9855
13650 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
13651 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
13652 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
13653 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
13654 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
13655 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
13656 "it plays her hypothetical recording of <quote>Happy Birthday</quote> on the "
13657 "air, <emphasis>Internet radio does</emphasis>. Not only is the law not "
13658 "neutral toward Internet radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio "
13659 "more than it burdens terrestrial radio."
13662 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
13663 #: freeculture.xml:9894
13664 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
13667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13668 #: freeculture.xml:9877
13670 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
13671 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
13672 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
13673 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
13674 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
13675 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
13676 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
13677 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
13678 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, <quote>Copyright as "
13679 "Entry Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,</quote> <citetitle>Antitrust "
13680 "Bulletin</citetitle> (Summer/Fall 2002): 461: <quote>This was not confusion, "
13681 "these are just old-fashioned entry barriers. Analog radio stations are "
13682 "protected from digital entrants, reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, "
13683 "this is done in the name of getting royalties to copyright holders, but, "
13684 "absent the play of powerful interests, that could have been done in a "
13685 "media-neutral way.</quote> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
13686 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
13689 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13690 #: freeculture.xml:9870
13692 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
13693 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
13694 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
13695 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
13696 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
13697 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
13700 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13701 #: freeculture.xml:9902
13703 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
13704 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
13705 "would have to collect the following data from <emphasis>every listening "
13706 "transaction</emphasis>:"
13709 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13710 #: freeculture.xml:9910
13711 msgid "name of the service;"
13714 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13715 #: freeculture.xml:9913
13716 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
13719 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13720 #: freeculture.xml:9916
13721 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
13724 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13725 #: freeculture.xml:9919
13726 msgid "date of transmission;"
13729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13730 #: freeculture.xml:9922
13731 msgid "time of transmission;"
13734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13735 #: freeculture.xml:9925
13736 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
13739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13740 #: freeculture.xml:9928
13741 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
13744 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13745 #: freeculture.xml:9931
13746 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
13749 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13750 #: freeculture.xml:9934
13751 msgid "sound recording title;"
13754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13755 #: freeculture.xml:9937
13756 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
13759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13760 #: freeculture.xml:9940
13762 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
13763 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
13767 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13768 #: freeculture.xml:9943
13769 msgid "featured recording artist;"
13772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13773 #: freeculture.xml:9946
13774 msgid "retail album title;"
13777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13778 #: freeculture.xml:9949
13779 msgid "recording label;"
13782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13783 #: freeculture.xml:9952
13784 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
13787 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13788 #: freeculture.xml:9955
13789 msgid "catalog number;"
13792 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13793 #: freeculture.xml:9958
13794 msgid "copyright owner information;"
13797 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13798 #: freeculture.xml:9961
13799 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
13802 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13803 #: freeculture.xml:9964
13804 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
13807 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13808 #: freeculture.xml:9967
13809 msgid "channel or program;"
13812 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13813 #: freeculture.xml:9970
13814 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
13817 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13818 #: freeculture.xml:9973
13819 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
13822 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13823 #: freeculture.xml:9976
13824 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
13827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13828 #: freeculture.xml:9979
13829 msgid "unique user identifier;"
13832 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
13833 #: freeculture.xml:9982
13834 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
13837 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13838 #: freeculture.xml:9987
13840 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
13841 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
13842 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
13843 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
13844 "pay a <emphasis>type of copyright fee</emphasis> that terrestrial radio does "
13848 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13849 #: freeculture.xml:9995
13851 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
13852 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
13853 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
13856 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
13857 #: freeculture.xml:9999 freeculture.xml:14673
13858 msgid "Real Networks"
13861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13862 #: freeculture.xml:10002
13864 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
13865 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
13866 "Real Networks, told me,"
13870 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13871 #: freeculture.xml:10008
13873 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
13874 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
13875 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
13876 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
13877 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, … <quote>How do you come "
13878 "up with a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? "
13879 "Because here we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, "
13880 "and that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, "
13881 "you're going to drive the small webcasters out of business. …</quote>"
13884 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
13885 #: freeculture.xml:10024
13887 "And the RIAA experts said, <quote>Well, we don't really model this as an "
13888 "industry with thousands of webcasters, <emphasis>we think it should be an "
13889 "industry with, you know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate "
13890 "and it's a stable, predictable market</emphasis>.</quote> (Emphasis added.)"
13893 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13894 #: freeculture.xml:10033
13896 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
13897 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
13898 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
13899 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
13900 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
13901 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
13904 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><title>
13905 #: freeculture.xml:10043
13906 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
13909 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13910 #: freeculture.xml:10045
13912 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
13913 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
13914 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
13917 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13918 #: freeculture.xml:10051
13920 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
13921 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
13922 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
13926 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13927 #: freeculture.xml:10060
13929 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, <quote>The Music Downloading Deluge,</quote> "
13930 "Pew Internet and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
13931 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
13932 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
13933 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
13937 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13938 #: freeculture.xml:10056
13940 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
13941 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
13942 "of citizens. According to <citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>, 43 "
13943 "million Americans downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder "
13944 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 "
13945 "million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 "
13946 "percent of America into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not "
13947 "only the Napsters and Kazaas of the world, but against students building "
13948 "search engines, and increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, "
13949 "the technologies for sharing will advance to further protect and hide "
13950 "illegal use. It is an arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one "
13951 "side inviting a more extreme response by the other."
13955 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13956 #: freeculture.xml:10094
13958 "Alex Pham, <quote>The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA "
13959 "Case,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, "
13963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
13964 #: freeculture.xml:10081
13966 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
13967 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
13968 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
13969 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
13970 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
13971 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
13972 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
13973 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
13974 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
13975 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
13976 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
13977 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
13978 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
13979 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
13980 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
13981 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
13982 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
13985 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
13986 #: freeculture.xml:10105
13987 msgid "alcohol prohibition"
13991 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
13992 #: freeculture.xml:10117
13994 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, <quote>Alcohol Consumption During "
13995 "Prohibition,</quote> <citetitle>American Economic Review</citetitle> 81, "
13996 "no. 2 (1991): 242."
14000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14001 #: freeculture.xml:10125
14003 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
14004 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
14005 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
14009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14010 #: freeculture.xml:10135
14012 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, <quote>Tax "
14013 "Compliance,</quote> <citetitle>Journal of Economic Literature</citetitle> 36 "
14014 "(1998): 818 (survey of compliance literature)."
14017 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14018 #: freeculture.xml:10107
14020 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
14021 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
14022 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
14023 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
14024 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
14025 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
14026 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
14027 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
14028 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
14029 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14030 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
14031 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
14032 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
14033 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
14034 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our <quote>free "
14035 "society,</quote> but an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated "
14036 "within our society. And as a result, a huge proportion of Americans "
14037 "regularly violate at least some law."
14040 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14041 #: freeculture.xml:10143
14042 msgid "law schools"
14045 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14046 #: freeculture.xml:10145
14048 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
14049 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
14050 "about the importance of <quote>ethics.</quote> As my colleague Charlie "
14051 "Nesson told a class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of "
14052 "students who have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and "
14053 "sometimes drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven "
14054 "cars. These are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the "
14055 "norm. And then we, as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to "
14056 "behave ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds "
14057 "separate, or honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your "
14058 "case is over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some "
14059 "parts of America than in others, but still, everywhere in America "
14060 "today—can't live their lives both normally and legally, since "
14061 "<quote>normally</quote> entails a certain degree of illegality."
14064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14065 #: freeculture.xml:10162
14067 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
14068 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
14069 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
14070 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
14071 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
14072 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
14073 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
14074 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
14078 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14079 #: freeculture.xml:10175
14081 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
14082 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
14083 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
14084 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
14085 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
14088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14089 #: freeculture.xml:10182
14091 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
14092 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
14093 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
14094 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
14095 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
14096 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
14097 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
14098 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
14099 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
14100 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of "
14101 "<quote>sharing.</quote> We need to be able to call these twenty million "
14102 "Americans <quote>citizens,</quote> not <quote>felons.</quote>"
14105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14106 #: freeculture.xml:10196
14108 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
14109 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
14110 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
14111 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
14112 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
14113 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
14114 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
14115 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
14116 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
14119 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14120 #: freeculture.xml:10208
14121 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
14125 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14126 #: freeculture.xml:10211
14128 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
14129 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
14130 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
14131 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
14132 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That <quote>use</quote> of the "
14133 "recordings is free."
14136 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14137 #: freeculture.xml:10222
14139 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
14140 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
14141 "copy-protection technologies, I am <quote>free</quote> to copy, or "
14142 "<quote>rip,</quote> music from my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, "
14143 "Apple Corporation went so far as to suggest that <quote>freedom</quote> was "
14144 "a right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the <quote>Rip, Mix, "
14145 "Burn</quote> capacities of digital technologies."
14148 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14149 #: freeculture.xml:10230
14153 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><secondary>
14154 #: freeculture.xml:10231
14155 msgid "mix technology and"
14158 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14159 #: freeculture.xml:10233
14161 "This <quote>use</quote> of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a "
14162 "large process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing "
14163 "them in one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program "
14164 "called Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, "
14165 "Baroque, Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
14166 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
14167 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
14168 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
14172 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14173 #: freeculture.xml:10244
14175 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
14176 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
14177 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
14178 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
14179 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
14180 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
14181 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
14185 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14186 #: freeculture.xml:10254
14188 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
14189 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
14190 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
14191 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
14192 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
14193 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
14194 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
14195 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
14196 "part of a massively complex <quote>digital rights management</quote> system."
14199 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14200 #: freeculture.xml:10269
14202 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
14203 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
14204 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
14205 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
14206 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
14207 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
14211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14212 #: freeculture.xml:10278
14214 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
14215 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
14216 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
14217 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
14218 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
14219 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
14220 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
14221 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
14224 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14225 #: freeculture.xml:10289
14227 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
14228 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
14229 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
14230 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
14231 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
14232 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
14233 "horse-drawn buggy."
14236 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14237 #: freeculture.xml:10298
14239 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
14240 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
14241 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
14242 "as criminals and their own survival."
14246 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14247 #: freeculture.xml:10304
14249 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
14250 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
14251 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
14252 "important as our tradition of free culture."
14255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14256 #: freeculture.xml:10315
14258 "<emphasis role='strong'>There's one more</emphasis> aspect to this "
14259 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
14260 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
14261 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the <quote>collateral "
14262 "damage</quote> that <quote>arises whenever you turn a very large percentage "
14263 "of the population into criminals.</quote> This is the collateral damage to "
14264 "civil liberties generally."
14267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><indexterm><primary>
14268 #: freeculture.xml:10323 freeculture.xml:10423
14269 msgid "von Lohmann, Fred"
14272 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14273 #: freeculture.xml:10325
14275 "<quote>If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,</quote> von "
14276 "Lohmann explains,"
14279 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14280 #: freeculture.xml:10330
14282 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
14283 "one degree or another. … If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
14284 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
14285 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
14286 "continue to receive Internet access? … Our sensibilities change as "
14287 "soon as we think, <quote>Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a "
14288 "lawbreaker.</quote> Well, what this campaign against file sharing has done "
14289 "is turn a remarkable percentage of the American Internet-using population "
14290 "into <quote>lawbreakers.</quote>"
14293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14294 #: freeculture.xml:10342
14296 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
14297 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
14298 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
14301 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14302 #: freeculture.xml:10347
14304 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
14305 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
14306 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
14307 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
14308 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
14309 "user is revealed."
14313 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14314 #: freeculture.xml:10365
14316 "See Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single "
14317 "Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> "
14318 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, "
14319 "<quote>Worried Parents Pull Plug on File `Stealing'; With the Music Industry "
14320 "Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents are Yanking Software from Home PCs "
14321 "to Avoid Being Sued,</quote> <citetitle>Orlando Sentinel "
14322 "Tribune</citetitle>, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, <quote>Recording "
14323 "Industry Sues Parents,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 15 "
14324 "September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, <quote>She Says She's No Music Pirate. No "
14325 "Snoop Fan, Either,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 25 "
14326 "September 2003, C1; Margo Varadi, <quote>Is Brianna a Criminal?</quote> "
14327 "<citetitle>Toronto Star</citetitle>, 18 September 2003, P7."
14330 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14331 #: freeculture.xml:10356
14333 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
14334 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
14335 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
14336 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
14337 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
14338 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
14339 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
14340 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14344 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14345 #: freeculture.xml:10383
14347 "See <quote>Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses "
14348 "Some Methods Used,</quote> CNN.com, available at <ulink "
14349 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
14352 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14353 #: freeculture.xml:10379
14355 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
14356 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
14357 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
14358 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
14359 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
14360 "MP3s will have the same <quote>fingerprint.</quote>"
14364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para><footnote><para>
14365 #: freeculture.xml:10404
14367 "See Jeff Adler, <quote>Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not "
14368 "Penitent,</quote> <citetitle>Boston Globe</citetitle>, 18 May 2003, City "
14369 "Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, <quote>Four Students Sued over Music Sites; "
14370 "Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,</quote> "
14371 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth "
14372 "Armstrong, <quote>Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at Their Own Risk,</quote> "
14373 "<citetitle>Christian Science Monitor</citetitle>, 2 September 2003, 20; "
14374 "Robert Becker and Angela Rozas, <quote>Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; "
14375 "Two Students Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,</quote> "
14376 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 16 July 2003, 1C; Beth Cox, "
14377 "<quote>RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,</quote> "
14378 "<citetitle>Internet News</citetitle>, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
14379 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
14380 "<quote>Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include "
14381 "Record Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,</quote> <citetitle>San "
14382 "Francisco Chronicle</citetitle>, 11 August 2003, E11; <quote>Raid, Letters "
14383 "Are Weapons at Universities,</quote> <citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 26 "
14384 "September 2000, 3D."
14387 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14388 #: freeculture.xml:10392
14390 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
14391 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
14392 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
14393 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
14394 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
14395 "if the college network is <quote>cooperating</quote> with the RIAA's "
14396 "espionage, and she hasn't properly protected her content from the network "
14397 "(do you know how to do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to "
14398 "identify your daughter as a <quote>criminal.</quote> And under the rules "
14399 "that universities are beginning to deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14400 "id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer "
14401 "network. She can, in some cases, be expelled."
14405 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14406 #: freeculture.xml:10425
14408 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
14409 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
14410 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
14411 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
14412 "university might not believe her. It might treat this "
14413 "<quote>contraband</quote> as presumptive of guilt. And as any number of "
14414 "college students have already learned, our presumptions about innocence "
14415 "disappear in the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different. "
14416 "Says von Lohmann,"
14419 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><blockquote><para>
14420 #: freeculture.xml:10440
14422 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
14423 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
14424 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
14425 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
14426 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
14427 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
14428 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
14429 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
14430 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
14431 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
14432 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
14433 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
14434 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. … If forty to "
14435 "sixty million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a "
14436 "slippery slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty "
14440 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><section><para>
14441 #: freeculture.xml:10460
14443 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered "
14444 "<quote>criminals</quote> under the law, and when the law could achieve the "
14445 "same objective— securing rights to authors—without these "
14446 "millions being considered <quote>criminals,</quote> who is the villain? "
14447 "Americans or the law? Which is American, a constant war on our own people or "
14448 "a concerted effort through our democracy to change our law?"
14451 #. type: Content of: <book><part><title>
14452 #: freeculture.xml:10473
14456 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14457 #: freeculture.xml:10478
14459 "<emphasis role='strong'>So here's</emphasis> the picture: You're standing at "
14460 "the side of the road. Your car is on fire. You are angry and upset because "
14461 "in part you helped start the fire. Now you don't know how to put it "
14462 "out. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline "
14463 "won't put the fire out."
14466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14467 #: freeculture.xml:10485
14469 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
14470 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
14471 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
14472 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
14473 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
14476 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14477 #: freeculture.xml:10493
14479 "<emphasis role='strong'>A war</emphasis> about copyright rages all "
14480 "around—and we're all focusing on the wrong thing. No doubt, current "
14481 "technologies threaten existing businesses. No doubt they may threaten "
14482 "artists. But technologies change. The industry and technologists have "
14483 "plenty of ways to use technology to protect themselves against the current "
14484 "threats of the Internet. This is a fire that if let alone would burn itself "
14489 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14490 #: freeculture.xml:10503
14492 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
14493 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
14494 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
14495 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
14496 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
14499 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14500 #: freeculture.xml:10511
14502 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
14503 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
14507 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14508 #: freeculture.xml:10516
14510 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
14511 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
14512 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
14513 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
14516 #. type: Content of: <book><part><partintro><para>
14517 #: freeculture.xml:10522
14519 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
14520 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
14521 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
14522 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
14525 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
14526 #: freeculture.xml:10532
14527 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
14530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14531 #: freeculture.xml:10533
14532 msgid "Hawthorne, Nathaniel"
14535 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14536 #: freeculture.xml:10535
14538 "<emphasis role='strong'>In 1995</emphasis>, a father was frustrated that his "
14539 "daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one "
14540 "such father, but at least one did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired "
14541 "computer programmer living in New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the "
14542 "Web. An electronic version, Eldred thought, with links to pictures and "
14543 "explanatory text, would make this nineteenth-century author's work come "
14547 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14548 #: freeculture.xml:10544
14550 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
14551 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
14552 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
14553 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
14557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14558 #: freeculture.xml:10553
14560 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
14561 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
14562 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
14563 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
14564 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
14565 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
14566 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
14569 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14570 #: freeculture.xml:10564
14572 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
14573 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's <citetitle>Scarlet Letter</citetitle> had passed "
14574 "into the public domain in 1907. It was free for anyone to take without the "
14575 "permission of the Hawthorne estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press "
14576 "and Penguin Classics, take works from the public domain and produce printed "
14577 "editions, which they sell in bookstores across the country. Others, such as "
14578 "Disney, take these stories and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes "
14579 "successfully (<citetitle>Cinderella</citetitle>), sometimes not "
14580 "(<citetitle>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</citetitle>, <citetitle>Treasure "
14581 "Planet</citetitle>). These are all commercial publications of public domain "
14586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14587 #: freeculture.xml:10589
14589 "There's a parallel here with pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but "
14590 "it's a strong one. One phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of "
14591 "noncommercial pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were "
14592 "not making money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a "
14593 "class didn't exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of "
14594 "distributing porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got "
14595 "special attention in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the "
14596 "Communications Decency Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on "
14597 "noncommercial speakers that the statute was found to exceed Congress's "
14598 "power. The same point could have been made about noncommercial publishers "
14599 "after the advent of the Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the "
14600 "Internet were extremely few. Yet one would think it at least as important to "
14601 "protect the Eldreds of the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
14604 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14605 #: freeculture.xml:10578
14607 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
14608 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
14609 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
14610 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
14611 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the "
14612 "<quote>noncommercial publishing industry,</quote> which before the Internet "
14613 "was limited to people with large egos or with political or social "
14614 "causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of individuals and "
14615 "groups dedicated to spreading culture generally.<placeholder "
14616 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14619 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14620 #: freeculture.xml:10606
14622 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
14623 "of poems <citetitle>New Hampshire</citetitle> was slated to pass into the "
14624 "public domain. Eldred wanted to post that collection in his free public "
14625 "library. But Congress got in the way. As I described in chapter <xref "
14626 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, in 1998, for the "
14627 "eleventh time in forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing "
14628 "copyrights—this time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add "
14629 "any works more recent than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no "
14630 "copyrighted work would pass into the public domain until that year (and not "
14631 "even then, if Congress extends the term again). By contrast, in the same "
14632 "period, more than 1 million patents will pass into the public domain."
14635 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14636 #: freeculture.xml:10619 freeculture.xml:10629
14640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
14641 #: freeculture.xml:10620 freeculture.xml:10630
14642 msgid "Bono, Sonny"
14645 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14646 #: freeculture.xml:10629
14648 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14649 "id=\"1\"/> The full text is: <quote>Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of "
14650 "copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a "
14651 "change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me "
14652 "to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you "
14653 "know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less "
14654 "one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,</quote> 144 "
14655 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
14658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14659 #: freeculture.xml:10624
14661 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
14662 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
14663 "Mary Bono, says, believed that <quote>copyrights should be "
14664 "forever.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
14667 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14668 #: freeculture.xml:10642
14670 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
14671 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
14672 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
14673 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
14674 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
14675 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
14678 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14679 #: freeculture.xml:10651
14681 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
14682 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
14683 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
14684 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
14685 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
14688 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
14689 #: freeculture.xml:10662
14691 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science … by "
14692 "securing for limited Times to Authors … exclusive Right to their "
14693 "… Writings. …"
14696 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14697 #: freeculture.xml:10668
14699 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
14700 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
14701 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
14702 "example, to regulate <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> or "
14703 "<quote>declare War.</quote> But here, the <quote>something</quote> is "
14704 "something quite specific—to <quote>promote … "
14705 "Progress</quote>—through means that are also specific— by "
14706 "<quote>securing</quote> <quote>exclusive Rights</quote> (i.e., copyrights) "
14707 "<quote>for limited Times.</quote>"
14710 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14711 #: freeculture.xml:10677 freeculture.xml:12163
14712 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
14716 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14717 #: freeculture.xml:10679
14719 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
14720 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
14721 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
14722 "requirement that terms be <quote>limited</quote> will have no practical "
14723 "effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power "
14724 "to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
14725 "forbids—perpetual terms <quote>on the installment plan,</quote> as "
14726 "Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it."
14729 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14730 #: freeculture.xml:10690
14732 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
14733 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
14734 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
14735 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
14736 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
14737 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
14738 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
14739 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
14742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14743 #: freeculture.xml:10701
14745 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
14746 "government. <quote>Corruption</quote> not in the sense that representatives "
14747 "are bribed. Rather, <quote>corruption</quote> in the sense that the system "
14748 "induces the beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to "
14749 "Congress to induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so "
14750 "much Congress can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must "
14751 "do—and those things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
14754 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14755 #: freeculture.xml:10710
14757 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
14758 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
14759 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
14760 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
14761 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
14762 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
14763 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
14766 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14767 #: freeculture.xml:10720
14769 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
14770 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
14771 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
14772 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
14776 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14777 #: freeculture.xml:10727
14779 "<quote>Next year,</quote> the adviser announces, <quote>our copyrights in "
14780 "works A, B, and C will expire. That means that after next year, we will no "
14781 "longer be receiving the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers "
14782 "of those works.</quote>"
14785 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14786 #: freeculture.xml:10735
14788 "<quote>There's a proposal in Congress, however,</quote> she continues, "
14789 "<quote>that could change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to "
14790 "extend the terms of copyright by twenty years. That bill would be "
14791 "extraordinarily valuable to us. So we should hope this bill passes.</quote>"
14794 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14795 #: freeculture.xml:10741
14797 "<quote>Hope?</quote> a fellow board member says. <quote>Can't we be doing "
14798 "something about it?</quote>"
14801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14802 #: freeculture.xml:10745
14804 "<quote>Well, obviously, yes,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>We could "
14805 "contribute to the campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure "
14806 "that they support the bill.</quote>"
14809 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14810 #: freeculture.xml:10750
14812 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
14813 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. <quote>How much would we get "
14814 "if this extension were passed?</quote> you ask the adviser. <quote>How much "
14815 "is it worth?</quote>"
14818 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14819 #: freeculture.xml:10756
14821 "<quote>Well,</quote> the adviser says, <quote>if you're confident that you "
14822 "will continue to get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you "
14823 "use the `discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 "
14824 "percent), then this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.</quote>"
14827 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14828 #: freeculture.xml:10762
14830 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
14834 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14835 #: freeculture.xml:10766
14837 "<quote>So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than "
14838 "$1,000,000 in campaign contributions if we were confident those "
14839 "contributions would assure that the bill was passed?</quote>"
14842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14843 #: freeculture.xml:10772
14845 "<quote>Absolutely,</quote> the adviser responds. <quote>It is worth it to "
14846 "you to contribute up to the `present value' of the income you expect from "
14847 "these copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.</quote>"
14851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14852 #: freeculture.xml:10778
14854 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
14855 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
14856 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
14857 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
14858 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
14859 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
14863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14864 #: freeculture.xml:10789
14866 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
14867 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
14868 "buy further extensions of copyright."
14872 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14873 #: freeculture.xml:10801
14875 "Associated Press, <quote>Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey "
14876 "Mouse Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,</quote> "
14877 "<citetitle>Chicago Tribune</citetitle>, 17 October 1998, 22."
14881 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14882 #: freeculture.xml:10808
14884 "See Nick Brown, <quote>Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information "
14885 "Age,</quote> available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
14890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14891 #: freeculture.xml:10816
14893 "Alan K. Ota, <quote>Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,</quote> "
14894 "<citetitle>Congressional Quarterly This Week</citetitle>, 8 August 1990, "
14895 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
14898 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14899 #: freeculture.xml:10794
14901 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
14902 "Extension Act, this <quote>theory</quote> about incentives was proved "
14903 "real. Ten of the thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received "
14904 "the maximum contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the "
14905 "Senate, eight of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder "
14906 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have "
14907 "spent over $1.5 million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out "
14908 "more than $200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14909 "id=\"1\"/> Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to "
14910 "reelection campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
14913 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14914 #: freeculture.xml:10823
14916 "<emphasis role='strong'>Constitutional law</emphasis> is not oblivious to "
14917 "the obvious. Or at least, it need not be. So when I was considering Eldred's "
14918 "complaint, this reality about the never-ending incentives to increase the "
14919 "copyright term was central to my thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court "
14920 "committed to interpreting and applying the Constitution of our framers would "
14921 "see that if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then there "
14922 "would be no effective constitutional requirement that terms be "
14923 "<quote>limited.</quote> If they could extend it once, they would extend it "
14924 "again and again and again."
14928 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14929 #: freeculture.xml:10835
14931 "It was also my judgment that <emphasis>this</emphasis> Supreme Court would "
14932 "not allow Congress to extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme "
14933 "Court's work knows, this Court has increasingly restricted the power of "
14934 "Congress when it has viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power "
14935 "granted to it by the Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most "
14936 "famous example of this trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to "
14937 "strike down a law that banned the possession of guns near schools."
14940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14941 #: freeculture.xml:10848
14943 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
14944 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
14945 "only <quote>commerce among the several states</quote> (aka <quote>interstate "
14946 "commerce</quote>), the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include "
14947 "the power to regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
14950 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14951 #: freeculture.xml:10858
14953 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
14954 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
14955 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
14956 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
14960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
14961 #: freeculture.xml:10864 freeculture.xml:11650
14962 msgid "Rehnquist, William H."
14965 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14966 #: freeculture.xml:10866
14968 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
14969 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The "
14970 "government had argued that possessing guns near schools affected interstate "
14971 "commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, crime lowers property values, "
14972 "and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief Justice asked the government "
14973 "whether there was any activity that would not affect interstate commerce "
14974 "under the reasoning the government advanced. The government said there was "
14975 "not; if Congress says an activity affects interstate commerce, then that "
14976 "activity affects interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, the government "
14977 "said, was not in the position to second-guess Congress."
14981 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14982 #: freeculture.xml:10881
14984 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>, 514 "
14985 "U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
14989 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
14990 #: freeculture.xml:10888
14992 "<citetitle>United States</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>, 529 "
14996 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
14997 #: freeculture.xml:10879
14999 "<quote>We pause to consider the implications of the government's "
15000 "arguments,</quote> the Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15001 "id=\"0\"/> If anything Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore "
15002 "be considered interstate commerce, then there would be no limit to "
15003 "Congress's power. The decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> was "
15004 "reaffirmed five years later in <citetitle>United States</citetitle> "
15005 "v. <citetitle>Morrison</citetitle>.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
15009 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15010 #: freeculture.xml:10895
15012 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
15013 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
15014 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
15015 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
15016 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
15017 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
15018 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
15019 "copyrights—the limitation to <quote>limited times</quote> "
15024 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15025 #: freeculture.xml:10892
15027 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
15028 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15029 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
15030 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
15031 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no "
15032 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power over terms, though the "
15033 "Constitution expressly states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same "
15034 "principle applied to the power to grant copyrights should entail that "
15035 "Congress is not allowed to extend the term of existing copyrights."
15038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15039 #: freeculture.xml:10916
15041 "<emphasis>If</emphasis>, that is, the principle announced in "
15042 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for a principle. Many believed the "
15043 "decision in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> stood for politics—a "
15044 "conservative Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its "
15045 "power over Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I "
15046 "rejected that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after "
15047 "the decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the <quote>fidelity</quote> "
15048 "in such an interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme "
15049 "Court decides cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily "
15050 "boring. I was not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if "
15051 "these nine Justices were going to be petty politicians."
15054 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15055 #: freeculture.xml:10928
15056 msgid "copyright purpose established in"
15059 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
15060 #: freeculture.xml:10929
15061 msgid "constitutional purpose of"
15064 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15065 #: freeculture.xml:10933
15067 "<emphasis role='strong'>Now let's pause</emphasis> for a moment to make sure "
15068 "we understand what the argument in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was not "
15069 "about. By insisting on the Constitution's limits to copyright, obviously "
15070 "Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was "
15071 "fighting a kind of piracy—piracy of the public domain. When Robert "
15072 "Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum "
15073 "copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost "
15074 "and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their "
15075 "work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution "
15076 "envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they "
15077 "created new work. But now these entities were using their "
15078 "power—expressed through the power of lobbyists' money—to get "
15079 "another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be "
15080 "taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects "
15084 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15085 #: freeculture.xml:10950
15086 msgid "Nashville Songwriters Association"
15090 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15091 #: freeculture.xml:10958
15093 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, "
15094 "<citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. "
15095 "186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
15096 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
15099 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15100 #: freeculture.xml:10952
15102 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
15103 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
15104 "domain is nothing more than <quote>legal piracy.</quote><placeholder "
15105 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; "
15106 "and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
15107 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
15108 "pirate's charter."
15111 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15112 #: freeculture.xml:10968
15114 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
15115 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
15116 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
15117 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
15118 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
15119 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
15120 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
15123 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15124 #: freeculture.xml:10980
15126 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is valuable</emphasis> copyrights that are "
15127 "responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and <quote>Rhapsody in "
15128 "Blue.</quote> These works are too valuable for copyright owners to "
15129 "ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not "
15130 "that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert "
15131 "Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing "
15132 "commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these "
15133 "famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not "
15134 "commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
15138 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15139 #: freeculture.xml:10998
15141 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
15142 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
15143 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15144 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 7, available at <ulink "
15145 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
15148 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15149 #: freeculture.xml:10992
15151 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
15152 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
15153 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
15154 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
15155 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
15156 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15160 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15161 #: freeculture.xml:11007
15163 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
15164 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
15165 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
15166 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
15167 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
15171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15172 #: freeculture.xml:11020
15174 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
15175 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
15176 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
15177 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
15178 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
15182 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15183 #: freeculture.xml:11028
15185 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
15186 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
15189 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15190 #: freeculture.xml:11032
15192 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
15193 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
15194 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
15197 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15198 #: freeculture.xml:11039
15200 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
15201 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
15202 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
15203 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
15204 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
15207 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15208 #: freeculture.xml:11048
15210 "<quote>But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,</quote> the "
15211 "apologists for the system respond. <quote>Why should there be a list of "
15212 "copyright owners?</quote>"
15215 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15216 #: freeculture.xml:11053
15218 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there <emphasis>are</emphasis> plenty "
15219 "of lists of who owns what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles "
15220 "to cars. And where there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty "
15221 "good at suggesting who the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in "
15222 "your backyard is probably yours.) So formally or informally, we have a "
15223 "pretty good way to know who owns what tangible property."
15227 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15228 #: freeculture.xml:11062
15230 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
15231 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
15232 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
15233 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
15234 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
15235 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
15236 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
15237 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
15238 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
15241 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15242 #: freeculture.xml:11077
15244 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
15245 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
15246 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
15247 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
15248 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
15249 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
15250 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
15251 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
15255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15256 #: freeculture.xml:11089
15258 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
15259 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
15260 "creative works is much more dire."
15263 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15264 #: freeculture.xml:11094
15265 msgid "Agee, Michael"
15268 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15269 #: freeculture.xml:11095 freeculture.xml:11530
15270 msgid "Hal Roach Studios"
15273 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15274 #: freeculture.xml:11096
15275 msgid "Laurel and Hardy Films"
15278 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15279 #: freeculture.xml:11097
15280 msgid "Lucky Dog, The"
15284 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15285 #: freeculture.xml:11110
15287 "See David G. Savage, <quote>High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright "
15288 "Law,</quote> <citetitle>Los Angeles Times</citetitle>, 6 October 2002; David "
15289 "Streitfeld, <quote>Classic Movies, Songs, Books at Stake; Supreme Court "
15290 "Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down Copyright Extension,</quote> "
15291 "<citetitle>Orlando Sentinel Tribune</citetitle>, 9 October 2002."
15294 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15295 #: freeculture.xml:11099
15297 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
15298 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
15299 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
15300 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, <citetitle>The Lucky "
15301 "Dog</citetitle>, is currently out of copyright. But for the CTEA, films made "
15302 "after 1923 would have begun entering the public domain. Because Agee "
15303 "controls the exclusive rights for these popular films, he makes a great deal "
15304 "of money. According to one estimate, <quote>Roach has sold about 60,000 "
15305 "videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's silent "
15306 "films.</quote><placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15309 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15310 #: freeculture.xml:11117
15312 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
15313 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
15314 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
15315 "a whole generation of American film."
15319 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15320 #: freeculture.xml:11123
15322 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
15323 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
15324 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
15325 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
15326 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
15327 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
15331 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15332 #: freeculture.xml:11141
15334 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
15335 "Petitoners, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15336 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), "
15337 "12. See also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the "
15338 "Internet Archive, <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15339 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, available at <ulink "
15340 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
15343 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15344 #: freeculture.xml:11134
15346 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
15347 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
15348 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
15349 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
15350 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of mm film.<placeholder "
15351 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15354 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15355 #: freeculture.xml:11151
15357 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
15358 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
15359 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
15360 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
15361 "locate the copyright owner."
15364 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15365 #: freeculture.xml:11159
15367 "Or more accurately, <emphasis>owners</emphasis>. As we've seen, there isn't "
15368 "only a single copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't "
15369 "a single person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as "
15370 "many as can hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large "
15371 "number. Thus the costs of clearing the rights to these films is "
15372 "exceptionally high."
15375 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15376 #: freeculture.xml:11167
15378 "<quote>But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
15379 "copyright owner when she shows up?</quote> Sure, if you want to commit a "
15380 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
15381 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
15382 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
15383 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
15384 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
15385 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
15386 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
15390 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15391 #: freeculture.xml:11178
15393 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
15394 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
15395 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
15396 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
15400 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15401 #: freeculture.xml:11189
15403 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
15404 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
15405 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
15406 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
15409 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15410 #: freeculture.xml:11197
15412 "<emphasis role='strong'>Of all the</emphasis> creative work produced by "
15413 "humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that "
15414 "tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that "
15415 "tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute "
15416 "the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "
15417 "<quote>engine of free expression.</quote>"
15420 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15421 #: freeculture.xml:11205
15423 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
15424 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
15425 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
15426 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
15427 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
15428 "commercial life ends."
15431 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15432 #: freeculture.xml:11215
15434 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
15435 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
15436 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
15437 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
15438 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
15439 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
15440 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
15441 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
15445 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15446 #: freeculture.xml:11228
15448 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
15449 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
15450 "context do no good."
15453 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15454 #: freeculture.xml:11235
15456 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
15457 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
15458 "<emphasis>copyright-related use</emphasis> that would be inhibited by an "
15459 "exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a "
15460 "publisher. But you could still buy it from a used book store, and when a "
15461 "used book store sells it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the "
15462 "copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its "
15463 "commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law."
15466 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15467 #: freeculture.xml:11246
15469 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
15470 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
15471 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
15472 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
15473 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
15474 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
15477 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15478 #: freeculture.xml:11255
15480 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
15481 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
15482 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
15483 "interfered with anything."
15486 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15487 #: freeculture.xml:11261
15488 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
15491 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15492 #: freeculture.xml:11265
15494 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
15495 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
15496 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
15497 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
15498 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
15499 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
15500 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
15501 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
15502 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
15506 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15507 #: freeculture.xml:11278
15509 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
15510 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
15511 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
15512 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
15513 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
15514 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
15515 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
15516 "radically different context."
15519 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15520 #: freeculture.xml:11288
15522 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
15523 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
15524 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful "
15525 "<emphasis>copyright</emphasis> purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to "
15526 "enable the commercial market that spreads culture. No, we are talking about "
15527 "culture after it has lived its commercial life. In this context, copyright "
15528 "is serving no purpose <emphasis>at all</emphasis> related to the spread of "
15529 "knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
15530 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
15533 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15534 #: freeculture.xml:11299
15536 "You may well ask, <quote>But if digital technologies lower the costs for "
15537 "Brewster Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So "
15538 "won't Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture "
15542 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15543 #: freeculture.xml:11305
15545 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
15546 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
15547 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
15548 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
15549 "what <quote>the market</quote> would demand. But if you think the role of a "
15550 "library is bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive "
15551 "culture, whether there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or "
15552 "not—then we can't count on the commercial market to do our library "
15557 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15558 #: freeculture.xml:11329
15560 "Jason Schultz, <quote>The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,</quote> "
15561 "20 December 2002, available at <ulink "
15562 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
15565 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15566 #: freeculture.xml:11317
15568 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
15569 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
15570 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
15571 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
15572 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
15573 "films, books, and music produced between and 1946 is not commercially "
15574 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
15575 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
15576 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15579 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15580 #: freeculture.xml:11336
15582 "<emphasis role='strong'>In January 1999</emphasis>, we filed a lawsuit on "
15583 "Eric Eldred's behalf in federal district court in Washington, D.C., asking "
15584 "the court to declare the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act "
15585 "unconstitutional. The two central claims that we made were (1) that "
15586 "extending existing terms violated the Constitution's <quote>limited "
15587 "Times</quote> requirement, and (2) that extending terms by another twenty "
15588 "years violated the First Amendment."
15591 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15592 #: freeculture.xml:11345
15594 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
15595 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
15596 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
15597 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
15598 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
15601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15602 #: freeculture.xml:11352
15604 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
15605 "be for <quote>limited Times</quote> only. His argument was as elegant as it "
15606 "was simple: If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no "
15607 "<quote>stopping point</quote> to Congress's power under the Copyright "
15608 "Clause. The power to extend existing terms means Congress is not required to "
15609 "grant terms that are <quote>limited.</quote> Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, "
15610 "the court had to interpret the term <quote>limited Times</quote> to give it "
15611 "meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle argued, would be to "
15612 "deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
15615 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15616 #: freeculture.xml:11363
15618 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
15619 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
15620 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
15621 "the court will sit <quote>en banc</quote> to hear the case."
15624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15625 #: freeculture.xml:11368
15626 msgid "Tatel, David"
15630 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15631 #: freeculture.xml:11370
15633 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
15634 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
15635 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
15636 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
15640 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15641 #: freeculture.xml:11379
15643 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
15644 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
15645 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
15646 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
15647 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
15650 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15651 #: freeculture.xml:11386
15653 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
15654 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
15655 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
15658 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15659 #: freeculture.xml:11392
15661 "<emphasis role='strong'>It is over</emphasis> a year later as I write these "
15662 "words. It is still astonishingly hard. If you know anything at all about "
15663 "this story, you know that we lost the appeal. And if you know something more "
15664 "than just the minimum, you probably think there was no way this case could "
15665 "have been won. After our defeat, I received literally thousands of missives "
15666 "by well-wishers and supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this "
15667 "noble but doomed cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me "
15668 "than the e-mail from my client, Eric Eldred."
15671 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15672 #: freeculture.xml:11403
15674 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
15675 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
15676 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
15679 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15680 #: freeculture.xml:11408 freeculture.xml:11422
15681 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
15685 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15686 #: freeculture.xml:11410
15688 "<emphasis role='strong'>The mistake</emphasis> was made early, though it "
15689 "became obvious only at the very end. Our case had been supported from the "
15690 "very beginning by an extraordinary lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law "
15691 "firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great "
15692 "deal of heat from its copyright-protectionist clients for supporting "
15693 "us. They ignored this pressure (something that few law firms today would "
15694 "ever do), and throughout the case, they gave it everything they could."
15697 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15698 #: freeculture.xml:11420 freeculture.xml:11779 freeculture.xml:11795 freeculture.xml:11892 freeculture.xml:12112 freeculture.xml:12143 freeculture.xml:12241
15702 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15703 #: freeculture.xml:11421
15704 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
15707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15708 #: freeculture.xml:11424
15710 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
15711 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
15712 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
15713 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
15714 "make the issue seem <quote>important</quote> to the Supreme Court. It had to "
15715 "seem as if dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; "
15716 "otherwise, they would never vote against <quote>the most powerful media "
15717 "companies in the world.</quote>"
15720 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15721 #: freeculture.xml:11434
15723 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
15724 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
15725 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
15726 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be "
15727 "<quote>right</quote> as in <quote>true,</quote> I thought, but it is "
15728 "<quote>wrong</quote> as in <quote>it just shouldn't be that way.</quote> As "
15729 "I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the framers of our "
15730 "Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
15731 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
15732 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
15733 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
15734 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
15735 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
15736 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
15737 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
15738 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
15739 "put in the Constitution."
15742 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15743 #: freeculture.xml:11455
15745 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
15746 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
15747 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
15748 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
15749 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
15753 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15754 #: freeculture.xml:11463
15756 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
15757 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
15758 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
15759 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
15760 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
15761 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
15762 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
15763 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
15764 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
15765 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in "
15766 "<emphasis>law</emphasis> and not politics, then, we tried to gather the "
15767 "widest range of credible critics—credible not because they were rich "
15768 "and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law "
15769 "was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics."
15772 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15773 #: freeculture.xml:11481 freeculture.xml:11508
15774 msgid "Eagle Forum"
15777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15778 #: freeculture.xml:11482
15779 msgid "Schlafly, Phyllis"
15782 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15783 #: freeculture.xml:11484
15785 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
15786 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
15787 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
15788 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
15789 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, <quote>Do you sometimes wonder why "
15790 "bills that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide "
15791 "easily through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit "
15792 "the general public seem to get bogged down?</quote> The answer, as the "
15793 "editorial documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
15794 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
15795 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
15799 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15800 #: freeculture.xml:11498
15802 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
15803 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
15804 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
15805 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
15806 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
15810 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15811 #: freeculture.xml:11510
15813 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
15814 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
15815 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/ Linux possible). They "
15816 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
15817 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
15818 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
15819 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
15820 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments."
15823 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15824 #: freeculture.xml:11522
15825 msgid "American Association of Law Libraries"
15828 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15829 #: freeculture.xml:11523
15830 msgid "National Writers Union"
15833 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15834 #: freeculture.xml:11525
15836 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
15837 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
15838 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
15839 "National Writers Union."
15842 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15843 #: freeculture.xml:11532
15845 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
15846 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
15847 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
15848 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
15851 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15852 #: freeculture.xml:11538
15853 msgid "Akerlof, George"
15856 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15857 #: freeculture.xml:11539
15858 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
15861 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15862 #: freeculture.xml:11540
15863 msgid "Buchanan, James"
15866 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15867 #: freeculture.xml:11541
15868 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
15871 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15872 #: freeculture.xml:11542
15873 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
15876 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15877 #: freeculture.xml:11544
15879 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
15880 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
15881 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
15882 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
15883 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
15884 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
15885 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than "
15886 "<quote>rent-seeking</quote>—the fancy term economists use to describe "
15887 "special-interest legislation gone wild."
15890 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15891 #: freeculture.xml:11554 freeculture.xml:11572 freeculture.xml:11781 freeculture.xml:12144
15892 msgid "Fried, Charles"
15895 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15896 #: freeculture.xml:11555
15897 msgid "Morrison, Alan"
15900 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15901 #: freeculture.xml:11556
15902 msgid "Public Citizen"
15905 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15906 #: freeculture.xml:11557 freeculture.xml:11780 freeculture.xml:12900
15907 msgid "Reagan, Ronald"
15911 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15912 #: freeculture.xml:11559
15914 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
15915 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
15916 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
15917 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
15918 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
15919 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
15920 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
15921 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
15922 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried."
15925 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15926 #: freeculture.xml:11574
15928 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
15929 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
15930 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
15931 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
15932 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
15933 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
15934 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
15935 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
15936 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument."
15939 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15940 #: freeculture.xml:11586
15942 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
15943 "well. Significantly, however, none of these <quote>friends</quote> included "
15944 "historians or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were "
15945 "written exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright "
15949 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15950 #: freeculture.xml:11593
15952 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
15953 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
15954 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
15955 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
15956 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
15957 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
15960 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15961 #: freeculture.xml:11601
15962 msgid "Gershwin, George"
15966 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15967 #: freeculture.xml:11610
15969 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
15970 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, 537 U.S. (2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
15974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15975 #: freeculture.xml:11618
15977 "Dinitia Smith, <quote>Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse "
15978 "Joins the Fray,</quote> <citetitle>New York Times</citetitle>, 28 March "
15983 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
15984 #: freeculture.xml:11603
15986 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
15987 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
15988 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
15989 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to "
15990 "<quote>glorify drugs or to create pornography.</quote><placeholder "
15991 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That was also the motive of the Gershwin "
15992 "estate, which defended its <quote>protection</quote> of the work of George "
15993 "Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to license <citetitle>Porgy and "
15994 "Bess</citetitle> to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
15995 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
15996 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
15997 "help them effect that control."
16000 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16001 #: freeculture.xml:11627
16003 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
16004 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
16005 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
16006 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
16007 "Congress and say, <quote>Give us twenty years to control the speech about "
16008 "these icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone "
16009 "else.</quote> Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by "
16010 "giving them what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive "
16011 "right to speak in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is "
16012 "traditionally meant to block."
16015 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16016 #: freeculture.xml:11639
16018 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
16019 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
16020 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
16021 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
16022 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak."
16025 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16026 #: freeculture.xml:11646
16028 "<emphasis role='strong'>Between February</emphasis> and October, there was "
16029 "little I did beyond preparing for this case. Early on, as I said, I set the "
16033 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16034 #: freeculture.xml:11651 freeculture.xml:11837
16035 msgid "O'Connor, Sandra Day"
16038 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16039 #: freeculture.xml:11653
16041 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
16042 "<quote>the Conservatives.</quote> The other we called <quote>the "
16043 "Rest.</quote> The Conservatives included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice "
16044 "O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five "
16045 "had been the most consistent in limiting Congress's power. They were the "
16046 "five who had supported the <citetitle>Lopez/Morrison</citetitle> line of "
16047 "cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to assure "
16048 "that Congress's powers had limits."
16051 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16052 #: freeculture.xml:11662 freeculture.xml:11687 freeculture.xml:12039 freeculture.xml:12051
16053 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
16056 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16057 #: freeculture.xml:11663 freeculture.xml:12003
16058 msgid "Ginsburg, Ruth Bader"
16062 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16063 #: freeculture.xml:11665
16065 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
16066 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
16067 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
16068 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
16069 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
16070 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
16071 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
16072 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
16075 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16076 #: freeculture.xml:11677
16078 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
16079 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
16080 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
16081 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
16082 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
16083 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
16084 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
16085 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
16088 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16089 #: freeculture.xml:11689
16091 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
16092 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
16093 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
16094 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
16095 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
16098 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16099 #: freeculture.xml:11698
16101 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
16102 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
16103 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
16104 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
16105 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
16106 "confident he would recognize limits here."
16109 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16110 #: freeculture.xml:11706
16112 "This analysis of <quote>the Rest</quote> showed most clearly where our focus "
16113 "had to be: on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open "
16114 "these five and get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single "
16115 "overriding argument that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' "
16116 "most important jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge "
16117 "Sentelle had relied upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must "
16118 "be interpreted so that its enumerated powers have limits."
16122 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16123 #: freeculture.xml:11716
16125 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
16126 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the "
16127 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, under the government's argument here, "
16128 "Congress would always have unlimited power to extend existing terms. If "
16129 "anything was plain about Congress's power under the Progress Clause, it was "
16130 "that this power was supposed to be <quote>limited.</quote> Our aim would be "
16131 "to get the Court to reconcile <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> with "
16132 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was "
16133 "limited, then so, too, must Congress's power to regulate copyright be "
16137 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16138 #: freeculture.xml:11730
16140 "<emphasis role='strong'>The argument</emphasis> on the government's side "
16141 "came down to this: Congress has done it before. It should be allowed to do "
16142 "it again. The government claimed that from the very beginning, Congress has "
16143 "been extending the term of existing copyrights. So, the government argued, "
16144 "the Court should not now say that practice is unconstitutional."
16147 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16148 #: freeculture.xml:11738
16150 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
16151 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in 1831 and in 1909. And of "
16152 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
16153 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
16156 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16157 #: freeculture.xml:11745
16159 "But this <quote>consistency</quote> should be kept in perspective. Congress "
16160 "extended existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It "
16161 "then extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare "
16162 "extensions are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
16163 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
16164 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
16165 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
16166 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
16167 "couldn't intervene here."
16171 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16172 #: freeculture.xml:11760
16174 "<emphasis role='strong'>Oral argument</emphasis> was scheduled for the first "
16175 "week in October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During "
16176 "those two weeks, I was repeatedly <quote>mooted</quote> by lawyers who had "
16177 "volunteered to help in the case. Such <quote>moots</quote> are basically "
16178 "practice rounds, where wannabe justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
16181 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16182 #: freeculture.xml:11770
16184 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
16185 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
16186 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
16187 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
16188 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
16189 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
16192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16193 #: freeculture.xml:11783
16195 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
16196 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
16197 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
16198 "of the moot, he let his concern speak:"
16201 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16202 #: freeculture.xml:11789
16204 "<quote>I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
16205 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
16206 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
16207 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
16208 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.</quote>"
16211 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16212 #: freeculture.xml:11797
16214 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
16215 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
16216 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
16217 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
16218 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
16219 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
16220 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
16221 "politicians learn to see that it was also good."
16225 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16226 #: freeculture.xml:11807
16228 "<emphasis role='strong'>The night before</emphasis> the argument, a line of "
16229 "people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The case had become a "
16230 "focus of the press and of the movement to free culture. Hundreds stood in "
16231 "line for the chance to see the proceedings. Scores spent the night on the "
16232 "Supreme Court steps so that they would be assured a seat."
16235 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16236 #: freeculture.xml:11817
16238 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
16239 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
16240 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
16241 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
16242 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
16243 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
16244 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
16245 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
16246 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
16247 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
16248 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
16251 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16252 #: freeculture.xml:11832
16254 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
16255 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
16256 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
16257 "powers had any limit."
16260 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16261 #: freeculture.xml:11839
16263 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
16264 "was bothering her."
16267 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16268 #: freeculture.xml:11844
16270 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
16271 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
16272 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
16276 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16277 #: freeculture.xml:11851
16279 "She was quite willing to concede <quote>that this flies directly in the face "
16280 "of what the framers had in mind.</quote> But my response again and again was "
16281 "to emphasize limits on Congress's power."
16285 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16286 #: freeculture.xml:11857
16288 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
16289 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
16290 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
16293 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16294 #: freeculture.xml:11865
16296 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
16297 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
16300 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16301 #: freeculture.xml:11871
16303 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
16304 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
16305 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
16306 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
16307 "evidence for that."
16310 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16311 #: freeculture.xml:11879
16313 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
16317 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16318 #: freeculture.xml:11885
16320 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
16321 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
16322 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
16323 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
16324 "under the copyright laws."
16327 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16328 #: freeculture.xml:11894
16330 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
16331 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
16332 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
16333 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
16334 "was a swing and a miss."
16337 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16338 #: freeculture.xml:11901
16340 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
16341 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16342 "ruling, and we hoped that he would see this case as its second cousin."
16346 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16347 #: freeculture.xml:11906
16349 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
16350 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
16353 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16354 #: freeculture.xml:11913
16356 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
16357 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
16360 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16361 #: freeculture.xml:11917
16363 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
16364 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
16365 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
16366 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
16369 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16370 #: freeculture.xml:11925
16371 msgid "Olson, Theodore B."
16374 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16375 #: freeculture.xml:11927
16377 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
16378 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
16382 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16383 #: freeculture.xml:11933
16385 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
16386 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
16387 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
16388 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
16391 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16392 #: freeculture.xml:11941
16394 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
16395 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
16396 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
16397 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
16398 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
16399 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
16400 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
16401 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
16402 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
16403 "Court to my side."
16407 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16408 #: freeculture.xml:11954
16410 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I left</emphasis> the court that day, I knew "
16411 "there were a hundred points I wished I could remake. There were a hundred "
16412 "questions I wished I had answered differently. But one way of thinking about "
16413 "this case left me optimistic."
16416 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16417 #: freeculture.xml:11963
16419 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
16420 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
16421 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
16422 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
16423 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
16424 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
16425 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
16426 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
16427 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
16428 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
16429 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
16430 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
16433 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16434 #: freeculture.xml:11978
16436 "<emphasis role='strong'>The morning</emphasis> of January 15, 2003, I was "
16437 "five minutes late to the office and missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the "
16438 "Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the message, I could tell in an instant "
16439 "that she had bad news to report.The Supreme Court had affirmed the decision "
16440 "of the Court of Appeals. Seven justices had voted in the majority. There "
16441 "were two dissents."
16444 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16445 #: freeculture.xml:11986
16447 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
16448 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
16449 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
16452 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16453 #: freeculture.xml:11991
16455 "My <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. Here was a case that pitted all the money "
16456 "in the world against <emphasis>reasoning</emphasis>. And here was the last "
16457 "naïve law professor, scouring the pages, looking for reasoning."
16460 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16461 #: freeculture.xml:11997
16463 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
16464 "principle in this case from the principle in "
16465 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. The argument was nowhere to be found. The case "
16466 "was not even cited. The argument that was the core argument of our case did "
16467 "not even appear in the Court's opinion."
16471 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16472 #: freeculture.xml:12007
16474 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
16475 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
16476 "Congress's power not limited here."
16479 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16480 #: freeculture.xml:12012
16482 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
16483 "Souter. Neither believes in <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle>. It would be too "
16484 "much to expect them to write an opinion that recognized, much less "
16485 "explained, the doctrine they had worked so hard to defeat."
16488 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16489 #: freeculture.xml:12018
16491 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
16492 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
16493 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
16494 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
16495 "simply <emphasis>by not addressing the argument</emphasis>. There was no "
16496 "inconsistency because they would not talk about the two together. There was "
16497 "therefore no principle that followed from the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> "
16498 "case: In that context, Congress's power would be limited, but in this "
16499 "context it would not."
16502 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16503 #: freeculture.xml:12029
16505 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
16506 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
16507 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
16508 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
16509 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
16510 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
16511 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
16512 "will respect, that is the system we have."
16515 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16516 #: freeculture.xml:12041
16518 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
16519 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
16520 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
16521 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
16522 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
16523 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
16524 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
16525 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
16526 "charge go unanswered."
16530 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16531 #: freeculture.xml:12054
16533 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
16534 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
16535 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
16536 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
16537 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
16538 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
16539 "Constitution said a term had to be <quote>limited,</quote> and the existing "
16540 "term was so long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was "
16541 "unconstitutional."
16544 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16545 #: freeculture.xml:12065
16547 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
16548 "neither believed in the <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> case, neither was "
16549 "willing to push it as a reason to reject this extension. The case was "
16550 "decided without anyone having addressed the argument that we had carried "
16551 "from Judge Sentelle. It was <citetitle>Hamlet</citetitle> without the "
16555 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16556 #: freeculture.xml:12072
16558 "<emphasis role='strong'>Defeat brings depression</emphasis>. They say it is "
16559 "a sign of health when depression gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, "
16560 "but it didn't cure the depression. This anger was of two sorts."
16563 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16564 #: freeculture.xml:12077
16565 msgid "originalism"
16568 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16569 #: freeculture.xml:12079
16571 "It was first anger with the five <quote>Conservatives.</quote> It would have "
16572 "been one thing for them to have explained why the principle of "
16573 "<citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> didn't apply in this case. That wouldn't have "
16574 "been a very convincing argument, I don't believe, having read it made by "
16575 "others, and having tried to make it myself. But it at least would have been "
16576 "an act of integrity. These justices in particular have repeatedly said that "
16577 "the proper mode of interpreting the Constitution is "
16578 "<quote>originalism</quote>—to first understand the framers' text, "
16579 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
16580 "Constitution. That method had produced <citetitle>Lopez</citetitle> and many "
16581 "other <quote>originalist</quote> rulings. Where was their "
16582 "<quote>originalism</quote> now?"
16586 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16587 #: freeculture.xml:12092
16589 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
16590 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
16591 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
16592 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
16593 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
16594 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
16595 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
16596 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
16597 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
16598 "consistent with their own principles."
16601 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16602 #: freeculture.xml:12107
16604 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
16605 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
16609 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16610 #: freeculture.xml:12114
16612 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
16613 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
16614 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
16615 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
16616 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
16617 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
16618 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
16619 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
16624 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16625 #: freeculture.xml:12125
16627 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
16628 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
16629 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
16630 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
16631 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
16632 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
16633 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
16634 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
16635 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
16636 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
16637 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
16638 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
16639 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
16640 "on which a court should decide the issue."
16643 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16644 #: freeculture.xml:12146
16646 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
16647 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
16651 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16652 #: freeculture.xml:12151
16654 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
16655 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
16656 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
16657 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
16660 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16661 #: freeculture.xml:12157
16663 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
16664 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
16665 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
16666 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
16670 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16671 #: freeculture.xml:12165
16673 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
16674 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
16675 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
16676 "was a mistake. <quote>The Court is not ready,</quote> Peter Jaszi said; this "
16677 "issue should not be raised until it is."
16680 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16681 #: freeculture.xml:12172
16683 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
16684 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
16685 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
16686 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
16687 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
16688 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
16689 "had made four years before—was wrong."
16693 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16694 #: freeculture.xml:12181
16696 "<emphasis role='strong'>While the reaction</emphasis> to the Sonny Bono Act "
16697 "itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's decision "
16698 "was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that extending the "
16699 "term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over ideas. Where "
16700 "the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had been skeptical "
16701 "of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good thing, even if "
16702 "it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was attacked, it was "
16703 "attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful law. <citetitle>The "
16704 "New York Times</citetitle> wrote in its editorial,"
16707 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><blockquote><para>
16708 #: freeculture.xml:12196
16710 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
16711 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
16712 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
16713 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
16714 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
16715 "creative ferment."
16718 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><indexterm><primary>
16719 #: freeculture.xml:12210 freeculture.xml:12215
16720 msgid "Bolling, Ruben"
16723 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16724 #: freeculture.xml:12205
16726 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
16727 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
16728 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page (<xref "
16729 "linkend=\"fig-18\"/>). The <quote>powerful and wealthy</quote> line is a bit "
16730 "unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like that. <placeholder "
16731 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16734 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure><title>
16735 #: freeculture.xml:12213
16736 msgid "Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon"
16739 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><figure>
16740 #: freeculture.xml:12214
16742 "<graphic fileref=\"images/18.png\"></graphic> <placeholder "
16743 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
16746 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16747 #: freeculture.xml:12218
16749 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
16750 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle>. That <quote>grand "
16751 "experiment</quote> we call the <quote>public domain</quote> is over? When I "
16752 "can make light of it, I think, <quote>Honey, I shrunk the "
16753 "Constitution.</quote> But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
16754 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
16755 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
16756 "have made them see differently."
16759 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><title>
16760 #: freeculture.xml:12229
16761 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
16764 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16765 #: freeculture.xml:12231
16767 "<emphasis role='strong'>The day</emphasis> <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16768 "decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to Washington, D.C. (The "
16769 "day the rehearing petition in <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> was "
16770 "denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have "
16771 "it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a "
16772 "particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city "
16773 "from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and "
16774 "wrote an op-ed piece."
16777 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16778 #: freeculture.xml:12243
16780 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
16781 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
16782 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
16783 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: "
16784 "<quote>For all these years the act has impeded progress in science and the "
16785 "useful arts. I just don't see any empirical evidence for that.</quote> And "
16786 "so, having failed in the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I "
16787 "turned to an argument of politics."
16791 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16792 #: freeculture.xml:12253
16794 "<citetitle>The New York Times</citetitle> published the piece. In it, I "
16795 "proposed a simple fix: Fifty years after a work has been published, the "
16796 "copyright owner would be required to register the work and pay a small "
16797 "fee. If he paid the fee, he got the benefit of the full term of "
16798 "copyright. If he did not, the work passed into the public domain."
16801 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16802 #: freeculture.xml:12261
16804 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
16805 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
16806 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
16809 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16810 #: freeculture.xml:12266
16812 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
16813 "the <quote>Public Domain Enhancement Act</quote> or the <quote>Copyright "
16814 "Term Deregulation Act.</quote> Either way, the essence of the idea is clear "
16815 "and obvious: Remove copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking "
16816 "access and the spread of knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows "
16817 "for those works where its worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let "
16821 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16822 #: freeculture.xml:12274 freeculture.xml:12475
16823 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
16826 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16827 #: freeculture.xml:12276
16829 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
16830 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
16831 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
16832 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
16833 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
16834 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
16835 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
16836 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
16837 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
16840 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16841 #: freeculture.xml:12288
16843 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
16844 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
16845 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
16846 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
16847 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
16848 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
16849 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
16850 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
16853 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16854 #: freeculture.xml:12298
16855 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
16858 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16859 #: freeculture.xml:12299 freeculture.xml:12340
16860 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
16863 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
16864 #: freeculture.xml:12307
16865 msgid "German copyright law"
16868 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16869 #: freeculture.xml:12307
16871 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the "
16872 "Berne Convention, national copyright legislation sometimes made protection "
16873 "depend upon compliance with formalities such as registration, deposit, and "
16874 "affixation of notice of the author's claim of copyright. However, starting "
16875 "with the 1908 act, every text of the Convention has provided that <quote>the "
16876 "enjoyment and the exercise</quote> of rights guaranteed by the Convention "
16877 "<quote>shall not be subject to any formality.</quote> The prohibition "
16878 "against formalities is presently embodied in Article 5(2) of the Paris Text "
16879 "of the Berne Convention. Many countries continue to impose some form of "
16880 "deposit or registration requirement, albeit not as a condition of "
16881 "copyright. French law, for example, requires the deposit of copies of works "
16882 "in national repositories, principally the National Museum. Copies of books "
16883 "published in the United Kingdom must be deposited in the British "
16884 "Library. The German Copyright Act provides for a Registrar of Authors where "
16885 "the author's true name can be filed in the case of anonymous or pseudonymous "
16886 "works. Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>International Intellectual Property Law, "
16887 "Cases and Materials</citetitle> (New York: Foundation Press, 2001), "
16891 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16892 #: freeculture.xml:12302
16894 "As I described in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
16895 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, formalities in copyright law were removed in 1976, "
16896 "when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal requirement "
16897 "before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
16898 "Europeans are said to view copyright as a <quote>natural right.</quote> "
16899 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
16900 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
16901 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
16902 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
16903 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
16906 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16907 #: freeculture.xml:12334
16909 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
16910 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
16911 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread <quote>Walt "
16912 "Disney creativity</quote> is destroyed when there is no simple way to know "
16913 "what's protected and what's not."
16916 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16917 #: freeculture.xml:12342
16919 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
16920 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
16921 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
16922 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
16923 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
16924 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an "
16925 "<citetitle>i</citetitle> or cross a <citetitle>t</citetitle> resulted in the "
16926 "loss of widows' only income."
16929 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16930 #: freeculture.xml:12352
16932 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
16933 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
16934 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
16935 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
16936 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
16940 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16941 #: freeculture.xml:12360
16943 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
16944 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
16945 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
16946 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
16947 "imposed upon creators."
16951 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16952 #: freeculture.xml:12368
16954 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
16955 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
16956 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
16957 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
16958 "a property right over the table <quote>naturally,</quote> and he can assert "
16959 "that right against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has "
16960 "informed the government of his ownership of the table."
16963 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16964 #: freeculture.xml:12380
16966 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
16967 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
16968 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
16969 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
16970 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
16971 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
16974 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16975 #: freeculture.xml:12389
16977 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
16978 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
16979 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
16980 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
16981 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
16982 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
16983 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
16984 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
16985 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
16986 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
16987 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
16988 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
16989 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
16992 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
16993 #: freeculture.xml:12405
16995 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
16996 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
16997 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
16998 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
16999 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
17000 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
17001 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
17002 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
17003 "formalities. Complex, expensive, <emphasis>lawyer</emphasis> transactions "
17004 "take their place. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17007 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17008 #: freeculture.xml:12420
17010 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
17011 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't "
17012 "<quote>get.</quote> Because we live in a system without formalities, there "
17013 "is no way easily to build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright "
17014 "terms were, as Justice Story said they would be, <quote>short,</quote> then "
17015 "this wouldn't matter much. For fourteen years, under the framers' system, a "
17016 "work would be presumptively controlled. After fourteen years, it would be "
17017 "presumptively uncontrolled."
17020 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17021 #: freeculture.xml:12430
17023 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
17024 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
17025 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
17026 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
17027 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
17028 "in a way that has never been seen before <emphasis>because there are no "
17029 "formalities</emphasis>."
17032 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17033 #: freeculture.xml:12439
17035 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
17036 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
17037 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
17038 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
17039 "extended copyright term."
17042 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17043 #: freeculture.xml:12446
17045 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
17046 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
17047 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
17048 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
17049 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
17052 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17053 #: freeculture.xml:12453
17055 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
17056 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
17057 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
17061 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17062 #: freeculture.xml:12459
17064 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
17065 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
17066 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
17067 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
17068 "the real problem of <emphasis>governments</emphasis> standing at the core of "
17069 "any system of formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That "
17070 "solution essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was "
17071 "Amazon that ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click "
17072 "registration. The Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration "
17073 "fifty years after a work was published. Based upon historical data, that "
17074 "system would move up to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that "
17075 "no longer had a commercial life, into the public domain within fifty "
17076 "years. What do you think?"
17079 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17080 #: freeculture.xml:12477
17082 "<emphasis role='strong'>When Steve Forbes</emphasis> endorsed the idea, some "
17083 "in Washington began to pay attention. Many people contacted me pointing to "
17084 "representatives who might be willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had "
17085 "a few who directly suggested that they might be willing to take the first "
17089 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17090 #: freeculture.xml:12483
17091 msgid "Lofgren, Zoe"
17094 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17095 #: freeculture.xml:12485
17097 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
17098 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
17099 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
17100 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
17101 "the Eldred Act blog, <quote>we are close.</quote> There was a general "
17102 "reaction in the blog community that something good might happen here."
17105 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17106 #: freeculture.xml:12494
17108 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
17109 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
17110 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
17111 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
17112 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
17113 "about what this debate is really about."
17117 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17118 #: freeculture.xml:12502
17120 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had <quote>firmly rejected the central "
17121 "concept in the proposed bill</quote>—that copyrights be renewed. That "
17122 "was true, but irrelevant, as Congress's <quote>firm rejection</quote> had "
17123 "occurred long before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. "
17124 "Second, they argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright "
17125 "owners—apparently those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they "
17126 "argued that Congress had determined that extending a copyright term would "
17127 "encourage restoration work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of "
17128 "work covered by copyright law that is still commercially valuable, but again "
17129 "this was irrelevant, as the proposal would not cut off the extended term "
17130 "unless the $1 fee was not paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would "
17131 "impose <quote>enormous</quote> costs, since a registration system is not "
17132 "free. True enough, but those costs are certainly less than the costs of "
17133 "clearing the rights for a copyright whose owner is not known. Fifth, they "
17134 "worried about the risks if the copyright to a story underlying a film were "
17135 "to pass into the public domain. But what risk is that? If it is in the "
17136 "public domain, then the film is a valid derivative use."
17139 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17140 #: freeculture.xml:12523
17142 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
17143 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
17144 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
17145 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
17146 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
17150 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17151 #: freeculture.xml:12531
17153 "<emphasis role='strong'>At the beginning</emphasis> of this book, I told two "
17154 "stories about the law reacting to changes in technology. In the one, common "
17155 "sense prevailed. In the other, common sense was delayed. The difference "
17156 "between the two stories was the power of the opposition—the power of "
17157 "the side that fought to defend the status quo. In both cases, a new "
17158 "technology threatened old interests. But in only one case did those "
17159 "interest's have the power to protect themselves against this new competitive "
17163 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17164 #: freeculture.xml:12541
17166 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
17167 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
17168 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
17169 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
17173 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17174 #: freeculture.xml:12550
17176 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
17177 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
17178 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
17179 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
17180 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
17181 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
17182 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
17183 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
17187 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17188 #: freeculture.xml:12560
17189 msgid "Kelly, Kevin"
17192 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17193 #: freeculture.xml:12562
17195 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
17196 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
17197 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
17198 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
17199 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
17200 "what Kevin Kelly calls the <quote>Dark Content</quote> that fills archives "
17201 "around the world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should "
17202 "ask one simple question:"
17205 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17206 #: freeculture.xml:12572
17207 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
17210 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17211 #: freeculture.xml:12575
17213 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
17214 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
17215 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an "
17216 "effort to assure that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is "
17217 "another step to assure that the public domain will never compete, that there "
17218 "will be no use of content that is not commercially controlled, and that "
17219 "there will be no commercial use of content that doesn't require "
17220 "<emphasis>their</emphasis> permission first."
17223 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17224 #: freeculture.xml:12586
17226 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
17227 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
17228 "the protection of <quote>property</quote> but the rejection of a tradition. "
17229 "Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. <emphasis>Their aim is to "
17230 "assure that all there is is what is theirs</emphasis>."
17234 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17235 #: freeculture.xml:12594
17237 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
17238 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
17239 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
17240 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
17241 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
17245 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17246 #: freeculture.xml:12606
17248 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
17249 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
17250 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
17251 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
17255 #. type: Content of: <book><part><chapter><para>
17256 #: freeculture.xml:12613
17258 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
17259 "<quote>property</quote> in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, "
17260 "and so long as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of "
17261 "the Internet. The consequence will be an increasing <quote>permission "
17262 "society.</quote> The past can be cultivated only if you can identify the "
17263 "owner and gain permission to build upon his work. The future will be "
17264 "controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
17267 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
17268 #: freeculture.xml:12625
17272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17273 #: freeculture.xml:12626
17274 msgid "antiretroviral drugs"
17277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17278 #: freeculture.xml:12627
17279 msgid "HIV/AIDS therapies"
17282 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17283 #: freeculture.xml:12628
17284 msgid "Africa, medications for HIV patients in"
17287 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17288 #: freeculture.xml:12630
17290 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are more</emphasis> than 35 million people "
17291 "with the AIDS virus worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in "
17292 "sub-Saharan Africa. Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million "
17293 "Africans is proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More "
17294 "importantly, it is seventeen million Africans."
17297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17298 #: freeculture.xml:12637
17300 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
17301 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
17302 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
17303 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
17304 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
17308 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17309 #: freeculture.xml:12652
17311 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, <quote>Final Report: Integrating "
17312 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy</quote> (London, 2002), "
17313 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17314 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
17315 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
17316 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
17319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17320 #: freeculture.xml:12645
17322 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
17323 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
17324 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
17325 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
17326 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
17327 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17332 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17333 #: freeculture.xml:12663
17335 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
17336 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
17337 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
17338 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
17339 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
17340 "used to keep the prices high."
17343 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17344 #: freeculture.xml:12671
17346 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
17347 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
17348 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
17349 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
17350 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
17351 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
17352 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
17353 "it, at least without other changes."
17356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17357 #: freeculture.xml:12682
17359 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
17360 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
17361 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
17362 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
17366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17367 #: freeculture.xml:12700 freeculture.xml:13155
17368 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
17371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17372 #: freeculture.xml:12698
17374 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism: "
17375 "Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?</citetitle> (New York: The New Press, 2003), "
17376 "37. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
17377 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
17380 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17381 #: freeculture.xml:12689
17383 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
17384 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
17385 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
17386 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
17387 "called <quote>parallel importation,</quote> and it is generally permitted "
17388 "under international trade law and is specifically permitted within the "
17389 "European Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17393 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17394 #: freeculture.xml:12711
17396 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17397 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17398 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17399 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 14, available at <ulink "
17400 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #56</ulink>. For a firsthand "
17401 "account of the struggle over South Africa, see Hearing Before the "
17402 "Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, House "
17403 "Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., Ser. No. 106-126 (22 "
17404 "July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
17408 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17409 #: freeculture.xml:12738
17411 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), <citetitle>Patent "
17412 "Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a "
17413 "Report Prepared for the World Intellectual Property Organization</citetitle> "
17414 "(Washington, D.C., 2000), 15."
17417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17418 #: freeculture.xml:12705
17420 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
17421 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
17422 "characterized it, <quote>The U.S. government pressured South Africa … "
17423 "not to permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.</quote><placeholder "
17424 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
17425 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
17426 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
17427 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
17428 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
17429 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
17430 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
17431 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
17432 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
17433 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
17434 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
17435 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
17436 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
17437 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
17440 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17441 #: freeculture.xml:12744
17443 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
17444 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
17445 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
17446 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
17447 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
17448 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
17449 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
17452 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17453 #: freeculture.xml:12754
17455 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
17456 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
17457 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
17458 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
17459 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
17460 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
17463 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17464 #: freeculture.xml:12762
17466 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
17467 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
17468 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
17469 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
17470 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
17471 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
17477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17478 #: freeculture.xml:12777
17480 "See Sabin Russell, <quote>New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's "
17481 "Needs at Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,</quote> <citetitle>San Francisco "
17482 "Chronicle</citetitle>, 24 May 1999, A1, available at <ulink "
17483 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> (<quote>compulsory "
17484 "licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system of intellectual "
17485 "property protection</quote>); Robert Weissman, <quote>AIDS and Developing "
17486 "Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,</quote> "
17487 "<citetitle>Foreign Policy in Focus</citetitle> 4:23 (August 1999), available "
17488 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
17489 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, <quote>TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and "
17490 "the HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual "
17491 "Property Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,</quote> <citetitle>Widener Law "
17492 "Symposium Journal</citetitle> (Spring 2001): 175."
17495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17496 #: freeculture.xml:12771
17498 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
17499 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
17500 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
17501 "because <quote>intellectual property</quote> would be violated that these "
17502 "drugs should not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance "
17503 "of <quote>intellectual property</quote> that led these government actors to "
17504 "intervene against the South African response to AIDS."
17507 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17508 #: freeculture.xml:12798
17510 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
17511 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
17512 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
17513 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
17514 "would be to uphold the <quote>sanctity</quote> of an idea? What possible "
17515 "justification could there ever be for a policy that results in so many "
17516 "deaths? What exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for "
17517 "such an abstraction?"
17520 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17521 #: freeculture.xml:12808
17523 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
17524 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
17525 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
17526 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
17527 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
17528 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
17531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17532 #: freeculture.xml:12816
17534 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
17535 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
17536 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
17537 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
17538 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
17539 "could be overcome."
17543 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17544 #: freeculture.xml:12824
17546 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
17547 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
17548 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, <quote>How is it you can sell "
17549 "this HIV drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an "
17550 "American $1,500?</quote> Because there is no <quote>sound bite</quote> "
17551 "answer to that question, its effect would be to induce regulation of prices "
17552 "in America. The drug companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first "
17553 "step. They reinforce the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a "
17554 "rational strategy in an irrational context, with the unintended consequence "
17555 "that perhaps millions die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in "
17556 "terms of this ideal—the sanctity of an idea called <quote>intellectual "
17557 "property.</quote>"
17560 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17561 #: freeculture.xml:12839
17563 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
17564 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
17565 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
17568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17569 #: freeculture.xml:12845
17571 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
17572 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
17573 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
17574 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
17575 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
17576 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
17577 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
17578 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
17579 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
17582 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17583 #: freeculture.xml:12857
17585 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
17586 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
17587 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
17588 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
17589 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
17590 "decision that we as a democracy will make."
17594 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17595 #: freeculture.xml:12868
17597 "<emphasis role='strong'>A simple idea</emphasis> blinds us, and under the "
17598 "cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us "
17599 "looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we "
17600 "don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are "
17601 "dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in "
17602 "culture that we don't even question when the control of that property "
17603 "removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture "
17604 "democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for "
17605 "anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way "
17606 "to make this common sense open its eyes."
17609 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17610 #: freeculture.xml:12882
17612 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
17613 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
17614 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
17615 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight <quote>piracy,</quote> "
17616 "and devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of "
17617 "<quote>creative property,</quote> while transforming real creators into "
17618 "modern-day sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should "
17619 "be balanced, even though each of the major players in this content war was "
17620 "itself a beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a "
17621 "city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, "
17622 "complex issues, and MTV attention spans produce the <quote>perfect "
17623 "storm</quote> for free culture."
17626 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
17627 #: freeculture.xml:12895
17628 msgid "public projects in"
17631 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17632 #: freeculture.xml:12896
17633 msgid "single nucleotied polymorphisms (SNPs)"
17636 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17637 #: freeculture.xml:12897
17638 msgid "Wellcome Trust"
17641 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17642 #: freeculture.xml:12898
17643 msgid "World Wide Web"
17646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17647 #: freeculture.xml:12899
17648 msgid "Global Positioning System"
17651 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17652 #: freeculture.xml:12901
17653 msgid "biomedical research"
17657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17658 #: freeculture.xml:12906
17660 "Jonathan Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> "
17661 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, August 2003, E1, available at <ulink "
17662 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #59</ulink>; William New, "
17663 "<quote>Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir,</quote> "
17664 "<citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 August 2003, "
17665 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; "
17666 "William New, <quote>U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at "
17667 "WIPO,</quote> <citetitle>National Journal's Technology Daily</citetitle>, 19 "
17668 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17672 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17673 #: freeculture.xml:12934 freeculture.xml:13625
17674 msgid "academic journals"
17677 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17678 #: freeculture.xml:12935 freeculture.xml:13002 freeculture.xml:13551
17682 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><indexterm><primary>
17683 #: freeculture.xml:12936 freeculture.xml:13688
17684 msgid "PLoS (Public Library of Science)"
17687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17688 #: freeculture.xml:12903
17690 "<emphasis role='strong'>In August 2003</emphasis>, a fight broke out in the "
17691 "United States about a decision by the World Intellectual Property "
17692 "Organization to cancel a meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
17693 "At the request of a wide range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a "
17694 "meeting to discuss <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17695 "goods.</quote> These are projects that have been successful in producing "
17696 "public goods without relying exclusively upon a proprietary use of "
17697 "intellectual property. Examples include the Internet and the World Wide Web, "
17698 "both of which were developed on the basis of protocols in the public "
17699 "domain. It included an emerging trend to support open academic journals, "
17700 "including the Public Library of Science project that I describe in the "
17701 "Afterword. It included a project to develop single nucleotide polymorphisms "
17702 "(SNPs), which are thought to have great significance in biomedical "
17703 "research. (That nonprofit project comprised a consortium of the Wellcome "
17704 "Trust and pharmaceutical and technological companies, including Amersham "
17705 "Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La "
17706 "Roche, Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It "
17707 "included the Global Positioning System, which Ronald Reagan set free in the "
17708 "early 1980s. And it included <quote>open source and free software.</quote> "
17709 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17710 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
17713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17714 #: freeculture.xml:12940
17716 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
17717 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
17718 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
17719 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
17720 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
17724 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17725 #: freeculture.xml:12948
17727 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
17731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17732 #: freeculture.xml:12947
17734 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
17735 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
17736 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
17737 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
17738 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
17739 "with intellectual property issues."
17743 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17744 #: freeculture.xml:12958
17746 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
17747 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
17748 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
17749 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
17750 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
17751 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
17752 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
17753 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
17754 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
17755 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
17756 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
17757 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
17758 "no way to talk about an <quote>Information Society</quote> unless one also "
17759 "talked about the range of information and culture that would be free. My "
17760 "talk did not make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt "
17761 "correct that the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily "
17762 "the stuff of WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a "
17763 "conversation about how much intellectual property is needed, since in my "
17764 "view, the very idea of balance in intellectual property had been lost."
17767 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17768 #: freeculture.xml:12982
17770 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
17771 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
17772 "meeting about <quote>open and collaborative projects to create public "
17773 "goods</quote> seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
17776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
17777 #: freeculture.xml:12987 freeculture.xml:14671
17778 msgid "Apple Corporation"
17781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17782 #: freeculture.xml:12989
17784 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
17785 "least among lobbyists. That project is <quote>open source and free "
17786 "software.</quote> Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the "
17787 "subject. From its perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free "
17788 "software would be like a conference to discuss Apple's operating "
17789 "system. Both open source and free software compete with Microsoft's "
17790 "software. And internationally, many governments have begun to explore "
17791 "requirements that they use open source or free software, rather than "
17792 "<quote>proprietary software,</quote> for their own internal uses."
17795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17796 #: freeculture.xml:12999
17797 msgid "<quote>copyleft</quote> licenses"
17801 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17802 #: freeculture.xml:13015
17804 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
17805 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with "
17806 "<quote>open source</quote> software or software in the public "
17807 "domain. Microsoft's principal opposition is to <quote>free software</quote> "
17808 "licensed under a <quote>copyleft</quote> license, meaning a license that "
17809 "requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any derivative work. See "
17810 "Bradford L. Smith, <quote>The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace "
17811 "to Decide,</quote> <citetitle>Government Policy Toward Open Source "
17812 "Software</citetitle> (Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for "
17813 "Regulatory Studies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy "
17814 "Research, 2002), 69, available at <ulink "
17815 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #62</ulink>. See also Craig "
17816 "Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, <citetitle>The Commercial Software "
17817 "Model</citetitle>, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
17818 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
17819 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
17822 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17823 #: freeculture.xml:13004
17825 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
17826 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
17827 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
17828 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
17829 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
17830 "famous bit of <quote>free software</quote>—and IBM is emphatically a "
17831 "commercial entity. Thus, to support <quote>open source and free "
17832 "software</quote> is not to oppose commercial entities. It is, instead, to "
17833 "support a mode of software development that is different from "
17834 "Microsoft's.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17837 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17838 #: freeculture.xml:13032
17839 msgid "General Public License (GPL)"
17842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17843 #: freeculture.xml:13033
17844 msgid "GPL (General Public License)"
17848 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17849 #: freeculture.xml:13035
17851 "More important for our purposes, to support <quote>open source and free "
17852 "software</quote> is not to oppose copyright. <quote>Open source and free "
17853 "software</quote> is not software in the public domain. Instead, like "
17854 "Microsoft's software, the copyright owners of free and open source software "
17855 "insist quite strongly that the terms of their software license be respected "
17856 "by adopters of free and open source software. The terms of that license are "
17857 "no doubt different from the terms of a proprietary software license. Free "
17858 "software licensed under the General Public License (GPL), for example, "
17859 "requires that the source code for the software be made available by anyone "
17860 "who modifies and redistributes the software. But that requirement is "
17861 "effective only if copyright governs software. If copyright did not govern "
17862 "software, then free software could not impose the same kind of requirements "
17863 "on its adopters. It thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does."
17866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17867 #: freeculture.xml:13052
17868 msgid "Krim, Jonathan"
17871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
17872 #: freeculture.xml:13053
17873 msgid "WIPO meeting opposed by"
17877 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
17878 #: freeculture.xml:13063
17880 "Krim, <quote>The Quiet War over Open-Source,</quote> available at <ulink "
17881 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
17884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17885 #: freeculture.xml:13055
17887 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
17888 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
17889 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
17890 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
17891 "to Jonathan Krim of the <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, Microsoft's "
17892 "lobbyists succeeded in getting the United States government to veto the "
17893 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, "
17894 "the meeting was canceled."
17897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17898 #: freeculture.xml:13069
17900 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
17901 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
17902 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
17903 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
17904 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
17907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17908 #: freeculture.xml:13076 freeculture.xml:13129
17909 msgid "Boland, Lois"
17912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17913 #: freeculture.xml:13078
17915 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
17916 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
17917 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
17918 "that <quote>open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which "
17919 "is to promote intellectual-property rights.</quote> She is quoted as saying, "
17920 "<quote>To hold a meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such "
17921 "rights seems to us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.</quote>"
17924 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17925 #: freeculture.xml:13088
17926 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
17929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17930 #: freeculture.xml:13092
17932 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
17933 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
17934 "<quote>copyright</quote>. Without it, restrictions imposed by those "
17935 "licenses wouldn't work. Thus, to say it <quote>runs counter</quote> to the "
17936 "mission of promoting intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary "
17937 "gap in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a "
17938 "first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official "
17939 "dealing with intellectual property issues."
17942 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
17943 #: freeculture.xml:13101
17944 msgid "generic drugs"
17947 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17948 #: freeculture.xml:13103
17950 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to "
17951 "<quote>promote</quote> intellectual property maximally? As I had been "
17952 "scolded at the preparatory conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only "
17953 "how best to protect intellectual property, but also what the best balance of "
17954 "intellectual property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard "
17955 "question in intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that "
17956 "there should be limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask "
17957 "Ms. Boland, are generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has "
17958 "expired) contrary to the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken "
17959 "intellectual property? Would it have been better if the protocols of the "
17960 "Internet had been patented?"
17963 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17964 #: freeculture.xml:13117
17966 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
17967 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
17968 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
17969 "those rights because, again, they are <emphasis>their</emphasis> rights. If "
17970 "they want to <quote>waive</quote> or <quote>disclaim</quote> their rights, "
17971 "that is, within our tradition, totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives "
17972 "away more than $20 billion to do good in the world, that is not inconsistent "
17973 "with the objectives of the property system. That is, on the contrary, just "
17974 "what a property system is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right "
17975 "to decide what to do with <emphasis>their</emphasis> property."
17979 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17980 #: freeculture.xml:13131
17982 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting "
17983 "<quote>which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,</quote> "
17984 "she's saying that WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of "
17985 "the individuals who own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's "
17986 "objective should be to stop an individual from <quote>waiving</quote> or "
17987 "<quote>disclaiming</quote> an intellectual property right. That the interest "
17988 "of WIPO is not just that intellectual property rights be maximized, but that "
17989 "they also should be exercised in the most extreme and restrictive way "
17993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17994 #: freeculture.xml:13143
17996 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
17997 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called <quote>feudalism.</quote> Under "
17998 "feudalism, not only was property held by a relatively small number of "
17999 "individuals and entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that "
18000 "property powerful and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest "
18001 "in assuring that property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by "
18002 "liberating people or property within their control to the free "
18003 "market. Feudalism depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought "
18004 "any freedom that might interfere with that control."
18007 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18008 #: freeculture.xml:13160
18010 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, <citetitle>Information Feudalism</citetitle>, "
18011 "210–20. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18015 #: freeculture.xml:13157
18017 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
18018 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
18019 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
18020 "only choice now is whether that information society will be "
18021 "<emphasis>free</emphasis> or <emphasis>feudal</emphasis>. The trend is "
18022 "toward the feudal."
18025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18026 #: freeculture.xml:13169
18028 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
18029 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
18030 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
18031 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
18035 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
18036 #: freeculture.xml:13176
18038 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
18039 "should be (<quote>the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should "
18040 "be to promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply "
18041 "to promote intellectual property rights</quote>), not as it is. If we were "
18042 "talking about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
18043 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
18044 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
18048 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18049 #: freeculture.xml:13188
18051 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
18052 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
18053 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
18054 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
18055 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
18056 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
18057 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
18061 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18062 #: freeculture.xml:13199
18064 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
18065 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the "
18066 "<quote>goal</quote> of a government should be <quote>to promote the right "
18067 "balance</quote> of intellectual property. That was obviously silly to "
18068 "him. And it obviously betrayed, he believed, my own silly "
18069 "utopianism. <quote>Typical for an academic,</quote> the poster might well "
18073 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18074 #: freeculture.xml:13207
18076 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
18077 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
18078 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
18081 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18082 #: freeculture.xml:13213
18084 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
18085 "should be to <quote>seek balance,</quote> then count me with the silly, for "
18086 "that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be "
18087 "obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the "
18088 "government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea "
18089 "of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea "
18090 "of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just "
18091 "naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, "
18096 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18097 #: freeculture.xml:13224
18099 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
18100 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
18101 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
18102 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
18103 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
18106 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18107 #: freeculture.xml:13232
18108 msgid "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon."
18111 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18112 #: freeculture.xml:13236
18113 msgid "Turner, Ted"
18116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18117 #: freeculture.xml:13238
18119 "<emphasis role='strong'>There are moments</emphasis> of hope in this "
18120 "struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was considering relaxing "
18121 "ownership rules, which would thereby further increase the concentration in "
18122 "media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition formed to fight this "
18123 "change. For perhaps the first time in history, interests as diverse as the "
18124 "NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted Turner, and CodePink Women "
18125 "for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC policy. An astonishing "
18126 "700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more hearings and a "
18127 "different result."
18130 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18131 #: freeculture.xml:13249
18133 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
18134 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
18135 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
18136 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
18137 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
18140 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18141 #: freeculture.xml:13257
18143 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
18144 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
18145 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
18146 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
18147 "hamburger from somewhere else."
18150 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18151 #: freeculture.xml:13264
18153 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
18154 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
18155 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
18156 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
18157 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
18158 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
18159 "their bigness bad."
18162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18163 #: freeculture.xml:13274
18165 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
18166 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
18167 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
18168 "history of fighting <quote>big,</quote> wisely or not. That we could be "
18169 "motivated to fight <quote>big</quote> again is not something new."
18172 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18173 #: freeculture.xml:13281
18175 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
18176 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
18177 "<quote>intellectual property.</quote> Not because balance is alien to our "
18178 "tradition; indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the "
18179 "muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called "
18180 "<quote>property</quote> is not well exercised within this tradition anymore."
18183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18184 #: freeculture.xml:13289
18186 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
18190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18191 #: freeculture.xml:13292
18196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18197 #: freeculture.xml:13298
18199 "John Borland, <quote>RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,</quote> CNET News.com, "
18200 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
18201 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, "
18202 "<quote>Music Industry Sues Swappers,</quote> CNN/Money, 8 September 2003, "
18203 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; "
18204 "Soni Sangha and Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, <quote>Sued for a Song, "
18205 "N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among 261 Cited as Sharers,</quote> <citetitle>New York "
18206 "Daily News</citetitle>, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank Ahrens, <quote>RIAA's "
18207 "Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl "
18208 "in N.Y. Among Defendants,</quote> <citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 10 "
18209 "September 2003, E1; Katie Dean, <quote>Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,</quote> "
18210 "<citetitle>Wired News</citetitle>, 10 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18211 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
18215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18216 #: freeculture.xml:13316
18218 "Jon Wiederhorn, <quote>Eminem Gets Sued … by a Little Old "
18219 "Lady,</quote> mtv.com, 17 September 2003, available at <ulink "
18220 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
18225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18226 #: freeculture.xml:13323
18228 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, <quote>Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for "
18229 "Dylan Songs,</quote> Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
18230 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
18233 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18234 #: freeculture.xml:13294
18236 "<emphasis role='strong'>As I write</emphasis> these final words, the news is "
18237 "filled with stories about the RIAA lawsuits against almost three hundred "
18238 "individuals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been "
18239 "sued for <quote>sampling</quote> someone else's music.<placeholder "
18240 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The story about Bob Dylan "
18241 "<quote>stealing</quote> from a Japanese author has just finished making the "
18242 "rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> An insider from "
18243 "Hollywood—who insists he must remain anonymous—reports <quote>an "
18244 "amazing conversation with these studio guys. They've got extraordinary [old] "
18245 "content that they'd love to use but can't because they can't begin to clear "
18246 "the rights. They've got scores of kids who could do amazing things with the "
18247 "content, but it would take scores of lawyers to clean it first.</quote> "
18248 "Congressmen are talking about deputizing computer viruses to bring down "
18249 "computers thought to violate the law. Universities are threatening expulsion "
18250 "for kids who use a computer to share content."
18253 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18254 #: freeculture.xml:13340
18258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18259 #: freeculture.xml:13341
18260 msgid "Brazil, free culture in"
18263 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18264 #: freeculture.xml:13342 freeculture.xml:13704
18265 msgid "Creative Commons"
18268 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18269 #: freeculture.xml:13343
18270 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
18273 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
18274 #: freeculture.xml:13344
18275 msgid "United Kingdom"
18278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><secondary>
18279 #: freeculture.xml:13344
18280 msgid "public creative archive in"
18284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18285 #: freeculture.xml:13349
18287 "<quote>BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,</quote> BBC press "
18288 "release, 24 August 2003, available at <ulink "
18289 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #70</ulink>."
18293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
18294 #: freeculture.xml:13358
18296 "<quote>Creative Commons and Brazil,</quote> Creative Commons Weblog, 6 "
18297 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
18302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18303 #: freeculture.xml:13346
18305 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
18306 "will build a <quote>Creative Archive,</quote> from which British citizens "
18307 "can download BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder "
18308 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto "
18309 "Gil, himself a folk hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative "
18310 "Commons to release content and free licenses in that Latin American "
18311 "country.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark "
18312 "story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new "
18313 "freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean "
18314 "anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without "
18315 "artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being "
18316 "destroyed. It will take some thought, and more importantly, it will take "
18317 "some will to transform the RCAs of our day into the Causbys."
18321 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18322 #: freeculture.xml:13372
18324 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
18325 "potential is ever to be realized."
18328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
18329 #: freeculture.xml:13380
18334 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18335 #: freeculture.xml:13384
18337 "<emphasis role='strong'>At least some</emphasis> who have read this far will "
18338 "agree with me that something must be done to change where we are "
18339 "heading. The balance of this book maps what might be done."
18342 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18343 #: freeculture.xml:13389
18345 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
18346 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
18347 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
18348 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
18351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18352 #: freeculture.xml:13395
18354 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
18355 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
18356 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
18357 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
18360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18361 #: freeculture.xml:13402
18363 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
18364 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
18365 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
18366 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
18367 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
18370 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
18371 #: freeculture.xml:13411
18375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18376 #: freeculture.xml:13413
18378 "<emphasis role='strong'>Common sense</emphasis> is with the copyright "
18379 "warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes—as "
18380 "a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or "
18381 "artists won't be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors "
18385 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18386 #: freeculture.xml:13420
18388 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
18389 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
18390 "believe in maximal copyright—<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote>— "
18391 "and those who reject copyright—<quote>No Rights Reserved.</quote> The "
18392 "<quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe that you should ask "
18393 "permission before you <quote>use</quote> a copyrighted work in any way. The "
18394 "<quote>No Rights Reserved</quote> sorts believe you should be able to do "
18395 "with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not."
18399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18400 #: freeculture.xml:13430
18402 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
18403 "tilted in the <quote>no rights reserved</quote> direction. Content could be "
18404 "copied perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
18405 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
18406 "original design of the Internet was <quote>no rights reserved.</quote> "
18407 "Content was <quote>taken</quote> regardless of the rights. Any rights were "
18408 "effectively unprotected."
18411 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18412 #: freeculture.xml:13442
18414 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
18415 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
18416 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
18417 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
18418 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
18419 "default <quote>no rights reserved,</quote> the future architecture will make "
18420 "the effective default <quote>all rights reserved.</quote> The architecture "
18421 "and law that surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an "
18422 "environment where all use of content requires permission. The <quote>cut "
18423 "and paste</quote> world that defines the Internet today will become a "
18424 "<quote>get permission to cut and paste</quote> world that is a creator's "
18428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
18429 #: freeculture.xml:13456
18431 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither "
18432 "<quote>all rights reserved</quote> nor <quote>no rights reserved</quote> but "
18433 "<quote>some rights reserved</quote>— and thus a way to respect "
18434 "copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other "
18435 "words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take "
18436 "for granted before."
18439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18440 #: freeculture.xml:13465
18441 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
18444 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18445 #: freeculture.xml:13468
18447 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
18448 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
18449 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
18450 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
18451 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
18452 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The "
18453 "<quote>privacy</quote> of your browsing habits was assured."
18456 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18457 #: freeculture.xml:13478
18458 msgid "What made it assured?"
18461 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18462 #: freeculture.xml:13482
18464 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter <xref "
18465 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"property-i\"/>, your privacy was "
18466 "assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering data and hence "
18467 "a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather that data. If you "
18468 "were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, no doubt your "
18469 "privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA would (we hope) "
18470 "find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to track you. But "
18471 "for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The highly "
18472 "inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly robust "
18473 "amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not by law "
18474 "(there is no law protecting <quote>privacy</quote> in public places), and in "
18475 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
18476 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
18479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18480 #: freeculture.xml:13497
18484 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18485 #: freeculture.xml:13498
18486 msgid "cookies, Internet"
18489 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18490 #: freeculture.xml:13500
18492 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
18493 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
18494 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
18495 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of <quote>recently "
18496 "viewed</quote> pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the "
18497 "function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than "
18498 "not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any <quote>privacy</quote> "
18499 "protected by the friction disappears, too."
18502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18503 #: freeculture.xml:13510
18505 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
18506 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
18507 "should have the <quote>right</quote> to browse in a library without the "
18508 "government knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), "
18509 "then this change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it "
18510 "becomes simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then "
18511 "the friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
18515 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18516 #: freeculture.xml:13527
18518 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, <quote>Fair Information Practices and the "
18519 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),</quote> "
18520 "<citetitle>Stanford Technology Law Review</citetitle> 1 (2001): "
18521 "par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
18522 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
18523 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, "
18524 "<citetitle>The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious "
18525 "Age</citetitle> (New York: Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between "
18526 "technology and privacy)."
18530 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18531 #: freeculture.xml:13521
18533 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define "
18534 "<quote>privacy</quote> on the Internet. It is the recognition that "
18535 "technology can remove what friction before gave us that leads many to push "
18536 "for laws to do what friction did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
18537 "And whether you're in favor of those laws or not, it is the pattern that is "
18538 "important here. We must take affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom "
18539 "that was passively provided before. A change in technology now forces those "
18540 "who believe in privacy to affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given "
18544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18545 #: freeculture.xml:13545
18547 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
18548 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
18549 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
18550 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
18551 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
18552 "about controlling their software. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
18556 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18557 #: freeculture.xml:13553
18558 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
18561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18562 #: freeculture.xml:13555
18564 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
18565 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
18566 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
18567 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
18568 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
18571 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18572 #: freeculture.xml:13563
18574 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
18575 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
18576 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
18577 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
18578 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
18579 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
18580 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
18581 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
18585 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18586 #: freeculture.xml:13575
18588 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
18589 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
18590 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
18591 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
18592 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
18593 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
18594 "market than it was for you."
18598 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18599 #: freeculture.xml:13584
18601 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
18602 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
18603 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
18604 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
18605 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
18608 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18609 #: freeculture.xml:13592
18610 msgid "Torvalds, Linus"
18613 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18614 #: freeculture.xml:13594
18616 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
18617 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
18618 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's "
18619 "<quote>Linux</quote> kernel was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating "
18620 "system. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder "
18621 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
18624 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18625 #: freeculture.xml:13602
18627 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
18628 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
18629 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
18630 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
18631 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
18632 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
18633 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
18634 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
18637 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18638 #: freeculture.xml:13613
18640 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
18641 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
18642 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
18643 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
18644 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
18645 "passively guaranteed."
18648 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18649 #: freeculture.xml:13621
18651 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
18652 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
18653 "journals are produced."
18657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18658 #: freeculture.xml:13627
18660 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
18661 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
18662 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
18663 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
18664 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
18665 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
18666 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
18667 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
18668 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
18669 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
18670 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
18671 "opinion through their respective services."
18674 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18675 #: freeculture.xml:13643
18677 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
18678 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
18679 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
18680 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
18681 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
18682 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
18683 "the public domain."
18686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18687 #: freeculture.xml:13652
18689 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
18690 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
18691 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
18694 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18695 #: freeculture.xml:13657
18697 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
18698 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
18699 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
18700 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
18701 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
18702 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
18703 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
18704 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
18705 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
18709 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18710 #: freeculture.xml:13669
18712 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
18713 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
18714 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
18715 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
18716 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
18719 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18720 #: freeculture.xml:13677
18722 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
18723 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
18724 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
18725 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
18726 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
18727 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
18728 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
18729 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
18730 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free. <placeholder "
18731 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
18734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18735 #: freeculture.xml:13691
18737 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
18738 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
18739 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
18740 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
18741 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
18742 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
18745 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
18746 #: freeculture.xml:13703
18747 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
18750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18751 #: freeculture.xml:13706
18753 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
18754 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
18757 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18758 #: freeculture.xml:13709
18759 msgid "Stanford University"
18762 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18763 #: freeculture.xml:13711
18765 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
18766 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
18767 "aim is to build a layer of <emphasis>reasonable</emphasis> copyright on top "
18768 "of the extremes that now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to "
18769 "build upon other people's work, by making it simple for creators to express "
18770 "the freedom for others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied "
18771 "to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
18776 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18777 #: freeculture.xml:13722
18779 "<emphasis>Simple</emphasis>—which means without a middleman, or "
18780 "without a lawyer. By developing a free set of licenses that people can "
18781 "attach to their content, Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content "
18782 "that can easily, and reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to "
18783 "machine-readable versions of the license that enable computers automatically "
18784 "to identify content that can easily be shared. These three expressions "
18785 "together—a legal license, a human-readable description, and "
18786 "machine-readable tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A "
18787 "Creative Commons license constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who "
18788 "accesses the license, and more importantly, an expression of the ideal that "
18789 "the person associated with the license believes in something different than "
18790 "the <quote>All</quote> or <quote>No</quote> extremes. Content is marked with "
18791 "the CC mark, which does not mean that copyright is waived, but that certain "
18792 "freedoms are given."
18795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18796 #: freeculture.xml:13740
18798 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
18799 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
18800 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
18801 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
18802 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
18803 "uses (<quote>share and share alike</quote>). Or any use so long as no "
18804 "derivative use is made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any "
18805 "sampling use, so long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any "
18809 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18810 #: freeculture.xml:13751
18812 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
18813 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
18814 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
18815 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
18816 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
18817 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
18818 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
18819 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
18822 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18823 #: freeculture.xml:13761
18824 msgid "Garlick, Mia"
18828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18829 #: freeculture.xml:13763
18831 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
18832 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
18833 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
18834 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
18835 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
18836 "movement of consumers and producers of content (<quote>content "
18837 "conducers,</quote> as attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the "
18838 "public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the importance of the public "
18839 "domain to other creativity."
18842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18843 #: freeculture.xml:13775
18845 "The aim is not to fight the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> sorts. The "
18846 "aim is to complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a "
18847 "culture are produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written "
18848 "centuries ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have "
18849 "imagined. The rules may well have made sense against a background of "
18850 "technologies from centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the "
18851 "background of digital technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, "
18852 "expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use them—are "
18853 "needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively to begin to build "
18857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18858 #: freeculture.xml:13788
18860 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
18861 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
18862 "fiction author. His first novel, <citetitle>Down and Out in the Magic "
18863 "Kingdom</citetitle>, was released on-line and for free, under a Creative "
18864 "Commons license, on the same day that it went on sale in bookstores."
18867 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18868 #: freeculture.xml:13795
18870 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
18871 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
18872 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
18873 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
18874 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
18875 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
18876 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
18877 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
18878 "will probably <emphasis>increase</emphasis> sales of Cory's book."
18881 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18882 #: freeculture.xml:13807
18884 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
18885 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
18886 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
18889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18890 #: freeculture.xml:13812
18891 msgid "Free for All (Wayner)"
18894 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18895 #: freeculture.xml:13813
18896 msgid "Wayner, Peter"
18900 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18901 #: freeculture.xml:13815
18903 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
18904 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
18905 "book about the free software movement titled <citetitle>Free for "
18906 "All</citetitle>, made an electronic version of his book free on-line under a "
18907 "Creative Commons license after the book went out of print. He then monitored "
18908 "used book store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of "
18909 "downloads increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well."
18912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18913 #: freeculture.xml:13826
18914 msgid "Public Enemy"
18917 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18918 #: freeculture.xml:13827
18922 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
18923 #: freeculture.xml:13828
18924 msgid "Leaphart, Walter"
18928 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
18929 #: freeculture.xml:13845
18931 "<citetitle>Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real "
18932 "Culture Wars</citetitle> (2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg "
18933 "Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre production, available at <ulink "
18934 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink>."
18937 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18938 #: freeculture.xml:13830
18940 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
18941 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
18942 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
18943 "the <quote>sampling license</quote> do so because anything else would be "
18944 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
18945 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
18946 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
18947 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
18948 "others. Because the <emphasis>legal</emphasis> costs of sampling are so high "
18949 "(Walter Leaphart, manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born "
18950 "sampling the music of others, has stated that he does not "
18951 "<quote>allow</quote> Public Enemy to sample anymore, because the legal costs "
18952 "are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), these artists release "
18953 "into the creative environment content that others can build upon, so that "
18954 "their form of creativity might grow."
18957 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18958 #: freeculture.xml:13854
18960 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
18961 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
18962 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
18963 "are effectively saying you believe in the <quote>All Rights Reserved</quote> "
18964 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
18965 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
18966 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
18967 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of <quote>Some Rights "
18968 "Reserved,</quote> and gives many the chance to say it to others."
18972 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18973 #: freeculture.xml:13866
18975 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
18976 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
18977 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
18978 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
18979 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
18980 "build content based upon content set free."
18983 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18984 #: freeculture.xml:13876
18986 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
18987 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
18988 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
18989 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
18990 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
18994 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
18995 #: freeculture.xml:13884
18997 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
18998 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
18999 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
19000 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
19001 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
19002 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
19005 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><title>
19006 #: freeculture.xml:13898
19010 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19011 #: freeculture.xml:13900
19013 "<emphasis role='strong'>We will</emphasis> not reclaim a free culture by "
19014 "individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We "
19015 "have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and "
19016 "implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build "
19017 "awareness around the changes that we need."
19020 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><para>
19021 #: freeculture.xml:13907
19023 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
19024 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
19025 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
19029 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19030 #: freeculture.xml:13914
19031 msgid "1. More Formalities"
19034 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19035 #: freeculture.xml:13916
19037 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
19038 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
19039 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
19040 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
19044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19045 #: freeculture.xml:13923
19047 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
19048 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
19051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19052 #: freeculture.xml:13928
19054 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
19055 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
19056 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
19057 "and <quote>formalities</quote> are banished."
19060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19061 #: freeculture.xml:13934
19065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19066 #: freeculture.xml:13937
19068 "As I suggested in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19069 "linkend=\"property-i\"/>, the motivation to abolish formalities was a good "
19070 "one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a burden "
19071 "on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when the "
19072 "law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
19073 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
19076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19077 #: freeculture.xml:13946
19079 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
19080 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
19081 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
19082 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
19083 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
19084 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
19085 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
19086 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the <emphasis>lack</emphasis> "
19087 "of formalities forces many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
19091 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19092 #: freeculture.xml:13960
19094 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
19095 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
19096 "by other countries as well."
19099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19100 #: freeculture.xml:13958
19102 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
19103 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
19104 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
19105 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
19106 "these formalities."
19109 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19110 #: freeculture.xml:13968
19112 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
19113 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
19114 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
19115 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
19116 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
19117 "approving standards developed by others."
19120 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19121 #: freeculture.xml:13980
19122 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
19125 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19126 #: freeculture.xml:13982
19128 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
19129 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
19130 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
19131 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
19132 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
19133 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
19134 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
19135 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
19136 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
19137 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
19140 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19141 #: freeculture.xml:13995
19143 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
19144 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
19145 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
19146 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
19147 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
19148 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
19149 "that the government sets."
19152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19153 #: freeculture.xml:14004
19155 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
19156 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
19157 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
19158 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
19159 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
19160 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
19161 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
19165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19166 #: freeculture.xml:14014
19168 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
19169 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
19170 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
19171 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
19172 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
19173 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
19174 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
19175 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
19176 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
19179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><title>
19180 #: freeculture.xml:14029
19184 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19185 #: freeculture.xml:14031
19187 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
19188 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
19189 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
19190 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
19191 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
19192 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
19193 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
19196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19197 #: freeculture.xml:14041
19199 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
19200 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
19201 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
19204 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19205 #: freeculture.xml:14047
19207 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
19208 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
19209 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
19210 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
19211 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
19212 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
19213 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
19214 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
19218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19219 #: freeculture.xml:14064
19221 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
19222 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
19223 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
19227 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19228 #: freeculture.xml:14057
19230 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
19231 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
19232 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
19233 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
19234 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
19235 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
19236 "unmarked work would therefore be <quote>use unless someone "
19237 "complains.</quote> If someone does complain, then the obligation would be to "
19238 "stop using the work in any new work from then on though no penalty would "
19239 "attach for existing uses. This would create a strong incentive for "
19240 "copyright owners to mark their work."
19243 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19244 #: freeculture.xml:14077
19246 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
19247 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
19248 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
19249 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
19253 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
19254 #: freeculture.xml:14083
19255 msgid "copyright marking of"
19258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19259 #: freeculture.xml:14085
19261 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
19262 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
19263 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
19264 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
19265 "and it would base that choice <emphasis>solely</emphasis> upon the "
19266 "consideration of which method could best be integrated into the registration "
19267 "and renewal system. We would not count on the government to innovate; but we "
19268 "would count on the government to keep the product of innovation in line with "
19269 "its other important functions."
19272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19273 #: freeculture.xml:14097
19275 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
19276 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
19277 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
19278 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
19279 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
19283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19284 #: freeculture.xml:14105
19286 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
19287 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
19291 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><section><para>
19292 #: freeculture.xml:14110
19294 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
19295 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
19296 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
19297 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
19298 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
19299 "the appropriate time."
19302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19303 #: freeculture.xml:14122
19304 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
19307 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19308 #: freeculture.xml:14124
19310 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
19311 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
19316 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19317 #: freeculture.xml:14137
19319 "<quote>A Radical Rethink,</quote> <citetitle>Economist</citetitle>, 366:8308 "
19320 "(25 January 2003): 15, available at <ulink "
19321 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
19324 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19325 #: freeculture.xml:14129
19327 "In <citetitle>The Future of Ideas</citetitle>, I proposed a "
19328 "seventy-five-year term, granted in five-year increments with a requirement "
19329 "of renewal every five years. That seemed radical enough at the time. But "
19330 "after we lost <citetitle>Eldred</citetitle> "
19331 "v. <citetitle>Ashcroft</citetitle>, the proposals became even more "
19332 "radical. <citetitle>The Economist</citetitle> endorsed a proposal for a "
19333 "fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
19334 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
19337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19338 #: freeculture.xml:14144
19340 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
19341 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
19342 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
19346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19347 #: freeculture.xml:14152
19349 "<emphasis>Keep it short:</emphasis> The term should be as long as necessary "
19350 "to give incentives to create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong "
19351 "protections for authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from "
19352 "publishers), rights to the same work (not derivative works) might be "
19353 "extended further. The key is not to tie the work up with legal regulations "
19354 "when it no longer benefits an author."
19359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19360 #: freeculture.xml:14161
19362 "<emphasis>Keep it simple:</emphasis> The line between the public domain and "
19363 "protected content must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of "
19364 "<quote>fair use,</quote> and the distinction between <quote>ideas</quote> "
19365 "and <quote>expression.</quote> That kind of law gives them lots of work. But "
19366 "our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected versus unprotected. The "
19367 "value of short terms is that there is little need to build exceptions into "
19368 "copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active "
19369 "<quote>lawyer-free zone</quote> makes the complexities of <quote>fair "
19370 "use</quote> and <quote>idea/expression</quote> less necessary to navigate."
19373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><indexterm><primary>
19374 #: freeculture.xml:14173
19375 msgid "veterans' pensions"
19379 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
19380 #: freeculture.xml:14184
19382 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
19383 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
19384 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
19387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19388 #: freeculture.xml:14176
19390 "<emphasis>Keep it alive:</emphasis> Copyright should have to be renewed. "
19391 "Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be "
19392 "required to signal periodically that he wants the protection continued. This "
19393 "need not be an onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly "
19394 "protection has to be granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes "
19395 "for a veteran to apply for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19396 "id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we "
19397 "couldn't require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a "
19402 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19403 #: freeculture.xml:14195
19405 "<emphasis>Keep it prospective:</emphasis> Whatever the term of copyright "
19406 "should be, the clearest lesson that economists teach is that a term once "
19407 "given should not be extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the "
19408 "law to offer authors only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's "
19409 "possible. If it was a mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer "
19410 "authors to create in 1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct "
19411 "that mistake today by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we "
19412 "will not increase the number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can "
19413 "increase the reward that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase "
19414 "the copyright burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But "
19415 "increasing their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's "
19416 "not done is not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
19419 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19420 #: freeculture.xml:14211
19422 "These changes together should produce an <emphasis>average</emphasis> "
19423 "copyright term that is much shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the "
19424 "average term was just 32.2 years. We should be aiming for the same."
19427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19428 #: freeculture.xml:14217
19430 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas <quote>radical.</quote> (After "
19431 "all, I call them <quote>extremists.</quote>) But again, the term I "
19432 "recommended was longer than the term under Richard Nixon. How "
19433 "<quote>radical</quote> can it be to ask for a more generous copyright law "
19434 "than Richard Nixon presided over?"
19437 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19438 #: freeculture.xml:14227
19439 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
19442 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19443 #: freeculture.xml:14231
19445 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
19446 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
19447 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
19448 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
19449 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
19453 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19454 #: freeculture.xml:14239
19456 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors <quote>exclusive "
19457 "right</quote> to <quote>their writings.</quote> Congress has given authors "
19458 "an exclusive right to <quote>their writings</quote> plus any derivative "
19459 "writings (made by others) that are sufficiently close to the author's "
19460 "original work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I "
19461 "have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even though that "
19462 "movie is not <quote>my writing.</quote>"
19465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19466 #: freeculture.xml:14247
19467 msgid "Kaplan, Benjamin"
19471 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19472 #: freeculture.xml:14253
19474 "Benjamin Kaplan, <citetitle>An Unhurried View of Copyright</citetitle> (New "
19475 "York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 32."
19478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19479 #: freeculture.xml:14249
19481 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
19482 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
19483 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
19484 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
19485 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
19486 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan."
19490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
19491 #: freeculture.xml:14266
19495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><blockquote><para>
19496 #: freeculture.xml:14262
19498 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
19499 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
19500 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
19501 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19504 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19505 #: freeculture.xml:14271
19507 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
19508 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
19509 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
19510 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
19511 "each limitation in turn."
19514 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19515 #: freeculture.xml:14278
19517 "<emphasis>Term:</emphasis> If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, "
19518 "then that right should be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect "
19519 "John Grisham's right to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at "
19520 "least I'm willing to assume it does); but it does not make sense for that "
19521 "right to run for the same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative "
19522 "right could be important in inducing creativity; it is not important long "
19523 "after the creative work is done. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19526 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19527 #: freeculture.xml:14291
19529 "<emphasis>Scope:</emphasis> Likewise should the scope of derivative rights "
19530 "be narrowed. Again, there are some cases in which derivative rights are "
19531 "important. Those should be specified. But the law should draw clear lines "
19532 "around regulated and unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all "
19533 "<quote>reuse</quote> of creative material was within the control of "
19534 "businesses, perhaps it made sense to require lawyers to negotiate the "
19535 "lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers to negotiate the lines. Think "
19536 "about all the creative possibilities that digital technologies enable; now "
19537 "imagine pouring molasses into the machines. That's what this general "
19538 "requirement of permission does to the creative process. Smothers it."
19541 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19542 #: freeculture.xml:14305
19544 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
19545 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
19546 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
19547 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
19548 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
19551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19552 #: freeculture.xml:14321
19553 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
19556 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19557 #: freeculture.xml:14319
19559 "Paul Goldstein, <citetitle>Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the "
19560 "Celestial Jukebox</citetitle> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), "
19561 "187–216. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
19564 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19565 #: freeculture.xml:14313
19567 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
19568 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
19569 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
19570 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
19571 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
19574 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19575 #: freeculture.xml:14327
19577 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
19578 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
19579 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
19580 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
19581 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
19585 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19586 #: freeculture.xml:14334
19588 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
19589 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
19590 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
19591 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
19592 "would earn artists more income."
19595 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
19596 #: freeculture.xml:14344
19597 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
19600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19601 #: freeculture.xml:14346
19603 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
19604 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
19605 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
19606 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
19610 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19611 #: freeculture.xml:14353
19613 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
19614 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
19615 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
19616 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
19617 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
19618 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
19621 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19622 #: freeculture.xml:14362
19624 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
19625 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
19626 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
19627 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
19628 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
19631 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19632 #: freeculture.xml:14369
19634 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
19635 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
19636 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter <xref "
19637 "xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" linkend=\"piracy\"/>, they enable four "
19638 "different kinds of sharing:"
19642 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19643 #: freeculture.xml:14378
19645 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
19650 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19651 #: freeculture.xml:14383
19653 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
19659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19660 #: freeculture.xml:14389
19662 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19663 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
19664 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
19668 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
19669 #: freeculture.xml:14395
19671 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
19672 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
19676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19677 #: freeculture.xml:14403
19679 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
19680 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
19681 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
19682 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
19683 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
19687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19688 #: freeculture.xml:14411
19690 "As I said in chapter <xref xrefstyle=\"select: labelnumber\" "
19691 "linkend=\"piracy\"/>, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
19692 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
19693 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
19694 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
19697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19698 #: freeculture.xml:14419
19700 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
19701 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
19705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19706 #: freeculture.xml:14424
19708 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
19709 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
19710 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
19711 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
19712 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
19713 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
19714 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
19715 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
19716 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
19720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19721 #: freeculture.xml:14436
19723 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
19724 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
19725 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
19726 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
19727 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
19728 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
19729 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
19730 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
19731 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
19732 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
19733 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
19736 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
19737 #: freeculture.xml:14450
19738 msgid "cell phones, music streamed over"
19742 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19743 #: freeculture.xml:14470
19745 "See, for example, <quote>Music Media Watch,</quote> The J@pan "
19746 "Inc. Newsletter, 3 April 2002, available at <ulink "
19747 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #76</ulink>."
19750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19751 #: freeculture.xml:14452
19753 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
19754 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
19755 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
19756 "point: When it is <emphasis>extremely</emphasis> easy to connect to services "
19757 "that give access to content, it will be <emphasis>easier</emphasis> to "
19758 "connect to services that give you access to content than it will be to "
19759 "download and store content <emphasis>on the many devices you will have for "
19760 "playing content</emphasis>. It will be easier, in other words, to subscribe "
19761 "than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
19762 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
19763 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
19764 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
19765 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
19766 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
19767 "<quote>free</quote> content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
19768 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
19772 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19773 #: freeculture.xml:14477
19775 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
19776 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The <quote>problem</quote> with file "
19777 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
19778 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
19779 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
19780 "to be <quote>solving</quote> this problem in light of a technology that will "
19781 "be gone tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet "
19782 "to eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The "
19783 "question instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
19784 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
19785 "twenty-first-century technologies."
19788 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19789 #: freeculture.xml:14493
19791 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different "
19792 "<quote>problems</quote> here to solve. Let's start with type D "
19793 "content—uncopyrighted content or copyrighted content that the artist "
19794 "wants shared. The <quote>problem</quote> with this content is to make sure "
19795 "that the technology that would enable this kind of sharing is not rendered "
19796 "illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones are used to deliver ransom "
19797 "demands, no doubt. But there are many who need to use pay phones who have "
19798 "nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to ban pay phones in order to "
19799 "eliminate kidnapping."
19802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19803 #: freeculture.xml:14504
19805 "Type C content raises a different <quote>problem.</quote> This is content "
19806 "that was, at one time, published and is no longer available. It may be "
19807 "unavailable because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record "
19808 "label he signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the "
19809 "work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate "
19810 "the access to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the "
19814 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19815 #: freeculture.xml:14515
19817 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
19818 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
19819 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
19820 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
19821 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
19822 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this "
19823 "<quote>sharing</quote> of his content without his being compensated is less "
19827 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19828 #: freeculture.xml:14525
19830 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
19831 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
19832 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
19833 "be free, under this rule, to <quote>share</quote> that content, even though "
19834 "the sharing involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the "
19835 "trade; in a context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music "
19836 "should be as free as trading books."
19840 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19841 #: freeculture.xml:14536
19843 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
19844 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
19845 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
19846 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
19847 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
19848 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
19849 "artists would benefit from this trade."
19852 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19853 #: freeculture.xml:14546
19855 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
19856 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
19857 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
19858 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
19859 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
19860 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
19861 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
19865 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19866 #: freeculture.xml:14556
19868 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
19869 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
19870 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
19871 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
19872 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
19876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19877 #: freeculture.xml:14564
19879 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
19880 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
19883 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19884 #: freeculture.xml:14568
19886 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
19887 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
19888 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
19889 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
19890 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
19891 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
19892 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
19897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19898 #: freeculture.xml:14579
19900 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
19901 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
19902 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
19903 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
19904 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
19905 "compensate those who are harmed."
19908 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19909 #: freeculture.xml:14586 freeculture.xml:14628
19910 msgid "Promises to Keep (Fisher)"
19913 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
19914 #: freeculture.xml:14626
19915 msgid "Fisher, William"
19918 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
19919 #: freeculture.xml:14592
19921 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> William Fisher, "
19922 "<citetitle>Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities</citetitle> (last "
19923 "revised: 10 October 2000), available at <ulink "
19924 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
19925 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of "
19926 "Entertainment</citetitle> (forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University "
19927 "Press, 2004), ch. 6, available at <ulink "
19928 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor Netanel "
19929 "has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing from the "
19930 "reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to balance "
19931 "any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, <quote>Impose a Noncommercial Use Levy "
19932 "to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,</quote> available at <ulink "
19933 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
19934 "see Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Who's Holding Back Broadband?</quote> "
19935 "<citetitle>Washington Post</citetitle>, 8 January 2002, A17; Philip "
19936 "S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter to Senator Joseph "
19937 "R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 "
19938 "February 2002, available at <ulink "
19939 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, "
19940 "<citetitle>A Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee "
19941 "(IPUF)</citetitle>, 3 March 2002, available at <ulink "
19942 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson Graham, "
19943 "<quote>Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,</quote> "
19944 "<citetitle>USA Today</citetitle>, 13 May 2002, available at <ulink "
19945 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, "
19946 "<quote>Getting Copyright Right,</quote> IEEE Spectrum Online, 1 July 2002, "
19947 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; "
19948 "Declan McCullagh, <quote>Verizon's Copyright Campaign,</quote> CNET "
19949 "News.com, 27 August 2002, available at <ulink "
19950 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's proposal "
19951 "is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike Fisher's, "
19952 "Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, though "
19953 "more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is typical "
19954 "with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
19955 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
19956 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
19957 "id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/>"
19960 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19961 #: freeculture.xml:14588
19963 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
19964 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
19965 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
19966 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
19967 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
19968 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
19969 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
19970 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
19971 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
19972 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
19975 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19976 #: freeculture.xml:14642
19978 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
19979 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, "
19980 "<citetitle>Promises to Keep</citetitle>. The modification that I would make "
19981 "is relatively simple: Fisher imagines his proposal replacing the existing "
19982 "copyright system. I imagine it complementing the existing system. The aim "
19983 "of the proposal would be to facilitate compensation to the extent that harm "
19984 "could be shown. This compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating "
19985 "a transition between regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of "
19986 "years. If it continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, "
19987 "supported through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form "
19988 "of protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the "
19989 "old system of controlling access."
19993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
19994 #: freeculture.xml:14659
19996 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
19997 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
19998 "supports the widest range of <quote>semiotic democracy</quote> possible. But "
19999 "the aims of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I "
20000 "described were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative "
20001 "uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden "
20002 "semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to "
20003 "do with the content itself."
20006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20007 #: freeculture.xml:14672
20011 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20012 #: freeculture.xml:14674
20016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20017 #: freeculture.xml:14676
20019 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of "
20020 "<quote>harm</quote> to an industry. But the difficulty of making that "
20021 "calculation would be outweighed by the benefit of facilitating "
20022 "innovation. This background system to compensate would also not need to "
20023 "interfere with innovative proposals such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts "
20024 "predicted when Apple launched the MusicStore, it could beat "
20025 "<quote>free</quote> by being easier than free is. This has proven correct: "
20026 "Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price of 99 cents a "
20027 "song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song CD price, "
20028 "though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's move was "
20029 "countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no "
20030 "doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music "
20034 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20035 #: freeculture.xml:14691
20039 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20040 #: freeculture.xml:14691
20041 msgid "cable vs. broadcast"
20044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20045 #: freeculture.xml:14694
20046 msgid "film industry"
20049 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20050 #: freeculture.xml:14694
20051 msgid "luxury theatres vs. video piracy in"
20054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20055 #: freeculture.xml:14696
20057 "This competition has already occurred against the background of "
20058 "<quote>free</quote> music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable "
20059 "television have known for thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for "
20060 "much more than that, there is nothing impossible at all about "
20061 "<quote>competing with free.</quote> Indeed, if anything, the competition "
20062 "spurs the competitors to offer new and better products. This is precisely "
20063 "what the competitive market was to be about. Thus in Singapore, though "
20064 "piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often luxurious—with "
20065 "<quote>first class</quote> seats, and meals served while you watch a "
20066 "movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
20067 "<quote>free.</quote>"
20070 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20071 #: freeculture.xml:14708
20073 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
20074 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
20075 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
20076 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
20077 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
20078 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
20081 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20082 #: freeculture.xml:14717
20083 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
20087 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20088 #: freeculture.xml:14722
20090 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
20091 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
20092 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
20093 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
20096 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20097 #: freeculture.xml:14729
20098 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
20102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20103 #: freeculture.xml:14735
20104 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
20108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20109 #: freeculture.xml:14739
20111 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
20112 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
20116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><orderedlist><listitem><para>
20117 #: freeculture.xml:14745
20119 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
20120 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
20123 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20124 #: freeculture.xml:14750
20126 "But what if <quote>piracy</quote> doesn't disappear? What if there is a "
20127 "competitive market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number "
20128 "of consumers continue to <quote>take</quote> content for nothing? Should the "
20129 "law do something then?"
20132 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20133 #: freeculture.xml:14756
20135 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
20136 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
20137 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
20138 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
20139 "percent secure and produces a market of size <citetitle>x</citetitle>, or "
20140 "(b) to have a technology that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of "
20141 "five times <citetitle>x</citetitle>? Less secure might produce more "
20142 "unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a much bigger market "
20143 "in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to assure artists' "
20144 "compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's assured, then it may "
20145 "well be appropriate to find ways to track down the petty pirates."
20149 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20150 #: freeculture.xml:14770
20152 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
20153 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
20154 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
20155 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
20156 "and creativity that the Internet is."
20159 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><title>
20160 #: freeculture.xml:14781
20161 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
20164 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20165 #: freeculture.xml:14783
20167 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
20168 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
20169 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
20170 "the end that I would love to live."
20173 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20174 #: freeculture.xml:14789
20176 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
20177 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
20178 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
20179 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
20180 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
20183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20184 #: freeculture.xml:14796
20185 msgid "Nimmer, Melville"
20188 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><primary>
20189 #: freeculture.xml:14797
20190 msgid "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) (1998)"
20193 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><indexterm><secondary>
20194 #: freeculture.xml:14797
20195 msgid "Supreme Court challenge of"
20199 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20200 #: freeculture.xml:14808
20202 "Lawrence Lessig, <quote>Copyright's First Amendment</quote> (Melville "
20203 "B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture), <citetitle>UCLA Law Review</citetitle> 48 "
20204 "(2001): 1057, 1069–70."
20207 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20208 #: freeculture.xml:14799
20210 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "
20211 "<quote>radical</quote> by many within the profession, yet the positions that "
20212 "I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and "
20213 "significant figures in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for "
20214 "example, thought crazy the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term "
20215 "Extension Act. Yet just thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and "
20216 "practitioner in the field of copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it "
20217 "obvious.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
20220 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20221 #: freeculture.xml:14814
20223 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
20224 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
20225 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
20228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para><footnote><para>
20229 #: freeculture.xml:14824
20231 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
20232 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
20233 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
20234 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
20235 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
20236 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, <citetitle>Rethinking the Network "
20237 "Economy: The True Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace</citetitle> (New "
20238 "York: Amacom, 2002), (reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) "
20239 "with Stan J. Liebowitz, <quote>Will MP3s Annihilate the Record "
20240 "Industry?</quote> working paper, June 2003, available at <ulink "
20241 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful "
20242 "analysis is extremely valuable in estimating the effect of file-sharing "
20243 "technology. In my view, however, he underestimates the costs of the legal "
20244 "system. See, for example, <citetitle>Rethinking</citetitle>, 174–76. "
20245 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
20248 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20249 #: freeculture.xml:14819
20251 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
20252 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
20253 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
20254 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
20255 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
20256 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
20260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20261 #: freeculture.xml:14848
20263 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
20264 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
20265 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
20266 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
20267 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
20270 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20271 #: freeculture.xml:14856
20273 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
20274 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
20275 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
20276 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
20277 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
20278 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
20279 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
20280 "and costly cases."
20283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20284 #: freeculture.xml:14866
20286 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
20287 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
20288 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
20289 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
20290 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
20291 "and hence radically more just."
20294 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20295 #: freeculture.xml:14874
20297 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
20298 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
20299 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
20302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20303 #: freeculture.xml:14881
20305 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
20306 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
20307 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
20308 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
20309 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
20310 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
20311 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
20315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20316 #: freeculture.xml:14890
20318 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
20319 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
20320 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
20321 "question: <quote>Will it do good?</quote> When challenged about the "
20322 "expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, <quote>Why not?</quote>"
20325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><section><section><para>
20326 #: freeculture.xml:14899
20328 "We should ask, <quote>Why?</quote> Show me why your regulation of culture is "
20329 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
20333 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20334 #: freeculture.xml:14908
20338 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20339 #: freeculture.xml:14910
20341 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
20342 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
20343 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
20344 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
20345 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
20346 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
20347 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
20348 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
20352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
20353 #: freeculture.xml:14929
20354 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
20357 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20358 #: freeculture.xml:14931
20360 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
20361 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
20362 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
20363 "this book is dedicated."
20366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20367 #: freeculture.xml:14938
20369 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
20370 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
20371 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
20372 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
20373 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
20374 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
20375 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
20376 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
20377 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
20378 "her own critical eye on much of this."
20382 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20383 #: freeculture.xml:14951
20385 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
20386 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
20387 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
20388 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
20389 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
20390 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
20391 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
20395 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20396 #: freeculture.xml:14962
20398 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
20399 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
20400 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
20401 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
20402 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
20403 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
20404 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
20405 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
20406 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
20407 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
20408 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
20409 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
20410 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
20411 "Williams, <quote>Wink,</quote> Roger Wood, <quote>Ximmbo da Jazz,</quote> "
20412 "and Richard Yanco. (I apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come "
20413 "glitches, and a crash of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great "
20417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20418 #: freeculture.xml:14982
20420 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
20421 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
20422 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
20423 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
20424 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
20425 "places throughout this book."
20428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
20429 #: freeculture.xml:14991
20431 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
20432 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
20433 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
20434 "patience and love."