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4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
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34 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
36 msgid "<abbrev>\"freeculture\"</abbrev>"
39 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><subtitle>
41 msgid "Version 2004-02-10"
44 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><firstname>
49 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><authorgroup><author><surname>
54 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo>
57 "<copyright> <year>2004</year> <holder> Lawrence Lessig. This version of "
58 "Free Culture is licensed under a Creative Commons license. This license "
59 "permits non-commercial use of this work, so long as attribution is given. "
60 "For more information about the license, click the icon above, or visit "
62 "url=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/\">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/</ulink> "
63 "</holder> </copyright>"
66 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><abstract><title>
68 msgid "ABOUT THE AUTHOR"
71 #. type: Content of: <book><bookinfo><abstract><para>
74 "LAWRENCE LESSIG (<ulink "
75 "url=\"http://www.lessig.org/\">http://www.lessig.org</ulink>), professor of "
76 "law and a John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law "
77 "School, is founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and is "
78 "chairman of the Creative Commons (<ulink "
79 "url=\"http://creativecommons.org/\">http://creativecommons.org</ulink>). "
80 "The author of The Future of Ideas (Random House, 2001) and Code: And Other "
81 "Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999), Lessig is a member of the boards of "
82 "the Public Library of Science, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and "
83 "Public Knowledge. He was the winner of the Free Software Foundation's Award "
84 "for the Advancement of Free Software, twice listed in BusinessWeek's \"e.biz "
85 "25,\" and named one of Scientific American's \"50 visionaries.\" A graduate "
86 "of the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, and Yale Law "
87 "School, Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Seventh Circuit "
91 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
96 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
98 msgid "You can buy a copy of this book by clicking on one of the links below:"
101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
102 #: freeculture.xml:79
103 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.amazon.com/\">Amazon</ulink>"
106 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
107 #: freeculture.xml:80
108 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/\">B&N</ulink>"
111 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><itemizedlist><listitem><para>
112 #: freeculture.xml:81
113 msgid "<ulink url=\"http://www.penguin.com/\">Penguin</ulink>"
116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
117 #: freeculture.xml:88
118 msgid "ALSO BY LAWRENCE LESSIG"
121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
122 #: freeculture.xml:91
123 msgid "The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World"
126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
127 #: freeculture.xml:95
128 msgid "Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace"
131 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
132 #: freeculture.xml:100 freeculture.xml:123
133 msgid "THE PENGUIN PRESS"
136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
137 #: freeculture.xml:103
141 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
142 #: freeculture.xml:108
146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
147 #: freeculture.xml:112
149 "HOW BIG MEDIA USES TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW TO LOCK DOWN CULTURE AND CONTROL "
153 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
154 #: freeculture.xml:118
155 msgid "LAWRENCE LESSIG"
158 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
159 #: freeculture.xml:126
160 msgid "a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street New York, New York"
163 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
164 #: freeculture.xml:130
165 msgid "Copyright © Lawrence Lessig,"
168 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
169 #: freeculture.xml:133
170 msgid "All rights reserved"
173 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
174 #: freeculture.xml:136
176 "Excerpt from an editorial titled \"The Coming of Copyright Perpetuity,\" The "
177 "New York Times, January 16, 2003. Copyright © 2003 by The New York "
178 "Times Co. Reprinted with permission."
181 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
182 #: freeculture.xml:141
183 msgid "Cartoon by Paul Conrad on page 159. Copyright Tribune Media Services, Inc."
186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
187 #: freeculture.xml:144
188 msgid "All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission."
191 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
192 #: freeculture.xml:147
194 "Diagram on page 164 courtesy of the office of FCC Commissioner, Michael "
198 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
199 #: freeculture.xml:150
200 msgid "Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data"
203 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
204 #: freeculture.xml:153
206 "Lessig, Lawrence. Free culture : how big media uses technology and the law "
207 "to lock down culture and control creativity / Lawrence Lessig."
210 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
211 #: freeculture.xml:158
215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
216 #: freeculture.xml:161
217 msgid "Includes index."
220 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
221 #: freeculture.xml:164
222 msgid "ISBN 1-59420-006-8 (hardcover)"
225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
226 #: freeculture.xml:167
228 "1. Intellectual property—United States. 2. Mass media—United "
232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
233 #: freeculture.xml:170
235 "3. Technological innovations—United States. 4. Art—United "
239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
240 #: freeculture.xml:173
244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
245 #: freeculture.xml:176
246 msgid "343.7309'9—dc22"
249 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
250 #: freeculture.xml:179
251 msgid "This book is printed on acid-free paper."
254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
255 #: freeculture.xml:182
256 msgid "Printed in the United States of America"
259 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
260 #: freeculture.xml:185
261 msgid "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4"
264 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
265 #: freeculture.xml:188
266 msgid "Designed by Marysarah Quinn"
269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
270 #: freeculture.xml:192
271 msgid "&translationblock;"
274 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
275 #: freeculture.xml:196
277 "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this "
278 "publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval "
279 "system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, "
280 "photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission "
281 "of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The "
282 "scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via "
283 "any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and "
284 "punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and "
285 "do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted "
286 "materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated."
289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
290 #: freeculture.xml:211
292 "To Eric Eldred—whose work first drew me to this cause, and for whom it "
296 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><figure><title>
297 #: freeculture.xml:216
298 msgid "Creative Commons, Some rights reserved"
301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><figure>
302 #: freeculture.xml:217
303 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/cc.png\"></graphic>"
306 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><lot><title>
307 #: freeculture.xml:223
308 msgid "List of figures"
311 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
312 #: freeculture.xml:286
316 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
317 #: freeculture.xml:288
319 "At the end of his review of my first book, Code: And Other Laws of "
320 "Cyberspace, David Pogue, a brilliant writer and author of countless "
321 "technical and computer-related texts, wrote this:"
324 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
325 #: freeculture.xml:298
327 "David Pogue, \"Don't Just Chat, Do Something,\" New York Times, 30 January "
331 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
332 #: freeculture.xml:294
334 "Unlike actual law, Internet software has no capacity to punish. It doesn't "
335 "affect people who aren't online (and only a tiny minority of the world "
336 "population is). And if you don't like the Internet's system, you can always "
337 "flip off the modem.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
341 #: freeculture.xml:303
343 "Pogue was skeptical of the core argument of the book—that software, or "
344 "\"code,\" functioned as a kind of law—and his review suggested the "
345 "happy thought that if life in cyberspace got bad, we could always \"drizzle, "
346 "drazzle, druzzle, drome\"-like simply flip a switch and be back home. Turn "
347 "off the modem, unplug the computer, and any troubles that exist in that "
348 "space wouldn't \"affect\" us anymore."
352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
353 #: freeculture.xml:311
355 "Pogue might have been right in 1999—I'm skeptical, but maybe. But "
356 "even if he was right then, the point is not right now: Free Culture is about "
357 "the troubles the Internet causes even after the modem is turned off. It is "
358 "an argument about how the battles that now rage regarding life on-line have "
359 "fundamentally affected \"people who aren't online.\" There is no switch that "
360 "will insulate us from the Internet's effect."
363 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
364 #: freeculture.xml:320
366 "But unlike Code, the argument here is not much about the Internet itself. It "
367 "is instead about the consequence of the Internet to a part of our tradition "
368 "that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this is for a geek-wanna-be "
369 "to admit, much more important."
372 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
373 #: freeculture.xml:331
375 "Richard M. Stallman, Free Software, Free Societies 57 (Joshua Gay, "
379 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
380 #: freeculture.xml:326
382 "That tradition is the way our culture gets made. As I explain in the pages "
383 "that follow, we come from a tradition of \"free culture\"—not \"free\" "
384 "as in \"free beer\" (to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free "
385 "software movement<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), but \"free\" as "
386 "in \"free speech,\" \"free markets,\" \"free trade,\" \"free enterprise,\" "
387 "\"free will,\" and \"free elections.\" A free culture supports and protects "
388 "creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual "
389 "property rights. But it does so indirectly by limiting the reach of those "
390 "rights, to guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain as free "
391 "as possible from the control of the past. A free culture is not a culture "
392 "without property, just as a free market is not a market in which everything "
393 "is free. The opposite of a free culture is a \"permission culture\"—a "
394 "culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the "
395 "powerful, or of creators from the past."
398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
399 #: freeculture.xml:345
401 "If we understood this change, I believe we would resist it. Not \"we\" on "
402 "the Left or \"you\" on the Right, but we who have no stake in the particular "
403 "industries of culture that defined the twentieth century. Whether you are "
404 "on the Left or the Right, if you are in this sense disinterested, then the "
405 "story I tell here will trouble you. For the changes I describe affect values "
406 "that both sides of our political culture deem fundamental."
409 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
410 #: freeculture.xml:353 freeculture.xml:12747
411 msgid "CodePink Women in Peace"
414 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
415 #: freeculture.xml:355
417 "We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of 2003. As "
418 "the FCC considered changes in media ownership rules that would relax limits "
419 "on media concentration, an extraordinary coalition generated more than "
420 "700,000 letters to the FCC opposing the change. As William Safire described "
421 "marching \"uncomfortably alongside CodePink Women for Peace and the National "
422 "Rifle Association, between liberal Olympia Snowe and conservative Ted "
423 "Stevens,\" he formulated perhaps most simply just what was at stake: the "
424 "concentration of power. And as he asked,"
427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
428 #: freeculture.xml:371
429 msgid "William Safire, \"The Great Media Gulp,\" New York Times, 22 May 2003."
432 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
433 #: freeculture.xml:367
435 "Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of "
436 "power—political, corporate, media, cultural—should be anathema "
437 "to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby "
438 "encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the "
439 "greatest expression of democracy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
442 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
443 #: freeculture.xml:377
445 "This idea is an element of the argument of Free Culture, though my focus is "
446 "not just on the concentration of power produced by concentrations in "
447 "ownership, but more importantly, if because less visibly, on the "
448 "concentration of power produced by a radical change in the effective scope "
449 "of the law. The law is changing; that change is altering the way our culture "
450 "gets made; that change should worry you—whether or not you care about "
451 "the Internet, and whether you're on Safire's left or on his right. The "
452 "inspiration for the title and for much of the argument of this book comes "
453 "from the work of Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. Indeed, "
454 "as I reread Stallman's own work, especially the essays in Free Software, "
455 "Free Society, I realize that all of the theoretical insights I develop here "
456 "are insights Stallman described decades ago. One could thus well argue that "
457 "this work is \"merely\" derivative."
461 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
462 #: freeculture.xml:393
464 "I accept that criticism, if indeed it is a criticism. The work of a lawyer "
465 "is always derivative, and I mean to do nothing more in this book than to "
466 "remind a culture about a tradition that has always been its own. Like "
467 "Stallman, I defend that tradition on the basis of values. Like Stallman, I "
468 "believe those are the values of freedom. And like Stallman, I believe those "
469 "are values of our past that will need to be defended in our future. A free "
470 "culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the "
471 "path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an "
472 "argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and "
473 "even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; "
474 "it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without "
475 "property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not "
476 "freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here."
479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
480 #: freeculture.xml:411
482 "Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between "
483 "anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with "
484 "property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced "
485 "by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes "
486 "feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property "
487 "rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is "
488 "against that extremism that this book is written."
491 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
492 #: freeculture.xml:426
496 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
497 #: freeculture.xml:428
499 "On December 17, 1903, on a windy North Carolina beach for just shy of one "
500 "hundred seconds, the Wright brothers demonstrated that a heavier-than-air, "
501 "self-propelled vehicle could fly. The moment was electric and its importance "
502 "widely understood. Almost immediately, there was an explosion of interest in "
503 "this newfound technology of manned flight, and a gaggle of innovators began "
507 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
508 #: freeculture.xml:440
510 "St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 3 (South Hackensack, N.J.: "
511 "Rothman Reprints, 1969), 18."
514 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
515 #: freeculture.xml:436
517 "At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American law held "
518 "that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface of his land, "
519 "but all the land below, down to the center of the earth, and all the space "
520 "above, to \"an indefinite extent, upwards.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
521 "id=\"0\"/> For many years, scholars had puzzled about how best to interpret "
522 "the idea that rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that mean that you "
523 "owned the stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful and regular "
527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
528 #: freeculture.xml:449
530 "Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American "
531 "law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged by "
532 "the most important legal thinkers of our past—mattered. If my land "
533 "reaches to the heavens, what happens when United flies over my field? Do I "
534 "have the right to banish it from my property? Am I allowed to enter into an "
535 "exclusive license with Delta Airlines? Could we set up an auction to decide "
536 "how much these rights are worth?"
539 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
540 #: freeculture.xml:457 freeculture.xml:470 freeculture.xml:501 freeculture.xml:520 freeculture.xml:916 freeculture.xml:933 freeculture.xml:983 freeculture.xml:8766 freeculture.xml:12144 freeculture.xml:12849
541 msgid "Causby, Thomas Lee"
544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
545 #: freeculture.xml:458 freeculture.xml:471 freeculture.xml:502 freeculture.xml:521 freeculture.xml:917 freeculture.xml:934 freeculture.xml:984 freeculture.xml:8767 freeculture.xml:12145 freeculture.xml:12850
546 msgid "Causby, Tinie"
549 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
550 #: freeculture.xml:460
552 "In 1945, these questions became a federal case. When North Carolina farmers "
553 "Thomas Lee and Tinie Causby started losing chickens because of low-flying "
554 "military aircraft (the terrified chickens apparently flew into the barn "
555 "walls and died), the Causbys filed a lawsuit saying that the government was "
556 "trespassing on their land. The airplanes, of course, never touched the "
557 "surface of the Causbys' land. But if, as Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had "
558 "said, their land reached to \"an indefinite extent, upwards,\" then the "
559 "government was trespassing on their property, and the Causbys wanted it to "
563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
564 #: freeculture.xml:473
566 "The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had declared "
567 "the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the heavens, "
568 "then Congress's declaration could well have been an unconstitutional "
569 "\"taking\" of property without compensation. The Court acknowledged that "
570 "\"it is ancient doctrine that common law ownership of the land extended to "
571 "the periphery of the universe.\" But Justice Douglas had no patience for "
572 "ancient doctrine. In a single paragraph, hundreds of years of property law "
573 "were erased. As he wrote for the Court,"
576 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
577 #: freeculture.xml:493
579 "United States v. Causby, U.S. 328 (1946): 256, 261. The Court did find that "
580 "there could be a \"taking\" if the government's use of its land effectively "
581 "destroyed the value of the Causbys' land. This example was suggested to me "
582 "by Keith Aoki's wonderful piece, \"(Intellectual) Property and Sovereignty: "
583 "Notes Toward a Cultural Geography of Authorship,\" Stanford Law Review 48 "
584 "(1996): 1293, 1333. See also Paul Goldstein, Real Property (Mineola, N.Y.: "
585 "Foundation Press, 1984), 1112–13. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
586 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
589 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
590 #: freeculture.xml:484
592 "[The] doctrine has no place in the modern world. The air is a public "
593 "highway, as Congress has declared. Were that not true, every "
594 "transcontinental flight would subject the operator to countless trespass "
595 "suits. Common sense revolts at the idea. To recognize such private claims to "
596 "the airspace would clog these highways, seriously interfere with their "
597 "control and development in the public interest, and transfer into private "
598 "ownership that to which only the public has a just claim.<placeholder "
599 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
602 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
603 #: freeculture.xml:507
604 msgid "\"Common sense revolts at the idea.\""
608 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
609 #: freeculture.xml:510
611 "This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or impatiently, "
612 "but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to "
613 "dither. Other justices would have blathered on for pages to reach the "
614 "conclusion that Douglas holds in a single line: \"Common sense revolts at "
615 "the idea.\" But whether it takes pages or a few words, it is the special "
616 "genius of a common law system, as ours is, that the law adjusts to the "
617 "technologies of the time. And as it adjusts, it changes. Ideas that were as "
618 "solid as rock in one age crumble in another."
621 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
622 #: freeculture.xml:523
624 "Or at least, this is how things happen when there's no one powerful on the "
625 "other side of the change. The Causbys were just farmers. And though there "
626 "were no doubt many like them who were upset by the growing traffic in the "
627 "air (though one hopes not many chickens flew themselves into walls), the "
628 "Causbys of the world would find it very hard to unite and stop the idea, and "
629 "the technology, that the Wright brothers had birthed. The Wright brothers "
630 "spat airplanes into the technological meme pool; the idea then spread like a "
631 "virus in a chicken coop; farmers like the Causbys found themselves "
632 "surrounded by \"what seemed reasonable\" given the technology that the "
633 "Wrights had produced. They could stand on their farms, dead chickens in "
634 "hand, and shake their fists at these newfangled technologies all they "
635 "wanted. They could call their representatives or even file a lawsuit. But "
636 "in the end, the force of what seems \"obvious\" to everyone else—the "
637 "power of \"common sense\"—would prevail. Their \"private interest\" "
638 "would not be allowed to defeat an obvious public gain."
641 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
642 #: freeculture.xml:552
643 msgid "Faraday, Michael"
646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
647 #: freeculture.xml:541
649 "Edwin Howard Armstrong is one of America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He "
650 "came to the great American inventor scene just after the titans Thomas "
651 "Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. But his work in the area of radio "
652 "technology was perhaps the most important of any single inventor in the "
653 "first fifty years of radio. He was better educated than Michael Faraday, who "
654 "as a bookbinder's apprentice had discovered electric induction in 1831. But "
655 "he had the same intuition about how the world of radio worked, and on at "
656 "least three occasions, Armstrong invented profoundly important technologies "
657 "that advanced our understanding of radio. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
661 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
662 #: freeculture.xml:555
664 "On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for "
665 "his most significant invention—FM radio. Until then, consumer radio "
666 "had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said "
667 "that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about "
668 "FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that "
669 "frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an "
670 "astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static."
673 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
674 #: freeculture.xml:565
676 "On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the "
677 "Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York "
678 "City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio "
679 "locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The "
680 "radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else "
681 "in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound "
682 "of an announcer's voice: \"This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New "
683 "York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters.\""
686 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
687 #: freeculture.xml:576
688 msgid "The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible:"
691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
692 #: freeculture.xml:587
694 "Lawrence Lessing, Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong "
695 "(Philadelphia: J. B. Lipincott Company, 1956), 209."
698 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
699 #: freeculture.xml:580
701 "A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded "
702 "like a glass of water being poured. . . . A paper was crumpled and torn; it "
703 "sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. . . . Sousa marches "
704 "were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were "
705 "performed. . . . The music was projected with a live-ness rarely if ever "
706 "heard before from a radio \"music box.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
711 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
712 #: freeculture.xml:593
714 "As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior "
715 "radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working "
716 "for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio "
717 "market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United "
718 "States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of "
722 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
723 #: freeculture.xml:602
725 "RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that "
726 "Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was "
727 "quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static "
728 "from \"radio.\" But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, Sarnoff was "
732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
733 #: freeculture.xml:613
735 "See \"Saints: The Heroes and Geniuses of the Electronic Era,\" First "
736 "Electronic Church of America, at www.webstationone.com/fecha, available at "
737 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #1</ulink>."
740 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
741 #: freeculture.xml:610
743 "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from "
744 "our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution— start up a whole "
745 "damn new industry to compete with RCA.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
749 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
750 #: freeculture.xml:622
752 "Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a "
753 "campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, "
754 "Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described,"
757 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
758 #: freeculture.xml:634
759 msgid "Lessing, 226."
762 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
763 #: freeculture.xml:629
765 "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of "
766 "strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this "
767 "threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, "
768 "posed . . . a complete reordering of radio power . . . and the eventual "
769 "overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had grown to "
770 "power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
773 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
774 #: freeculture.xml:639
776 "RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were "
777 "needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA "
778 "began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment "
779 "generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him "
780 "the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would "
781 "castrate FM—principally by moving FM radio to a different band of "
782 "spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation "
783 "were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more "
784 "successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies "
785 "that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence "
786 "Lessing described it,"
789 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
790 #: freeculture.xml:658
791 msgid "Lessing, 256."
794 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
795 #: freeculture.xml:654
797 "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a "
798 "series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, "
799 "were almost incredible in their force and deviousness.<placeholder "
800 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
803 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
804 #: freeculture.xml:662
808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
809 #: freeculture.xml:664
811 "To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio "
812 "users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio "
813 "stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs "
814 "from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly "
815 "supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean "
816 "radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of "
817 "FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily."
820 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
821 #: freeculture.xml:674
823 "Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's "
824 "patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for "
825 "television, RCA declared the patents invalid—baselessly, and almost "
826 "fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him "
827 "royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to "
828 "defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a "
829 "settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' "
830 "fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note "
831 "to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death."
835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
836 #: freeculture.xml:686
838 "This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely "
839 "with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, "
840 "government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are "
841 "more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a "
842 "legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its "
843 "influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The "
844 "rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality "
845 "is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but "
846 "that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through "
847 "this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys "
848 "did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change."
851 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
852 #: freeculture.xml:708
854 "Amanda Lenhart, \"The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A New Look at "
855 "Internet Access and the Digital Divide,\" Pew Internet and American Life "
856 "Project, 15 April 2003: 6, available at <ulink "
857 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #2</ulink>."
860 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
861 #: freeculture.xml:702
863 "There's no single inventor of the Internet. Nor is there any good date upon "
864 "which to mark its birth. Yet in a very short time, the Internet has become "
865 "part of ordinary American life. According to the Pew Internet and American "
866 "Life Project, 58 percent of Americans had access to the Internet in 2002, up "
867 "from 49 percent two years before.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
868 "That number could well exceed two thirds of the nation by the end of 2004."
871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
872 #: freeculture.xml:717
874 "As the Internet has been integrated into ordinary life, it has changed "
875 "things. Some of these changes are technical—the Internet has made "
876 "communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so "
877 "on. These technical changes are not the focus of this book. They are "
878 "important. They are not well understood. But they are the sort of thing that "
879 "would simply go away if we all just switched the Internet off. They don't "
880 "affect people who don't use the Internet, or at least they don't affect them "
881 "directly. They are the proper subject of a book about the Internet. But this "
882 "is not a book about the Internet."
885 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
886 #: freeculture.xml:728
888 "Instead, this book is about an effect of the Internet beyond the Internet "
889 "itself: an effect upon how culture is made. My claim is that the Internet "
890 "has induced an important and unrecognized change in that process. That "
891 "change will radically transform a tradition that is as old as the Republic "
892 "itself. Most, if they recognized this change, would reject it. Yet most "
893 "don't even see the change that the Internet has introduced."
897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
898 #: freeculture.xml:737
900 "We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between commercial "
901 "and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's regulation of each. By "
902 "\"commercial culture\" I mean that part of our culture that is produced and "
903 "sold or produced to be sold. By \"noncommercial culture\" I mean all the "
904 "rest. When old men sat around parks or on street corners telling stories "
905 "that kids and others consumed, that was noncommercial culture. When Noah "
906 "Webster published his \"Reader,\" or Joel Barlow his poetry, that was "
907 "commercial culture."
910 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
911 #: freeculture.xml:749
913 "At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our "
914 "tradition, noncommercial culture was essentially unregulated. Of course, if "
915 "your stories were lewd, or if your song disturbed the peace, then the law "
916 "might intervene. But the law was never directly concerned with the creation "
917 "or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture \"free.\" The "
918 "ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared and transformed their "
919 "culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from plays or TV, "
920 "participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making tapes—were left "
924 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
925 #: freeculture.xml:774 freeculture.xml:1782 freeculture.xml:1793
926 msgid "Brandeis, Louis D."
929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
930 #: freeculture.xml:766
932 "This is not the only purpose of copyright, though it is the overwhelmingly "
933 "primary purpose of the copyright established in the federal constitution. "
934 "State copyright law historically protected not just the commercial interest "
935 "in publication, but also a privacy interest. By granting authors the "
936 "exclusive right to first publication, state copyright law gave authors the "
937 "power to control the spread of facts about them. See Samuel D. Warren and "
938 "Louis D. Brandeis, \"The Right to Privacy,\" Harvard Law Review 4 (1890): "
939 "193, 198–200. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
942 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
943 #: freeculture.xml:760
945 "The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly, then "
946 "quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by granting "
947 "them exclusive rights to their creative work, so that they could sell those "
948 "exclusive rights in a commercial marketplace.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
949 "id=\"0\"/> This is also, of course, an important part of creativity and "
950 "culture, and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in "
951 "no sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one part, "
952 "a controlled part, balanced with the free."
955 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
956 #: freeculture.xml:784
958 "See Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (New York: Prometheus Books, 2001), "
962 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
963 #: freeculture.xml:782
965 "This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been "
966 "erased.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Internet has set the "
967 "stage for this erasure and, pushed by big media, the law has now affected "
968 "it. For the first time in our tradition, the ordinary ways in which "
969 "individuals create and share culture fall within the reach of the regulation "
970 "of the law, which has expanded to draw within its control a vast amount of "
971 "culture and creativity that it never reached before. The technology that "
972 "preserved the balance of our history—between uses of our culture that "
973 "were free and uses of our culture that were only upon permission—has "
974 "been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free culture, "
975 "more and more a permission culture."
978 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
979 #: freeculture.xml:800
981 "This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial creativity. "
982 "And indeed, protectionism is precisely its motivation. But the protectionism "
983 "that justifies the changes that I will describe below is not the limited and "
984 "balanced sort that has defined the law in the past. This is not a "
985 "protectionism to protect artists. It is instead a protectionism to protect "
986 "certain forms of business. Corporations threatened by the potential of the "
987 "Internet to change the way both commercial and noncommercial culture are "
988 "made and shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect "
989 "them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the Causbys."
992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
993 #: freeculture.xml:813
995 "For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to "
996 "participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that "
997 "reaches far beyond local boundaries. That power has changed the marketplace "
998 "for making and cultivating culture generally, and that change in turn "
999 "threatens established content industries. The Internet is thus to the "
1000 "industries that built and distributed content in the twentieth century what "
1001 "FM radio was to AM radio, or what the truck was to the railroad industry of "
1002 "the nineteenth century: the beginning of the end, or at least a substantial "
1003 "transformation. Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a "
1004 "vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating "
1005 "culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of "
1006 "creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant "
1007 "range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those "
1008 "creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do "
1009 "today—all so long as the RCAs of our day don't use the law to protect "
1010 "themselves against this competition."
1013 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1014 #: freeculture.xml:832
1016 "Yet, as I argue in the pages that follow, that is precisely what is "
1017 "happening in our culture today. These modern-day equivalents of the early "
1018 "twentieth-century radio or nineteenth-century railroads are using their "
1019 "power to get the law to protect them against this new, more efficient, more "
1020 "vibrant technology for building culture. They are succeeding in their plan "
1021 "to remake the Internet before the Internet remakes them."
1024 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1025 #: freeculture.xml:849
1027 "Amy Harmon, \"Black Hawk Download: Moving Beyond Music, Pirates Use New "
1028 "Tools to Turn the Net into an Illicit Video Club,\" New York Times, 17 "
1032 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1033 #: freeculture.xml:841
1035 "It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the "
1036 "Internet seem remote to most. To the few who follow them, they seem mainly "
1037 "about a much simpler brace of questions—whether \"piracy\" will be "
1038 "permitted, and whether \"property\" will be protected. The \"war\" that has "
1039 "been waged against the technologies of the Internet—what Motion "
1040 "Picture Association of America (MPAA) president Jack Valenti calls his \"own "
1041 "terrorist war\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—has been "
1042 "framed as a battle about the rule of law and respect for property. To know "
1043 "which side to take in this war, most think that we need only decide whether "
1044 "we're for property or against it."
1047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1048 #: freeculture.xml:858
1050 "If those really were the choices, then I would be with Jack Valenti and the "
1051 "content industry. I, too, am a believer in property, and especially in the "
1052 "importance of what Mr. Valenti nicely calls \"creative property.\" I believe "
1053 "that \"piracy\" is wrong, and that the law, properly tuned, should punish "
1054 "\"piracy,\" whether on or off the Internet."
1057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1058 #: freeculture.xml:866
1060 "But those simple beliefs mask a much more fundamental question and a much "
1061 "more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see this change, the "
1062 "war to rid the world of Internet \"pirates\" will also rid our culture of "
1063 "values that have been integral to our tradition from the start."
1066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1067 #: freeculture.xml:880 freeculture.xml:14085
1068 msgid "Netanel, Neil Weinstock"
1071 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1072 #: freeculture.xml:878
1074 "Neil W. Netanel, \"Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society,\" Yale Law "
1075 "Journal 106 (1996): 283. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1079 #: freeculture.xml:872
1081 "These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of our "
1082 "Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their past, and "
1083 "protected creators and innovators from either state or private control. The "
1084 "First Amendment protected creators against state control. And as Professor "
1085 "Neil Netanel powerfully argues,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1086 "copyright law, properly balanced, protected creators against private "
1087 "control. Our tradition was thus neither Soviet nor the tradition of "
1088 "patrons. It instead carved out a wide berth within which creators could "
1089 "cultivate and extend our culture."
1092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1093 #: freeculture.xml:888
1095 "Yet the law's response to the Internet, when tied to changes in the "
1096 "technology of the Internet itself, has massively increased the effective "
1097 "regulation of creativity in America. To build upon or critique the culture "
1098 "around us one must ask, Oliver Twist–like, for permission first. "
1099 "Permission is, of course, often granted—but it is not often granted to "
1100 "the critical or the independent. We have built a kind of cultural nobility; "
1101 "those within the noble class live easily; those outside it don't. But it is "
1102 "nobility of any form that is alien to our tradition."
1105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1106 #: freeculture.xml:900
1108 "The story that follows is about this war. Is it not about the \"centrality "
1109 "of technology\" to ordinary life. I don't believe in gods, digital or "
1110 "otherwise. Nor is it an effort to demonize any individual or group, for "
1111 "neither do I believe in a devil, corporate or otherwise. It is not a "
1112 "morality tale. Nor is it a call to jihad against an industry."
1115 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1116 #: freeculture.xml:908
1118 "It is instead an effort to understand a hopelessly destructive war inspired "
1119 "by the technologies of the Internet but reaching far beyond its code. And by "
1120 "understanding this battle, it is an effort to map peace. There is no good "
1121 "reason for the current struggle around Internet technologies to "
1122 "continue. There will be great harm to our tradition and culture if it is "
1123 "allowed to continue unchecked. We must come to understand the source of this "
1124 "war. We must resolve it soon."
1127 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1128 #: freeculture.xml:919
1130 "Like the Causbys' battle, this war is, in part, about \"property.\" The "
1131 "property of this war is not as tangible as the Causbys', and no innocent "
1132 "chicken has yet to lose its life. Yet the ideas surrounding this "
1133 "\"property\" are as obvious to most as the Causbys' claim about the "
1134 "sacredness of their farm was to them. We are the Causbys. Most of us take "
1135 "for granted the extraordinarily powerful claims that the owners of "
1136 "\"intellectual property\" now assert. Most of us, like the Causbys, treat "
1137 "these claims as obvious. And hence we, like the Causbys, object when a new "
1138 "technology interferes with this property. It is as plain to us as it was to "
1139 "them that the new technologies of the Internet are \"trespassing\" upon "
1140 "legitimate claims of \"property.\" It is as plain to us as it was to them "
1141 "that the law should intervene to stop this trespass."
1145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1146 #: freeculture.xml:936
1148 "And thus, when geeks and technologists defend their Armstrong or Wright "
1149 "brothers technology, most of us are simply unsympathetic. Common sense does "
1150 "not revolt. Unlike in the case of the unlucky Causbys, common sense is on "
1151 "the side of the property owners in this war. Unlike the lucky Wright "
1152 "brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution on its side."
1155 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1156 #: freeculture.xml:946
1158 "My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly "
1159 "amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more "
1160 "importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and "
1161 "citizens. There has never been a time in our history when more of our "
1162 "\"culture\" was as \"owned\" as it is now. And yet there has never been a "
1163 "time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been "
1164 "as unquestioningly accepted as it is now."
1167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1168 #: freeculture.xml:956
1170 "The puzzle is, Why? Is it because we have come to understand a truth about "
1171 "the value and importance of absolute property over ideas and culture? Is it "
1172 "because we have discovered that our tradition of rejecting such an absolute "
1176 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1177 #: freeculture.xml:965
1179 "Or is it because the idea of absolute property over ideas and culture "
1180 "benefits the RCAs of our time and fits our own unreflective intuitions?"
1183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1184 #: freeculture.xml:969
1186 "Is the radical shift away from our tradition of free culture an instance of "
1187 "America correcting a mistake from its past, as we did after a bloody war "
1188 "with slavery, and as we are slowly doing with inequality? Or is the radical "
1189 "shift away from our tradition of free culture yet another example of a "
1190 "political system captured by a few powerful special interests?"
1193 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1194 #: freeculture.xml:976
1196 "Does common sense lead to the extremes on this question because common sense "
1197 "actually believes in these extremes? Or does common sense stand silent in "
1198 "the face of these extremes because, as with Armstrong versus RCA, the more "
1199 "powerful side has ensured that it has the more powerful view?"
1203 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1204 #: freeculture.xml:986
1206 "I don't mean to be mysterious. My own views are resolved. I believe it was "
1207 "right for common sense to revolt against the extremism of the Causbys. I "
1208 "believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme "
1209 "claims made today on behalf of \"intellectual property.\" What the law "
1210 "demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an airplane "
1211 "for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much more "
1215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1216 #: freeculture.xml:996
1218 "The struggle that rages just now centers on two ideas: \"piracy\" and "
1219 "\"property.\" My aim in this book's next two parts is to explore these two "
1223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1224 #: freeculture.xml:1001
1226 "My method is not the usual method of an academic. I don't want to plunge you "
1227 "into a complex argument, buttressed with references to obscure French "
1228 "theorists—however natural that is for the weird sort we academics have "
1229 "become. Instead I begin in each part with a collection of stories that set a "
1230 "context within which these apparently simple ideas can be more fully "
1234 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1235 #: freeculture.xml:1010
1237 "The two sections set up the core claim of this book: that while the Internet "
1238 "has indeed produced something fantastic and new, our government, pushed by "
1239 "big media to respond to this \"something new,\" is destroying something very "
1240 "old. Rather than understanding the changes the Internet might permit, and "
1241 "rather than taking time to let \"common sense\" resolve how best to respond, "
1242 "we are allowing those most threatened by the changes to use their power to "
1243 "change the law—and more importantly, to use their power to change "
1244 "something fundamental about who we have always been."
1247 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1248 #: freeculture.xml:1023
1250 "We allow this, I believe, not because it is right, and not because most of "
1251 "us really believe in these changes. We allow it because the interests most "
1252 "threatened are among the most powerful players in our depressingly "
1253 "compromised process of making law. This book is the story of one more "
1254 "consequence of this form of corruption—a consequence to which most of "
1255 "us remain oblivious."
1258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
1259 #: freeculture.xml:1033
1263 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1264 #: freeculture.xml:1037
1266 "Since the inception of the law regulating creative property, there has been "
1267 "a war against \"piracy.\" The precise contours of this concept, \"piracy,\" "
1268 "are hard to sketch, but the animating injustice is easy to capture. As Lord "
1269 "Mansfield wrote in a case that extended the reach of English copyright law "
1270 "to include sheet music,"
1274 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1275 #: freeculture.xml:1050
1276 msgid "Bach v. Longman, 98 Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield)."
1279 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
1280 #: freeculture.xml:1046
1282 "A person may use the copy by playing it, but he has no right to rob the "
1283 "author of the profit, by multiplying copies and disposing of them for his "
1284 "own use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1288 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1289 #: freeculture.xml:1055
1291 "Today we are in the middle of another \"war\" against \"piracy.\" The "
1292 "Internet has provoked this war. The Internet makes possible the efficient "
1293 "spread of content. Peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing is among the most "
1294 "efficient of the efficient technologies the Internet enables. Using "
1295 "distributed intelligence, p2p systems facilitate the easy spread of content "
1296 "in a way unimagined a generation ago."
1299 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1300 #: freeculture.xml:1066
1302 "This efficiency does not respect the traditional lines of copyright. The "
1303 "network doesn't discriminate between the sharing of copyrighted and "
1304 "uncopyrighted content. Thus has there been a vast amount of sharing of "
1305 "copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the war, as copyright "
1306 "owners fear the sharing will \"rob the author of the profit.\""
1309 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1310 #: freeculture.xml:1074
1312 "The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and "
1313 "increasingly to technology to defend their \"property\" against this "
1314 "\"piracy.\" A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is being raised to "
1315 "believe that \"property\" should be \"free.\" Forget tattoos, never mind "
1316 "body piercing—our kids are becoming thieves!"
1319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1320 #: freeculture.xml:1083
1322 "There's no doubt that \"piracy\" is wrong, and that pirates should be "
1323 "punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put this notion "
1324 "of \"piracy\" in some context. For as the concept is increasingly used, at "
1325 "its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost certainly wrong."
1328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1329 #: freeculture.xml:1089
1330 msgid "The idea goes something like this:"
1333 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
1334 #: freeculture.xml:1093
1336 "Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative "
1337 "work of others, I am taking from them something of value. Whenever I take "
1338 "something of value from someone else, I should have their permission. The "
1339 "taking of something of value from someone else without permission is "
1340 "wrong. It is a form of piracy."
1343 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1344 #: freeculture.xml:1101
1345 msgid "Dreyfuss, Rochelle"
1349 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1350 #: freeculture.xml:1107
1352 "See Rochelle Dreyfuss, \"Expressive Genericity: Trademarks as Language in "
1353 "the Pepsi Generation,\" Notre Dame Law Review 65 (1990): 397."
1357 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1358 #: freeculture.xml:1115
1360 "Lisa Bannon, \"The Birds May Sing, but Campers Can't Unless They Pay Up,\" "
1361 "Wall Street Journal, 21 August 1996, available at <ulink "
1362 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #3</ulink>; Jonathan Zittrain, "
1363 "\"Calling Off the Copyright War: In Battle of Property vs. Free Speech, No "
1364 "One Wins,\" Boston Globe, 24 November 2002."
1367 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1368 #: freeculture.xml:1103
1370 "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law professor "
1371 "Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the \"if value, then right\" theory of "
1372 "creative property<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> —if there "
1373 "is value, then someone must have a right to that value. It is the "
1374 "perspective that led a composers' rights organization, ASCAP, to sue the "
1375 "Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the songs that girls sang around Girl "
1376 "Scout campfires.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> There was "
1377 "\"value\" (the songs) so there must have been a \"right\"—even against "
1381 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
1382 #: freeculture.xml:1124
1387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1388 #: freeculture.xml:1126
1390 "This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative property "
1391 "should work. It might well be a possible design for a system of law "
1392 "protecting creative property. But the \"if value, then right\" theory of "
1393 "creative property has never been America's theory of creative property. It "
1394 "has never taken hold within our law."
1397 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1398 #: freeculture.xml:1135
1400 "Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It sets "
1401 "the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the "
1402 "value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have "
1403 "become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight "
1407 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1408 #: freeculture.xml:1142
1410 "The source of this confusion is a distinction that the law no longer takes "
1411 "care to draw—the distinction between republishing someone's work on "
1412 "the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on the "
1413 "other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern; "
1414 "copyright law today regulates both."
1417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1418 #: freeculture.xml:1149
1420 "Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter all "
1421 "that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that meant the "
1422 "vast majority of publishing was commercial. Commercial entities could bear "
1423 "the burden of the law—even the burden of the Byzantine complexity that "
1424 "copyright law has become. It was just one more expense of doing business."
1427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
1428 #: freeculture.xml:1156 freeculture.xml:1184
1429 msgid "Florida, Richard"
1432 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
1433 #: freeculture.xml:1177
1435 "In The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2002), Richard "
1436 "Florida documents a shift in the nature of labor toward a labor of "
1437 "creativity. His work, however, doesn't directly address the legal "
1438 "conditions under which that creativity is enabled or stifled. I certainly "
1439 "agree with him about the importance and significance of this change, but I "
1440 "also believe the conditions under which it will be enabled are much more "
1441 "tenuous. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
1444 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1445 #: freeculture.xml:1158
1447 "But with the birth of the Internet, this natural limit to the reach of the "
1448 "law has disappeared. The law controls not just the creativity of commercial "
1449 "creators but effectively that of anyone. Although that expansion would not "
1450 "matter much if copyright law regulated only \"copying,\" when the law "
1451 "regulates as broadly and obscurely as it does, the extension matters a "
1452 "lot. The burden of this law now vastly outweighs any original "
1453 "benefit—certainly as it affects noncommercial creativity, and "
1454 "increasingly as it affects commercial creativity as well. Thus, as we'll see "
1455 "more clearly in the chapters below, the law's role is less and less to "
1456 "support creativity, and more and more to protect certain industries against "
1457 "competition. Just at the time digital technology could unleash an "
1458 "extraordinary range of commercial and noncommercial creativity, the law "
1459 "burdens this creativity with insanely complex and vague rules and with the "
1460 "threat of obscenely severe penalties. We may be seeing, as Richard Florida "
1461 "writes, the \"Rise of the Creative Class.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
1462 "id=\"0\"/> Unfortunately, we are also seeing an extraordinary rise of "
1463 "regulation of this creative class."
1466 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
1467 #: freeculture.xml:1190
1469 "These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by "
1470 "understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper "
1471 "context the current battles about behavior labeled \"piracy.\""
1474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
1475 #: freeculture.xml:1197
1476 msgid "CHAPTER ONE: Creators"
1479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1480 #: freeculture.xml:1199
1482 "In 1928, a cartoon character was born. An early Mickey Mouse made his debut "
1483 "in May of that year, in a silent flop called Plane Crazy. In November, in "
1484 "New York City's Colony Theater, in the first widely distributed cartoon "
1485 "synchronized with sound, Steamboat Willie brought to life the character that "
1486 "would become Mickey Mouse."
1489 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1490 #: freeculture.xml:1206
1492 "Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the movie "
1493 "The Jazz Singer. That success led Walt Disney to copy the technique and mix "
1494 "sound with cartoons. No one knew whether it would work or, if it did work, "
1495 "whether it would win an audience. But when Disney ran a test in the summer "
1496 "of 1928, the results were unambiguous. As Disney describes that first "
1501 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
1502 #: freeculture.xml:1215
1504 "A couple of my boys could read music, and one of them could play a mouth "
1505 "organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and "
1506 "arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were "
1507 "going to see the picture."
1510 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
1511 #: freeculture.xml:1222
1513 "The boys worked from a music and sound-effects score. After several false "
1514 "starts, sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the "
1515 "tune, the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew slide "
1516 "whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close."
1520 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
1521 #: freeculture.xml:1236
1523 "Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons "
1524 "(New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35."
1527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
1528 #: freeculture.xml:1229
1530 "The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They "
1531 "responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought "
1532 "they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action "
1533 "again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something "
1534 "new!<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1537 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
1538 #: freeculture.xml:1246
1542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1543 #: freeculture.xml:1243
1545 "Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary talents, Ub "
1546 "Iwerks, put it more strongly: \"I have never been so thrilled in my "
1547 "life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.\" <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
1551 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1552 #: freeculture.xml:1249
1554 "Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively "
1555 "new. Synchronized sound brought life to a form of creativity that had "
1556 "rarely—except in Disney's hands—been anything more than filler "
1557 "for other films. Throughout animation's early history, it was Disney's "
1558 "invention that set the standard that others struggled to match. And quite "
1559 "often, Disney's great genius, his spark of creativity, was built upon the "
1563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1564 #: freeculture.xml:1258
1566 "This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks "
1567 "another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to cartoon) "
1568 "genius created his last independently produced silent film. That genius was "
1569 "Buster Keaton. The film was Steamboat Bill, Jr."
1572 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1573 #: freeculture.xml:1264
1575 "Keaton was born into a vaudeville family in 1895. In the era of silent film, "
1576 "he had mastered using broad physical comedy as a way to spark uncontrollable "
1577 "laughter from his audience. Steamboat Bill, Jr. was a classic of this form, "
1578 "famous among film buffs for its incredible stunts. The film was classic "
1579 "Keaton—wildly popular and among the best of its genre."
1583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1584 #: freeculture.xml:1277
1586 "I am grateful to David Gerstein and his careful history, described at <ulink "
1587 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #4</ulink>. According to Dave "
1588 "Smith of the Disney Archives, Disney paid royalties to use the music for "
1589 "five songs in Steamboat Willie: \"Steamboat Bill,\" \"The Simpleton\" "
1590 "(Delille), \"Mischief Makers\" (Carbonara), \"Joyful Hurry No. 1\" (Baron), "
1591 "and \"Gawky Rube\" (Lakay). A sixth song, \"The Turkey in the Straw,\" was "
1592 "already in the public domain. Letter from David Smith to Harry Surden, 10 "
1593 "July 2003, on file with author."
1596 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1597 #: freeculture.xml:1272
1599 "Steamboat Bill, Jr. appeared before Disney's cartoon Steamboat Willie. The "
1600 "coincidence of titles is not coincidental. Steamboat Willie is a direct "
1601 "cartoon parody of Steamboat Bill,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
1602 "and both are built upon a common song as a source. It is not just from the "
1603 "invention of synchronized sound in The Jazz Singer that we get Steamboat "
1604 "Willie. It is also from Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat Bill, Jr., "
1605 "itself inspired by the song \"Steamboat Bill,\" that we get Steamboat "
1606 "Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse."
1610 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1611 #: freeculture.xml:1298
1613 "He was also a fan of the public domain. See Chris Sprigman, \"The Mouse that "
1614 "Ate the Public Domain,\" Findlaw, 5 March 2002, at <ulink "
1615 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #5</ulink>."
1618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1619 #: freeculture.xml:1294
1621 "This \"borrowing\" was nothing unique, either for Disney or for the "
1622 "industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream films of "
1623 "his day.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> So did many others. Early "
1624 "cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on winning "
1625 "themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the brilliance "
1626 "of the differences. With Disney, it was sound that gave his animation its "
1627 "spark. Later, it was the quality of his work relative to the production-line "
1628 "cartoons with which he competed. Yet these additions were built upon a base "
1629 "that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of others before him, creating "
1630 "something new out of something just barely old."
1633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1634 #: freeculture.xml:1313
1636 "Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant. Think "
1637 "about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as oblivious as I "
1638 "was, you're likely to think that these tales are happy, sweet stories, "
1639 "appropriate for any child at bedtime. In fact, the Grimm fairy tales are, "
1640 "well, for us, grim. It is a rare and perhaps overly ambitious parent who "
1641 "would dare to read these bloody, moralistic stories to his or her child, at "
1642 "bedtime or anytime."
1646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1647 #: freeculture.xml:1322
1649 "Disney took these stories and retold them in a way that carried them into a "
1650 "new age. He animated the stories, with both characters and light. Without "
1651 "removing the elements of fear and danger altogether, he made funny what was "
1652 "dark and injected a genuine emotion of compassion where before there was "
1653 "fear. And not just with the work of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, the catalog "
1654 "of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set "
1655 "together: Snow White (1937), Fantasia (1940), Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo "
1656 "(1941), Bambi (1942), Song of the South (1946), Cinderella (1950), Alice in "
1657 "Wonderland (1951), Robin Hood (1952), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp "
1658 "(1955), Mulan (1998), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The "
1659 "Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967)—not to mention a "
1660 "recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, Treasure Planet "
1661 "(2003). In all of these cases, Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity "
1662 "from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own "
1663 "extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his "
1664 "culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
1667 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1668 #: freeculture.xml:1342
1670 "This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should remember and "
1671 "celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no creativity except "
1672 "this kind. We don't need to go that far to recognize its importance. We "
1673 "could call this \"Disney creativity,\" though that would be a bit "
1674 "misleading. It is, more precisely, \"Walt Disney creativity\"—a form "
1675 "of expression and genius that builds upon the culture around us and makes it "
1676 "something different."
1680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1681 #: freeculture.xml:1356
1683 "Until 1976, copyright law granted an author the possibility of two terms: an "
1684 "initial term and a renewal term. I have calculated the \"average\" term by "
1685 "determining the weighted average of total registrations for any particular "
1686 "year, and the proportion renewing. Thus, if 100 copyrights are registered in "
1687 "year 1, and only 15 are renewed, and the renewal term is 28 years, then the "
1688 "average term is 32.2 years. For the renewal data and other relevant data, "
1689 "see the Web site associated with this book, available at <ulink "
1690 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #6</ulink>."
1693 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1694 #: freeculture.xml:1350
1696 "In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was relatively "
1697 "fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was therefore quite "
1698 "vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around thirty "
1699 "years—for that minority of creative work that was in fact "
1700 "copyrighted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That means that for "
1701 "thirty years, on average, the authors or copyright holders of a creative "
1702 "work had an \"exclusive right\" to control certain uses of the work. To use "
1703 "this copyrighted work in limited ways required the permission of the "
1707 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1708 #: freeculture.xml:1373
1710 "At the end of a copyright term, a work passes into the public domain. No "
1711 "permission is then needed to draw upon or use that work. No permission and, "
1712 "hence, no lawyers. The public domain is a \"lawyer-free zone.\" Thus, most "
1713 "of the content from the nineteenth century was free for Disney to use and "
1714 "build upon in 1928. It was free for anyone— whether connected or not, "
1715 "whether rich or not, whether approved or not—to use and build upon."
1719 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1720 #: freeculture.xml:1382
1722 "This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most of "
1723 "our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From until 1978, "
1724 "the average copyright term was never more than thirty-two years, meaning "
1725 "that most culture just a generation and a half old was free for anyone to "
1726 "build upon without the permission of anyone else. Today's equivalent would "
1727 "be for creative work from the 1960s and 1970s to now be free for the next "
1728 "Walt Disney to build upon without permission. Yet today, the public domain "
1729 "is presumptive only for content from before the Great Depression."
1732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1733 #: freeculture.xml:1395
1735 "Of course, Walt Disney had no monopoly on \"Walt Disney creativity.\" Nor "
1736 "does America. The norm of free culture has, until recently, and except "
1737 "within totalitarian nations, been broadly exploited and quite universal."
1740 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1741 #: freeculture.xml:1401
1743 "Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many "
1744 "Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: manga, or "
1745 "comics. The Japanese are fanatics about comics. Some 40 percent of "
1746 "publications are comics, and 30 percent of publication revenue derives from "
1747 "comics. They are everywhere in Japanese society, at every magazine stand, "
1748 "carried by a large proportion of commuters on Japan's extraordinary system "
1749 "of public transportation."
1752 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1753 #: freeculture.xml:1410
1755 "Americans tend to look down upon this form of culture. That's an "
1756 "unattractive characteristic of ours. We're likely to misunderstand much "
1757 "about manga, because few of us have ever read anything close to the stories "
1758 "that these \"graphic novels\" tell. For the Japanese, manga cover every "
1759 "aspect of social life. For us, comics are \"men in tights.\" And anyway, "
1760 "it's not as if the New York subways are filled with readers of Joyce or even "
1761 "Hemingway. People of different cultures distract themselves in different "
1762 "ways, the Japanese in this interestingly different way."
1765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1766 #: freeculture.xml:1421
1768 "But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a variant "
1769 "on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but from a Disney "
1770 "perspective is quite familiar."
1774 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1775 #: freeculture.xml:1426
1777 "This is the phenomenon of doujinshi. Doujinshi are also comics, but they are "
1778 "a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the creation of doujinshi. It "
1779 "is not doujinshi if it is just a copy; the artist must make a contribution "
1780 "to the art he copies, by transforming it either subtly or significantly. A "
1781 "doujinshi comic can thus take a mainstream comic and develop it "
1782 "differently—with a different story line. Or the comic can keep the "
1783 "character in character but change its look slightly. There is no formula for "
1784 "what makes the doujinshi sufficiently \"different.\" But they must be "
1785 "different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed, there are "
1786 "committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows and reject any "
1787 "copycat comic that is merely a copy."
1790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1791 #: freeculture.xml:1440
1793 "These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are "
1794 "huge. More than 33,000 \"circles\" of creators from across Japan produce "
1795 "these bits of Walt Disney creativity. More than 450,000 Japanese come "
1796 "together twice a year, in the largest public gathering in the country, to "
1797 "exchange and sell them. This market exists in parallel to the mainstream "
1798 "commercial manga market. In some ways, it obviously competes with that "
1799 "market, but there is no sustained effort by those who control the commercial "
1800 "manga market to shut the doujinshi market down. It flourishes, despite the "
1801 "competition and despite the law."
1804 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1805 #: freeculture.xml:1451
1807 "The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained in the "
1808 "law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under Japanese "
1809 "copyright law, which in this respect (on paper) mirrors American copyright "
1810 "law, the doujinshi market is an illegal one. Doujinshi are plainly "
1811 "\"derivative works.\" There is no general practice by doujinshi artists of "
1812 "securing the permission of the manga creators. Instead, the practice is "
1813 "simply to take and modify the creations of others, as Walt Disney did with "
1814 "Steamboat Bill, Jr. Under both Japanese and American law, that \"taking\" "
1815 "without the permission of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an "
1816 "infringement of the original copyright to make a copy or a derivative work "
1817 "without the original copyright owner's permission."
1821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1822 #: freeculture.xml:1476
1824 "For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics (New York: "
1828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1829 #: freeculture.xml:1465
1831 "Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in the "
1832 "view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga "
1833 "flourish. As American graphic novelist Judd Winick said to me, \"The early "
1834 "days of comics in America are very much like what's going on in Japan "
1835 "now. . . . American comics were born out of copying each other. . . . That's "
1836 "how [the artists] learn to draw—by going into comic books and not "
1837 "tracing them, but looking at them and copying them\" and building from "
1838 "them.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1841 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1842 #: freeculture.xml:1481
1844 "American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part because of "
1845 "the legal difficulty of adapting comics the way doujinshi are "
1846 "allowed. Speaking of Superman, Winick told me, \"there are these rules and "
1847 "you have to stick to them.\" There are things Superman \"cannot\" do. \"As a "
1848 "creator, it's frustrating having to stick to some parameters which are fifty "
1853 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1854 #: freeculture.xml:1497
1856 "See Salil K. Mehra, \"Copyright and Comics in Japan: Does Law Explain Why "
1857 "All the Comics My Kid Watches Are Japanese Imports?\" Rutgers Law Review 55 "
1858 "(2002): 155, 182. \"[T]here might be a collective economic rationality that "
1859 "would lead manga and anime artists to forgo bringing legal actions for "
1860 "infringement. One hypothesis is that all manga artists may be better off "
1861 "collectively if they set aside their individual self-interest and decide not "
1862 "to press their legal rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma "
1866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1867 #: freeculture.xml:1489
1869 "The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is precisely "
1870 "the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that explains the "
1871 "mitigation. Temple University law professor Salil Mehra, for example, "
1872 "hypothesizes that the manga market accepts these technical violations "
1873 "because they spur the manga market to be more wealthy and "
1874 "productive. Everyone would be worse off if doujinshi were banned, so the law "
1875 "does not ban doujinshi.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
1878 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1879 #: freeculture.xml:1508
1881 "The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges, is that "
1882 "the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not clear. It may "
1883 "well be that the market as a whole is better off if doujinshi are permitted "
1884 "rather than banned, but that doesn't explain why individual copyright owners "
1885 "don't sue nonetheless. If the law has no general exception for doujinshi, "
1886 "and indeed in some cases individual manga artists have sued doujinshi "
1887 "artists, why is there not a more general pattern of blocking this \"free "
1888 "taking\" by the doujinshi culture?"
1891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1892 #: freeculture.xml:1519
1894 "I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question as often "
1895 "as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by a friend from "
1896 "a major Japanese law firm. \"We don't have enough lawyers,\" he told me one "
1897 "afternoon. There \"just aren't enough resources to prosecute cases like "
1902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1903 #: freeculture.xml:1526
1905 "This is a theme to which we will return: that regulation by law is a "
1906 "function of both the words on the books and the costs of making those words "
1907 "have effect. For now, focus on the obvious question that is begged: Would "
1908 "Japan be better off with more lawyers? Would manga be richer if doujinshi "
1909 "artists were regularly prosecuted? Would the Japanese gain something "
1910 "important if they could end this practice of uncompensated sharing? Does "
1911 "piracy here hurt the victims of the piracy, or does it help them? Would "
1912 "lawyers fighting this piracy help their clients or hurt them? Let's pause "
1916 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1917 #: freeculture.xml:1539
1919 "If you're like I was a decade ago, or like most people are when they first "
1920 "start thinking about these issues, then just about now you should be puzzled "
1921 "about something you hadn't thought through before."
1925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
1926 #: freeculture.xml:1549
1928 "The term intellectual property is of relatively recent origin. See Siva "
1929 "Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 11 (New York: New York University "
1930 "Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas (New York: "
1931 "Random House, 2001), 293 n. 26. The term accurately describes a set of "
1932 "\"property\" rights—copyright, patents, trademark, and "
1933 "trade-secret—but the nature of those rights is very different."
1936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1937 #: freeculture.xml:1544
1939 "We live in a world that celebrates \"property.\" I am one of those "
1940 "celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also "
1941 "believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call "
1942 "\"intellectual property.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A large, "
1943 "diverse society cannot survive without property; a large, diverse, and "
1944 "modern society cannot flourish without intellectual property."
1947 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1948 #: freeculture.xml:1564
1950 "But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is plenty of "
1951 "value out there that \"property\" doesn't capture. I don't mean \"money "
1952 "can't buy you love,\" but rather, value that is plainly part of a process of "
1953 "production, including commercial as well as noncommercial production. If "
1954 "Disney animators had stolen a set of pencils to draw Steamboat Willie, we'd "
1955 "have no hesitation in condemning that taking as wrong— even though "
1956 "trivial, even if unnoticed. Yet there was nothing wrong, at least under the "
1957 "law of the day, with Disney's taking from Buster Keaton or from the Brothers "
1958 "Grimm. There was nothing wrong with the taking from Keaton because Disney's "
1959 "use would have been considered \"fair.\" There was nothing wrong with the "
1960 "taking from the Grimms because the Grimms' work was in the public domain."
1964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1965 #: freeculture.xml:1579
1967 "Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally, the "
1968 "things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are valuable, "
1969 "our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some things remain free "
1970 "for the taking within a free culture, and that freedom is good."
1973 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1974 #: freeculture.xml:1588
1976 "The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into a "
1977 "publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest "
1978 "work—or even one copy—without paying, we'd have no hesitation in "
1979 "saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would have "
1980 "stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever form, "
1981 "whether large or small."
1984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1985 #: freeculture.xml:1596
1987 "Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to say that "
1988 "the copycat comic artists are \"stealing.\" This form of Walt Disney "
1989 "creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in particular find it "
1993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
1994 #: freeculture.xml:1602
1996 "It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you begin "
1997 "to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists without asking "
1998 "or paying for the privilege. (\"Excuse me, Professor Einstein, but may I "
1999 "have permission to use your theory of relativity to show that you were wrong "
2000 "about quantum physics?\") Acting companies perform adaptations of the works "
2001 "of Shakespeare without securing permission from anyone. (Does anyone believe "
2002 "Shakespeare would be better spread within our culture if there were a "
2003 "central Shakespeare rights clearinghouse that all productions of Shakespeare "
2004 "must appeal to first?) And Hollywood goes through cycles with a certain kind "
2005 "of movie: five asteroid films in the late 1990s; two volcano disaster films "
2010 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2011 #: freeculture.xml:1616
2013 "Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the "
2014 "creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is "
2015 "always and everywhere at least partially done without permission and without "
2016 "compensating the original creator. No society, free or controlled, has ever "
2017 "demanded that every use be paid for or that permission for Walt Disney "
2018 "creativity must always be sought. Instead, every society has left a certain "
2019 "bit of its culture free for the taking—free societies more fully than "
2020 "unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree."
2023 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2024 #: freeculture.xml:1627
2026 "The hard question is therefore not whether a culture is free. All cultures "
2027 "are free to some degree. The hard question instead is \"How free is this "
2028 "culture?\" How much, and how broadly, is the culture free for others to take "
2029 "and build upon? Is that freedom limited to party members? To members of the "
2030 "royal family? To the top ten corporations on the New York Stock Exchange? Or "
2031 "is that freedom spread broadly? To artists generally, whether affiliated "
2032 "with the Met or not? To musicians generally, whether white or not? To "
2033 "filmmakers generally, whether affiliated with a studio or not?"
2036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2037 #: freeculture.xml:1638
2039 "Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to build "
2040 "upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a free "
2041 "culture. It is becoming much less so."
2044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
2045 #: freeculture.xml:1646
2046 msgid "CHAPTER TWO: \"Mere Copyists\""
2049 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2050 #: freeculture.xml:1647
2051 msgid "Daguerre, Louis"
2054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2055 #: freeculture.xml:1649
2057 "In 1839, Louis Daguerre invented the first practical technology for "
2058 "producing what we would call \"photographs.\" Appropriately enough, they "
2059 "were called \"daguerreotypes.\" The process was complicated and expensive, "
2060 "and the field was thus limited to professionals and a few zealous and "
2061 "wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre Association that "
2062 "helped regulate the industry, as do all such associations, by keeping "
2063 "competition down so as to keep prices up.)"
2066 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2067 #: freeculture.xml:1658
2069 "Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong. This "
2070 "pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make \"automatic "
2071 "pictures.\" William Talbot soon discovered a process for making "
2072 "\"negatives.\" But because the negatives were glass, and had to be kept wet, "
2073 "the process still remained expensive and cumbersome. In the 1870s, dry "
2074 "plates were developed, making it easier to separate the taking of a picture "
2075 "from its developing. These were still plates of glass, and thus it was still "
2076 "not a process within reach of most amateurs."
2080 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2081 #: freeculture.xml:1669
2083 "The technological change that made mass photography possible didn't happen "
2084 "until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George Eastman, himself an "
2085 "amateur photographer, was frustrated by the technology of photographs made "
2086 "with plates. In a flash of insight (so to speak), Eastman saw that if the "
2087 "film could be made to be flexible, it could be held on a single "
2088 "spindle. That roll could then be sent to a developer, driving the costs of "
2089 "photography down substantially. By lowering the costs, Eastman expected he "
2090 "could dramatically broaden the population of photographers."
2094 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2095 #: freeculture.xml:1686
2097 "Reese V. Jenkins, Images and Enterprise (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University "
2098 "Press, 1975), 112."
2101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2102 #: freeculture.xml:1681
2104 "Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed rolls of "
2105 "it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was marketed on the basis "
2106 "of its simplicity. \"You press the button and we do the rest.\"<placeholder "
2107 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As he described in The Kodak Primer:"
2110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2111 #: freeculture.xml:1704 freeculture.xml:1727
2115 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
2116 #: freeculture.xml:1702
2118 "Brian Coe, The Birth of Photography (New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1977), "
2119 "53. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2122 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2123 #: freeculture.xml:1691
2125 "The principle of the Kodak system is the separation of the work that any "
2126 "person whomsoever can do in making a photograph, from the work that only an "
2127 "expert can do. . . . We furnish anybody, man, woman or child, who has "
2128 "sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an "
2129 "instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the "
2130 "necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of "
2131 "the art. It can be employed without preliminary study, without a darkroom "
2132 "and without chemicals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2137 #: freeculture.xml:1720
2138 msgid "Jenkins, 177."
2142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2143 #: freeculture.xml:1724
2144 msgid "Based on a chart in Jenkins, p. 178."
2147 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2148 #: freeculture.xml:1709
2150 "For $25, anyone could make pictures. The camera came preloaded with film, "
2151 "and when it had been used, the camera was returned to an Eastman factory, "
2152 "where the film was developed. Over time, of course, the cost of the camera "
2153 "and the ease with which it could be used both improved. Roll film thus "
2154 "became the basis for the explosive growth of popular photography. Eastman's "
2155 "camera first went on sale in 1888; one year later, Kodak was printing more "
2156 "than six thousand negatives a day. From 1888 through 1909, while industrial "
2157 "production was rising by 4.7 percent, photographic equipment and material "
2158 "sales increased by percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eastman "
2159 "Kodak's sales during the same period experienced an average annual increase "
2160 "of over 17 percent.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2164 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2165 #: freeculture.xml:1742
2169 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2170 #: freeculture.xml:1731
2172 "The real significance of Eastman's invention, however, was not economic. It "
2173 "was social. Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places "
2174 "they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to "
2175 "record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before. As "
2176 "author Brian Coe notes, \"For the first time the snapshot album provided the "
2177 "man on the street with a permanent record of his family and its "
2178 "activities. . . . For the first time in history there exists an authentic "
2179 "visual record of the appearance and activities of the common man made "
2180 "without [literary] interpretation or bias.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2184 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2185 #: freeculture.xml:1746
2187 "In this way, the Kodak camera and film were technologies of expression. The "
2188 "pencil or paintbrush was also a technology of expression, of course. But it "
2189 "took years of training before they could be deployed by amateurs in any "
2190 "useful or effective way. With the Kodak, expression was possible much sooner "
2191 "and more simply. The barrier to expression was lowered. Snobs would sneer at "
2192 "its \"quality\"; professionals would discount it as irrelevant. But watch a "
2193 "child study how best to frame a picture and you get a sense of the "
2194 "experience of creativity that the Kodak enabled. Democratic tools gave "
2195 "ordinary people a way to express themselves more easily than any tools could "
2200 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2201 #: freeculture.xml:1768
2203 "For illustrative cases, see, for example, Pavesich v. N.E. Life Ins. Co., 50 "
2207 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2208 #: freeculture.xml:1759
2210 "What was required for this technology to flourish? Obviously, Eastman's "
2211 "genius was an important part. But also important was the legal environment "
2212 "within which Eastman's invention grew. For early in the history of "
2213 "photography, there was a series of judicial decisions that could well have "
2214 "changed the course of photography substantially. Courts were asked whether "
2215 "the photographer, amateur or professional, required permission before he "
2216 "could capture and print whatever image he wanted. Their answer was "
2217 "no.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2222 #: freeculture.xml:1772
2224 "The arguments in favor of requiring permission will sound surprisingly "
2225 "familiar. The photographer was \"taking\" something from the person or "
2226 "building whose photograph he shot—pirating something of value. Some "
2227 "even thought he was taking the target's soul. Just as Disney was not free to "
2228 "take the pencils that his animators used to draw Mickey, so, too, should "
2229 "these photographers not be free to take images that they thought valuable."
2232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2233 #: freeculture.xml:1794
2234 msgid "Warren, Samuel D."
2237 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2238 #: freeculture.xml:1791
2240 "Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, \"The Right to Privacy,\" Harvard "
2241 "Law Review 4 (1890): 193. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> "
2242 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
2245 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2246 #: freeculture.xml:1784
2248 "On the other side was an argument that should be familiar, as well. Sure, "
2249 "there may be something of value being used. But citizens should have the "
2250 "right to capture at least those images that stand in public view. (Louis "
2251 "Brandeis, who would become a Supreme Court Justice, thought the rule should "
2252 "be different for images from private spaces.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2253 "id=\"0\"/>) It may be that this means that the photographer gets something "
2254 "for nothing. Just as Disney could take inspiration from Steamboat Bill, "
2255 "Jr. or the Brothers Grimm, the photographer should be free to capture an "
2256 "image without compensating the source."
2260 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2261 #: freeculture.xml:1811
2263 "See Melville B. Nimmer, \"The Right of Publicity,\" Law and Contemporary "
2264 "Problems 19 (1954): 203; William L. Prosser, \"Privacy,\" California Law "
2265 "Review 48 (1960) 398–407; White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., "
2266 "971 F. 2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 951 (1993)."
2269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2270 #: freeculture.xml:1801
2272 "Fortunately for Mr. Eastman, and for photography in general, these early "
2273 "decisions went in favor of the pirates. In general, no permission would be "
2274 "required before an image could be captured and shared with others. Instead, "
2275 "permission was presumed. Freedom was the default. (The law would eventually "
2276 "craft an exception for famous people: commercial photographers who snap "
2277 "pictures of famous people for commercial purposes have more restrictions "
2278 "than the rest of us. But in the ordinary case, the image can be captured "
2279 "without clearing the rights to do the capturing.<placeholder "
2280 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>)"
2283 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2284 #: freeculture.xml:1819
2286 "We can only speculate about how photography would have developed had the law "
2287 "gone the other way. If the presumption had been against the photographer, "
2288 "then the photographer would have had to demonstrate permission. Perhaps "
2289 "Eastman Kodak would have had to demonstrate permission, too, before it "
2290 "developed the film upon which images were captured. After all, if permission "
2291 "were not granted, then Eastman Kodak would be benefiting from the \"theft\" "
2292 "committed by the photographer. Just as Napster benefited from the copyright "
2293 "infringements committed by Napster users, Kodak would be benefiting from the "
2294 "\"image-right\" infringement of its photographers. We could imagine the law "
2295 "then requiring that some form of permission be demonstrated before a company "
2296 "developed pictures. We could imagine a system developing to demonstrate that "
2301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2302 #: freeculture.xml:1836
2304 "But though we could imagine this system of permission, it would be very hard "
2305 "to see how photography could have flourished as it did if the requirement "
2306 "for permission had been built into the rules that govern it. Photography "
2307 "would have existed. It would have grown in importance over "
2308 "time. Professionals would have continued to use the technology as they "
2309 "did—since professionals could have more easily borne the burdens of "
2310 "the permission system. But the spread of photography to ordinary people "
2311 "would not have occurred. Nothing like that growth would have been "
2312 "realized. And certainly, nothing like that growth in a democratic technology "
2313 "of expression would have been realized. If you drive through San "
2314 "Francisco's Presidio, you might see two gaudy yellow school buses painted "
2315 "over with colorful and striking images, and the logo \"Just Think!\" in "
2316 "place of the name of a school. But there's little that's \"just\" cerebral "
2317 "in the projects that these busses enable. These buses are filled with "
2318 "technologies that teach kids to tinker with film. Not the film of "
2319 "Eastman. Not even the film of your VCR. Rather the \"film\" of digital "
2320 "cameras. Just Think! is a project that enables kids to make films, as a way "
2321 "to understand and critique the filmed culture that they find all around "
2322 "them. Each year, these busses travel to more than thirty schools and enable "
2323 "three hundred to five hundred children to learn something about media by "
2324 "doing something with media. By doing, they think. By tinkering, they learn."
2328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2329 #: freeculture.xml:1867
2331 "H. Edward Goldberg, \"Essential Presentation Tools: Hardware and Software "
2332 "You Need to Create Digital Multimedia Presentations,\" cadalyst, February "
2333 "2002, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2338 #: freeculture.xml:1861
2340 "These buses are not cheap, but the technology they carry is increasingly "
2341 "so. The cost of a high-quality digital video system has fallen "
2342 "dramatically. As one analyst puts it, \"Five years ago, a good real-time "
2343 "digital video editing system cost $25,000. Today you can get professional "
2344 "quality for $595.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These buses are "
2345 "filled with technology that would have cost hundreds of thousands just ten "
2346 "years ago. And it is now feasible to imagine not just buses like this, but "
2347 "classrooms across the country where kids are learning more and more of "
2348 "something teachers call \"media literacy.\""
2352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2353 #: freeculture.xml:1881
2355 "\"Media literacy,\" as Dave Yanofsky, the executive director of Just Think!, "
2356 "puts it, \"is the ability . . . to understand, analyze, and deconstruct "
2357 "media images. Its aim is to make [kids] literate about the way media works, "
2358 "the way it's constructed, the way it's delivered, and the way people access "
2362 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2363 #: freeculture.xml:1888
2365 "This may seem like an odd way to think about \"literacy.\" For most people, "
2366 "literacy is about reading and writing. Faulkner and Hemingway and noticing "
2367 "split infinitives are the things that \"literate\" people know about."
2371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2372 #: freeculture.xml:1898
2374 "Judith Van Evra, Television and Child Development (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence "
2375 "Erlbaum Associates, 1990); \"Findings on Family and TV Study,\" Denver Post, "
2379 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2380 #: freeculture.xml:1894
2382 "Maybe. But in a world where children see on average 390 hours of television "
2383 "commercials per year, or between 20,000 and 45,000 commercials "
2384 "generally,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> it is increasingly "
2385 "important to understand the \"grammar\" of media. For just as there is a "
2386 "grammar for the written word, so, too, is there one for media. And just as "
2387 "kids learn how to write by writing lots of terrible prose, kids learn how to "
2388 "write media by constructing lots of (at least at first) terrible media."
2391 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2392 #: freeculture.xml:1910
2394 "A growing field of academics and activists sees this form of literacy as "
2395 "crucial to the next generation of culture. For though anyone who has written "
2396 "understands how difficult writing is—how difficult it is to sequence "
2397 "the story, to keep a reader's attention, to craft language to be "
2398 "understandable—few of us have any real sense of how difficult media "
2399 "is. Or more fundamentally, few of us have a sense of how media works, how it "
2400 "holds an audience or leads it through a story, how it triggers emotion or "
2404 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2405 #: freeculture.xml:1921
2407 "It took filmmaking a generation before it could do these things well. But "
2408 "even then, the knowledge was in the filming, not in writing about the "
2409 "film. The skill came from experiencing the making of a film, not from "
2410 "reading a book about it. One learns to write by writing and then reflecting "
2411 "upon what one has written. One learns to write with images by making them "
2412 "and then reflecting upon what one has created."
2415 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2416 #: freeculture.xml:1928
2417 msgid "Crichton, Michael"
2420 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2421 #: freeculture.xml:1942 freeculture.xml:2002 freeculture.xml:2009 freeculture.xml:2455
2422 msgid "Barish, Stephanie"
2425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2426 #: freeculture.xml:1943
2427 msgid "Daley, Elizabeth"
2430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2431 #: freeculture.xml:1940
2433 "Interview with Elizabeth Daley and Stephanie Barish, 13 December 2002. "
2434 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
2439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2440 #: freeculture.xml:1954
2442 "See Scott Steinberg, \"Crichton Gets Medieval on PCs,\" E!online, 4 November "
2443 "2000, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
2444 "#8</ulink>; \"Timeline,\" 22 November 2000, available at <ulink "
2445 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #9</ulink>."
2448 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2449 #: freeculture.xml:1930
2451 "This grammar has changed as media has changed. When it was just film, as "
2452 "Elizabeth Daley, executive director of the University of Southern "
2453 "California's Annenberg Center for Communication and dean of the USC School "
2454 "of Cinema-Television, explained to me, the grammar was about \"the placement "
2455 "of objects, color, . . . rhythm, pacing, and texture.\"<placeholder "
2456 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But as computers open up an interactive space "
2457 "where a story is \"played\" as well as experienced, that grammar "
2458 "changes. The simple control of narrative is lost, and so other techniques "
2459 "are necessary. Author Michael Crichton had mastered the narrative of science "
2460 "fiction. But when he tried to design a computer game based on one of his "
2461 "works, it was a new craft he had to learn. How to lead people through a game "
2462 "without their feeling they have been led was not obvious, even to a wildly "
2463 "successful author.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
2466 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2467 #: freeculture.xml:1961
2468 msgid "computer games"
2471 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2472 #: freeculture.xml:1963
2474 "This skill is precisely the craft a filmmaker learns. As Daley describes, "
2475 "\"people are very surprised about how they are led through a film. [I]t is "
2476 "perfectly constructed to keep you from seeing it, so you have no idea. If a "
2477 "filmmaker succeeds you do not know how you were led.\" If you know you were "
2478 "led through a film, the film has failed."
2481 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2482 #: freeculture.xml:1970
2484 "Yet the push for an expanded literacy—one that goes beyond text to "
2485 "include audio and visual elements—is not about making better film "
2486 "directors. The aim is not to improve the profession of filmmaking at all. "
2487 "Instead, as Daley explained,"
2490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2491 #: freeculture.xml:1977
2493 "From my perspective, probably the most important digital divide is not "
2494 "access to a box. It's the ability to be empowered with the language that "
2495 "that box works in. Otherwise only a very few people can write with this "
2496 "language, and all the rest of us are reduced to being read-only."
2499 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2500 #: freeculture.xml:1985
2502 "\"Read-only.\" Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. Couch "
2503 "potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth century."
2506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2507 #: freeculture.xml:2001
2508 msgid "Interview with Daley and Barish. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
2513 #: freeculture.xml:2006 freeculture.xml:3752 freeculture.xml:4826 freeculture.xml:7960
2517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2518 #: freeculture.xml:1990
2520 "The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It "
2521 "could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding "
2522 "the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that "
2523 "enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this "
2524 "literacy in particular, is to \"empower people to choose the appropriate "
2525 "language for what they need to create or express.\"<placeholder "
2526 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It is to enable students \"to communicate in "
2527 "the language of the twenty-first century.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2532 #: freeculture.xml:2011
2534 "As with any language, this language comes more easily to some than to "
2535 "others. It doesn't necessarily come more easily to those who excel in "
2536 "written language. Daley and Stephanie Barish, director of the Institute for "
2537 "Multimedia Literacy at the Annenberg Center, describe one particularly "
2538 "poignant example of a project they ran in a high school. The high school "
2539 "was a very poor inner-city Los Angeles school. In all the traditional "
2540 "measures of success, this school was a failure. But Daley and Barish ran a "
2541 "program that gave kids an opportunity to use film to express meaning about "
2542 "something the students know something about—gun violence."
2545 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2546 #: freeculture.xml:2023
2548 "The class was held on Friday afternoons, and it created a relatively new "
2549 "problem for the school. While the challenge in most classes was getting the "
2550 "kids to come, the challenge in this class was keeping them away. The \"kids "
2551 "were showing up at 6 A.M. and leaving at 5 at night,\" said Barish. They "
2552 "were working harder than in any other class to do what education should be "
2553 "about—learning how to express themselves."
2556 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2557 #: freeculture.xml:2031
2559 "Using whatever \"free web stuff they could find,\" and relatively simple "
2560 "tools to enable the kids to mix \"image, sound, and text,\" Barish said this "
2561 "class produced a series of projects that showed something about gun violence "
2562 "that few would otherwise understand. This was an issue close to the lives of "
2563 "these students. The project \"gave them a tool and empowered them to be able "
2564 "to both understand it and talk about it,\" Barish explained. That tool "
2565 "succeeded in creating expression—far more successfully and powerfully "
2566 "than could have been created using only text. \"If you had said to these "
2567 "students, `you have to do it in text,' they would've just thrown their hands "
2568 "up and gone and done something else,\" Barish described, in part, no doubt, "
2569 "because expressing themselves in text is not something these students can do "
2570 "well. Yet neither is text a form in which these ideas can be expressed "
2571 "well. The power of this message depended upon its connection to this form of "
2576 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2577 #: freeculture.xml:2050
2579 "\"But isn't education about teaching kids to write?\" I asked. In part, of "
2580 "course, it is. But why are we teaching kids to write? Education, Daley "
2581 "explained, is about giving students a way of \"constructing meaning.\" To "
2582 "say that that means just writing is like saying teaching writing is only "
2583 "about teaching kids how to spell. Text is one part—and increasingly, "
2584 "not the most powerful part—of constructing meaning. As Daley explained "
2585 "in the most moving part of our interview,"
2588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2589 #: freeculture.xml:2063
2591 "What you want is to give these students ways of constructing meaning. If all "
2592 "you give them is text, they're not going to do it. Because they can't. You "
2593 "know, you've got Johnny who can look at a video, he can play a video game, "
2594 "he can do graffiti all over your walls, he can take your car apart, and he "
2595 "can do all sorts of other things. He just can't read your text. So Johnny "
2596 "comes to school and you say, \"Johnny, you're illiterate. Nothing you can do "
2597 "matters.\" Well, Johnny then has two choices: He can dismiss you or he [can] "
2598 "dismiss himself. If his ego is healthy at all, he's going to dismiss "
2599 "you. [But i]nstead, if you say, \"Well, with all these things that you can "
2600 "do, let's talk about this issue. Play for me music that you think reflects "
2601 "that, or show me images that you think reflect that, or draw for me "
2602 "something that reflects that.\" Not by giving a kid a video camera and "
2603 ". . . saying, \"Let's go have fun with the video camera and make a little "
2604 "movie.\" But instead, really help you take these elements that you "
2605 "understand, that are your language, and construct meaning about the "
2609 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2610 #: freeculture.xml:2082
2612 "That empowers enormously. And then what happens, of course, is eventually, "
2613 "as it has happened in all these classes, they bump up against the fact, \"I "
2614 "need to explain this and I really need to write something.\" And as one of "
2615 "the teachers told Stephanie, they would rewrite a paragraph 5, 6, 7, 8 "
2616 "times, till they got it right."
2620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
2621 #: freeculture.xml:2089
2623 "Because they needed to. There was a reason for doing it. They needed to say "
2624 "something, as opposed to just jumping through your hoops. They actually "
2625 "needed to use a language that they didn't speak very well. But they had come "
2626 "to understand that they had a lot of power with this language.\""
2629 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2630 #: freeculture.xml:2098
2632 "When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, another into the "
2633 "Pentagon, and a fourth into a Pennsylvania field, all media around the world "
2634 "shifted to this news. Every moment of just about every day for that week, "
2635 "and for weeks after, television in particular, and media generally, retold "
2636 "the story of the events we had just witnessed. The telling was a retelling, "
2637 "because we had seen the events that were described. The genius of this awful "
2638 "act of terrorism was that the delayed second attack was perfectly timed to "
2639 "assure that the whole world would be watching."
2642 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2643 #: freeculture.xml:2109
2645 "These retellings had an increasingly familiar feel. There was music scored "
2646 "for the intermissions, and fancy graphics that flashed across the "
2647 "screen. There was a formula to interviews. There was \"balance,\" and "
2648 "seriousness. This was news choreographed in the way we have increasingly "
2649 "come to expect it, \"news as entertainment,\" even if the entertainment is "
2653 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
2654 #: freeculture.xml:2116 freeculture.xml:7898
2658 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
2659 #: freeculture.xml:2117
2663 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2664 #: freeculture.xml:2119
2666 "But in addition to this produced news about the \"tragedy of September 11,\" "
2667 "those of us tied to the Internet came to see a very different production as "
2668 "well. The Internet was filled with accounts of the same events. Yet these "
2669 "Internet accounts had a very different flavor. Some people constructed photo "
2670 "pages that captured images from around the world and presented them as slide "
2671 "shows with text. Some offered open letters. There were sound "
2672 "recordings. There was anger and frustration. There were attempts to provide "
2673 "context. There was, in short, an extraordinary worldwide barn raising, in "
2674 "the sense Mike Godwin uses the term in his book Cyber Rights, around a news "
2675 "event that had captured the attention of the world. There was ABC and CBS, "
2676 "but there was also the Internet."
2680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2681 #: freeculture.xml:2133
2683 "I don't mean simply to praise the Internet—though I do think the "
2684 "people who supported this form of speech should be praised. I mean instead "
2685 "to point to a significance in this form of speech. For like a Kodak, the "
2686 "Internet enables people to capture images. And like in a movie by a student "
2687 "on the \"Just Think!\" bus, the visual images could be mixed with sound or "
2691 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2692 #: freeculture.xml:2143
2694 "But unlike any technology for simply capturing images, the Internet allows "
2695 "these creations to be shared with an extraordinary number of people, "
2696 "practically instantaneously. This is something new in our "
2697 "tradition—not just that culture can be captured mechanically, and "
2698 "obviously not just that events are commented upon critically, but that this "
2699 "mix of captured images, sound, and commentary can be widely spread "
2700 "practically instantaneously."
2703 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2704 #: freeculture.xml:2152
2706 "September 11 was not an aberration. It was a beginning. Around the same "
2707 "time, a form of communication that has grown dramatically was just beginning "
2708 "to come into public consciousness: the Web-log, or blog. The blog is a kind "
2709 "of public diary, and within some cultures, such as in Japan, it functions "
2710 "very much like a diary. In those cultures, it records private facts in a "
2711 "public way—it's a kind of electronic Jerry Springer, available "
2712 "anywhere in the world."
2715 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2716 #: freeculture.xml:2161
2718 "But in the United States, blogs have taken on a very different character. "
2719 "There are some who use the space simply to talk about their private "
2720 "life. But there are many who use the space to engage in public "
2721 "discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are "
2722 "mistaken in their views, criticizing politicians about the decisions they "
2723 "make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a "
2724 "virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at "
2725 "the same time and in which conversations are not necessarily linked. The "
2726 "best of the blog entries are relatively short; they point directly to words "
2727 "used by others, criticizing with or adding to them. They are arguably the "
2728 "most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have."
2732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2733 #: freeculture.xml:2175
2735 "That's a strong statement. Yet it says as much about our democracy as it "
2736 "does about blogs. This is the part of America that is most difficult for "
2737 "those of us who love America to accept: Our democracy has atrophied. Of "
2738 "course we have elections, and most of the time the courts allow those "
2739 "elections to count. A relatively small number of people vote in those "
2740 "elections. The cycle of these elections has become totally professionalized "
2741 "and routinized. Most of us think this is democracy."
2745 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2746 #: freeculture.xml:2201
2748 "See, for example, Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, bk. 1, "
2749 "trans. Henry Reeve (New York: Bantam Books, 2000), ch. 16."
2752 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2753 #: freeculture.xml:2186
2755 "But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by "
2756 "the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our "
2757 "tradition, it also means control through reasoned discourse. This was the "
2758 "idea that captured the imagination of Alexis de Tocqueville, the "
2759 "nineteenth-century French lawyer who wrote the most important account of "
2760 "early \"Democracy in America.\" It wasn't popular elections that fascinated "
2761 "him—it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary people the "
2762 "right to choose life or death for other citizens. And most fascinating for "
2763 "him was that the jury didn't just vote about the outcome they would "
2764 "impose. They deliberated. Members argued about the \"right\" result; they "
2765 "tried to persuade each other of the \"right\" result, and in criminal cases "
2766 "at least, they had to agree upon a unanimous result for the process to come "
2767 "to an end.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2771 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2772 #: freeculture.xml:2210
2774 "Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, \"Deliberation Day,\" Journal of Political "
2775 "Philosophy 10 (2) (2002): 129."
2778 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2779 #: freeculture.xml:2206
2781 "Yet even this institution flags in American life today. And in its place, "
2782 "there is no systematic effort to enable citizen deliberation. Some are "
2783 "pushing to create just such an institution.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
2784 "id=\"0\"/> And in some towns in New England, something close to deliberation "
2785 "remains. But for most of us for most of the time, there is no time or place "
2786 "for \"democratic deliberation\" to occur."
2790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2791 #: freeculture.xml:2230
2793 "Cass Sunstein, Republic.com (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), "
2794 "65–80, 175, 182, 183, 192."
2797 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2798 #: freeculture.xml:2221
2800 "More bizarrely, there is generally not even permission for it to occur. We, "
2801 "the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm "
2802 "against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people "
2803 "you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you "
2804 "disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse "
2805 "becomes more extreme.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We say what "
2806 "our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say."
2810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2811 #: freeculture.xml:2236
2813 "Enter the blog. The blog's very architecture solves one part of this "
2814 "problem. People post when they want to post, and people read when they want "
2815 "to read. The most difficult time is synchronous time. Technologies that "
2816 "enable asynchronous communication, such as e-mail, increase the opportunity "
2817 "for communication. Blogs allow for public discourse without the public ever "
2818 "needing to gather in a single public place."
2821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2822 #: freeculture.xml:2248
2824 "But beyond architecture, blogs also have solved the problem of "
2825 "norms. There's no norm (yet) in blog space not to talk about politics. "
2826 "Indeed, the space is filled with political speech, on both the right and the "
2827 "left. Some of the most popular sites are conservative or libertarian, but "
2828 "there are many of all political stripes. And even blogs that are not "
2829 "political cover political issues when the occasion merits."
2832 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2833 #: freeculture.xml:2256
2835 "The significance of these blogs is tiny now, though not so tiny. The name "
2836 "Howard Dean may well have faded from the 2004 presidential race but for "
2837 "blogs. Yet even if the number of readers is small, the reading is having an "
2842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2843 #: freeculture.xml:2276
2845 "Noah Shachtman, \"With Incessant Postings, a Pundit Stirs the Pot,\" New "
2846 "York Times, 16 January 2003, G5."
2849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2850 #: freeculture.xml:2263
2852 "One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the "
2853 "mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "
2854 "\"misspoke\" at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially praising "
2855 "Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that this story "
2856 "would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight hours. It "
2857 "did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The bloggers kept "
2858 "researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of the same "
2859 "\"misspeaking\" emerged. Finally, the story broke back into the mainstream "
2860 "press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate majority "
2861 "leader.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
2864 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2865 #: freeculture.xml:2281
2867 "This different cycle is possible because the same commercial pressures don't "
2868 "exist with blogs as with other ventures. Television and newspapers are "
2869 "commercial entities. They must work to keep attention. If they lose "
2870 "readers, they lose revenue. Like sharks, they must move on."
2873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2874 #: freeculture.xml:2288
2876 "But bloggers don't have a similar constraint. They can obsess, they can "
2877 "focus, they can get serious. If a particular blogger writes a particularly "
2878 "interesting story, more and more people link to that story. And as the "
2879 "number of links to a particular story increases, it rises in the ranks of "
2880 "stories. People read what is popular; what is popular has been selected by a "
2881 "very democratic process of peer-generated rankings."
2885 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2886 #: freeculture.xml:2297
2888 "There's a second way, as well, in which blogs have a different cycle from "
2889 "the mainstream press. As Dave Winer, one of the fathers of this movement and "
2890 "a software author for many decades, told me, another difference is the "
2891 "absence of a financial \"conflict of interest.\" \"I think you have to take "
2892 "the conflict of interest\" out of journalism, Winer told me. \"An amateur "
2893 "journalist simply doesn't have a conflict of interest, or the conflict of "
2894 "interest is so easily disclosed that you know you can sort of get it out of "
2898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
2899 #: freeculture.xml:2307 freeculture.xml:2360
2904 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2905 #: freeculture.xml:2315
2906 msgid "Telephone interview with David Winer, 16 April 2003."
2909 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2910 #: freeculture.xml:2309
2912 "These conflicts become more important as media becomes more concentrated "
2913 "(more on this below). A concentrated media can hide more from the public "
2914 "than an unconcentrated media can—as CNN admitted it did after the Iraq "
2915 "war because it was afraid of the consequences to its own "
2916 "employees.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It also needs to sustain "
2917 "a more coherent account. (In the middle of the Iraq war, I read a post on "
2918 "the Internet from someone who was at that time listening to a satellite "
2919 "uplink with a reporter in Iraq. The New York headquarters was telling the "
2920 "reporter over and over that her account of the war was too bleak: She needed "
2921 "to offer a more optimistic story. When she told New York that wasn't "
2922 "warranted, they told her that they were writing \"the story.\")"
2926 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2927 #: freeculture.xml:2333
2929 "John Schwartz, \"Loss of the Shuttle: The Internet; A Wealth of Information "
2930 "Online,\" New York Times, 2 February 2003, A28; Staci D. Kramer, \"Shuttle "
2931 "Disaster Coverage Mixed, but Strong Overall,\" Online Journalism Review, 2 "
2932 "February 2003, available at <ulink "
2933 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #10</ulink>."
2936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2937 #: freeculture.xml:2325
2939 "Blog space gives amateurs a way to enter the debate—\"amateur\" not in "
2940 "the sense of inexperienced, but in the sense of an Olympic athlete, meaning "
2941 "not paid by anyone to give their reports. It allows for a much broader range "
2942 "of input into a story, as reporting on the Columbia disaster revealed, when "
2943 "hundreds from across the southwest United States turned to the Internet to "
2944 "retell what they had seen.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And it "
2945 "drives readers to read across the range of accounts and \"triangulate,\" as "
2946 "Winer puts it, the truth. Blogs, Winer says, are \"communicating directly "
2947 "with our constituency, and the middle man is out of it\"—with all the "
2948 "benefits, and costs, that might entail."
2951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
2952 #: freeculture.xml:2352
2954 "See Michael Falcone, \"Does an Editor's Pencil Ruin a Web Log?\" New York "
2955 "Times, 29 September 2003, C4. (\"Not all news organizations have been as "
2956 "accepting of employees who blog. Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq "
2957 "who started a blog about his reporting of the war on March 9, stopped "
2958 "posting 12 days later at his bosses' request. Last year Steve Olafson, a "
2959 "Houston Chronicle reporter, was fired for keeping a personal Web log, "
2960 "published under a pseudonym, that dealt with some of the issues and people "
2961 "he was covering.\") <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
2965 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2966 #: freeculture.xml:2345
2968 "Winer is optimistic about the future of journalism infected with "
2969 "blogs. \"It's going to become an essential skill,\" Winer predicts, for "
2970 "public figures and increasingly for private figures as well. It's not clear "
2971 "that \"journalism\" is happy about this—some journalists have been "
2972 "told to curtail their blogging.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But "
2973 "it is clear that we are still in transition. \"A lot of what we are doing "
2974 "now is warm-up exercises,\" Winer told me. There is a lot that must mature "
2975 "before this space has its mature effect. And as the inclusion of content in "
2976 "this space is the least infringing use of the Internet (meaning infringing "
2977 "on copyright), Winer said, \"we will be the last thing that gets shut "
2981 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2982 #: freeculture.xml:2372
2984 "This speech affects democracy. Winer thinks that happens because \"you don't "
2985 "have to work for somebody who controls, [for] a gatekeeper.\" That is "
2986 "true. But it affects democracy in another way as well. As more and more "
2987 "citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change "
2988 "the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and "
2989 "misguided in your head. It is harder when the product of your mind can be "
2990 "criticized by others. Of course, it is a rare human who admits that he has "
2991 "been persuaded that he is wrong. But it is even rarer for a human to ignore "
2992 "when he has been proven wrong. The writing of ideas, arguments, and "
2993 "criticism improves democracy. Today there are probably a couple of million "
2994 "blogs where such writing happens. When there are ten million, there will be "
2995 "something extraordinary to report."
2998 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
2999 #: freeculture.xml:2389
3001 "John Seely Brown is the chief scientist of the Xerox Corporation. His work, "
3002 "as his Web site describes it, is \"human learning and . . . the creation of "
3003 "knowledge ecologies for creating . . . innovation.\""
3006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3007 #: freeculture.xml:2394
3009 "Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit "
3010 "differently from the perspectives I've sketched so far. I'm sure he would be "
3011 "excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his real "
3012 "excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning."
3016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3017 #: freeculture.xml:2401
3019 "As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When \"a lot of us grew up,\" he "
3020 "explains, that tinkering was done \"on motorcycle engines, lawnmower "
3021 "engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.\" But digital technologies enable a "
3022 "different kind of tinkering—with abstract ideas though in concrete "
3023 "form. The kids at Just Think! not only think about how a commercial portrays "
3024 "a politician; using digital technology, they can take the commercial apart "
3025 "and manipulate it, tinker with it to see how it does what it does. Digital "
3026 "technologies launch a kind of bricolage, or \"free collage,\" as Brown calls "
3027 "it. Many get to add to or transform the tinkering of many others."
3030 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3031 #: freeculture.xml:2416
3033 "The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free "
3034 "software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose source "
3035 "code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes a FS/OSS "
3036 "program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit of FS/OSS "
3037 "technology works can tinker with the code."
3040 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3041 #: freeculture.xml:2423
3043 "This opportunity creates a \"completely new kind of learning platform,\" as "
3044 "Brown describes. \"As soon as you start doing that, you . . . unleash a "
3045 "free collage on the community, so that other people can start looking at "
3046 "your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, seeing if they can improve "
3047 "it.\" Each effort is a kind of apprenticeship. \"Open source becomes a major "
3048 "apprenticeship platform.\""
3051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3052 #: freeculture.xml:2433
3054 "In this process, \"the concrete things you tinker with are abstract. They "
3055 "are code.\" Kids are \"shifting to the ability to tinker in the abstract, "
3056 "and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that you're doing in "
3057 "your garage. You are tinkering with a community platform. . . . You are "
3058 "tinkering with other people's stuff. The more you tinker the more you "
3059 "improve.\" The more you improve, the more you learn."
3062 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3063 #: freeculture.xml:2443
3065 "This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the same "
3066 "collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As Brown puts it, "
3067 "\"the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple forms of "
3068 "intelligence.\" Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter or word "
3069 "processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much more than "
3070 "text. \"The Web . . . says if you are musical, if you are artistic, if you "
3071 "are visual, if you are interested in film . . . [then] there is a lot you "
3072 "can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor these "
3073 "multiple forms of intelligence.\""
3077 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3078 #: freeculture.xml:2457
3080 "Brown is talking about what Elizabeth Daley, Stephanie Barish, and Just "
3081 "Think! teach: that this tinkering with culture teaches as well as "
3082 "creates. It develops talents differently, and it builds a different kind of "
3086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3087 #: freeculture.xml:2465
3089 "Yet the freedom to tinker with these objects is not guaranteed. Indeed, as "
3090 "we'll see through the course of this book, that freedom is increasingly "
3091 "highly contested. While there's no doubt that your father had the right to "
3092 "tinker with the car engine, there's great doubt that your child will have "
3093 "the right to tinker with the images she finds all around. The law and, "
3094 "increasingly, technology interfere with a freedom that technology, and "
3095 "curiosity, would otherwise ensure."
3099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
3100 #: freeculture.xml:2480
3102 "See, for example, Edward Felten and Andrew Appel, \"Technological Access "
3103 "Control Interferes with Noninfringing Scholarship,\" Communications of the "
3104 "Association for Computer Machinery 43 (2000): 9."
3107 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3108 #: freeculture.xml:2474
3110 "These restrictions have become the focus of researchers and scholars. "
3111 "Professor Ed Felten of Princeton (whom we'll see more of in chapter 10) has "
3112 "developed a powerful argument in favor of the \"right to tinker\" as it "
3113 "applies to computer science and to knowledge in general.<placeholder "
3114 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> But Brown's concern is earlier, or younger, or "
3115 "more fundamental. It is about the learning that kids can do, or can't do, "
3116 "because of the law."
3119 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3120 #: freeculture.xml:2488
3122 "\"This is where education in the twenty-first century is going,\" Brown "
3123 "explains. We need to \"understand how kids who grow up digital think and "
3127 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3128 #: freeculture.xml:2493
3130 "\"Yet,\" as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will evince, "
3131 "\"we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural "
3132 "tendencies of today's digital kids. . . . We're building an architecture "
3133 "that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system that closes down "
3134 "that part of the brain.\""
3137 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3138 #: freeculture.xml:2500
3140 "We're building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving "
3141 "images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to "
3142 "spread that creativity everywhere. But we're building the law to close down "
3146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3147 #: freeculture.xml:2506
3149 "\"No way to run a culture,\" as Brewster Kahle, whom we'll meet in chapter "
3150 "9, quipped to me in a rare moment of despondence."
3153 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3154 #: freeculture.xml:2512
3155 msgid "CHAPTER THREE: Catalogs"
3158 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3159 #: freeculture.xml:2514
3161 "In the fall of 2002, Jesse Jordan of Oceanside, New York, enrolled as a "
3162 "freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. His major "
3163 "at RPI was information technology. Though he is not a programmer, in October "
3164 "Jesse decided to begin to tinker with search engine technology that was "
3165 "available on the RPI network."
3168 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3169 #: freeculture.xml:2521
3171 "RPI is one of America's foremost technological research institutions. It "
3172 "offers degrees in fields ranging from architecture and engineering to "
3173 "information sciences. More than 65 percent of its five thousand "
3174 "undergraduates finished in the top 10 percent of their high school "
3175 "class. The school is thus a perfect mix of talent and experience to imagine "
3176 "and then build, a generation for the network age."
3179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3180 #: freeculture.xml:2529
3182 "RPI's computer network links students, faculty, and administration to one "
3183 "another. It also links RPI to the Internet. Not everything available on the "
3184 "RPI network is available on the Internet. But the network is designed to "
3185 "enable students to get access to the Internet, as well as more intimate "
3186 "access to other members of the RPI community."
3190 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3191 #: freeculture.xml:2536
3193 "Search engines are a measure of a network's intimacy. Google brought the "
3194 "Internet much closer to all of us by fantastically improving the quality of "
3195 "search on the network. Specialty search engines can do this even better. The "
3196 "idea of \"intranet\" search engines, search engines that search within the "
3197 "network of a particular institution, is to provide users of that institution "
3198 "with better access to material from that institution. Businesses do this "
3199 "all the time, enabling employees to have access to material that people "
3200 "outside the business can't get. Universities do it as well."
3203 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3204 #: freeculture.xml:2548
3206 "These engines are enabled by the network technology itself. Microsoft, for "
3207 "example, has a network file system that makes it very easy for search "
3208 "engines tuned to that network to query the system for information about the "
3209 "publicly (within that network) available content. Jesse's search engine was "
3210 "built to take advantage of this technology. It used Microsoft's network file "
3211 "system to build an index of all the files available within the RPI network."
3214 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3215 #: freeculture.xml:2557
3217 "Jesse's wasn't the first search engine built for the RPI network. Indeed, "
3218 "his engine was a simple modification of engines that others had built. His "
3219 "single most important improvement over those engines was to fix a bug within "
3220 "the Microsoft file-sharing system that could cause a user's computer to "
3221 "crash. With the engines that existed before, if you tried to access a file "
3222 "through a Windows browser that was on a computer that was off-line, your "
3223 "computer could crash. Jesse modified the system a bit to fix that problem, "
3224 "by adding a button that a user could click to see if the machine holding the "
3225 "file was still on-line."
3228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3229 #: freeculture.xml:2569
3231 "Jesse's engine went on-line in late October. Over the following six months, "
3232 "he continued to tweak it to improve its functionality. By March, the system "
3233 "was functioning quite well. Jesse had more than one million files in his "
3234 "directory, including every type of content that might be on users' "
3239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3240 #: freeculture.xml:2576
3242 "Thus the index his search engine produced included pictures, which students "
3243 "could use to put on their own Web sites; copies of notes or research; copies "
3244 "of information pamphlets; movie clips that students might have created; "
3245 "university brochures—basically anything that users of the RPI network "
3246 "made available in a public folder of their computer."
3249 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3250 #: freeculture.xml:2586
3252 "But the index also included music files. In fact, one quarter of the files "
3253 "that Jesse's search engine listed were music files. But that means, of "
3254 "course, that three quarters were not, and—so that this point is "
3255 "absolutely clear—Jesse did nothing to induce people to put music files "
3256 "in their public folders. He did nothing to target the search engine to these "
3257 "files. He was a kid tinkering with a Google-like technology at a university "
3258 "where he was studying information science, and hence, tinkering was the "
3259 "aim. Unlike Google, or Microsoft, for that matter, he made no money from "
3260 "this tinkering; he was not connected to any business that would make any "
3261 "money from this experiment. He was a kid tinkering with technology in an "
3262 "environment where tinkering with technology was precisely what he was "
3266 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3267 #: freeculture.xml:2601
3269 "On April 3, 2003, Jesse was contacted by the dean of students at RPI. The "
3270 "dean informed Jesse that the Recording Industry Association of America, the "
3271 "RIAA, would be filing a lawsuit against him and three other students whom he "
3272 "didn't even know, two of them at other universities. A few hours later, "
3273 "Jesse was served with papers from the suit. As he read these papers and "
3274 "watched the news reports about them, he was increasingly astonished."
3277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3278 #: freeculture.xml:2610
3280 "\"It was absurd,\" he told me. \"I don't think I did anything wrong. . . . "
3281 "I don't think there's anything wrong with the search engine that I ran or "
3282 ". . . what I had done to it. I mean, I hadn't modified it in any way that "
3283 "promoted or enhanced the work of pirates. I just modified the search engine "
3284 "in a way that would make it easier to use\"—again, a search engine, "
3285 "which Jesse had not himself built, using the Windows filesharing system, "
3286 "which Jesse had not himself built, to enable members of the RPI community to "
3287 "get access to content, which Jesse had not himself created or posted, and "
3288 "the vast majority of which had nothing to do with music."
3292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3293 #: freeculture.xml:2622
3295 "But the RIAA branded Jesse a pirate. They claimed he operated a network and "
3296 "had therefore \"willfully\" violated copyright laws. They demanded that he "
3297 "pay them the damages for his wrong. For cases of \"willful infringement,\" "
3298 "the Copyright Act specifies something lawyers call \"statutory damages.\" "
3299 "These damages permit a copyright owner to claim $150,000 per "
3300 "infringement. As the RIAA alleged more than one hundred specific copyright "
3301 "infringements, they therefore demanded that Jesse pay them at least "
3306 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
3307 #: freeculture.xml:2643
3309 "Tim Goral, \"Recording Industry Goes After Campus P-2-P Networks: Suit "
3310 "Alleges $97.8 Billion in Damages,\" Professional Media Group LCC 6 (2003): "
3311 "5, available at 2003 WL 55179443."
3314 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3315 #: freeculture.xml:2634
3317 "Similar lawsuits were brought against three other students: one other "
3318 "student at RPI, one at Michigan Technical University, and one at "
3319 "Princeton. Their situations were similar to Jesse's. Though each case was "
3320 "different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge "
3321 "demands for \"damages\" that the RIAA claimed it was entitled to. If you "
3322 "added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in the United "
3323 "States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 billion—six times the "
3324 "total profit of the film industry in 2001.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3329 #: freeculture.xml:2649
3331 "Jesse called his parents. They were supportive but a bit frightened. An "
3332 "uncle was a lawyer. He began negotiations with the RIAA. They demanded to "
3333 "know how much money Jesse had. Jesse had saved $12,000 from summer jobs and "
3334 "other employment. They demanded $12,000 to dismiss the case."
3337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3338 #: freeculture.xml:2656
3340 "The RIAA wanted Jesse to admit to doing something wrong. He refused. They "
3341 "wanted him to agree to an injunction that would essentially make it "
3342 "impossible for him to work in many fields of technology for the rest of his "
3343 "life. He refused. They made him understand that this process of being sued "
3344 "was not going to be pleasant. (As Jesse's father recounted to me, the chief "
3345 "lawyer on the case, Matt Oppenheimer, told Jesse, \"You don't want to pay "
3346 "another visit to a dentist like me.\") And throughout, the RIAA insisted it "
3347 "would not settle the case until it took every penny Jesse had saved."
3351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3352 #: freeculture.xml:2667
3354 "Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But "
3355 "Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American "
3356 "legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of "
3357 "fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If "
3358 "he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of "
3359 "paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were "
3363 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3364 #: freeculture.xml:2677
3366 "So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or "
3367 "$12,000 and a settlement."
3371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
3372 #: freeculture.xml:2689
3374 "Occupational Employment Survey, U.S. Dept. of Labor (2001) "
3375 "(27–2042—Musicians and Singers). See also National Endowment for "
3376 "the Arts, More Than One in a Blue Moon (2000)."
3380 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
3381 #: freeculture.xml:2697
3383 "Douglas Lichtman makes a related point in \"KaZaA and Punishment,\" Wall "
3384 "Street Journal, 10 September 2003, A24."
3387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3388 #: freeculture.xml:2681
3390 "The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality. Let's "
3391 "put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the "
3392 "morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The "
3393 "RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is "
3394 "reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, "
3395 "are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900.<placeholder "
3396 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect "
3397 "and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student "
3398 "for running a search engine?<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3402 #: freeculture.xml:2702
3404 "On June 23, Jesse wired his savings to the lawyer working for the RIAA. The "
3405 "case against him was then dismissed. And with this, this kid who had "
3406 "tinkered a computer into a $15 million lawsuit became an activist:"
3409 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
3410 #: freeculture.xml:2709
3412 "I was definitely not an activist [before]. I never really meant to be an "
3413 "activist. . . . [But] I've been pushed into this. In no way did I ever "
3414 "foresee anything like this, but I think it's just completely absurd what the "
3418 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3419 #: freeculture.xml:2716
3421 "Jesse's parents betray a certain pride in their reluctant activist. As his "
3422 "father told me, Jesse \"considers himself very conservative, and so do "
3423 "I. . . . He's not a tree hugger. . . . I think it's bizarre that they would "
3424 "pick on him. But he wants to let people know that they're sending the wrong "
3425 "message. And he wants to correct the record.\""
3428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
3429 #: freeculture.xml:2725
3430 msgid "CHAPTER FOUR: \"Pirates\""
3433 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
3434 #: freeculture.xml:2727
3436 "If \"piracy\" means using the creative property of others without their "
3437 "permission—if \"if value, then right\" is true—then the history "
3438 "of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of "
3439 "\"big media\" today—film, records, radio, and cable TV—was born "
3440 "of a kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last "
3441 "generation's pirates join this generation's country club—until now."
3444 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
3445 #: freeculture.xml:2735
3450 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3451 #: freeculture.xml:2739
3453 "I am grateful to Peter DiMauro for pointing me to this extraordinary "
3454 "history. See also Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, "
3455 "87–93, which details Edison's \"adventures\" with copyright and "
3460 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3461 #: freeculture.xml:2737
3463 "The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates.<placeholder "
3464 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Creators and directors migrated from the East "
3465 "Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape "
3466 "controls that patents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas "
3467 "Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly \"trust,\" the "
3468 "Motion Pictures Patents Company, and were based on Thomas Edison's creative "
3469 "property—patents. Edison formed the MPPC to exercise the rights this "
3470 "creative property gave him, and the MPPC was serious about the control it "
3474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3475 #: freeculture.xml:2754
3476 msgid "As one commentator tells one part of the story,"
3479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3480 #: freeculture.xml:2758
3482 "A January 1909 deadline was set for all companies to comply with the "
3483 "license. By February, unlicensed outlaws, who referred to themselves as "
3484 "independents protested the trust and carried on business without submitting "
3485 "to the Edison monopoly. In the summer of 1909 the independent movement was "
3486 "in full-swing, with producers and theater owners using illegal equipment and "
3487 "imported film stock to create their own underground market."
3491 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3492 #: freeculture.xml:2778
3494 "J. A. Aberdeen, Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent Motion "
3495 "Picture Producers (Cobblestone Entertainment, 2000) and expanded texts "
3496 "posted at \"The Edison Movie Monopoly: The Motion Picture Patents Company "
3497 "vs. the Independent Outlaws,\" available at <ulink "
3498 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #11</ulink>. For a discussion of "
3499 "the economic motive behind both these limits and the limits imposed by "
3500 "Victor on phonographs, see Randal C. Picker, \"From Edison to the Broadcast "
3501 "Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and the Propertization of "
3502 "Copyright\" (September 2002), University of Chicago Law School, James "
3503 "M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Working Paper No. 159."
3506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3507 #: freeculture.xml:2767
3509 "With the country experiencing a tremendous expansion in the number of "
3510 "nickelodeons, the Patents Company reacted to the independent movement by "
3511 "forming a strong-arm subsidiary known as the General Film Company to block "
3512 "the entry of non-licensed independents. With coercive tactics that have "
3513 "become legendary, General Film confiscated unlicensed equipment, "
3514 "discontinued product supply to theaters which showed unlicensed films, and "
3515 "effectively monopolized distribution with the acquisition of all U.S. film "
3516 "exchanges, except for the one owned by the independent William Fox who "
3517 "defied the Trust even after his license was revoked.<placeholder "
3518 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3523 #: freeculture.xml:2798
3525 "Marc Wanamaker, \"The First Studios,\" The Silents Majority, archived at "
3526 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #12</ulink>."
3529 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3530 #: freeculture.xml:2792
3532 "The Napsters of those days, the \"independents,\" were companies like "
3533 "Fox. And no less than today, these independents were vigorously resisted. "
3534 "\"Shooting was disrupted by machinery stolen, and `accidents' resulting in "
3535 "loss of negatives, equipment, buildings and sometimes life and limb "
3536 "frequently occurred.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> That led the "
3537 "independents to flee the East Coast. California was remote enough from "
3538 "Edison's reach that filmmakers there could pirate his inventions without "
3539 "fear of the law. And the leaders of Hollywood filmmaking, Fox most "
3540 "prominently, did just that."
3544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3545 #: freeculture.xml:2808
3547 "Of course, California grew quickly, and the effective enforcement of federal "
3548 "law eventually spread west. But because patents grant the patent holder a "
3549 "truly \"limited\" monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), by the time "
3550 "enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new industry "
3551 "had been born, in part from the piracy of Edison's creative property."
3554 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
3555 #: freeculture.xml:2819
3556 msgid "Recorded Music"
3559 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3560 #: freeculture.xml:2821
3562 "The record industry was born of another kind of piracy, though to see how "
3563 "requires a bit of detail about the way the law regulates music."
3566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3567 #: freeculture.xml:2825
3569 "At the time that Edison and Henri Fourneaux invented machines for "
3570 "reproducing music (Edison the phonograph, Fourneaux the player piano), the "
3571 "law gave composers the exclusive right to control copies of their music and "
3572 "the exclusive right to control public performances of their music. In other "
3573 "words, in 1900, if I wanted a copy of Phil Russel's 1899 hit \"Happy Mose,\" "
3574 "the law said I would have to pay for the right to get a copy of the musical "
3575 "score, and I would also have to pay for the right to perform it publicly."
3578 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
3579 #: freeculture.xml:2834 freeculture.xml:2959
3583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3584 #: freeculture.xml:2836
3586 "But what if I wanted to record \"Happy Mose,\" using Edison's phonograph or "
3587 "Fourneaux's player piano? Here the law stumbled. It was clear enough that I "
3588 "would have to buy any copy of the musical score that I performed in making "
3589 "this recording. And it was clear enough that I would have to pay for any "
3590 "public performance of the work I was recording. But it wasn't totally clear "
3591 "that I would have to pay for a \"public performance\" if I recorded the song "
3592 "in my own house (even today, you don't owe the Beatles anything if you sing "
3593 "their songs in the shower), or if I recorded the song from memory (copies in "
3594 "your brain are not—yet— regulated by copyright law). So if I "
3595 "simply sang the song into a recording device in the privacy of my own home, "
3596 "it wasn't clear that I owed the composer anything. And more importantly, it "
3597 "wasn't clear whether I owed the composer anything if I then made copies of "
3598 "those recordings. Because of this gap in the law, then, I could effectively "
3599 "pirate someone else's song without paying its composer anything."
3603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3604 #: freeculture.xml:2854
3606 "The composers (and publishers) were none too happy about this capacity to "
3607 "pirate. As South Dakota senator Alfred Kittredge put it,"
3611 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3612 #: freeculture.xml:2868
3614 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright: Hearings on S. 6330 "
3615 "and H.R. 19853 Before the ( Joint) Committees on Patents, 59th Cong. 59, 1st "
3616 "sess. (1906) (statement of Senator Alfred B. Kittredge, of South Dakota, "
3617 "chairman), reprinted in Legislative History of the Copyright Act, E. Fulton "
3618 "Brylawski and Abe Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, "
3622 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3623 #: freeculture.xml:2861
3625 "Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A "
3626 "publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights "
3627 "it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls "
3628 "and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher "
3629 "without any regard for [their] rights.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3634 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3635 #: freeculture.xml:2882
3637 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 223 (statement of "
3638 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
3642 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3643 #: freeculture.xml:2888
3645 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 226 (statement of "
3646 "Nathan Burkan, attorney for the Music Publishers Association)."
3650 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3651 #: freeculture.xml:2895
3653 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 23 (statement of "
3654 "John Philip Sousa, composer)."
3657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3658 #: freeculture.xml:2878
3660 "The innovators who developed the technology to record other people's works "
3661 "were \"sponging upon the toil, the work, the talent, and genius of American "
3662 "composers,\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> and the \"music "
3663 "publishing industry\" was thereby \"at the complete mercy of this one "
3664 "pirate.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> As John Philip Sousa put "
3665 "it, in as direct a way as possible, \"When they make money out of my pieces, "
3666 "I want a share of it.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
3670 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3671 #: freeculture.xml:2907
3673 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 283–84 "
3674 "(statement of Albert Walker, representative of the Auto-Music Perforating "
3675 "Company of New York)."
3679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3680 #: freeculture.xml:2918
3682 "To Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, 376 (prepared "
3683 "memorandum of Philip Mauro, general patent counsel of the American "
3684 "Graphophone Company Association)."
3687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3688 #: freeculture.xml:2900
3690 "These arguments have familiar echoes in the wars of our day. So, too, do the "
3691 "arguments on the other side. The innovators who developed the player piano "
3692 "argued that \"it is perfectly demonstrable that the introduction of "
3693 "automatic music players has not deprived any composer of anything he had "
3694 "before their introduction.\" Rather, the machines increased the sales of "
3695 "sheet music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In any case, the "
3696 "innovators argued, the job of Congress was \"to consider first the interest "
3697 "of [the public], whom they represent, and whose servants they are.\" \"All "
3698 "talk about `theft,'\" the general counsel of the American Graphophone "
3699 "Company wrote, \"is the merest claptrap, for there exists no property in "
3700 "ideas musical, literary or artistic, except as defined by "
3701 "statute.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
3705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3706 #: freeculture.xml:2926
3708 "The law soon resolved this battle in favor of the composer and the recording "
3709 "artist. Congress amended the law to make sure that composers would be paid "
3710 "for the \"mechanical reproductions\" of their music. But rather than simply "
3711 "granting the composer complete control over the right to make mechanical "
3712 "reproductions, Congress gave recording artists a right to record the music, "
3713 "at a price set by Congress, once the composer allowed it to be recorded "
3714 "once. This is the part of copyright law that makes cover songs "
3715 "possible. Once a composer authorizes a recording of his song, others are "
3716 "free to record the same song, so long as they pay the original composer a "
3717 "fee set by the law."
3720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3721 #: freeculture.xml:2942
3723 "American law ordinarily calls this a \"compulsory license,\" but I will "
3724 "refer to it as a \"statutory license.\" A statutory license is a license "
3725 "whose key terms are set by law. After Congress's amendment of the Copyright "
3726 "Act in 1909, record companies were free to distribute copies of recordings "
3727 "so long as they paid the composer (or copyright holder) the fee set by the "
3731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3732 #: freeculture.xml:2951
3734 "This is an exception within the law of copyright. When John Grisham writes a "
3735 "novel, a publisher is free to publish that novel only if Grisham gives the "
3736 "publisher permission. Grisham, in turn, is free to charge whatever he wants "
3737 "for that permission. The price to publish Grisham is thus set by Grisham, "
3738 "and copyright law ordinarily says you have no permission to use Grisham's "
3739 "work except with permission of Grisham."
3743 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3744 #: freeculture.xml:2974
3746 "Copyright Law Revision: Hearings on S. 2499, S. 2900, H.R. 243, and "
3747 "H.R. 11794 Before the ( Joint) Committee on Patents, 60th Cong., 1st sess., "
3748 "217 (1908) (statement of Senator Reed Smoot, chairman), reprinted in "
3749 "Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act, E. Fulton Brylawski and Abe "
3750 "Goldman, eds. (South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1976)."
3753 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3754 #: freeculture.xml:2961
3756 "But the law governing recordings gives recording artists less. And thus, in "
3757 "effect, the law subsidizes the recording industry through a kind of "
3758 "piracy—by giving recording artists a weaker right than it otherwise "
3759 "gives creative authors. The Beatles have less control over their creative "
3760 "work than Grisham does. And the beneficiaries of this less control are the "
3761 "recording industry and the public. The recording industry gets something of "
3762 "value for less than it otherwise would pay; the public gets access to a much "
3763 "wider range of musical creativity. Indeed, Congress was quite explicit about "
3764 "its reasons for granting this right. Its fear was the monopoly power of "
3765 "rights holders, and that that power would stifle follow-on "
3766 "creativity.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3769 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3770 #: freeculture.xml:2982
3772 "While the recording industry has been quite coy about this recently, "
3773 "historically it has been quite a supporter of the statutory license for "
3774 "records. As a 1967 report from the House Committee on the Judiciary relates,"
3778 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3779 #: freeculture.xml:3008
3781 "Copyright Law Revision: Report to Accompany H.R. 2512, House Committee on "
3782 "the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st sess., House Document no. 83, (8 March "
3783 "1967). I am grateful to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report."
3786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3787 #: freeculture.xml:2989
3789 "the record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system "
3790 "must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a "
3791 "half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United "
3792 "States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of "
3793 "disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers "
3794 "need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory "
3795 "terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no "
3796 "recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory "
3797 "license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these "
3798 "rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, "
3799 "with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater "
3800 "choice.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3803 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3804 #: freeculture.xml:3015
3806 "By limiting the rights musicians have, by partially pirating their creative "
3807 "work, the record producers, and the public, benefit."
3810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
3811 #: freeculture.xml:3021 freeculture.xml:4137
3815 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3816 #: freeculture.xml:3023
3817 msgid "Radio was also born of piracy."
3821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3822 #: freeculture.xml:3029
3824 "See 17 United States Code, sections 106 and 110. At the beginning, record "
3825 "companies printed \"Not Licensed for Radio Broadcast\" and other messages "
3826 "purporting to restrict the ability to play a record on a radio station. "
3827 "Judge Learned Hand rejected the argument that a warning attached to a record "
3828 "might restrict the rights of the radio station. See RCA Manufacturing "
3829 "Co. v. Whiteman, 114 F. 2d 86 (2nd Cir. 1940). See also Randal C. Picker, "
3830 "\"From Edison to the Broadcast Flag: Mechanisms of Consent and Refusal and "
3831 "the Propertization of Copyright,\" University of Chicago Law Review 70 "
3835 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3836 #: freeculture.xml:3026
3838 "When a radio station plays a record on the air, that constitutes a \"public "
3839 "performance\" of the composer's work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3840 "id=\"0\"/> As I described above, the law gives the composer (or copyright "
3841 "holder) an exclusive right to public performances of his work. The radio "
3842 "station thus owes the composer money for that performance."
3846 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3847 #: freeculture.xml:3048
3849 "But when the radio station plays a record, it is not only performing a copy "
3850 "of the composer's work. The radio station is also performing a copy of the "
3851 "recording artist's work. It's one thing to have \"Happy Birthday\" sung on "
3852 "the radio by the local children's choir; it's quite another to have it sung "
3853 "by the Rolling Stones or Lyle Lovett. The recording artist is adding to the "
3854 "value of the composition performed on the radio station. And if the law "
3855 "were perfectly consistent, the radio station would have to pay the recording "
3856 "artist for his work, just as it pays the composer of the music for his work."
3859 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3860 #: freeculture.xml:3064
3862 "But it doesn't. Under the law governing radio performances, the radio "
3863 "station does not have to pay the recording artist. The radio station need "
3864 "only pay the composer. The radio station thus gets a bit of something for "
3865 "nothing. It gets to perform the recording artist's work for free, even if it "
3866 "must pay the composer something for the privilege of playing the song."
3869 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3870 #: freeculture.xml:3074
3872 "This difference can be huge. Imagine you compose a piece of music. Imagine "
3873 "it is your first. You own the exclusive right to authorize public "
3874 "performances of that music. So if Madonna wants to sing your song in public, "
3875 "she has to get your permission."
3878 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3879 #: freeculture.xml:3081
3881 "Imagine she does sing your song, and imagine she likes it a lot. She then "
3882 "decides to make a recording of your song, and it becomes a top hit. Under "
3883 "our law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But "
3884 "Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The "
3885 "public performance of her recording is not a \"protected\" right. The radio "
3886 "station thus gets to pirate the value of Madonna's work without paying her "
3890 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3891 #: freeculture.xml:3090
3893 "No doubt, one might argue that, on balance, the recording artists "
3894 "benefit. On average, the promotion they get is worth more than the "
3895 "performance rights they give up. Maybe. But even if so, the law ordinarily "
3896 "gives the creator the right to make this choice. By making the choice for "
3897 "him or her, the law gives the radio station the right to take something for "
3901 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
3902 #: freeculture.xml:3100 freeculture.xml:4143
3906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3907 #: freeculture.xml:3103
3908 msgid "Cable TV was also born of a kind of piracy."
3912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3913 #: freeculture.xml:3106
3915 "When cable entrepreneurs first started wiring communities with cable "
3916 "television in 1948, most refused to pay broadcasters for the content that "
3917 "they echoed to their customers. Even when the cable companies started "
3918 "selling access to television broadcasts, they refused to pay for what they "
3919 "sold. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more "
3920 "egregiously than anything Napster ever did— Napster never charged for "
3921 "the content it enabled others to give away."
3924 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
3925 #: freeculture.xml:3116
3926 msgid "Anello, Douglas"
3929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
3930 #: freeculture.xml:3117
3931 msgid "Burdick, Quentin"
3935 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3936 #: freeculture.xml:3123
3938 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV: Hearing on S. 1006 Before the "
3939 "Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee "
3940 "on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 78 (1966) (statement of Rosel "
3941 "H. Hyde, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission)."
3945 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
3946 #: freeculture.xml:3134
3948 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 116 (statement of Douglas A. Anello, "
3949 "general counsel of the National Association of Broadcasters)."
3952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3953 #: freeculture.xml:3119
3955 "Broadcasters and copyright owners were quick to attack this theft. Rosel "
3956 "Hyde, chairman of the FCC, viewed the practice as a kind of \"unfair and "
3957 "potentially destructive competition.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
3958 "id=\"0\"/> There may have been a \"public interest\" in spreading the reach "
3959 "of cable TV, but as Douglas Anello, general counsel to the National "
3960 "Association of Broadcasters, asked Senator Quentin Burdick during testimony, "
3961 "\"Does public interest dictate that you use somebody else's "
3962 "property?\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> As another broadcaster "
3967 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3968 #: freeculture.xml:3145
3970 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 126 (statement of Ernest W. Jennes, "
3971 "general counsel of the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters, Inc.)."
3974 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3975 #: freeculture.xml:3141
3977 "The extraordinary thing about the CATV business is that it is the only "
3978 "business I know of where the product that is being sold is not paid "
3979 "for.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
3982 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
3983 #: freeculture.xml:3151
3984 msgid "Again, the demand of the copyright holders seemed reasonable enough:"
3988 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
3989 #: freeculture.xml:3160
3991 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 169 (joint statement of Arthur B. Krim, "
3992 "president of United Artists Corp., and John Sinn, president of United "
3993 "Artists Television, Inc.)."
3996 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
3997 #: freeculture.xml:3155
3999 "All we are asking for is a very simple thing, that people who now take our "
4000 "property for nothing pay for it. We are trying to stop piracy and I don't "
4001 "think there is any lesser word to describe it. I think there are harsher "
4002 "words which would fit it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4007 #: freeculture.xml:3171
4009 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 209 (statement of Charlton Heston, "
4010 "president of the Screen Actors Guild)."
4013 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4014 #: freeculture.xml:3167
4016 "These were \"free-ride[rs],\" Screen Actor's Guild president Charlton Heston "
4017 "said, who were \"depriving actors of compensation.\"<placeholder "
4018 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4021 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4022 #: freeculture.xml:3176
4024 "But again, there was another side to the debate. As Assistant Attorney "
4025 "General Edwin Zimmerman put it,"
4029 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
4030 #: freeculture.xml:3190
4032 "Copyright Law Revision—CATV, 216 (statement of Edwin M. Zimmerman, "
4033 "acting assistant attorney general)."
4036 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
4037 #: freeculture.xml:3181
4039 "Our point here is that unlike the problem of whether you have any copyright "
4040 "protection at all, the problem here is whether copyright holders who are "
4041 "already compensated, who already have a monopoly, should be permitted to "
4042 "extend that monopoly. . . . The question here is how much compensation they "
4043 "should have and how far back they should carry their right to "
4044 "compensation.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4048 #: freeculture.xml:3196
4050 "Copyright owners took the cable companies to court. Twice the Supreme Court "
4051 "held that the cable companies owed the copyright owners nothing."
4054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4055 #: freeculture.xml:3200
4057 "It took Congress almost thirty years before it resolved the question of "
4058 "whether cable companies had to pay for the content they \"pirated.\" In the "
4059 "end, Congress resolved this question in the same way that it resolved the "
4060 "question about record players and player pianos. Yes, cable companies would "
4061 "have to pay for the content that they broadcast; but the price they would "
4062 "have to pay was not set by the copyright owner. The price was set by law, "
4063 "so that the broadcasters couldn't exercise veto power over the emerging "
4064 "technologies of cable. Cable companies thus built their empire in part upon "
4065 "a \"piracy\" of the value created by broadcasters' content."
4069 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4070 #: freeculture.xml:3217
4072 "See, for example, National Music Publisher's Association, The Engine of Free "
4073 "Expression: Copyright on the Internet—The Myth of Free Information, "
4074 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
4075 "#13</ulink>. \"The threat of piracy—the use of someone else's creative "
4076 "work without permission or compensation—has grown with the Internet.\""
4079 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4080 #: freeculture.xml:3212
4082 "These separate stories sing a common theme. If \"piracy\" means using value "
4083 "from someone else's creative property without permission from that "
4084 "creator—as it is increasingly described today<placeholder "
4085 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> — then every industry affected by "
4086 "copyright today is the product and beneficiary of a certain kind of "
4087 "piracy. Film, records, radio, cable TV. . . . The list is long and could "
4088 "well be expanded. Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Every "
4089 "generation—until now."
4092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
4093 #: freeculture.xml:3234
4094 msgid "CHAPTER FIVE: \"Piracy\""
4097 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4098 #: freeculture.xml:3236
4100 "There is piracy of copyrighted material. Lots of it. This piracy comes in "
4101 "many forms. The most significant is commercial piracy, the unauthorized "
4102 "taking of other people's content within a commercial context. Despite the "
4103 "many justifications that are offered in its defense, this taking is "
4104 "wrong. No one should condone it, and the law should stop it."
4108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
4109 #: freeculture.xml:3244
4111 "But as well as copy-shop piracy, there is another kind of \"taking\" that is "
4112 "more directly related to the Internet. That taking, too, seems wrong to "
4113 "many, and it is wrong much of the time. Before we paint this taking "
4114 "\"piracy,\" however, we should understand its nature a bit more. For the "
4115 "harm of this taking is significantly more ambiguous than outright copying, "
4116 "and the law should account for that ambiguity, as it has so often done in "
4120 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
4121 #: freeculture.xml:3254
4126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4127 #: freeculture.xml:3262
4129 "See IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), The "
4130 "Recording Industry Commercial Piracy Report 2003, July 2003, available at "
4131 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #14</ulink>. See also Ben "
4132 "Hunt, \"Companies Warned on Music Piracy Risk,\" Financial Times, 14 "
4133 "February 2003, 11."
4136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4137 #: freeculture.xml:3256
4139 "All across the world, but especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, there are "
4140 "businesses that do nothing but take others people's copyrighted content, "
4141 "copy it, and sell it—all without the permission of a copyright "
4142 "owner. The recording industry estimates that it loses about $4.6 billion "
4143 "every year to physical piracy<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> (that "
4144 "works out to one in three CDs sold worldwide). The MPAA estimates that it "
4145 "loses $3 billion annually worldwide to piracy."
4148 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4149 #: freeculture.xml:3273
4151 "This is piracy plain and simple. Nothing in the argument of this book, nor "
4152 "in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of this "
4153 "book, should draw into doubt this simple point: This piracy is wrong."
4156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4157 #: freeculture.xml:3279
4159 "Which is not to say that excuses and justifications couldn't be made for "
4160 "it. We could, for example, remind ourselves that for the first one hundred "
4161 "years of the American Republic, America did not honor foreign copyrights. We "
4162 "were born, in this sense, a pirate nation. It might therefore seem "
4163 "hypocritical for us to insist so strongly that other developing nations "
4164 "treat as wrong what we, for the first hundred years of our existence, "
4168 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4169 #: freeculture.xml:3290
4171 "That excuse isn't terribly strong. Technically, our law did not ban the "
4172 "taking of foreign works. It explicitly limited itself to American "
4173 "works. Thus the American publishers who published foreign works without the "
4174 "permission of foreign authors were not violating any rule. The copy shops "
4175 "in Asia, by contrast, are violating Asian law. Asian law does protect "
4176 "foreign copyrights, and the actions of the copy shops violate that law. So "
4177 "the wrong of piracy that they engage in is not just a moral wrong, but a "
4178 "legal wrong, and not just an internationally legal wrong, but a locally "
4179 "legal wrong as well."
4183 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4184 #: freeculture.xml:3302
4186 "True, these local rules have, in effect, been imposed upon these "
4187 "countries. No country can be part of the world economy and choose not to "
4188 "protect copyright internationally. We may have been born a pirate nation, "
4189 "but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood."
4192 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4193 #: freeculture.xml:3330 freeculture.xml:12239 freeculture.xml:12672 freeculture.xml:12679
4194 msgid "Drahos, Peter"
4197 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4198 #: freeculture.xml:3316
4200 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: Who Owns the "
4201 "Knowledge Economy? (New York: The New Press, 2003), 10–13, 209. The "
4202 "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement "
4203 "obligates member nations to create administrative and enforcement mechanisms "
4204 "for intellectual property rights, a costly proposition for developing "
4205 "countries. Additionally, patent rights may lead to higher prices for staple "
4206 "industries such as agriculture. Critics of TRIPS question the disparity "
4207 "between burdens imposed upon developing countries and benefits conferred to "
4208 "industrialized nations. TRIPS does permit governments to use patents for "
4209 "public, noncommercial uses without first obtaining the patent holder's "
4210 "permission. Developing nations may be able to use this to gain the benefits "
4211 "of foreign patents at lower prices. This is a promising strategy for "
4212 "developing nations within the TRIPS framework. <placeholder "
4213 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4216 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4217 #: freeculture.xml:3311
4219 "If a country is to be treated as a sovereign, however, then its laws are its "
4220 "laws regardless of their source. The international law under which these "
4221 "nations live gives them some opportunities to escape the burden of "
4222 "intellectual property law.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In my "
4223 "view, more developing nations should take advantage of that opportunity, but "
4224 "when they don't, then their laws should be respected. And under the laws of "
4225 "these nations, this piracy is wrong."
4229 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4230 #: freeculture.xml:3343
4232 "For an analysis of the economic impact of copying technology, see Stan "
4233 "Liebowitz, Rethinking the Network Economy (New York: Amacom, 2002), "
4234 "144–90. \"In some instances . . . the impact of piracy on the "
4235 "copyright holder's ability to appropriate the value of the work will be "
4236 "negligible. One obvious instance is the case where the individual engaging "
4237 "in pirating would not have purchased an original even if pirating were not "
4238 "an option.\" Ibid., 149."
4241 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4242 #: freeculture.xml:3337
4244 "Alternatively, we could try to excuse this piracy by noting that in any "
4245 "case, it does no harm to the industry. The Chinese who get access to "
4246 "American CDs at 50 cents a copy are not people who would have bought those "
4247 "American CDs at $15 a copy. So no one really has any less money than they "
4248 "otherwise would have had.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4251 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4252 #: freeculture.xml:3353
4254 "This is often true (though I have friends who have purchased many thousands "
4255 "of pirated DVDs who certainly have enough money to pay for the content they "
4256 "have taken), and it does mitigate to some degree the harm caused by such "
4257 "taking. Extremists in this debate love to say, \"You wouldn't go into Barnes "
4258 "& Noble and take a book off of the shelf without paying; why should it "
4259 "be any different with on-line music?\" The difference is, of course, that "
4260 "when you take a book from Barnes & Noble, it has one less book to "
4261 "sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, there is "
4262 "not one less CD that can be sold. The physics of piracy of the intangible "
4263 "are different from the physics of piracy of the tangible."
4267 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4268 #: freeculture.xml:3366
4270 "This argument is still very weak. However, although copyright is a property "
4271 "right of a very special sort, it is a property right. Like all property "
4272 "rights, the copyright gives the owner the right to decide the terms under "
4273 "which content is shared. If the copyright owner doesn't want to sell, she "
4274 "doesn't have to. There are exceptions: important statutory licenses that "
4275 "apply to copyrighted content regardless of the wish of the copyright "
4276 "owner. Those licenses give people the right to \"take\" copyrighted content "
4277 "whether or not the copyright owner wants to sell. But where the law does not "
4278 "give people the right to take content, it is wrong to take that content even "
4279 "if the wrong does no harm. If we have a property system, and that system is "
4280 "properly balanced to the technology of a time, then it is wrong to take "
4281 "property without the permission of a property owner. That is exactly what "
4282 "\"property\" means."
4285 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4286 #: freeculture.xml:3387
4288 "Finally, we could try to excuse this piracy with the argument that the "
4289 "piracy actually helps the copyright owner. When the Chinese \"steal\" "
4290 "Windows, that makes the Chinese dependent on Microsoft. Microsoft loses the "
4291 "value of the software that was taken. But it gains users who are used to "
4292 "life in the Microsoft world. Over time, as the nation grows more wealthy, "
4293 "more and more people will buy software rather than steal it. And hence over "
4294 "time, because that buying will benefit Microsoft, Microsoft benefits from "
4295 "the piracy. If instead of pirating Microsoft Windows, the Chinese used the "
4296 "free GNU/Linux operating system, then these Chinese users would not "
4297 "eventually be buying Microsoft. Without piracy, then, Microsoft would lose."
4300 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4301 #: freeculture.xml:3403
4303 "This argument, too, is somewhat true. The addiction strategy is a good "
4304 "one. Many businesses practice it. Some thrive because of it. Law students, "
4305 "for example, are given free access to the two largest legal databases. The "
4306 "companies marketing both hope the students will become so used to their "
4307 "service that they will want to use it and not the other when they become "
4308 "lawyers (and must pay high subscription fees)."
4311 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4312 #: freeculture.xml:3412
4314 "Still, the argument is not terribly persuasive. We don't give the alcoholic "
4315 "a defense when he steals his first beer, merely because that will make it "
4316 "more likely that he will buy the next three. Instead, we ordinarily allow "
4317 "businesses to decide for themselves when it is best to give their product "
4318 "away. If Microsoft fears the competition of GNU/Linux, then Microsoft can "
4319 "give its product away, as it did, for example, with Internet Explorer to "
4320 "fight Netscape. A property right means giving the property owner the right "
4321 "to say who gets access to what—at least ordinarily. And if the law "
4322 "properly balances the rights of the copyright owner with the rights of "
4323 "access, then violating the law is still wrong."
4327 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4328 #: freeculture.xml:3430
4330 "Thus, while I understand the pull of these justifications for piracy, and I "
4331 "certainly see the motivation, in my view, in the end, these efforts at "
4332 "justifying commercial piracy simply don't cut it. This kind of piracy is "
4333 "rampant and just plain wrong. It doesn't transform the content it steals; it "
4334 "doesn't transform the market it competes in. It merely gives someone access "
4335 "to something that the law says he should not have. Nothing has changed to "
4336 "draw that law into doubt. This form of piracy is flat out wrong."
4339 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4340 #: freeculture.xml:3440
4342 "But as the examples from the four chapters that introduced this part "
4343 "suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all \"piracy\" is. Or at "
4344 "least, not all \"piracy\" is wrong if that term is understood in the way it "
4345 "is increasingly used today. Many kinds of \"piracy\" are useful and "
4346 "productive, to produce either new content or new ways of doing business. "
4347 "Neither our tradition nor any tradition has ever banned all \"piracy\" in "
4348 "that sense of the term."
4351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4352 #: freeculture.xml:3449
4354 "This doesn't mean that there are no questions raised by the latest piracy "
4355 "concern, peer-to-peer file sharing. But it does mean that we need to "
4356 "understand the harm in peer-to-peer sharing a bit more before we condemn it "
4357 "to the gallows with the charge of piracy."
4360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4361 #: freeculture.xml:3455
4363 "For (1) like the original Hollywood, p2p sharing escapes an overly "
4364 "controlling industry; and (2) like the original recording industry, it "
4365 "simply exploits a new way to distribute content; but (3) unlike cable TV, no "
4366 "one is selling the content that is shared on p2p services."
4369 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4370 #: freeculture.xml:3461
4372 "These differences distinguish p2p sharing from true piracy. They should push "
4373 "us to find a way to protect artists while enabling this sharing to survive."
4376 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
4377 #: freeculture.xml:3468
4382 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4383 #: freeculture.xml:3473
4384 msgid "Bach v. Longman, 98 Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777)."
4388 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4389 #: freeculture.xml:3470
4391 "The key to the \"piracy\" that the law aims to quash is a use that \"rob[s] "
4392 "the author of [his] profit.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This "
4393 "means we must determine whether and how much p2p sharing harms before we "
4394 "know how strongly the law should seek to either prevent it or find an "
4395 "alternative to assure the author of his profit."
4398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><indexterm><primary>
4399 #: freeculture.xml:3495 freeculture.xml:8027
4400 msgid "Christensen, Clayton M."
4403 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4404 #: freeculture.xml:3487
4406 "See Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary "
4407 "National Bestseller That Changed the Way We Do Business (New York: "
4408 "HarperBusiness, 2000). Professor Christensen examines why companies that "
4409 "give rise to and dominate a product area are frequently unable to come up "
4410 "with the most creative, paradigm-shifting uses for their own products. This "
4411 "job usually falls to outside innovators, who reassemble existing technology "
4412 "in inventive ways. For a discussion of Christensen's ideas, see Lawrence "
4413 "Lessig, Future, 89–92, 139. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
4417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><indexterm><primary>
4418 #: freeculture.xml:3498
4419 msgid "Fanning, Shawn"
4422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4423 #: freeculture.xml:3482
4425 "Peer-to-peer sharing was made famous by Napster. But the inventors of the "
4426 "Napster technology had not made any major technological innovations. Like "
4427 "every great advance in innovation on the Internet (and, arguably, off the "
4428 "Internet as well<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>), Shawn Fanning "
4429 "and crew had simply put together components that had been developed "
4430 "independently. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
4434 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4435 #: freeculture.xml:3506
4437 "See Carolyn Lochhead, \"Silicon Valley Dream, Hollywood Nightmare,\" San "
4438 "Francisco Chronicle, 24 September 2002, A1; \"Rock 'n' Roll Suicide,\" New "
4439 "Scientist, 6 July 2002, 42; Benny Evangelista, \"Napster Names CEO, Secures "
4440 "New Financing,\" San Francisco Chronicle, 23 May 2003, C1; \"Napster's "
4441 "Wake-Up Call,\" Economist, 24 June 2000, 23; John Naughton, \"Hollywood at "
4442 "War with the Internet\" (London) Times, 26 July 2002, 18."
4445 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4446 #: freeculture.xml:3501
4448 "The result was spontaneous combustion. Launched in July 1999, Napster "
4449 "amassed over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, "
4450 "there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.<placeholder "
4451 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Courts quickly shut Napster down, but other "
4452 "services emerged to take its place. (Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p "
4453 "service. It boasts over 100 million members.) These services' systems are "
4454 "different architecturally, though not very different in function: Each "
4455 "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a "
4456 "p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— "
4457 "or your 20,000 best friends."
4461 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4462 #: freeculture.xml:3528
4464 "See Ipsos-Insight, TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Online Music Distribution "
4465 "(September 2002), reporting that 28 percent of Americans aged twelve and "
4466 "older have downloaded music off of the Internet and 30 percent have listened "
4467 "to digital music files stored on their computers."
4471 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4472 #: freeculture.xml:3537
4474 "Amy Harmon, \"Industry Offers a Carrot in Online Music Fight,\" New York "
4475 "Times, 6 June 2003, A1."
4478 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4479 #: freeculture.xml:3522
4481 "According to a number of estimates, a huge proportion of Americans have "
4482 "tasted file-sharing technology. A study by Ipsos-Insight in September 2002 "
4483 "estimated that 60 million Americans had downloaded music—28 percent of "
4484 "Americans older than 12.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A survey "
4485 "by the NPD group quoted in The New York Times estimated that 43 million "
4486 "citizens used file-sharing networks to exchange content in May "
4487 "2003.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The vast majority of these "
4488 "are not kids. Whatever the actual figure, a massive quantity of content is "
4489 "being \"taken\" on these networks. The ease and inexpensiveness of "
4490 "file-sharing networks have inspired millions to enjoy music in a way that "
4491 "they hadn't before."
4494 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4495 #: freeculture.xml:3548
4497 "Some of this enjoying involves copyright infringement. Some of it does "
4498 "not. And even among the part that is technically copyright infringement, "
4499 "calculating the actual harm to copyright owners is more complicated than one "
4500 "might think. So consider—a bit more carefully than the polarized "
4501 "voices around this debate usually do—the kinds of sharing that file "
4502 "sharing enables, and the kinds of harm it entails."
4506 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4507 #: freeculture.xml:3558
4509 "File sharers share different kinds of content. We can divide these different "
4510 "kinds into four types."
4514 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
4515 #: freeculture.xml:3564
4517 "There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
4518 "content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD, "
4519 "these users simply take it. We might quibble about whether everyone who "
4520 "takes it would actually have bought it if sharing didn't make it available "
4521 "for free. Most probably wouldn't have, but clearly there are some who "
4522 "would. The latter are the target of category A: users who download instead "
4527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
4528 #: freeculture.xml:3577
4530 "There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing "
4531 "it. Thus, a friend sends another friend an MP3 of an artist he's not heard "
4532 "of. The other friend then buys CDs by that artist. This is a kind of "
4533 "targeted advertising, quite likely to succeed. If the friend recommending "
4534 "the album gains nothing from a bad recommendation, then one could expect "
4535 "that the recommendations will actually be quite good. The net effect of this "
4536 "sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased."
4540 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
4541 #: freeculture.xml:3590
4543 "There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content "
4544 "that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the "
4545 "transaction costs off the Net are too high. This use of sharing networks is "
4546 "among the most rewarding for many. Songs that were part of your childhood "
4547 "but have long vanished from the marketplace magically appear again on the "
4548 "network. (One friend told me that when she discovered Napster, she spent a "
4549 "solid weekend \"recalling\" old songs. She was astonished at the range and "
4550 "mix of content that was available.) For content not sold, this is still "
4551 "technically a violation of copyright, though because the copyright owner is "
4552 "not selling the content anymore, the economic harm is zero—the same "
4553 "harm that occurs when I sell my collection of 1960s 45-rpm records to a "
4559 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
4560 #: freeculture.xml:3611
4562 "Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content "
4563 "that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away."
4566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4567 #: freeculture.xml:3617
4568 msgid "How do these different types of sharing balance out?"
4572 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4573 #: freeculture.xml:3625
4574 msgid "See Liebowitz, Rethinking the Network Economy,148–49."
4577 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4578 #: freeculture.xml:3620
4580 "Let's start with some simple but important points. From the perspective of "
4581 "the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of "
4582 "economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful.<placeholder "
4583 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Type B sharing is illegal but plainly "
4584 "beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society (since more "
4585 "exposure to music is good) and harmless to the artist (since the work is not "
4586 "otherwise available). So how sharing matters on balance is a hard question "
4587 "to answer—and certainly much more difficult than the current rhetoric "
4588 "around the issue suggests."
4591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4592 #: freeculture.xml:3637
4594 "Whether on balance sharing is harmful depends importantly on how harmful "
4595 "type A sharing is. Just as Edison complained about Hollywood, composers "
4596 "complained about piano rolls, recording artists complained about radio, and "
4597 "broadcasters complained about cable TV, the music industry complains that "
4598 "type A sharing is a kind of \"theft\" that is \"devastating\" the industry."
4602 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4603 #: freeculture.xml:3655
4605 "See Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Technology Evolution and the Music "
4606 "Industry's Business Model Crisis (2003), 3. This report describes the music "
4607 "industry's effort to stigmatize the budding practice of cassette taping in "
4608 "the 1970s, including an advertising campaign featuring a cassette-shape "
4609 "skull and the caption \"Home taping is killing music.\" At the time digital "
4610 "audio tape became a threat, the Office of Technical Assessment conducted a "
4611 "survey of consumer behavior. In 1988, 40 percent of consumers older than ten "
4612 "had taped music to a cassette format. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology "
4613 "Assessment, Copyright and Home Copying: Technology Challenges the Law, "
4614 "OTA-CIT-422 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, October "
4615 "1989), 145–56."
4618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4619 #: freeculture.xml:3646
4621 "While the numbers do suggest that sharing is harmful, how harmful is harder "
4622 "to reckon. It has long been the recording industry's practice to blame "
4623 "technology for any drop in sales. The history of cassette recording is a "
4624 "good example. As a study by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young put it, \"Rather "
4625 "than exploiting this new, popular technology, the labels fought "
4626 "it.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The labels claimed that every "
4627 "album taped was an album unsold, and when record sales fell by 11.4 percent "
4628 "in 1981, the industry claimed that its point was proved. Technology was the "
4629 "problem, and banning or regulating technology was the answer."
4633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4634 #: freeculture.xml:3684
4635 msgid "U.S. Congress, Copyright and Home Copying, 4."
4638 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4639 #: freeculture.xml:3676
4641 "Yet soon thereafter, and before Congress was given an opportunity to enact "
4642 "regulation, MTV was launched, and the industry had a record turnaround. \"In "
4643 "the end,\" Cap Gemini concludes, \"the `crisis' . . . was not the fault of "
4644 "the tapers—who did not [stop after MTV came into being]—but had "
4645 "to a large extent resulted from stagnation in musical innovation at the "
4646 "major labels.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4650 #: freeculture.xml:3688
4652 "But just because the industry was wrong before does not mean it is wrong "
4653 "today. To evaluate the real threat that p2p sharing presents to the industry "
4654 "in particular, and society in general—or at least the society that "
4655 "inherits the tradition that gave us the film industry, the record industry, "
4656 "the radio industry, cable TV, and the VCR—the question is not simply "
4657 "whether type A sharing is harmful. The question is also how harmful type A "
4658 "sharing is, and how beneficial the other types of sharing are."
4661 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4662 #: freeculture.xml:3698
4664 "We start to answer this question by focusing on the net harm, from the "
4665 "standpoint of the industry as a whole, that sharing networks cause. The "
4666 "\"net harm\" to the industry as a whole is the amount by which type A "
4667 "sharing exceeds type B. If the record companies sold more records through "
4668 "sampling than they lost through substitution, then sharing networks would "
4669 "actually benefit music companies on balance. They would therefore have "
4670 "little static reason to resist them."
4673 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4674 #: freeculture.xml:3707
4676 "Could that be true? Could the industry as a whole be gaining because of file "
4677 "sharing? Odd as that might sound, the data about CD sales actually suggest "
4678 "it might be close."
4682 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4683 #: freeculture.xml:3717
4685 "See Recording Industry Association of America, 2002 Yearend Statistics, "
4686 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
4687 "#15</ulink>. A later report indicates even greater losses. See Recording "
4688 "Industry Association of America, Some Facts About Music Piracy, 25 June "
4689 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
4690 "#16</ulink>: \"In the past four years, unit shipments of recorded music have "
4691 "fallen by 26 percent from 1.16 billion units in to 860 million units in 2002 "
4692 "in the United States (based on units shipped). In terms of sales, revenues "
4693 "are down 14 percent, from $14.6 billion in to $12.6 billion last year (based "
4694 "on U.S. dollar value of shipments). The music industry worldwide has gone "
4695 "from a $39 billion industry in 2000 down to a $32 billion industry in 2002 "
4696 "(based on U.S. dollar value of shipments).\""
4699 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
4700 #: freeculture.xml:3744
4704 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4705 #: freeculture.xml:3741
4707 "Jane Black, \"Big Music's Broken Record,\" BusinessWeek online, 13 February "
4708 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
4709 "#17</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
4712 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4713 #: freeculture.xml:3713
4715 "In 2002, the RIAA reported that CD sales had fallen by 8.9 percent, from 882 "
4716 "million to 803 million units; revenues fell 6.7 percent.<placeholder "
4717 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This confirms a trend over the past few "
4718 "years. The RIAA blames Internet piracy for the trend, though there are many "
4719 "other causes that could account for this drop. SoundScan, for example, "
4720 "reports a more than 20 percent drop in the number of CDs released since "
4721 "1999. That no doubt accounts for some of the decrease in sales. Rising "
4722 "prices could account for at least some of the loss. \"From 1999 to 2001, the "
4723 "average price of a CD rose 7.2 percent, from $13.04 to $14.19.\"<placeholder "
4724 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Competition from other forms of media could "
4725 "also account for some of the decline. As Jane Black of BusinessWeek notes, "
4726 "\"The soundtrack to the film High Fidelity has a list price of $18.98. You "
4727 "could get the whole movie [on DVD] for $19.99.\"<placeholder "
4728 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
4732 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4733 #: freeculture.xml:3758
4735 "But let's assume the RIAA is right, and all of the decline in CD sales is "
4736 "because of Internet sharing. Here's the rub: In the same period that the "
4737 "RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold, the RIAA estimates that 2.1 "
4738 "billion CDs were downloaded for free. Thus, although 2.6 times the total "
4739 "number of CDs sold were downloaded for free, sales revenue fell by just 6.7 "
4743 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4744 #: freeculture.xml:3767
4746 "There are too many different things happening at the same time to explain "
4747 "these numbers definitively, but one conclusion is unavoidable: The recording "
4748 "industry constantly asks, \"What's the difference between downloading a song "
4749 "and stealing a CD?\"—but their own numbers reveal the difference. If I "
4750 "steal a CD, then there is one less CD to sell. Every taking is a lost "
4751 "sale. But on the basis of the numbers the RIAA provides, it is absolutely "
4752 "clear that the same is not true of downloads. If every download were a lost "
4753 "sale—if every use of Kazaa \"rob[bed] the author of [his] "
4754 "profit\"—then the industry would have suffered a 100 percent drop in "
4755 "sales last year, not a 7 percent drop. If 2.6 times the number of CDs sold "
4756 "were downloaded for free, and yet sales revenue dropped by just 6.7 percent, "
4757 "then there is a huge difference between \"downloading a song and stealing a "
4761 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4762 #: freeculture.xml:3785
4764 "These are the harms—alleged and perhaps exaggerated but, let's assume, "
4765 "real. What of the benefits? File sharing may impose costs on the recording "
4766 "industry. What value does it produce in addition to these costs?"
4770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4771 #: freeculture.xml:3798
4773 "By one estimate, 75 percent of the music released by the major labels is no "
4774 "longer in print. See Online Entertainment and Copyright Law—Coming "
4775 "Soon to a Digital Device Near You: Hearing Before the Senate Committee on "
4776 "the Judiciary, 107th Cong., 1st sess. (3 April 2001) (prepared statement of "
4777 "the Future of Music Coalition), available at <ulink "
4778 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #18</ulink>."
4781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4782 #: freeculture.xml:3792
4784 "One benefit is type C sharing—making available content that is "
4785 "technically still under copyright but is no longer commercially available. "
4786 "This is not a small category of content. There are millions of tracks that "
4787 "are no longer commercially available.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
4788 "id=\"0\"/> And while it's conceivable that some of this content is not "
4789 "available because the artist producing the content doesn't want it to be "
4790 "made available, the vast majority of it is unavailable solely because the "
4791 "publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense "
4792 "to the company to make it available."
4796 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4797 #: freeculture.xml:3823
4799 "While there are not good estimates of the number of used record stores in "
4800 "existence, in 2002, there were 7,198 used book dealers in the United States, "
4801 "an increase of 20 percent since 1993. See Book Hunter Press, The Quiet "
4802 "Revolution: The Expansion of the Used Book Market (2002), available at "
4803 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #19</ulink>. Used records "
4804 "accounted for $260 million in sales in 2002. See National Association of "
4805 "Recording Merchandisers, \"2002 Annual Survey Results,\" available at <ulink "
4806 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #20</ulink>."
4809 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4810 #: freeculture.xml:3817
4812 "In real space—long before the Internet—the market had a simple "
4813 "response to this problem: used book and record stores. There are thousands "
4814 "of used book and used record stores in America today.<placeholder "
4815 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These stores buy content from owners, then sell "
4816 "the content they buy. And under American copyright law, when they buy and "
4817 "sell this content, even if the content is still under copyright, the "
4818 "copyright owner doesn't get a dime. Used book and record stores are "
4819 "commercial entities; their owners make money from the content they sell; but "
4820 "as with cable companies before statutory licensing, they don't have to pay "
4821 "the copyright owner for the content they sell."
4824 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
4825 #: freeculture.xml:3844
4826 msgid "Bernstein, Leonard"
4829 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4830 #: freeculture.xml:3846
4832 "Type C sharing, then, is very much like used book stores or used record "
4833 "stores. It is different, of course, because the person making the content "
4834 "available isn't making money from making the content available. It is also "
4835 "different, of course, because in real space, when I sell a record, I don't "
4836 "have it anymore, while in cyberspace, when someone shares my 1949 recording "
4837 "of Bernstein's \"Two Love Songs,\" I still have it. That difference would "
4838 "matter economically if the owner of the copyright were selling the record in "
4839 "competition to my sharing. But we're talking about the class of content that "
4840 "is not currently commercially available. The Internet is making it "
4841 "available, through cooperative sharing, without competing with the market."
4844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4845 #: freeculture.xml:3859
4847 "It may well be, all things considered, that it would be better if the "
4848 "copyright owner got something from this trade. But just because it may well "
4849 "be better, it doesn't follow that it would be good to ban used book "
4850 "stores. Or put differently, if you think that type C sharing should be "
4851 "stopped, do you think that libraries and used book stores should be shut as "
4856 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4857 #: freeculture.xml:3867
4859 "Finally, and perhaps most importantly, file-sharing networks enable type D "
4860 "sharing to occur—the sharing of content that copyright owners want to "
4861 "have shared or for which there is no continuing copyright. This sharing "
4862 "clearly benefits authors and society. Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, "
4863 "for example, released his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, "
4864 "both free on-line and in bookstores on the same day. His (and his "
4865 "publisher's) thinking was that the on-line distribution would be a great "
4866 "advertisement for the \"real\" book. People would read part on-line, and "
4867 "then decide whether they liked the book or not. If they liked it, they would "
4868 "be more likely to buy it. Doctorow's content is type D content. If sharing "
4869 "networks enable his work to be spread, then both he and society are better "
4870 "off. (Actually, much better off: It is a great book!)"
4873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4874 #: freeculture.xml:3884
4876 "Likewise for work in the public domain: This sharing benefits society with "
4877 "no legal harm to authors at all. If efforts to solve the problem of type A "
4878 "sharing destroy the opportunity for type D sharing, then we lose something "
4879 "important in order to protect type A content."
4882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4883 #: freeculture.xml:3890
4885 "The point throughout is this: While the recording industry understandably "
4886 "says, \"This is how much we've lost,\" we must also ask, \"How much has "
4887 "society gained from p2p sharing? What are the efficiencies? What is the "
4888 "content that otherwise would be unavailable?\""
4891 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4892 #: freeculture.xml:3897
4894 "For unlike the piracy I described in the first section of this chapter, much "
4895 "of the \"piracy\" that file sharing enables is plainly legal and good. And "
4896 "like the piracy I described in chapter 4, much of this piracy is motivated "
4897 "by a new way of spreading content caused by changes in the technology of "
4898 "distribution. Thus, consistent with the tradition that gave us Hollywood, "
4899 "radio, the recording industry, and cable TV, the question we should be "
4900 "asking about file sharing is how best to preserve its benefits while "
4901 "minimizing (to the extent possible) the wrongful harm it causes artists. The "
4902 "question is one of balance. The law should seek that balance, and that "
4903 "balance will be found only with time."
4906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4907 #: freeculture.xml:3910
4909 "\"But isn't the war just a war against illegal sharing? Isn't the target "
4910 "just what you call type A sharing?\""
4914 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
4915 #: freeculture.xml:3927
4917 "See Transcript of Proceedings, In Re: Napster Copyright Litigation at 34- 35 "
4918 "(N.D. Cal., 11 July 2001), nos. MDL-00-1369 MHP, C 99-5183 MHP, available at "
4919 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #21</ulink>. For an "
4920 "account of the litigation and its toll on Napster, see Joseph Menn, All the "
4921 "Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster (New York: Crown "
4922 "Business, 2003), 269–82."
4925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4926 #: freeculture.xml:3914
4928 "You would think. And we should hope. But so far, it is not. The effect of "
4929 "the war purportedly on type A sharing alone has been felt far beyond that "
4930 "one class of sharing. That much is obvious from the Napster case "
4931 "itself. When Napster told the district court that it had developed a "
4932 "technology to block the transfer of 99.4 percent of identified infringing "
4933 "material, the district court told counsel for Napster 99.4 percent was not "
4934 "good enough. Napster had to push the infringements \"down to "
4935 "zero.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
4938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4939 #: freeculture.xml:3937
4941 "If 99.4 percent is not good enough, then this is a war on file-sharing "
4942 "technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure "
4943 "that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the "
4944 "law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 "
4945 "percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance "
4946 "with the law. Zero tolerance means zero p2p. The court's ruling means that "
4947 "we as a society must lose the benefits of p2p, even for the totally legal "
4948 "and beneficial uses they serve, simply to assure that there are zero "
4949 "copyright infringements caused by p2p."
4952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4953 #: freeculture.xml:3948
4955 "Zero tolerance has not been our history. It has not produced the content "
4956 "industry that we know today. The history of American law has been a process "
4957 "of balance. As new technologies changed the way content was distributed, the "
4958 "law adjusted, after some time, to the new technology. In this adjustment, "
4959 "the law sought to ensure the legitimate rights of creators while protecting "
4960 "innovation. Sometimes this has meant more rights for creators. Sometimes "
4964 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4965 #: freeculture.xml:3959
4967 "So, as we've seen, when \"mechanical reproduction\" threatened the interests "
4968 "of composers, Congress balanced the rights of composers against the "
4969 "interests of the recording industry. It granted rights to composers, but "
4970 "also to the recording artists: Composers were to be paid, but at a price set "
4971 "by Congress. But when radio started broadcasting the recordings made by "
4972 "these recording artists, and they complained to Congress that their "
4973 "\"creative property\" was not being respected (since the radio station did "
4974 "not have to pay them for the creativity it broadcast), Congress rejected "
4975 "their claim. An indirect benefit was enough."
4978 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4979 #: freeculture.xml:3972
4981 "Cable TV followed the pattern of record albums. When the courts rejected the "
4982 "claim that cable broadcasters had to pay for the content they rebroadcast, "
4983 "Congress responded by giving broadcasters a right to compensation, but at a "
4984 "level set by the law. It likewise gave cable companies the right to the "
4985 "content, so long as they paid the statutory price."
4989 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
4990 #: freeculture.xml:3982
4992 "This compromise, like the compromise affecting records and player pianos, "
4993 "served two important goals—indeed, the two central goals of any "
4994 "copyright legislation. First, the law assured that new innovators would have "
4995 "the freedom to develop new ways to deliver content. Second, the law assured "
4996 "that copyright holders would be paid for the content that was "
4997 "distributed. One fear was that if Congress simply required cable TV to pay "
4998 "copyright holders whatever they demanded for their content, then copyright "
4999 "holders associated with broadcasters would use their power to stifle this "
5000 "new technology, cable. But if Congress had permitted cable to use "
5001 "broadcasters' content for free, then it would have unfairly subsidized "
5002 "cable. Thus Congress chose a path that would assure compensation without "
5003 "giving the past (broadcasters) control over the future (cable)."
5006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
5007 #: freeculture.xml:4000
5011 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5012 #: freeculture.xml:4002
5014 "In the same year that Congress struck this balance, two major producers and "
5015 "distributors of film content filed a lawsuit against another technology, the "
5016 "video tape recorder (VTR, or as we refer to them today, VCRs) that Sony had "
5017 "produced, the Betamax. Disney's and Universal's claim against Sony was "
5018 "relatively simple: Sony produced a device, Disney and Universal claimed, "
5019 "that enabled consumers to engage in copyright infringement. Because the "
5020 "device that Sony built had a \"record\" button, the device could be used to "
5021 "record copyrighted movies and shows. Sony was therefore benefiting from the "
5022 "copyright infringement of its customers. It should therefore, Disney and "
5023 "Universal claimed, be partially liable for that infringement."
5027 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5028 #: freeculture.xml:4015
5030 "There was something to Disney's and Universal's claim. Sony did decide to "
5031 "design its machine to make it very simple to record television shows. It "
5032 "could have built the machine to block or inhibit any direct copying from a "
5033 "television broadcast. Or possibly, it could have built the machine to copy "
5034 "only if there were a special \"copy me\" signal on the line. It was clear "
5035 "that there were many television shows that did not grant anyone permission "
5036 "to copy. Indeed, if anyone had asked, no doubt the majority of shows would "
5037 "not have authorized copying. And in the face of this obvious preference, "
5038 "Sony could have designed its system to minimize the opportunity for "
5039 "copyright infringement. It did not, and for that, Disney and Universal "
5040 "wanted to hold it responsible for the architecture it chose."
5044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5045 #: freeculture.xml:4037
5047 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders): Hearing on S. 1758 "
5048 "Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., "
5049 "459 (1982) (testimony of Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association "
5050 "of America, Inc.)."
5054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5055 #: freeculture.xml:4049
5056 msgid "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 475."
5060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5061 #: freeculture.xml:4054
5063 "Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Sony Corp. of America, 480 F. Supp. 429, "
5064 "(C.D. Cal., 1979)."
5068 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5069 #: freeculture.xml:4065
5071 "Copyright Infringements (Audio and Video Recorders), 485 (testimony of Jack "
5075 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5076 #: freeculture.xml:4030
5078 "MPAA president Jack Valenti became the studios' most vocal champion. Valenti "
5079 "called VCRs \"tapeworms.\" He warned, \"When there are 20, 30, 40 million of "
5080 "these VCRs in the land, we will be invaded by millions of `tapeworms,' "
5081 "eating away at the very heart and essence of the most precious asset the "
5082 "copyright owner has, his copyright.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5083 "id=\"0\"/> \"One does not have to be trained in sophisticated marketing and "
5084 "creative judgment,\" he told Congress, \"to understand the devastation on "
5085 "the after-theater marketplace caused by the hundreds of millions of tapings "
5086 "that will adversely impact on the future of the creative community in this "
5087 "country. It is simply a question of basic economics and plain common "
5088 "sense.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Indeed, as surveys would "
5089 "later show, percent of VCR owners had movie libraries of ten videos or "
5090 "more<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> — a use the Court would "
5091 "later hold was not \"fair.\" By \"allowing VCR owners to copy freely by the "
5092 "means of an exemption from copyright infringementwithout creating a "
5093 "mechanism to compensate copyrightowners,\" Valenti testified, Congress would "
5094 "\"take from the owners the very essence of their property: the exclusive "
5095 "right to control who may use their work, that is, who may copy it and "
5096 "thereby profit from its reproduction.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5101 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5102 #: freeculture.xml:4081
5104 "Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Sony Corp. of America, 659 F. 2d 963 (9th "
5108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5109 #: freeculture.xml:4070
5111 "It took eight years for this case to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In "
5112 "the interim, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hollywood in "
5113 "its jurisdiction—leading Judge Alex Kozinski, who sits on that court, "
5114 "refers to it as the \"Hollywood Circuit\"—held that Sony would be "
5115 "liable for the copyright infringement made possible by its machines. Under "
5116 "the Ninth Circuit's rule, this totally familiar technology—which Jack "
5117 "Valenti had called \"the Boston Strangler of the American film industry\" "
5118 "(worse yet, it was a Japanese Boston Strangler of the American film "
5119 "industry)—was an illegal technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5125 #: freeculture.xml:4086
5127 "But the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Ninth Circuit. And in "
5128 "its reversal, the Court clearly articulated its understanding of when and "
5129 "whether courts should intervene in such disputes. As the Court wrote,"
5133 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5134 #: freeculture.xml:4105
5136 "Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 431 "
5140 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
5141 #: freeculture.xml:4095
5143 "Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to "
5144 "Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for "
5145 "copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the "
5146 "institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of "
5147 "competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new "
5148 "technology.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5151 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5152 #: freeculture.xml:4110
5154 "Congress was asked to respond to the Supreme Court's decision. But as with "
5155 "the plea of recording artists about radio broadcasts, Congress ignored the "
5156 "request. Congress was convinced that American film got enough, this "
5157 "\"taking\" notwithstanding. If we put these cases together, a pattern is "
5161 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><title>
5162 #: freeculture.xml:4119
5166 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5167 #: freeculture.xml:4123
5171 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5172 #: freeculture.xml:4124
5173 msgid "WHOSE VALUE WAS \"PIRATED\""
5176 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5177 #: freeculture.xml:4125
5178 msgid "RESPONSE OF THE COURTS"
5181 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
5182 #: freeculture.xml:4126
5183 msgid "RESPONSE OF CONGRESS"
5186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5187 #: freeculture.xml:4131
5191 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5192 #: freeculture.xml:4132
5196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5197 #: freeculture.xml:4133 freeculture.xml:4145 freeculture.xml:4151
5198 msgid "No protection"
5201 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5202 #: freeculture.xml:4134 freeculture.xml:4146
5203 msgid "Statutory license"
5206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5207 #: freeculture.xml:4138
5208 msgid "Recording artists"
5211 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5212 #: freeculture.xml:4139
5216 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5217 #: freeculture.xml:4140 freeculture.xml:4152
5221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5222 #: freeculture.xml:4144
5223 msgid "Broadcasters"
5226 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5227 #: freeculture.xml:4149
5231 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
5232 #: freeculture.xml:4150
5233 msgid "Film creators"
5237 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5238 #: freeculture.xml:4162
5240 "These are the most important instances in our history, but there are other "
5241 "cases as well. The technology of digital audio tape (DAT), for example, was "
5242 "regulated by Congress to minimize the risk of piracy. The remedy Congress "
5243 "imposed did burden DAT producers, by taxing tape sales and controlling the "
5244 "technology of DAT. See Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (Title 17 of the "
5245 "United States Code), Pub. L. No. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 "
5246 "U.S.C. §1001. Again, however, this regulation did not eliminate the "
5247 "opportunity for free riding in the sense I've described. See Lessig, Future, "
5248 "71. See also Picker, \"From Edison to the Broadcast Flag,\" University of "
5249 "Chicago Law Review 70 (2003): 293–96."
5252 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5253 #: freeculture.xml:4159
5255 "In each case throughout our history, a new technology changed the way "
5256 "content was distributed.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In each "
5257 "case, throughout our history, that change meant that someone got a \"free "
5258 "ride\" on someone else's work."
5262 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5263 #: freeculture.xml:4178
5265 "In none of these cases did either the courts or Congress eliminate all free "
5266 "riding. In none of these cases did the courts or Congress insist that the "
5267 "law should assure that the copyright holder get all the value that his "
5268 "copyright created. In every case, the copyright owners complained of "
5269 "\"piracy.\" In every case, Congress acted to recognize some of the "
5270 "legitimacy in the behavior of the \"pirates.\" In each case, Congress "
5271 "allowed some new technology to benefit from content made before. It balanced "
5272 "the interests at stake."
5275 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5276 #: freeculture.xml:4190
5278 "When you think across these examples, and the other examples that make up "
5279 "the first four chapters of this section, this balance makes sense. Was Walt "
5280 "Disney a pirate? Would doujinshi be better if creators had to ask "
5281 "permission? Should tools that enable others to capture and spread images as "
5282 "a way to cultivate or criticize our culture be better regulated? Is it "
5283 "really right that building a search engine should expose you to $15 million "
5284 "in damages? Would it have been better if Edison had controlled film? Should "
5285 "every cover band have to hire a lawyer to get permission to record a song?"
5289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5290 #: freeculture.xml:4207
5291 msgid "Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, (1984)."
5294 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5295 #: freeculture.xml:4202
5297 "We could answer yes to each of these questions, but our tradition has "
5298 "answered no. In our tradition, as the Supreme Court has stated, copyright "
5299 "\"has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible "
5300 "uses of his work.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Instead, the "
5301 "particular uses that the law regulates have been defined by balancing the "
5302 "good that comes from granting an exclusive right against the burdens such an "
5303 "exclusive right creates. And this balancing has historically been done after "
5304 "a technology has matured, or settled into the mix of technologies that "
5305 "facilitate the distribution of content."
5308 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5309 #: freeculture.xml:4219
5311 "We should be doing the same thing today. The technology of the Internet is "
5312 "changing quickly. The way people connect to the Internet (wires "
5313 "vs. wireless) is changing very quickly. No doubt the network should not "
5314 "become a tool for \"stealing\" from artists. But neither should the law "
5315 "become a tool to entrench one particular way in which artists (or more "
5316 "accurately, distributors) get paid. As I describe in some detail in the last "
5317 "chapter of this book, we should be securing income to artists while we allow "
5318 "the market to secure the most efficient way to promote and distribute "
5319 "content. This will require changes in the law, at least in the "
5320 "interim. These changes should be designed to balance the protection of the "
5321 "law against the strong public interest that innovation continue."
5325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
5326 #: freeculture.xml:4246
5328 "John Schwartz, \"New Economy: The Attack on Peer-to-Peer Software Echoes "
5329 "Past Efforts,\" New York Times, 22 September 2003, C3."
5332 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5333 #: freeculture.xml:4236
5335 "This is especially true when a new technology enables a vastly superior mode "
5336 "of distribution. And this p2p has done. P2p technologies can be ideally "
5337 "efficient in moving content across a widely diverse network. Left to "
5338 "develop, they could make the network vastly more efficient. Yet these "
5339 "\"potential public benefits,\" as John Schwartz writes in The New York "
5340 "Times, \"could be delayed in the P2P fight.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5341 "id=\"0\"/> Yet when anyone begins to talk about \"balance,\" the copyright "
5342 "warriors raise a different argument. \"All this hand waving about balance "
5343 "and incentives,\" they say, \"misses a fundamental point. Our content,\" the "
5344 "warriors insist, \"is our property. Why should we wait for Congress to "
5345 "`rebalance' our property rights? Do you have to wait before calling the "
5346 "police when your car has been stolen? And why should Congress deliberate at "
5347 "all about the merits of this theft? Do we ask whether the car thief had a "
5348 "good use for the car before we arrest him?\""
5351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
5352 #: freeculture.xml:4260
5354 "\"It is our property,\" the warriors insist. \"And it should be protected "
5355 "just as any other property is protected.\""
5358 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
5359 #: freeculture.xml:4268
5360 msgid "\"PROPERTY\""
5364 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5365 #: freeculture.xml:4272
5367 "The copyright warriors are right: A copyright is a kind of property. It can "
5368 "be owned and sold, and the law protects against its theft. Ordinarily, the "
5369 "copyright owner gets to hold out for any price he wants. Markets reckon the "
5370 "supply and demand that partially determine the price she can get."
5373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5374 #: freeculture.xml:4279
5376 "But in ordinary language, to call a copyright a \"property\" right is a bit "
5377 "misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of property. "
5378 "Indeed, the very idea of property in any idea or any expression is very "
5379 "odd. I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you put in "
5380 "your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I take it, "
5381 "you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good idea you had to "
5382 "put a picnic table in the backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, "
5383 "buying a table, and putting it in my backyard? What is the thing I am taking "
5388 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
5389 #: freeculture.xml:4304
5391 "Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) in The "
5392 "Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 6 (Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery "
5393 "Bergh, eds., 1903), 330, 333–34."
5396 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5397 #: freeculture.xml:4291
5399 "The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, "
5400 "though that's an important difference. The point instead is that in the "
5401 "ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow "
5402 "range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take "
5403 "anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem "
5404 "weird if I did it every day, and especially weird if you are a "
5405 "woman. Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and as is especially true when I "
5406 "copy the way someone else dresses), \"He who receives an idea from me, "
5407 "receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his "
5408 "taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.\"<placeholder "
5409 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5412 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5413 #: freeculture.xml:4310
5415 "The exceptions to free use are ideas and expressions within the reach of the "
5416 "law of patent and copyright, and a few other domains that I won't discuss "
5417 "here. Here the law says you can't take my idea or expression without my "
5418 "permission: The law turns the intangible into property."
5422 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
5423 #: freeculture.xml:4325
5425 "As the legal realists taught American law, all property rights are "
5426 "intangible. A property right is simply a right that an individual has "
5427 "against the world to do or not do certain things that may or may not attach "
5428 "to a physical object. The right itself is intangible, even if the object to "
5429 "which it is (metaphorically) attached is tangible. See Adam Mossoff, \"What "
5430 "Is Property? Putting the Pieces Back Together,\" Arizona Law Review 45 "
5431 "(2003): 373, 429 n. 241."
5434 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5435 #: freeculture.xml:4318
5437 "But how, and to what extent, and in what form—the details, in other "
5438 "words—matter. To get a good sense of how this practice of turning the "
5439 "intangible into property emerged, we need to place this \"property\" in its "
5440 "proper context.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5443 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
5444 #: freeculture.xml:4338
5446 "My strategy in doing this will be the same as my strategy in the preceding "
5447 "part. I offer four stories to help put the idea of \"copyright material is "
5448 "property\" in context. Where did the idea come from? What are its limits? "
5449 "How does it function in practice? After these stories, the significance of "
5450 "this true statement—\"copyright material is property\"— will be "
5451 "a bit more clear, and its implications will be revealed as quite different "
5452 "from the implications that the copyright warriors would have us draw."
5455 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
5456 #: freeculture.xml:4352
5457 msgid "CHAPTER SIX: Founders"
5460 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5461 #: freeculture.xml:4354
5463 "William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1595. The play was first "
5464 "published in 1597. It was the eleventh major play that Shakespeare had "
5465 "written. He would continue to write plays through 1613, and the plays that "
5466 "he wrote have continued to define Anglo-American culture ever since. So "
5467 "deeply have the works of a sixteenth-century writer seeped into our culture "
5468 "that we often don't even recognize their source. I once overheard someone "
5469 "commenting on Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V: \"I liked it, but "
5470 "Shakespeare is so full of clichés.\""
5474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5475 #: freeculture.xml:4370
5477 "Jacob Tonson is typically remembered for his associations with prominent "
5478 "eighteenth-century literary figures, especially John Dryden, and for his "
5479 "handsome \"definitive editions\" of classic works. In addition to Romeo and "
5480 "Juliet, he published an astonishing array of works that still remain at the "
5481 "heart of the English canon, including collected works of Shakespeare, Ben "
5482 "Jonson, John Milton, and John Dryden. See Keith Walker, \"Jacob Tonson, "
5483 "Bookseller,\" American Scholar 61:3 (1992): 424–31."
5487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5488 #: freeculture.xml:4381
5490 "Lyman Ray Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective (Nashville: "
5491 "Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), 151–52."
5495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5496 #: freeculture.xml:4366
5498 "In 1774, almost 180 years after Romeo and Juliet was written, the "
5499 "\"copy-right\" for the work was still thought by many to be the exclusive "
5500 "right of a single London publisher, Jacob Tonson.<placeholder "
5501 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Tonson was the most prominent of a small group "
5502 "of publishers called the Conger<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> who "
5503 "controlled bookselling in England during the eighteenth century. The Conger "
5504 "claimed a perpetual right to control the \"copy\" of books that they had "
5505 "acquired from authors. That perpetual right meant that no one else could "
5506 "publish copies of a book to which they held the copyright. Prices of the "
5507 "classics were thus kept high; competition to produce better or cheaper "
5508 "editions was eliminated."
5512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5513 #: freeculture.xml:4407
5515 "As Siva Vaidhyanathan nicely argues, it is erroneous to call this a "
5516 "\"copyright law.\" See Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 40."
5519 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5520 #: freeculture.xml:4397
5522 "Now, there's something puzzling about the year 1774 to anyone who knows a "
5523 "little about copyright law. The better-known year in the history of "
5524 "copyright is 1710, the year that the British Parliament adopted the first "
5525 "\"copyright\" act. Known as the Statute of Anne, the act stated that all "
5526 "published works would get a copyright term of fourteen years, renewable once "
5527 "if the author was alive, and that all works already published by 1710 would "
5528 "get a single term of twenty-one additional years.<placeholder "
5529 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Under this law, Romeo and Juliet should have "
5530 "been free in 1731. So why was there any issue about it still being under "
5531 "Tonson's control in 1774?"
5534 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5535 #: freeculture.xml:4415
5537 "The reason is that the English hadn't yet agreed on what a \"copyright\" "
5538 "was—indeed, no one had. At the time the English passed the Statute of "
5539 "Anne, there was no other legislation governing copyrights. The last law "
5540 "regulating publishers, the Licensing Act of 1662, had expired in 1695. That "
5541 "law gave publishers a monopoly over publishing, as a way to make it easier "
5542 "for the Crown to control what was published. But after it expired, there "
5543 "was no positive law that said that the publishers, or \"Stationers,\" had an "
5544 "exclusive right to print books."
5547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5548 #: freeculture.xml:4428
5550 "There was no positive law, but that didn't mean that there was no law. The "
5551 "Anglo-American legal tradition looks to both the words of legislatures and "
5552 "the words of judges to know the rules that are to govern how people are to "
5553 "behave. We call the words from legislatures \"positive law.\" We call the "
5554 "words from judges \"common law.\" The common law sets the background against "
5555 "which legislatures legislate; the legislature, ordinarily, can trump that "
5556 "background only if it passes a law to displace it. And so the real question "
5557 "after the licensing statutes had expired was whether the common law "
5558 "protected a copyright, independent of any positive law."
5562 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5563 #: freeculture.xml:4445
5565 "This question was important to the publishers, or \"booksellers,\" as they "
5566 "were called, because there was growing competition from foreign "
5567 "publishers. The Scottish, in particular, were increasingly publishing and "
5568 "exporting books to England. That competition reduced the profits of the "
5569 "Conger, which reacted by demanding that Parliament pass a law to again give "
5570 "them exclusive control over publishing. That demand ultimately resulted in "
5571 "the Statute of Anne."
5574 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5575 #: freeculture.xml:4457
5577 "The Statute of Anne granted the author or \"proprietor\" of a book an "
5578 "exclusive right to print that book. In an important limitation, however, and "
5579 "to the horror of the booksellers, the law gave the bookseller that right for "
5580 "a limited term. At the end of that term, the copyright \"expired,\" and the "
5581 "work would then be free and could be published by anyone. Or so the "
5582 "legislature is thought to have believed."
5585 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5586 #: freeculture.xml:4467
5588 "Now, the thing to puzzle about for a moment is this: Why would Parliament "
5589 "limit the exclusive right? Not why would they limit it to the particular "
5590 "limit they set, but why would they limit the right at all?"
5593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5594 #: freeculture.xml:4472
5596 "For the booksellers, and the authors whom they represented, had a very "
5597 "strong claim. Take Romeo and Juliet as an example: That play was written by "
5598 "Shakespeare. It was his genius that brought it into the world. He didn't "
5599 "take anybody's property when he created this play (that's a controversial "
5600 "claim, but never mind), and by his creating this play, he didn't make it any "
5601 "harder for others to craft a play. So why is it that the law would ever "
5602 "allow someone else to come along and take Shakespeare's play without his, or "
5603 "his estate's, permission? What reason is there to allow someone else to "
5604 "\"steal\" Shakespeare's work?"
5607 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5608 #: freeculture.xml:4484
5610 "The answer comes in two parts. We first need to see something special about "
5611 "the notion of \"copyright\" that existed at the time of the Statute of "
5612 "Anne. Second, we have to see something important about \"booksellers.\""
5616 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5617 #: freeculture.xml:4491
5619 "First, about copyright. In the last three hundred years, we have come to "
5620 "apply the concept of \"copyright\" ever more broadly. But in 1710, it wasn't "
5621 "so much a concept as it was a very particular right. The copyright was born "
5622 "as a very specific set of restrictions: It forbade others from reprinting a "
5623 "book. In 1710, the \"copy-right\" was a right to use a particular machine to "
5624 "replicate a particular work. It did not go beyond that very narrow right. It "
5625 "did not control any more generally how a work could be used. Today the right "
5626 "includes a large collection of restrictions on the freedom of others: It "
5627 "grants the author the exclusive right to copy, the exclusive right to "
5628 "distribute, the exclusive right to perform, and so on."
5631 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5632 #: freeculture.xml:4508
5634 "So, for example, even if the copyright to Shakespeare's works were "
5635 "perpetual, all that would have meant under the original meaning of the term "
5636 "was that no one could reprint Shakespeare's work without the permission of "
5637 "the Shakespeare estate. It would not have controlled anything, for example, "
5638 "about how the work could be performed, whether the work could be translated, "
5639 "or whether Kenneth Branagh would be allowed to make his films. The "
5640 "\"copy-right\" was only an exclusive right to print—no less, of "
5641 "course, but also no more."
5644 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5645 #: freeculture.xml:4520
5647 "Even that limited right was viewed with skepticism by the British. They had "
5648 "had a long and ugly experience with \"exclusive rights,\" especially "
5649 "\"exclusive rights\" granted by the Crown. The English had fought a civil "
5650 "war in part about the Crown's practice of handing out "
5651 "monopolies—especially monopolies for works that already existed. King "
5652 "Henry VIII granted a patent to print the Bible and a monopoly to Darcy to "
5653 "print playing cards. The English Parliament began to fight back against this "
5654 "power of the Crown. In 1656, it passed the Statute of Monopolies, limiting "
5655 "monopolies to patents for new inventions. And by 1710, Parliament was eager "
5656 "to deal with the growing monopoly in publishing."
5659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5660 #: freeculture.xml:4536
5662 "Thus the \"copy-right,\" when viewed as a monopoly right, was naturally "
5663 "viewed as a right that should be limited. (However convincing the claim that "
5664 "\"it's my property, and I should have it forever,\" try sounding convincing "
5665 "when uttering, \"It's my monopoly, and I should have it forever.\") The "
5666 "state would protect the exclusive right, but only so long as it benefited "
5667 "society. The British saw the harms from specialinterest favors; they passed "
5668 "a law to stop them."
5672 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5673 #: freeculture.xml:4560
5675 "Philip Wittenberg, The Protection and Marketing of Literary Property (New "
5676 "York: J. Messner, Inc., 1937), 31."
5679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5680 #: freeculture.xml:4547
5682 "Second, about booksellers. It wasn't just that the copyright was a "
5683 "monopoly. It was also that it was a monopoly held by the booksellers. "
5684 "Booksellers sound quaint and harmless to us. They were not viewed as "
5685 "harmless in seventeenth-century England. Members of the Conger were "
5686 "increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind—tools of the "
5687 "Crown's repression, selling the liberty of England to guarantee themselves a "
5688 "monopoly profit. The attacks against these monopolists were harsh: Milton "
5689 "described them as \"old patentees and monopolizers in the trade of "
5690 "book-selling\"; they were \"men who do not therefore labour in an honest "
5691 "profession to which learning is indetted.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5695 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5696 #: freeculture.xml:4565
5698 "Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of "
5699 "knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the Enlightenment was "
5700 "teaching the importance of education and knowledge spread generally. The "
5701 "idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time, and these "
5702 "powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea."
5705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5706 #: freeculture.xml:4574
5708 "To balance this power, Parliament decided to increase competition among "
5709 "booksellers, and the simplest way to do that was to spread the wealth of "
5710 "valuable books. Parliament therefore limited the term of copyrights, and "
5711 "thereby guaranteed that valuable books would become open to any publisher to "
5712 "publish after a limited time. Thus the setting of the term for existing "
5713 "works to just twenty-one years was a compromise to fight the power of the "
5714 "booksellers. The limitation on terms was an indirect way to assure "
5715 "competition among publishers, and thus the construction and spread of "
5719 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5720 #: freeculture.xml:4586
5722 "When 1731 (1710 + 21) came along, however, the booksellers were getting "
5723 "anxious. They saw the consequences of more competition, and like every "
5724 "competitor, they didn't like them. At first booksellers simply ignored the "
5725 "Statute of Anne, continuing to insist on the perpetual right to control "
5726 "publication. But in 1735 and 1737, they tried to persuade Parliament to "
5727 "extend their terms. Twenty-one years was not enough, they said; they needed "
5731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5732 #: freeculture.xml:4595
5734 "Parliament rejected their requests. As one pamphleteer put it, in words that "
5739 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
5740 #: freeculture.xml:4610
5742 "A Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Bill now depending in the "
5743 "House of Commons, for making more effectual an Act in the Eighth Year of the "
5744 "Reign of Queen Anne, entitled, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by "
5745 "Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such "
5746 "Copies, during the Times therein mentioned (London, 1735), in Brief Amici "
5747 "Curiae of Tyler T. Ochoa et al., 8, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) "
5751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
5752 #: freeculture.xml:4600
5754 "I see no Reason for granting a further Term now, which will not hold as well "
5755 "for granting it again and again, as often as the Old ones Expire; so that "
5756 "should this Bill pass, it will in Effect be establishing a perpetual "
5757 "Monopoly, a Thing deservedly odious in the Eye of the Law; it will be a "
5758 "great Cramp to Trade, a Discouragement to Learning, no Benefit to the "
5759 "Authors, but a general Tax on the Publick; and all this only to increase the "
5760 "private Gain of the Booksellers.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5763 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5764 #: freeculture.xml:4621
5766 "Having failed in Parliament, the publishers turned to the courts in a series "
5767 "of cases. Their argument was simple and direct: The Statute of Anne gave "
5768 "authors certain protections through positive law, but those protections were "
5769 "not intended as replacements for the common law. Instead, they were "
5770 "intended simply to supplement the common law. Under common law, it was "
5771 "already wrong to take another person's creative \"property\" and use it "
5772 "without his permission. The Statute of Anne, the booksellers argued, didn't "
5773 "change that. Therefore, just because the protections of the Statute of Anne "
5774 "expired, that didn't mean the protections of the common law expired: Under "
5775 "the common law they had the right to ban the publication of a book, even if "
5776 "its Statute of Anne copyright had expired. This, they argued, was the only "
5777 "way to protect authors."
5781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5782 #: freeculture.xml:4642
5784 "Lyman Ray Patterson, \"Free Speech, Copyright, and Fair Use,\" Vanderbilt "
5785 "Law Review 40 (1987): 28. For a wonderfully compelling account, see "
5786 "Vaidhyanathan, 37–48."
5789 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5790 #: freeculture.xml:4636
5792 "This was a clever argument, and one that had the support of some of the "
5793 "leading jurists of the day. It also displayed extraordinary chutzpah. Until "
5794 "then, as law professor Raymond Patterson has put it, \"The publishers "
5795 ". . . had as much concern for authors as a cattle rancher has for "
5796 "cattle.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The bookseller didn't "
5797 "care squat for the rights of the author. His concern was the monopoly "
5798 "profit that the author's work gave."
5802 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5803 #: freeculture.xml:4654
5805 "For a compelling account, see David Saunders, Authorship and Copyright "
5806 "(London: Routledge, 1992), 62–69."
5809 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5810 #: freeculture.xml:4650
5812 "The booksellers' argument was not accepted without a fight. The hero of "
5813 "this fight was a Scottish bookseller named Alexander Donaldson.<placeholder "
5814 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5819 #: freeculture.xml:4664
5821 "Mark Rose, Authors and Owners (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), "
5826 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5827 #: freeculture.xml:4674
5831 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
5832 #: freeculture.xml:4676
5833 msgid "Erskine, Andrew"
5836 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5837 #: freeculture.xml:4659
5839 "Donaldson was an outsider to the London Conger. He began his career in "
5840 "Edinburgh in 1750. The focus of his business was inexpensive reprints \"of "
5841 "standard works whose copyright term had expired,\" at least under the "
5842 "Statute of Anne.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson's "
5843 "publishing house prospered and became \"something of a center for literary "
5844 "Scotsmen.\" \"[A]mong them,\" Professor Mark Rose writes, was \"the young "
5845 "James Boswell who, together with his friend Andrew Erskine, published an "
5846 "anthology of contemporary Scottish poems with Donaldson.\"<placeholder "
5847 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/>"
5851 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5852 #: freeculture.xml:4685
5854 "Lyman Ray Patterson, Copyright in Historical Perspective, 167 (quoting "
5858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5859 #: freeculture.xml:4679
5861 "When the London booksellers tried to shut down Donaldson's shop in Scotland, "
5862 "he responded by moving his shop to London, where he sold inexpensive "
5863 "editions \"of the most popular English books, in defiance of the supposed "
5864 "common law right of Literary Property.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
5865 "id=\"0\"/> His books undercut the Conger prices by 30 to 50 percent, and he "
5866 "rested his right to compete upon the ground that, under the Statute of Anne, "
5867 "the works he was selling had passed out of protection."
5870 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5871 #: freeculture.xml:4693
5873 "The London booksellers quickly brought suit to block \"piracy\" like "
5874 "Donaldson's. A number of actions were successful against the \"pirates,\" "
5875 "the most important early victory being Millar v. Taylor."
5879 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5880 #: freeculture.xml:4705
5882 "Howard B. Abrams, \"The Historic Foundation of American Copyright Law: "
5883 "Exploding the Myth of Common Law Copyright,\" Wayne Law Review 29 (1983): "
5887 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5888 #: freeculture.xml:4698
5890 "Millar was a bookseller who in 1729 had purchased the rights to James "
5891 "Thomson's poem \"The Seasons.\" Millar complied with the requirements of the "
5892 "Statute of Anne, and therefore received the full protection of the "
5893 "statute. After the term of copyright ended, Robert Taylor began printing a "
5894 "competing volume. Millar sued, claiming a perpetual common law right, the "
5895 "Statute of Anne notwithstanding.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
5898 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5899 #: freeculture.xml:4711
5901 "Astonishingly to modern lawyers, one of the greatest judges in English "
5902 "history, Lord Mansfield, agreed with the booksellers. Whatever protection "
5903 "the Statute of Anne gave booksellers, it did not, he held, extinguish any "
5904 "common law right. The question was whether the common law would protect the "
5905 "author against subsequent \"pirates.\" Mansfield's answer was yes: The "
5906 "common law would bar Taylor from reprinting Thomson's poem without Millar's "
5907 "permission. That common law rule thus effectively gave the booksellers a "
5908 "perpetual right to control the publication of any book assigned to them."
5912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5913 #: freeculture.xml:4722
5915 "Considered as a matter of abstract justice—reasoning as if justice "
5916 "were just a matter of logical deduction from first "
5917 "principles—Mansfield's conclusion might make some sense. But what it "
5918 "ignored was the larger issue that Parliament had struggled with in 1710: How "
5919 "best to limit the monopoly power of publishers? Parliament's strategy was to "
5920 "offer a term for existing works that was long enough to buy peace in 1710, "
5921 "but short enough to assure that culture would pass into competition within a "
5922 "reasonable period of time. Within twenty-one years, Parliament believed, "
5923 "Britain would mature from the controlled culture that the Crown coveted to "
5924 "the free culture that we inherited."
5927 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5928 #: freeculture.xml:4736
5930 "The fight to defend the limits of the Statute of Anne was not to end there, "
5931 "however, and it is here that Donaldson enters the mix."
5934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
5935 #: freeculture.xml:4739
5936 msgid "Beckett, Thomas"
5940 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
5941 #: freeculture.xml:4745
5942 msgid "Ibid., 1156."
5945 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5946 #: freeculture.xml:4741
5948 "Millar died soon after his victory, so his case was not appealed. His estate "
5949 "sold Thomson's poems to a syndicate of printers that included Thomas "
5950 "Beckett.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Donaldson then released an "
5951 "unauthorized edition of Thomson's works. Beckett, on the strength of the "
5952 "decision in Millar, got an injunction against Donaldson. Donaldson appealed "
5953 "the case to the House of Lords, which functioned much like our own Supreme "
5954 "Court. In February of 1774, that body had the chance to interpret the "
5955 "meaning of Parliament's limits from sixty years before."
5958 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5959 #: freeculture.xml:4755
5961 "As few legal cases ever do, Donaldson v. Beckett drew an enormous amount of "
5962 "attention throughout Britain. Donaldson's lawyers argued that whatever "
5963 "rights may have existed under the common law, the Statute of Anne terminated "
5964 "those rights. After passage of the Statute of Anne, the only legal "
5965 "protection for an exclusive right to control publication came from that "
5966 "statute. Thus, they argued, after the term specified in the Statute of Anne "
5967 "expired, works that had been protected by the statute were no longer "
5971 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5972 #: freeculture.xml:4765
5974 "The House of Lords was an odd institution. Legal questions were presented to "
5975 "the House and voted upon first by the \"law lords,\" members of special "
5976 "legal distinction who functioned much like the Justices in our Supreme "
5977 "Court. Then, after the law lords voted, the House of Lords generally voted."
5981 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
5982 #: freeculture.xml:4772
5984 "The reports about the law lords' votes are mixed. On some counts, it looks "
5985 "as if perpetual copyright prevailed. But there is no ambiguity about how the "
5986 "House of Lords voted as whole. By a two-to-one majority (22 to 11) they "
5987 "voted to reject the idea of perpetual copyrights. Whatever one's "
5988 "understanding of the common law, now a copyright was fixed for a limited "
5989 "time, after which the work protected by copyright passed into the public "
5993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
5994 #: freeculture.xml:4790
5995 msgid "Bacon, Francis"
5998 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
5999 #: freeculture.xml:4791
6000 msgid "Bunyan, John"
6003 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
6004 #: freeculture.xml:4792
6005 msgid "Johnson, Samuel"
6008 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
6009 #: freeculture.xml:4793
6010 msgid "Milton, John"
6013 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
6014 #: freeculture.xml:4794
6015 msgid "Shakespeare, William"
6018 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6019 #: freeculture.xml:4782
6021 "\"The public domain.\" Before the case of Donaldson v. Beckett, there was no "
6022 "clear idea of a public domain in England. Before 1774, there was a strong "
6023 "argument that common law copyrights were perpetual. After 1774, the public "
6024 "domain was born. For the first time in Anglo-American history, the legal "
6025 "control over creative works expired, and the greatest works in English "
6026 "history—including those of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Johnson, and "
6027 "Bunyan—were free of legal restraint. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
6028 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/> <placeholder "
6029 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"2\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"3\"/> "
6030 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"4\"/>"
6034 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6035 #: freeculture.xml:4807
6039 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6040 #: freeculture.xml:4797
6042 "It is hard for us to imagine, but this decision by the House of Lords fueled "
6043 "an extraordinarily popular and political reaction. In Scotland, where most "
6044 "of the \"pirate publishers\" did their work, people celebrated the decision "
6045 "in the streets. As the Edinburgh Advertiser reported, \"No private cause has "
6046 "so much engrossed the attention of the public, and none has been tried "
6047 "before the House of Lords in the decision of which so many individuals were "
6048 "interested.\" \"Great rejoicing in Edinburgh upon victory over literary "
6049 "property: bonfires and illuminations.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
6053 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6054 #: freeculture.xml:4811
6056 "In London, however, at least among publishers, the reaction was equally "
6057 "strong in the opposite direction. The Morning Chronicle reported:"
6060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6061 #: freeculture.xml:4817
6063 "By the above decision . . . near 200,000 pounds worth of what was honestly "
6064 "purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property is now "
6065 "reduced to nothing. The Booksellers of London and Westminster, many of whom "
6066 "sold estates and houses to purchase Copy-right, are in a manner ruined, and "
6067 "those who after many years industry thought they had acquired a competency "
6068 "to provide for their families now find themselves without a shilling to "
6069 "devise to their successors.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6073 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6074 #: freeculture.xml:4832
6076 "\"Ruined\" is a bit of an exaggeration. But it is not an exaggeration to say "
6077 "that the change was profound. The decision of the House of Lords meant that "
6078 "the booksellers could no longer control how culture in England would grow "
6079 "and develop. Culture in England was thereafter free. Not in the sense that "
6080 "copyrights would not be respected, for of course, for a limited time after a "
6081 "work was published, the bookseller had an exclusive right to control the "
6082 "publication of that book. And not in the sense that books could be stolen, "
6083 "for even after a copyright expired, you still had to buy the book from "
6084 "someone. But free in the sense that the culture and its growth would no "
6085 "longer be controlled by a small group of publishers. As every free market "
6086 "does, this free market of free culture would grow as the consumers and "
6087 "producers chose. English culture would develop as the many English readers "
6088 "chose to let it develop— chose in the books they bought and wrote; "
6089 "chose in the memes they repeated and endorsed. Chose in a competitive "
6090 "context, not a context in which the choices about what culture is available "
6091 "to people and how they get access to it are made by the few despite the "
6092 "wishes of the many."
6095 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6096 #: freeculture.xml:4852
6098 "At least, this was the rule in a world where the Parliament is antimonopoly, "
6099 "resistant to the protectionist pleas of publishers. In a world where the "
6100 "Parliament is more pliant, free culture would be less protected."
6103 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
6104 #: freeculture.xml:4860
6105 msgid "CHAPTER SEVEN: Recorders"
6108 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6109 #: freeculture.xml:4862
6111 "Jon Else is a filmmaker. He is best known for his documentaries and has been "
6112 "very successful in spreading his art. He is also a teacher, and as a teacher "
6113 "myself, I envy the loyalty and admiration that his students feel for him. (I "
6114 "met, by accident, two of his students at a dinner party. He was their god.)"
6117 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6118 #: freeculture.xml:4869
6120 "Else worked on a documentary that I was involved in. At a break, he told me "
6121 "a story about the freedom to create with film in America today."
6124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6125 #: freeculture.xml:4874
6127 "In 1990, Else was working on a documentary about Wagner's Ring Cycle. The "
6128 "focus was stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. Stagehands are a "
6129 "particularly funny and colorful element of an opera. During a show, they "
6130 "hang out below the stage in the grips' lounge and in the lighting loft. They "
6131 "make a perfect contrast to the art on the stage."
6135 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6136 #: freeculture.xml:4882
6138 "During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands playing "
6139 "checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set. Playing on the "
6140 "television set, while the stagehands played checkers and the opera company "
6141 "played Wagner, was The Simpsons. As Else judged it, this touch of cartoon "
6142 "helped capture the flavor of what was special about the scene."
6145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6146 #: freeculture.xml:4891
6148 "Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else "
6149 "attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of The Simpsons. For of "
6150 "course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and of course, to use copyrighted "
6151 "material you need the permission of the copyright owner, unless \"fair use\" "
6152 "or some other privilege applies."
6155 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6156 #: freeculture.xml:4898
6158 "Else called Simpsons creator Matt Groening's office to get permission. "
6159 "Groening approved the shot. The shot was a four-and-a-halfsecond image on a "
6160 "tiny television set in the corner of the room. How could it hurt? Groening "
6161 "was happy to have it in the film, but he told Else to contact Gracie Films, "
6162 "the company that produces the program."
6165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6166 #: freeculture.xml:4905
6168 "Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted to be "
6169 "careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie's parent company. Else "
6170 "called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one room shot "
6171 "of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission, Else said. He was "
6172 "just confirming the permission with Fox."
6175 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6176 #: freeculture.xml:4912
6178 "Then, as Else told me, \"two things happened. First we discovered . . . that "
6179 "Matt Groening doesn't own his own creation—or at least that someone "
6180 "[at Fox] believes he doesn't own his own creation.\" And second, Fox "
6181 "\"wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to use this "
6182 "four-point-five seconds of . . . entirely unsolicited Simpsons which was in "
6183 "the corner of the shot.\""
6186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6187 #: freeculture.xml:4920
6189 "Else was certain there was a mistake. He worked his way up to someone he "
6190 "thought was a vice president for licensing, Rebecca Herrera. He explained "
6191 "to her, \"There must be some mistake here. . . . We're asking for your "
6192 "educational rate on this.\" That was the educational rate, Herrera told "
6193 "Else. A day or so later, Else called again to confirm what he had been told."
6197 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6198 #: freeculture.xml:4928
6200 "\"I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight,\" he told me. \"Yes, you "
6201 "have your facts straight,\" she said. It would cost $10,000 to use the clip "
6202 "of The Simpsons in the corner of a shot in a documentary film about Wagner's "
6203 "Ring Cycle. And then, astonishingly, Herrera told Else, \"And if you quote "
6204 "me, I'll turn you over to our attorneys.\" As an assistant to Herrera told "
6205 "Else later on, \"They don't give a shit. They just want the money.\""
6208 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6209 #: freeculture.xml:4940
6211 "Else didn't have the money to buy the right to replay what was playing on "
6212 "the television backstage at the San Francisco Opera. To reproduce this "
6213 "reality was beyond the documentary filmmaker's budget. At the very last "
6214 "minute before the film was to be released, Else digitally replaced the shot "
6215 "with a clip from another film that he had worked on, The Day After Trinity, "
6216 "from ten years before."
6219 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6220 #: freeculture.xml:4948
6222 "There's no doubt that someone, whether Matt Groening or Fox, owns the "
6223 "copyright to The Simpsons. That copyright is their property. To use that "
6224 "copyrighted material thus sometimes requires the permission of the copyright "
6225 "owner. If the use that Else wanted to make of the Simpsons copyright were "
6226 "one of the uses restricted by the law, then he would need to get the "
6227 "permission of the copyright owner before he could use the work in that "
6228 "way. And in a free market, it is the owner of the copyright who gets to set "
6229 "the price for any use that the law says the owner gets to control."
6232 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6233 #: freeculture.xml:4959
6235 "For example, \"public performance\" is a use of The Simpsons that the "
6236 "copyright owner gets to control. If you take a selection of favorite "
6237 "episodes, rent a movie theater, and charge for tickets to come see \"My "
6238 "Favorite Simpsons,\" then you need to get permission from the copyright "
6239 "owner. And the copyright owner (rightly, in my view) can charge whatever she "
6240 "wants—$10 or $1,000,000. That's her right, as set by the law."
6244 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6245 #: freeculture.xml:4971
6247 "For an excellent argument that such use is \"fair use,\" but that lawyers "
6248 "don't permit recognition that it is \"fair use,\" see Richard A. Posner with "
6249 "William F. Patry, \"Fair Use and Statutory Reform in the Wake of Eldred \" "
6250 "(draft on file with author), University of Chicago Law School, 5 August "
6254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6255 #: freeculture.xml:4968
6257 "But when lawyers hear this story about Jon Else and Fox, their first thought "
6258 "is \"fair use.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Else's use of just "
6259 "4.5 seconds of an indirect shot of a Simpsons episode is clearly a fair use "
6260 "of The Simpsons—and fair use does not require the permission of "
6265 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6266 #: freeculture.xml:4983
6267 msgid "So I asked Else why he didn't just rely upon \"fair use.\" Here's his reply:"
6270 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6271 #: freeculture.xml:4987
6273 "The Simpsons fiasco was for me a great lesson in the gulf between what "
6274 "lawyers find irrelevant in some abstract sense, and what is crushingly "
6275 "relevant in practice to those of us actually trying to make and broadcast "
6276 "documentaries. I never had any doubt that it was \"clearly fair use\" in an "
6277 "absolute legal sense. But I couldn't rely on the concept in any concrete "
6282 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6283 #: freeculture.xml:4997
6285 "Before our films can be broadcast, the network requires that we buy Errors "
6286 "and Omissions insurance. The carriers require a detailed \"visual cue "
6287 "sheet\" listing the source and licensing status of each shot in the "
6288 "film. They take a dim view of \"fair use,\" and a claim of \"fair use\" can "
6289 "grind the application process to a halt."
6293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6294 #: freeculture.xml:5005
6296 "I probably never should have asked Matt Groening in the first place. But I "
6297 "knew (at least from folklore) that Fox had a history of tracking down and "
6298 "stopping unlicensed Simpsons usage, just as George Lucas had a very high "
6299 "profile litigating Star Wars usage. So I decided to play by the book, "
6300 "thinking that we would be granted free or cheap license to four seconds of "
6301 "Simpsons. As a documentary producer working to exhaustion on a shoestring, "
6302 "the last thing I wanted was to risk legal trouble, even nuisance legal "
6303 "trouble, and even to defend a principle."
6308 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6309 #: freeculture.xml:5017
6311 "I did, in fact, speak with one of your colleagues at Stanford Law School "
6312 ". . . who confirmed that it was fair use. He also confirmed that Fox would "
6313 "\"depose and litigate you to within an inch of your life,\" regardless of "
6314 "the merits of my claim. He made clear that it would boil down to who had the "
6315 "bigger legal department and the deeper pockets, me or them."
6319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><orderedlist><listitem><para>
6320 #: freeculture.xml:5027
6322 "The question of fair use usually comes up at the end of the project, when we "
6323 "are up against a release deadline and out of money."
6326 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6327 #: freeculture.xml:5034
6329 "In theory, fair use means you need no permission. The theory therefore "
6330 "supports free culture and insulates against a permission culture. But in "
6331 "practice, fair use functions very differently. The fuzzy lines of the law, "
6332 "tied to the extraordinary liability if lines are crossed, means that the "
6333 "effective fair use for many types of creators is slight. The law has the "
6334 "right aim; practice has defeated the aim."
6337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6338 #: freeculture.xml:5042
6340 "This practice shows just how far the law has come from its "
6341 "eighteenth-century roots. The law was born as a shield to protect "
6342 "publishers' profits against the unfair competition of a pirate. It has "
6343 "matured into a sword that interferes with any use, transformative or not."
6346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
6347 #: freeculture.xml:5051
6348 msgid "CHAPTER EIGHT: Transformers"
6351 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
6352 #: freeculture.xml:5052
6356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
6357 #: freeculture.xml:5053 freeculture.xml:5061 freeculture.xml:5072 freeculture.xml:5087 freeculture.xml:5096 freeculture.xml:5101 freeculture.xml:5153 freeculture.xml:5169 freeculture.xml:5192 freeculture.xml:5254 freeculture.xml:9610
6361 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6362 #: freeculture.xml:5055
6364 "In 1993, Alex Alben was a lawyer working at Starwave, Inc. Starwave was an "
6365 "innovative company founded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen to develop "
6366 "digital entertainment. Long before the Internet became popular, Starwave "
6367 "began investing in new technology for delivering entertainment in "
6368 "anticipation of the power of networks."
6371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6372 #: freeculture.xml:5063
6374 "Alben had a special interest in new technology. He was intrigued by the "
6375 "emerging market for CD-ROM technology—not to distribute film, but to "
6376 "do things with film that otherwise would be very difficult. In 1993, he "
6377 "launched an initiative to develop a product to build retrospectives on the "
6378 "work of particular actors. The first actor chosen was Clint Eastwood. The "
6379 "idea was to showcase all of the work of Eastwood, with clips from his films "
6380 "and interviews with figures important to his career."
6383 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6384 #: freeculture.xml:5074
6386 "At that time, Eastwood had made more than fifty films, as an actor and as a "
6387 "director. Alben began with a series of interviews with Eastwood, asking him "
6388 "about his career. Because Starwave produced those interviews, it was free to "
6389 "include them on the CD."
6393 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6394 #: freeculture.xml:5081
6396 "That alone would not have made a very interesting product, so Starwave "
6397 "wanted to add content from the movies in Eastwood's career: posters, "
6398 "scripts, and other material relating to the films Eastwood made. Most of his "
6399 "career was spent at Warner Brothers, and so it was relatively easy to get "
6400 "permission for that content."
6403 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6404 #: freeculture.xml:5089
6406 "Then Alben and his team decided to include actual film clips. \"Our goal was "
6407 "that we were going to have a clip from every one of Eastwood's films,\" "
6408 "Alben told me. It was here that the problem arose. \"No one had ever really "
6409 "done this before,\" Alben explained. \"No one had ever tried to do this in "
6410 "the context of an artistic look at an actor's career.\""
6413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6414 #: freeculture.xml:5098
6416 "Alben brought the idea to Michael Slade, the CEO of Starwave. Slade asked, "
6417 "\"Well, what will it take?\""
6420 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
6421 #: freeculture.xml:5114
6425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><secondary>
6426 #: freeculture.xml:5115
6427 msgid "publicity rights on images of"
6430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6431 #: freeculture.xml:5109
6433 "Technically, the rights that Alben had to clear were mainly those of "
6434 "publicity—rights an artist has to control the commercial exploitation "
6435 "of his image. But these rights, too, burden \"Rip, Mix, Burn\" creativity, "
6436 "as this chapter evinces. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6440 #: freeculture.xml:5103
6442 "Alben replied, \"Well, we're going to have to clear rights from everyone who "
6443 "appears in these films, and the music and everything else that we want to "
6444 "use in these film clips.\" Slade said, \"Great! Go for it.\"<placeholder "
6445 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6448 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6449 #: freeculture.xml:5120
6451 "The problem was that neither Alben nor Slade had any idea what clearing "
6452 "those rights would mean. Every actor in each of the films could have a claim "
6453 "to royalties for the reuse of that film. But CD- ROMs had not been specified "
6454 "in the contracts for the actors, so there was no clear way to know just what "
6455 "Starwave was to do."
6458 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6459 #: freeculture.xml:5127
6461 "I asked Alben how he dealt with the problem. With an obvious pride in his "
6462 "resourcefulness that obscured the obvious bizarreness of his tale, Alben "
6463 "recounted just what they did:"
6466 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6467 #: freeculture.xml:5133
6469 "So we very mechanically went about looking up the film clips. We made some "
6470 "artistic decisions about what film clips to include—of course we were "
6471 "going to use the \"Make my day\" clip from Dirty Harry. But you then need to "
6472 "get the guy on the ground who's wiggling under the gun and you need to get "
6473 "his permission. And then you have to decide what you are going to pay him."
6477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6478 #: freeculture.xml:5142
6480 "We decided that it would be fair if we offered them the dayplayer rate for "
6481 "the right to reuse that performance. We're talking about a clip of less than "
6482 "a minute, but to reuse that performance in the CD-ROM the rate at the time "
6483 "was about $600. So we had to identify the people—some of them were "
6484 "hard to identify because in Eastwood movies you can't tell who's the guy "
6485 "crashing through the glass—is it the actor or is it the stuntman? And "
6486 "then we just, we put together a team, my assistant and some others, and we "
6487 "just started calling people."
6490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6491 #: freeculture.xml:5155
6493 "Some actors were glad to help—Donald Sutherland, for example, followed "
6494 "up himself to be sure that the rights had been cleared. Others were "
6495 "dumbfounded at their good fortune. Alben would ask, \"Hey, can I pay you "
6496 "$600 or maybe if you were in two films, you know, $1,200?\" And they would "
6497 "say, \"Are you for real? Hey, I'd love to get $1,200.\" And some of course "
6498 "were a bit difficult (estranged ex-wives, in particular). But eventually, "
6499 "Alben and his team had cleared the rights to this retrospective CD-ROM on "
6500 "Clint Eastwood's career."
6503 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6504 #: freeculture.xml:5166
6506 "It was one year later—\"and even then we weren't sure whether we were "
6507 "totally in the clear.\""
6510 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6511 #: freeculture.xml:5171
6513 "Alben is proud of his work. The project was the first of its kind and the "
6514 "only time he knew of that a team had undertaken such a massive project for "
6515 "the purpose of releasing a retrospective."
6518 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6519 #: freeculture.xml:5177
6521 "Everyone thought it would be too hard. Everyone just threw up their hands "
6522 "and said, \"Oh, my gosh, a film, it's so many copyrights, there's the music, "
6523 "there's the screenplay, there's the director, there's the actors.\" But we "
6524 "just broke it down. We just put it into its constituent parts and said, "
6525 "\"Okay, there's this many actors, this many directors, . . . this many "
6526 "musicians,\" and we just went at it very systematically and cleared the "
6531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6532 #: freeculture.xml:5189
6534 "And no doubt, the product itself was exceptionally good. Eastwood loved it, "
6535 "and it sold very well."
6538 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
6539 #: freeculture.xml:5193
6540 msgid "Drucker, Peter"
6544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6545 #: freeculture.xml:5201
6547 "U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Acquisition Management, Seven Steps to "
6548 "Performance-Based Services Acquisition, available at <ulink "
6549 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #22</ulink>."
6552 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6553 #: freeculture.xml:5195
6555 "But I pressed Alben about how weird it seems that it would have to take a "
6556 "year's work simply to clear rights. No doubt Alben had done this "
6557 "efficiently, but as Peter Drucker has famously quipped, \"There is nothing "
6558 "so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at "
6559 "all.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Did it make sense, I asked "
6560 "Alben, that this is the way a new work has to be made?"
6563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6564 #: freeculture.xml:5209
6566 "For, as he acknowledged, \"very few . . . have the time and resources, and "
6567 "the will to do this,\" and thus, very few such works would ever be "
6568 "made. Does it make sense, I asked him, from the standpoint of what anybody "
6569 "really thought they were ever giving rights for originally, that you would "
6570 "have to go clear rights for these kinds of clips?"
6573 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6574 #: freeculture.xml:5217
6576 "I don't think so. When an actor renders a performance in a movie, he or she "
6577 "gets paid very well. . . . And then when 30 seconds of that performance is "
6578 "used in a new product that is a retrospective of somebody's career, I don't "
6579 "think that that person . . . should be compensated for that."
6582 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6583 #: freeculture.xml:5225
6585 "Or at least, is this how the artist should be compensated? Would it make "
6586 "sense, I asked, for there to be some kind of statutory license that someone "
6587 "could pay and be free to make derivative use of clips like this? Did it "
6588 "really make sense that a follow-on creator would have to track down every "
6589 "artist, actor, director, musician, and get explicit permission from each? "
6590 "Wouldn't a lot more be created if the legal part of the creative process "
6591 "could be made to be more clean?"
6595 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6596 #: freeculture.xml:5235
6598 "Absolutely. I think that if there were some fair-licensing "
6599 "mechanism—where you weren't subject to hold-ups and you weren't "
6600 "subject to estranged former spouses—you'd see a lot more of this work, "
6601 "because it wouldn't be so daunting to try to put together a retrospective of "
6602 "someone's career and meaningfully illustrate it with lots of media from that "
6603 "person's career. You'd build in a cost as the producer of one of these "
6604 "things. You'd build in a cost of paying X dollars to the talent that "
6605 "performed. But it would be a known cost. That's the thing that trips "
6606 "everybody up and makes this kind of product hard to get off the ground. If "
6607 "you knew I have a hundred minutes of film in this product and it's going to "
6608 "cost me X, then you build your budget around it, and you can get investments "
6609 "and everything else that you need to produce it. But if you say, \"Oh, I "
6610 "want a hundred minutes of something and I have no idea what it's going to "
6611 "cost me, and a certain number of people are going to hold me up for money,\" "
6612 "then it becomes difficult to put one of these things together."
6615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6616 #: freeculture.xml:5256
6618 "Alben worked for a big company. His company was backed by some of the "
6619 "richest investors in the world. He therefore had authority and access that "
6620 "the average Web designer would not have. So if it took him a year, how long "
6621 "would it take someone else? And how much creativity is never made just "
6622 "because the costs of clearing the rights are so high? These costs are the "
6623 "burdens of a kind of regulation. Put on a Republican hat for a moment, and "
6624 "get angry for a bit. The government defines the scope of these rights, and "
6625 "the scope defined determines how much it's going to cost to negotiate "
6626 "them. (Remember the idea that land runs to the heavens, and imagine the "
6627 "pilot purchasing flythrough rights as he negotiates to fly from Los Angeles "
6628 "to San Francisco.) These rights might well have once made sense; but as "
6629 "circumstances change, they make no sense at all. Or at least, a "
6630 "well-trained, regulationminimizing Republican should look at the rights and "
6631 "ask, \"Does this still make sense?\""
6635 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6636 #: freeculture.xml:5273
6638 "I've seen the flash of recognition when people get this point, but only a "
6639 "few times. The first was at a conference of federal judges in California. "
6640 "The judges were gathered to discuss the emerging topic of cyber-law. I was "
6641 "asked to be on the panel. Harvey Saferstein, a well-respected lawyer from an "
6642 "L.A. firm, introduced the panel with a video that he and a friend, Robert "
6643 "Fairbank, had produced."
6646 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6647 #: freeculture.xml:5283
6649 "The video was a brilliant collage of film from every period in the twentieth "
6650 "century, all framed around the idea of a 60 Minutes episode. The execution "
6651 "was perfect, down to the sixty-minute stopwatch. The judges loved every "
6655 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
6656 #: freeculture.xml:5288
6657 msgid "Nimmer, David"
6660 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6661 #: freeculture.xml:5290
6663 "When the lights came up, I looked over to my copanelist, David Nimmer, "
6664 "perhaps the leading copyright scholar and practitioner in the nation. He had "
6665 "an astonished look on his face, as he peered across the room of over 250 "
6666 "well-entertained judges. Taking an ominous tone, he began his talk with a "
6667 "question: \"Do you know how many federal laws were just violated in this "
6671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
6672 #: freeculture.xml:5297
6673 msgid "Boies, David"
6676 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6677 #: freeculture.xml:5299
6679 "For of course, the two brilliantly talented creators who made this film "
6680 "hadn't done what Alben did. They hadn't spent a year clearing the rights to "
6681 "these clips; technically, what they had done violated the law. Of course, "
6682 "it wasn't as if they or anyone were going to be prosecuted for this "
6683 "violation (the presence of 250 judges and a gaggle of federal marshals "
6684 "notwithstanding). But Nimmer was making an important point: A year before "
6685 "anyone would have heard of the word Napster, and two years before another "
6686 "member of our panel, David Boies, would defend Napster before the Ninth "
6687 "Circuit Court of Appeals, Nimmer was trying to get the judges to see that "
6688 "the law would not be friendly to the capacities that this technology would "
6689 "enable. Technology means you can now do amazing things easily; but you "
6690 "couldn't easily do them legally."
6693 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6694 #: freeculture.xml:5314
6696 "We live in a \"cut and paste\" culture enabled by technology. Anyone "
6697 "building a presentation knows the extraordinary freedom that the cut and "
6698 "paste architecture of the Internet created—in a second you can find "
6699 "just about any image you want; in another second, you can have it planted in "
6700 "your presentation."
6703 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
6704 #: freeculture.xml:5330
6708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6709 #: freeculture.xml:5321
6711 "But presentations are just a tiny beginning. Using the Internet and its "
6712 "archives, musicians are able to string together mixes of sound never before "
6713 "imagined; filmmakers are able to build movies out of clips on computers "
6714 "around the world. An extraordinary site in Sweden takes images of "
6715 "politicians and blends them with music to create biting political "
6716 "commentary. A site called Camp Chaos has produced some of the most biting "
6717 "criticism of the record industry that there is through the mixing of Flash! "
6718 "and music. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
6721 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6722 #: freeculture.xml:5333
6724 "All of these creations are technically illegal. Even if the creators wanted "
6725 "to be \"legal,\" the cost of complying with the law is impossibly "
6726 "high. Therefore, for the law-abiding sorts, a wealth of creativity is never "
6727 "made. And for that part that is made, if it doesn't follow the clearance "
6728 "rules, it doesn't get released."
6731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6732 #: freeculture.xml:5340
6734 "To some, these stories suggest a solution: Let's alter the mix of rights so "
6735 "that people are free to build upon our culture. Free to add or mix as they "
6736 "see fit. We could even make this change without necessarily requiring that "
6737 "the \"free\" use be free as in \"free beer.\" Instead, the system could "
6738 "simply make it easy for follow-on creators to compensate artists without "
6739 "requiring an army of lawyers to come along: a rule, for example, that says "
6740 "\"the royalty owed the copyright owner of an unregistered work for the "
6741 "derivative reuse of his work will be a flat 1 percent of net revenues, to be "
6742 "held in escrow for the copyright owner.\" Under this rule, the copyright "
6743 "owner could benefit from some royalty, but he would not have the benefit of "
6744 "a full property right (meaning the right to name his own price) unless he "
6745 "registers the work."
6748 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6749 #: freeculture.xml:5355
6751 "Who could possibly object to this? And what reason would there be for "
6752 "objecting? We're talking about work that is not now being made; which if "
6753 "made, under this plan, would produce new income for artists. What reason "
6754 "would anyone have to oppose it?"
6758 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6759 #: freeculture.xml:5361
6761 "In February 2003, DreamWorks studios announced an agreement with Mike Myers, "
6762 "the comic genius of Saturday Night Live and Austin Powers. According to the "
6763 "announcement, Myers and Dream-Works would work together to form a \"unique "
6764 "filmmaking pact.\" Under the agreement, DreamWorks \"will acquire the rights "
6765 "to existing motion picture hits and classics, write new storylines "
6766 "and—with the use of stateof-the-art digital technology—insert "
6767 "Myers and other actors into the film, thereby creating an entirely new piece "
6768 "of entertainment.\""
6771 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6772 #: freeculture.xml:5373
6774 "The announcement called this \"film sampling.\" As Myers explained, \"Film "
6775 "Sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin on existing films and "
6776 "allow audiences to see old movies in a new light. Rap artists have been "
6777 "doing this for years with music and now we are able to take that same "
6778 "concept and apply it to film.\" Steven Spielberg is quoted as saying, \"If "
6779 "anyone can create a way to bring old films to new audiences, it is Mike.\""
6782 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6783 #: freeculture.xml:5382
6785 "Spielberg is right. Film sampling by Myers will be brilliant. But if you "
6786 "don't think about it, you might miss the truly astonishing point about this "
6787 "announcement. As the vast majority of our film heritage remains under "
6788 "copyright, the real meaning of the DreamWorks announcement is just this: It "
6789 "is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers who is free to sample. Any general freedom "
6790 "to build upon the film archive of our culture, a freedom in other contexts "
6791 "presumed for us all, is now a privilege reserved for the funny and "
6792 "famous—and presumably rich."
6795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6796 #: freeculture.xml:5392
6798 "This privilege becomes reserved for two sorts of reasons. The first "
6799 "continues the story of the last chapter: the vagueness of \"fair use.\" Much "
6800 "of \"sampling\" should be considered \"fair use.\" But few would rely upon "
6801 "so weak a doctrine to create. That leads to the second reason that the "
6802 "privilege is reserved for the few: The costs of negotiating the legal rights "
6803 "for the creative reuse of content are astronomically high. These costs "
6804 "mirror the costs with fair use: You either pay a lawyer to defend your fair "
6805 "use rights or pay a lawyer to track down permissions so you don't have to "
6806 "rely upon fair use rights. Either way, the creative process is a process of "
6807 "paying lawyers—again a privilege, or perhaps a curse, reserved for the "
6811 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
6812 #: freeculture.xml:5407
6813 msgid "CHAPTER NINE: Collectors"
6816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6817 #: freeculture.xml:5409
6819 "In April 1996, millions of \"bots\"—computer codes designed to "
6820 "\"spider,\" or automatically search the Internet and copy "
6821 "content—began running across the Net. Page by page, these bots copied "
6822 "Internet-based information onto a small set of computers located in a "
6823 "basement in San Francisco's Presidio. Once the bots finished the whole of "
6824 "the Internet, they started again. Over and over again, once every two "
6825 "months, these bits of code took copies of the Internet and stored them."
6828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6829 #: freeculture.xml:5418
6831 "By October 2001, the bots had collected more than five years of copies. And "
6832 "at a small announcement in Berkeley, California, the archive that these "
6833 "copies created, the Internet Archive, was opened to the world. Using a "
6834 "technology called \"the Way Back Machine,\" you could enter a Web page, and "
6835 "see all of its copies going back to 1996, as well as when those pages "
6839 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6840 #: freeculture.xml:5426
6842 "This is the thing about the Internet that Orwell would have appreciated. In "
6843 "the dystopia described in 1984, old newspapers were constantly updated to "
6844 "assure that the current view of the world, approved of by the government, "
6845 "was not contradicted by previous news reports."
6849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6850 #: freeculture.xml:5434
6852 "Thousands of workers constantly reedited the past, meaning there was no way "
6853 "ever to know whether the story you were reading today was the story that was "
6854 "printed on the date published on the paper."
6857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6858 #: freeculture.xml:5439
6860 "It's the same with the Internet. If you go to a Web page today, there's no "
6861 "way for you to know whether the content you are reading is the same as the "
6862 "content you read before. The page may seem the same, but the content could "
6863 "easily be different. The Internet is Orwell's library—constantly "
6864 "updated, without any reliable memory."
6868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6869 #: freeculture.xml:5452
6871 "The temptations remain, however. Brewster Kahle reports that the White House "
6872 "changes its own press releases without notice. A May 13, 2003, press release "
6873 "stated, \"Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.\" That was later changed, "
6874 "without notice, to \"Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended.\" E-mail "
6875 "from Brewster Kahle, 1 December 2003."
6878 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6879 #: freeculture.xml:5446
6881 "Until the Way Back Machine, at least. With the Way Back Machine, and the "
6882 "Internet Archive underlying it, you can see what the Internet was. You have "
6883 "the power to see what you remember. More importantly, perhaps, you also have "
6884 "the power to find what you don't remember and what others might prefer you "
6885 "forget.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
6888 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6889 #: freeculture.xml:5460
6891 "We take it for granted that we can go back to see what we remember "
6892 "reading. Think about newspapers. If you wanted to study the reaction of your "
6893 "hometown newspaper to the race riots in Watts in 1965, or to Bull Connor's "
6894 "water cannon in 1963, you could go to your public library and look at the "
6895 "newspapers. Those papers probably exist on microfiche. If you're lucky, they "
6896 "exist in paper, too. Either way, you are free, using a library, to go back "
6897 "and remember—not just what it is convenient to remember, but remember "
6898 "something close to the truth."
6901 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6902 #: freeculture.xml:5471
6904 "It is said that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat "
6905 "it. That's not quite correct. We all forget history. The key is whether we "
6906 "have a way to go back to rediscover what we forget. More directly, the key "
6907 "is whether an objective past can keep us honest. Libraries help do that, by "
6908 "collecting content and keeping it, for schoolchildren, for researchers, for "
6909 "grandma. A free society presumes this knowedge."
6913 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6914 #: freeculture.xml:5480
6916 "The Internet was an exception to this presumption. Until the Internet "
6917 "Archive, there was no way to go back. The Internet was the quintessentially "
6918 "transitory medium. And yet, as it becomes more important in forming and "
6919 "reforming society, it becomes more and more important to maintain in some "
6920 "historical form. It's just bizarre to think that we have scads of archives "
6921 "of newspapers from tiny towns around the world, yet there is but one copy of "
6922 "the Internet—the one kept by the Internet Archive."
6925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6926 #: freeculture.xml:5491
6928 "Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive. He was a very "
6929 "successful Internet entrepreneur after he was a successful computer "
6930 "researcher. In the 1990s, Kahle decided he had had enough business "
6931 "success. It was time to become a different kind of success. So he launched "
6932 "a series of projects designed to archive human knowledge. The Internet "
6933 "Archive was just the first of the projects of this Andrew Carnegie of the "
6934 "Internet. By December of 2002, the archive had over 10 billion pages, and it "
6935 "was growing at about a billion pages a month."
6938 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6939 #: freeculture.xml:5501
6941 "The Way Back Machine is the largest archive of human knowledge in human "
6942 "history. At the end of 2002, it held \"two hundred and thirty terabytes of "
6943 "material\"—and was \"ten times larger than the Library of Congress.\" "
6944 "And this was just the first of the archives that Kahle set out to build. In "
6945 "addition to the Internet Archive, Kahle has been constructing the Television "
6946 "Archive. Television, it turns out, is even more ephemeral than the "
6947 "Internet. While much of twentieth-century culture was constructed through "
6948 "television, only a tiny proportion of that culture is available for anyone "
6949 "to see today. Three hours of news are recorded each evening by Vanderbilt "
6950 "University—thanks to a specific exemption in the copyright law. That "
6951 "content is indexed, and is available to scholars for a very low fee. \"But "
6952 "other than that, [television] is almost unavailable,\" Kahle told me. \"If "
6953 "you were Barbara Walters you could get access to [the archives], but if you "
6954 "are just a graduate student?\" As Kahle put it,"
6958 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
6959 #: freeculture.xml:5519
6961 "Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown? Remember "
6962 "that back and forth surreal experience of a politician interacting with a "
6963 "fictional television character? If you were a graduate student wanting to "
6964 "study that, and you wanted to get those original back and forth exchanges "
6965 "between the two, the 60 Minutes episode that came out after it . . . it "
6966 "would be almost impossible. . . . Those materials are almost "
6970 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6971 #: freeculture.xml:5531
6973 "Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded in "
6974 "newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is recorded "
6975 "on videotape is not? How is it that we've created a world where researchers "
6976 "trying to understand the effect of media on nineteenthcentury America will "
6977 "have an easier time than researchers trying to understand the effect of "
6978 "media on twentieth-century America?"
6981 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
6982 #: freeculture.xml:5539
6984 "In part, this is because of the law. Early in American copyright law, "
6985 "copyright owners were required to deposit copies of their work in "
6986 "libraries. These copies were intended both to facilitate the spread of "
6987 "knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around once the "
6988 "copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the work."
6992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
6993 #: freeculture.xml:5556
6995 "Doug Herrick, \"Toward a National Film Collection: Motion Pictures at the "
6996 "Library of Congress,\" Film Library Quarterly 13 nos. 2–3 (1980): 5; "
6997 "Anthony Slide, Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the "
6998 "United States ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1992), 36."
7001 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7002 #: freeculture.xml:5547
7004 "These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library of Congress "
7005 "made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so long as such "
7006 "deposits were made. But the filmmaker was then allowed to borrow back the "
7007 "deposits—for an unlimited time at no cost. In 1915 alone, there were "
7008 "more than 5,475 films deposited and \"borrowed back.\" Thus, when the "
7009 "copyrights to films expire, there is no copy held by any library. The copy "
7010 "exists—if it exists at all—in the library archive of the film "
7011 "company.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7015 #: freeculture.xml:5564
7017 "The same is generally true about television. Television broadcasts were "
7018 "originally not copyrighted—there was no way to capture the broadcasts, "
7019 "so there was no fear of \"theft.\" But as technology enabled capturing, "
7020 "broadcasters relied increasingly upon the law. The law required they make a "
7021 "copy of each broadcast for the work to be \"copyrighted.\" But those copies "
7022 "were simply kept by the broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the "
7023 "government didn't demand them. The content of this part of American culture "
7024 "is practically invisible to anyone who would look."
7028 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7029 #: freeculture.xml:5575
7031 "Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and his "
7032 "allies had started capturing television. They selected twenty stations from "
7033 "around the world and hit the Record button. After September 11, Kahle, "
7034 "working with dozens of others, selected twenty stations from around the "
7035 "world and, beginning October 11, 2001, made their coverage during the week "
7036 "of September 11 available free on-line. Anyone could see how news reports "
7037 "from around the world covered the events of that day."
7040 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7041 #: freeculture.xml:5586
7043 "Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose "
7044 "archive of film includes close to 45,000 \"ephemeral films\" (meaning films "
7045 "other than Hollywood movies, films that were never copyrighted), Kahle "
7046 "established the Movie Archive. Prelinger let Kahle digitize 1,300 films in "
7047 "this archive and post those films on the Internet to be downloaded for "
7048 "free. Prelinger's is a for-profit company. It sells copies of these films as "
7049 "stock footage. What he has discovered is that after he made a significant "
7050 "chunk available for free, his stock footage sales went up "
7051 "dramatically. People could easily find the material they wanted to use. Some "
7052 "downloaded that material and made films on their own. Others purchased "
7053 "copies to enable other films to be made. Either way, the archive enabled "
7054 "access to this important part of our culture. Want to see a copy of the "
7055 "\"Duck and Cover\" film that instructed children how to save themselves in "
7056 "the middle of nuclear attack? Go to archive.org, and you can download the "
7057 "film in a few minutes—for free."
7060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7061 #: freeculture.xml:5604
7063 "Here again, Kahle is providing access to a part of our culture that we "
7064 "otherwise could not get easily, if at all. It is yet another part of what "
7065 "defines the twentieth century that we have lost to history. The law doesn't "
7066 "require these copies to be kept by anyone, or to be deposited in an archive "
7067 "by anyone. Therefore, there is no simple way to find them."
7070 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7071 #: freeculture.xml:5612
7073 "The key here is access, not price. Kahle wants to enable free access to this "
7074 "content, but he also wants to enable others to sell access to it. His aim is "
7075 "to ensure competition in access to this important part of our culture. Not "
7076 "during the commercial life of a bit of creative property, but during a "
7077 "second life that all creative property has—a noncommercial life."
7081 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7082 #: freeculture.xml:5620
7084 "For here is an idea that we should more clearly recognize. Every bit of "
7085 "creative property goes through different \"lives.\" In its first life, if "
7086 "the creator is lucky, the content is sold. In such cases the commercial "
7087 "market is successful for the creator. The vast majority of creative property "
7088 "doesn't enjoy such success, but some clearly does. For that content, "
7089 "commercial life is extremely important. Without this commercial market, "
7090 "there would be, many argue, much less creativity."
7093 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7094 #: freeculture.xml:5632
7096 "After the commercial life of creative property has ended, our tradition has "
7097 "always supported a second life as well. A newspaper delivers the news every "
7098 "day to the doorsteps of America. The very next day, it is used to wrap fish "
7099 "or to fill boxes with fragile gifts or to build an archive of knowledge "
7100 "about our history. In this second life, the content can continue to inform "
7101 "even if that information is no longer sold."
7105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
7106 #: freeculture.xml:5644
7108 "Dave Barns, \"Fledgling Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord, Bar "
7109 "Owner Starts a New Chapter by Adopting Business,\" Chicago Tribune, 5 "
7110 "September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927 and 1946, "
7111 "only 2.2 percent were in print in 2002. R. Anthony Reese, \"The First Sale "
7112 "Doctrine in the Era of Digital Networks,\" Boston College Law Review 44 "
7113 "(2003): 593 n. 51."
7116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7117 #: freeculture.xml:5641
7119 "The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print very "
7120 "quickly (the average today is after about a year<placeholder "
7121 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>). After it is out of print, it can be sold in "
7122 "used book stores without the copyright owner getting anything and stored in "
7123 "libraries, where many get to read the book, also for free. Used book stores "
7124 "and libraries are thus the second life of a book. That second life is "
7125 "extremely important to the spread and stability of culture."
7128 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7129 #: freeculture.xml:5658
7131 "Yet increasingly, any assumption about a stable second life for creative "
7132 "property does not hold true with the most important components of popular "
7133 "culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For "
7134 "these—television, movies, music, radio, the Internet—there is no "
7135 "guarantee of a second life. For these sorts of culture, it is as if we've "
7136 "replaced libraries with Barnes & Noble superstores. With this culture, "
7137 "what's accessible is nothing but what a certain limited market demands. "
7138 "Beyond that, culture disappears."
7142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7143 #: freeculture.xml:5669
7145 "For most of the twentieth century, it was economics that made this so. It "
7146 "would have been insanely expensive to collect and make accessible all "
7147 "television and film and music: The cost of analog copies is extraordinarily "
7148 "high. So even though the law in principle would have restricted the ability "
7149 "of a Brewster Kahle to copy culture generally, the real restriction was "
7150 "economics. The market made it impossibly difficult to do anything about this "
7151 "ephemeral culture; the law had little practical effect."
7154 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7155 #: freeculture.xml:5681
7157 "Perhaps the single most important feature of the digital revolution is that "
7158 "for the first time since the Library of Alexandria, it is feasible to "
7159 "imagine constructing archives that hold all culture produced or distributed "
7160 "publicly. Technology makes it possible to imagine an archive of all books "
7161 "published, and increasingly makes it possible to imagine an archive of all "
7162 "moving images and sound."
7165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7166 #: freeculture.xml:5689
7168 "The scale of this potential archive is something we've never imagined "
7169 "before. The Brewster Kahles of our history have dreamed about it; but we are "
7170 "for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As Kahle "
7174 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
7175 #: freeculture.xml:5696
7177 "It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music. "
7178 "Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies, "
7179 ". . . and about one to two million movies [distributed] during the twentieth "
7180 "century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of books. All "
7181 "of these would fit on computers that would fit in this room and be able to "
7182 "be afforded by a small company. So we're at a turning point in our "
7183 "history. Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a "
7184 "different life, based on this, is . . . thrilling. It could be one of the "
7185 "things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of "
7186 "Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing "
7191 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7192 #: freeculture.xml:5710
7194 "Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only "
7195 "archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of "
7196 "libraries or archives could be. When the commercial life of creative "
7197 "property ends, I don't know. But it does. And whenever it does, Kahle and "
7198 "his archive hint at a world where this knowledge, and culture, remains "
7199 "perpetually available. Some will draw upon it to understand it; some to "
7200 "criticize it. Some will use it, as Walt Disney did, to re-create the past "
7201 "for the future. These technologies promise something that had become "
7202 "unimaginable for much of our past—a future for our past. The "
7203 "technology of digital arts could make the dream of the Library of Alexandria "
7207 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7208 #: freeculture.xml:5725
7210 "Technologists have thus removed the economic costs of building such an "
7211 "archive. But lawyers' costs remain. For as much as we might like to call "
7212 "these \"archives,\" as warm as the idea of a \"library\" might seem, the "
7213 "\"content\" that is collected in these digital spaces is also someone's "
7214 "\"property.\" And the law of property restricts the freedoms that Kahle and "
7215 "others would exercise."
7218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
7219 #: freeculture.xml:5735
7220 msgid "CHAPTER TEN: \"Property\""
7223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
7224 #: freeculture.xml:5744
7225 msgid "Johnson, Lyndon"
7228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7229 #: freeculture.xml:5737
7231 "Jack Valenti has been the president of the Motion Picture Association of "
7232 "America since 1966. He first came to Washington, D.C., with Lyndon Johnson's "
7233 "administration—literally. The famous picture of Johnson's swearing-in "
7234 "on Air Force One after the assassination of President Kennedy has Valenti in "
7235 "the background. In his almost forty years of running the MPAA, Valenti has "
7236 "established himself as perhaps the most prominent and effective lobbyist in "
7237 "Washington. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7240 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7241 #: freeculture.xml:5747
7243 "The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture "
7244 "Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal was to "
7245 "defend American movies against increasing domestic criticism. The "
7246 "organization now represents not only filmmakers but producers and "
7247 "distributors of entertainment for television, video, and cable. Its board is "
7248 "made up of the chairmen and presidents of the seven major producers and "
7249 "distributors of motion picture and television programs in the United States: "
7250 "Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth "
7251 "Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers."
7255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7256 #: freeculture.xml:5760
7258 "Valenti is only the third president of the MPAA. No president before him has "
7259 "had as much influence over that organization, or over Washington. As a "
7260 "Texan, Valenti has mastered the single most important political skill of a "
7261 "Southerner—the ability to appear simple and slow while hiding a "
7262 "lightning-fast intellect. To this day, Valenti plays the simple, humble "
7263 "man. But this Harvard MBA, and author of four books, who finished high "
7264 "school at the age of fifteen and flew more than fifty combat missions in "
7265 "World War II, is no Mr. Smith. When Valenti went to Washington, he mastered "
7266 "the city in a quintessentially Washingtonian way."
7269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7270 #: freeculture.xml:5772
7272 "In defending artistic liberty and the freedom of speech that our culture "
7273 "depends upon, the MPAA has done important good. In crafting the MPAA rating "
7274 "system, it has probably avoided a great deal of speech-regulating harm. But "
7275 "there is an aspect to the organization's mission that is both the most "
7276 "radical and the most important. This is the organization's effort, "
7277 "epitomized in Valenti's every act, to redefine the meaning of \"creative "
7281 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7282 #: freeculture.xml:5781
7283 msgid "In 1982, Valenti's testimony to Congress captured the strategy perfectly:"
7287 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
7288 #: freeculture.xml:5795
7290 "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works: Hearings on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794, "
7291 "H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 Before the Subcommittee on "
7292 "Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee "
7293 "on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd "
7294 "sess. (1982): 65 (testimony of Jack Valenti)."
7297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
7298 #: freeculture.xml:5786
7300 "No matter the lengthy arguments made, no matter the charges and the "
7301 "counter-charges, no matter the tumult and the shouting, reasonable men and "
7302 "women will keep returning to the fundamental issue, the central theme which "
7303 "animates this entire debate: Creative property owners must be accorded the "
7304 "same rights and protection resident in all other property owners in the "
7305 "nation. That is the issue. That is the question. And that is the rostrum on "
7306 "which this entire hearing and the debates to follow must rest.<placeholder "
7307 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
7311 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7312 #: freeculture.xml:5805
7314 "The strategy of this rhetoric, like the strategy of most of Valenti's "
7315 "rhetoric, is brilliant and simple and brilliant because simple. The "
7316 "\"central theme\" to which \"reasonable men and women\" will return is this: "
7317 "\"Creative property owners must be accorded the same rights and protections "
7318 "resident in all other property owners in the nation.\" There are no "
7319 "second-class citizens, Valenti might have continued. There should be no "
7320 "second-class property owners."
7323 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7324 #: freeculture.xml:5816
7326 "This claim has an obvious and powerful intuitive pull. It is stated with "
7327 "such clarity as to make the idea as obvious as the notion that we use "
7328 "elections to pick presidents. But in fact, there is no more extreme a claim "
7329 "made by anyone who is serious in this debate than this claim of "
7330 "Valenti's. Jack Valenti, however sweet and however brilliant, is perhaps the "
7331 "nation's foremost extremist when it comes to the nature and scope of "
7332 "\"creative property.\" His views have no reasonable connection to our actual "
7333 "legal tradition, even if the subtle pull of his Texan charm has slowly "
7334 "redefined that tradition, at least in Washington."
7338 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
7339 #: freeculture.xml:5831
7341 "Lawyers speak of \"property\" not as an absolute thing, but as a bundle of "
7342 "rights that are sometimes associated with a particular object. Thus, my "
7343 "\"property right\" to my car gives me the right to exclusive use, but not "
7344 "the right to drive at 150 miles an hour. For the best effort to connect the "
7345 "ordinary meaning of \"property\" to \"lawyer talk,\" see Bruce Ackerman, "
7346 "Private Property and the Constitution (New Haven: Yale University Press, "
7347 "1977), 26–27."
7350 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7351 #: freeculture.xml:5828
7353 "While \"creative property\" is certainly \"property\" in a nerdy and precise "
7354 "sense that lawyers are trained to understand,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7355 "id=\"0\"/> it has never been the case, nor should it be, that \"creative "
7356 "property owners\" have been \"accorded the same rights and protection "
7357 "resident in all other property owners.\" Indeed, if creative property owners "
7358 "were given the same rights as all other property owners, that would effect a "
7359 "radical, and radically undesirable, change in our tradition."
7362 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7363 #: freeculture.xml:5846
7365 "Valenti knows this. But he speaks for an industry that cares squat for our "
7366 "tradition and the values it represents. He speaks for an industry that is "
7367 "instead fighting to restore the tradition that the British overturned in "
7368 "1710. In the world that Valenti's changes would create, a powerful few would "
7369 "exercise powerful control over how our creative culture would develop."
7373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7374 #: freeculture.xml:5854
7376 "I have two purposes in this chapter. The first is to convince you that, "
7377 "historically, Valenti's claim is absolutely wrong. The second is to convince "
7378 "you that it would be terribly wrong for us to reject our history. We have "
7379 "always treated rights in creative property differently from the rights "
7380 "resident in all other property owners. They have never been the same. And "
7381 "they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may "
7382 "seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity "
7383 "for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of "
7384 "creativity having less than perfect control."
7387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7388 #: freeculture.xml:5869
7390 "Organizations such as the MPAA, whose board includes the most powerful of "
7391 "the old guard, have little interest, their rhetoric notwithstanding, in "
7392 "assuring that the new can displace them. No organization does. No person "
7393 "does. (Ask me about tenure, for example.) But what's good for the MPAA is "
7394 "not necessarily good for America. A society that defends the ideals of free "
7395 "culture must preserve precisely the opportunity for new creativity to "
7396 "threaten the old. To get just a hint that there is something fundamentally "
7397 "wrong in Valenti's argument, we need look no further than the United States "
7398 "Constitution itself."
7401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7402 #: freeculture.xml:5881
7404 "The framers of our Constitution loved \"property.\" Indeed, so strongly did "
7405 "they love property that they built into the Constitution an important "
7406 "requirement. If the government takes your property—if it condemns your "
7407 "house, or acquires a slice of land from your farm—it is required, "
7408 "under the Fifth Amendment's \"Takings Clause,\" to pay you \"just "
7409 "compensation\" for that taking. The Constitution thus guarantees that "
7410 "property is, in a certain sense, sacred. It cannot ever be taken from the "
7411 "property owner unless the government pays for the privilege."
7415 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7416 #: freeculture.xml:5892
7418 "Yet the very same Constitution speaks very differently about what Valenti "
7419 "calls \"creative property.\" In the clause granting Congress the power to "
7420 "create \"creative property,\" the Constitution requires that after a "
7421 "\"limited time,\" Congress take back the rights that it has granted and set "
7422 "the \"creative property\" free to the public domain. Yet when Congress does "
7423 "this, when the expiration of a copyright term \"takes\" your copyright and "
7424 "turns it over to the public domain, Congress does not have any obligation to "
7425 "pay \"just compensation\" for this \"taking.\" Instead, the same "
7426 "Constitution that requires compensation for your land requires that you lose "
7427 "your \"creative property\" right without any compensation at all."
7430 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7431 #: freeculture.xml:5907
7433 "The Constitution thus on its face states that these two forms of property "
7434 "are not to be accorded the same rights. They are plainly to be treated "
7435 "differently. Valenti is therefore not just asking for a change in our "
7436 "tradition when he argues that creative-property owners should be accorded "
7437 "the same rights as every other property-right owner. He is effectively "
7438 "arguing for a change in our Constitution itself."
7441 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7442 #: freeculture.xml:5916
7444 "Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong. There "
7445 "was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong. The "
7446 "Constitution of 1789 entrenched slavery; it left senators to be appointed "
7447 "rather than elected; it made it possible for the electoral college to "
7448 "produce a tie between the president and his own vice president (as it did in "
7449 "1800). The framers were no doubt extraordinary, but I would be the first to "
7450 "admit that they made big mistakes. We have since rejected some of those "
7451 "mistakes; no doubt there could be others that we should reject as well. So "
7452 "my argument is not simply that because Jefferson did it, we should, too."
7455 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7456 #: freeculture.xml:5928
7458 "Instead, my argument is that because Jefferson did it, we should at least "
7459 "try to understand why. Why did the framers, fanatical property types that "
7460 "they were, reject the claim that creative property be given the same rights "
7461 "as all other property? Why did they require that for creative property there "
7462 "must be a public domain?"
7465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7466 #: freeculture.xml:5935
7468 "To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the history of "
7469 "these \"creative property\" rights, and the control that they enabled. Once "
7470 "we see clearly how differently these rights have been defined, we will be in "
7471 "a better position to ask the question that should be at the core of this "
7472 "war: Not whether creative property should be protected, but how. Not whether "
7473 "we will enforce the rights the law gives to creative-property owners, but "
7474 "what the particular mix of rights ought to be. Not whether artists should be "
7475 "paid, but whether institutions designed to assure that artists get paid need "
7476 "also control how culture develops."
7480 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7481 #: freeculture.xml:5949
7483 "To answer these questions, we need a more general way to talk about how "
7484 "property is protected. More precisely, we need a more general way than the "
7485 "narrow language of the law allows. In Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, I "
7486 "used a simple model to capture this more general perspective. For any "
7487 "particular right or regulation, this model asks how four different "
7488 "modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken the right or "
7489 "regulation. I represented it with this diagram:"
7492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><figure><title>
7493 #: freeculture.xml:5958
7495 "How four different modalities of regulation interact to support or weaken "
7496 "the right or regulation."
7499 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
7500 #: freeculture.xml:5959 freeculture.xml:6133 freeculture.xml:6429
7501 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1331.png\"></graphic>"
7505 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7506 #: freeculture.xml:5962
7508 "At the center of this picture is a regulated dot: the individual or group "
7509 "that is the target of regulation, or the holder of a right. (In each case "
7510 "throughout, we can describe this either as regulation or as a right. For "
7511 "simplicity's sake, I will speak only of regulations.) The ovals represent "
7512 "four ways in which the individual or group might be regulated— either "
7513 "constrained or, alternatively, enabled. Law is the most obvious constraint "
7514 "(to lawyers, at least). It constrains by threatening punishments after the "
7515 "fact if the rules set in advance are violated. So if, for example, you "
7516 "willfully infringe Madonna's copyright by copying a song from her latest CD "
7517 "and posting it on the Web, you can be punished with a $150,000 fine. The "
7518 "fine is an ex post punishment for violating an ex ante rule. It is imposed "
7522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7523 #: freeculture.xml:5978
7525 "Norms are a different kind of constraint. They, too, punish an individual "
7526 "for violating a rule. But the punishment of a norm is imposed by a "
7527 "community, not (or not only) by the state. There may be no law against "
7528 "spitting, but that doesn't mean you won't be punished if you spit on the "
7529 "ground while standing in line at a movie. The punishment might not be harsh, "
7530 "though depending upon the community, it could easily be more harsh than many "
7531 "of the punishments imposed by the state. The mark of the difference is not "
7532 "the severity of the rule, but the source of the enforcement."
7535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7536 #: freeculture.xml:5989
7538 "The market is a third type of constraint. Its constraint is effected through "
7539 "conditions: You can do X if you pay Y; you'll be paid M if you do N. These "
7540 "constraints are obviously not independent of law or norms—it is "
7541 "property law that defines what must be bought if it is to be taken legally; "
7542 "it is norms that say what is appropriately sold. But given a set of norms, "
7543 "and a background of property and contract law, the market imposes a "
7544 "simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave."
7547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7548 #: freeculture.xml:5999
7550 "Finally, and for the moment, perhaps, most mysteriously, "
7551 "\"architecture\"—the physical world as one finds it—is a "
7552 "constraint on behavior. A fallen bridge might constrain your ability to get "
7553 "across a river. Railroad tracks might constrain the ability of a community "
7554 "to integrate its social life. As with the market, architecture does not "
7555 "effect its constraint through ex post punishments. Instead, also as with the "
7556 "market, architecture effects its constraint through simultaneous "
7557 "conditions. These conditions are imposed not by courts enforcing contracts, "
7558 "or by police punishing theft, but by nature, by \"architecture.\" If a "
7559 "500-pound boulder blocks your way, it is the law of gravity that enforces "
7560 "this constraint. If a $500 airplane ticket stands between you and a flight "
7561 "to New York, it is the market that enforces this constraint."
7565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7566 #: freeculture.xml:6016
7568 "So the first point about these four modalities of regulation is obvious: "
7569 "They interact. Restrictions imposed by one might be reinforced by "
7570 "another. Or restrictions imposed by one might be undermined by another."
7573 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7574 #: freeculture.xml:6022
7576 "The second point follows directly: If we want to understand the effective "
7577 "freedom that anyone has at a given moment to do any particular thing, we "
7578 "have to consider how these four modalities interact. Whether or not there "
7579 "are other constraints (there may well be; my claim is not about "
7580 "comprehensiveness), these four are among the most significant, and any "
7581 "regulator (whether controlling or freeing) must consider how these four in "
7582 "particular interact."
7585 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
7586 #: freeculture.xml:6031
7587 msgid "driving speed, constraints on"
7590 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7591 #: freeculture.xml:6034
7593 "So, for example, consider the \"freedom\" to drive a car at a high "
7594 "speed. That freedom is in part restricted by laws: speed limits that say how "
7595 "fast you can drive in particular places at particular times. It is in part "
7596 "restricted by architecture: speed bumps, for example, slow most rational "
7597 "drivers; governors in buses, as another example, set the maximum rate at "
7598 "which the driver can drive. The freedom is in part restricted by the market: "
7599 "Fuel efficiency drops as speed increases, thus the price of gasoline "
7600 "indirectly constrains speed. And finally, the norms of a community may or "
7601 "may not constrain the freedom to speed. Drive at 50 mph by a school in your "
7602 "own neighborhood and you're likely to be punished by the neighbors. The same "
7603 "norm wouldn't be as effective in a different town, or at night."
7607 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
7608 #: freeculture.xml:6052
7610 "By describing the way law affects the other three modalities, I don't mean "
7611 "to suggest that the other three don't affect law. Obviously, they do. Law's "
7612 "only distinction is that it alone speaks as if it has a right "
7613 "self-consciously to change the other three. The right of the other three is "
7614 "more timidly expressed. See Lawrence Lessig, Code: And Other Laws of "
7615 "Cyberspace (New York: Basic Books, 1999): 90–95; Lawrence Lessig, "
7616 "\"The New Chicago School,\" Journal of Legal Studies, June 1998."
7620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7621 #: freeculture.xml:6048
7623 "The final point about this simple model should also be fairly clear: While "
7624 "these four modalities are analytically independent, law has a special role "
7625 "in affecting the three.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The law, in "
7626 "other words, sometimes operates to increase or decrease the constraint of a "
7627 "particular modality. Thus, the law might be used to increase taxes on "
7628 "gasoline, so as to increase the incentives to drive more slowly. The law "
7629 "might be used to mandate more speed bumps, so as to increase the difficulty "
7630 "of driving rapidly. The law might be used to fund ads that stigmatize "
7631 "reckless driving. Or the law might be used to require that other laws be "
7632 "more strict—a federal requirement that states decrease the speed "
7633 "limit, for example—so as to decrease the attractiveness of fast "
7637 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><figure><title>
7638 #: freeculture.xml:6076
7639 msgid "Law has a special role in affecting the three."
7642 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><figure>
7643 #: freeculture.xml:6077
7644 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1361.png\"></graphic>"
7647 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
7648 #: freeculture.xml:6116
7649 msgid "Commons, John R."
7652 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
7653 #: freeculture.xml:6088
7655 "Some people object to this way of talking about \"liberty.\" They object "
7656 "because their focus when considering the constraints that exist at any "
7657 "particular moment are constraints imposed exclusively by the government. For "
7658 "instance, if a storm destroys a bridge, these people think it is meaningless "
7659 "to say that one's liberty has been restrained. A bridge has washed out, and "
7660 "it's harder to get from one place to another. To talk about this as a loss "
7661 "of freedom, they say, is to confuse the stuff of politics with the vagaries "
7662 "of ordinary life. I don't mean to deny the value in this narrower view, "
7663 "which depends upon the context of the inquiry. I do, however, mean to argue "
7664 "against any insistence that this narrower view is the only proper view of "
7665 "liberty. As I argued in Code, we come from a long tradition of political "
7666 "thought with a broader focus than the narrow question of what the government "
7667 "did when. John Stuart Mill defended freedom of speech, for example, from "
7668 "the tyranny of narrow minds, not from the fear of government prosecution; "
7669 "John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), 19. "
7670 "John R. Commons famously defended the economic freedom of labor from "
7671 "constraints imposed by the market; John R. Commons, \"The Right to Work,\" "
7672 "in Malcom Rutherford and Warren J. Samuels, eds., John R. Commons: Selected "
7673 "Essays (London: Routledge: 1997), 62. The Americans with Disabilities Act "
7674 "increases the liberty of people with physical disabilities by changing the "
7675 "architecture of certain public places, thereby making access to those places "
7676 "easier; 42 United States Code, section 12101 (2000). Each of these "
7677 "interventions to change existing conditions changes the liberty of a "
7678 "particular group. The effect of those interventions should be accounted for "
7679 "in order to understand the effective liberty that each of these groups might "
7680 "face. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
7683 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
7684 #: freeculture.xml:6080
7686 "These constraints can thus change, and they can be changed. To understand "
7687 "the effective protection of liberty or protection of property at any "
7688 "particular moment, we must track these changes over time. A restriction "
7689 "imposed by one modality might be erased by another. A freedom enabled by one "
7690 "modality might be displaced by another.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
7694 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
7695 #: freeculture.xml:6120
7696 msgid "Why Hollywood Is Right"
7699 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7700 #: freeculture.xml:6122
7702 "The most obvious point that this model reveals is just why, or just how, "
7703 "Hollywood is right. The copyright warriors have rallied Congress and the "
7704 "courts to defend copyright. This model helps us see why that rallying makes "
7708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7709 #: freeculture.xml:6128
7710 msgid "Let's say this is the picture of copyright's regulation before the Internet:"
7713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
7714 #: freeculture.xml:6132 freeculture.xml:6428
7715 msgid "Copyright's regulation before the Internet."
7719 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7720 #: freeculture.xml:6137
7722 "There is balance between law, norms, market, and architecture. The law "
7723 "limits the ability to copy and share content, by imposing penalties on those "
7724 "who copy and share content. Those penalties are reinforced by technologies "
7725 "that make it hard to copy and share content (architecture) and expensive to "
7726 "copy and share content (market). Finally, those penalties are mitigated by "
7727 "norms we all recognize—kids, for example, taping other kids' "
7728 "records. These uses of copyrighted material may well be infringement, but "
7729 "the norms of our society (before the Internet, at least) had no problem with "
7730 "this form of infringement."
7733 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7734 #: freeculture.xml:6149
7736 "Enter the Internet, or, more precisely, technologies such as MP3s and p2p "
7737 "sharing. Now the constraint of architecture changes dramatically, as does "
7738 "the constraint of the market. And as both the market and architecture relax "
7739 "the regulation of copyright, norms pile on. The happy balance (for the "
7740 "warriors, at least) of life before the Internet becomes an effective state "
7741 "of anarchy after the Internet."
7745 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7746 #: freeculture.xml:6157
7748 "Thus the sense of, and justification for, the warriors' response. "
7749 "Technology has changed, the warriors say, and the effect of this change, "
7750 "when ramified through the market and norms, is that a balance of protection "
7751 "for the copyright owners' rights has been lost. This is Iraq after the fall "
7752 "of Saddam, but this time no government is justifying the looting that "
7756 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
7757 #: freeculture.xml:6167
7758 msgid "effective state of anarchy after the Internet."
7761 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
7762 #: freeculture.xml:6168
7763 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1381.png\"></graphic>"
7766 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7767 #: freeculture.xml:6171
7769 "Neither this analysis nor the conclusions that follow are new to the "
7770 "warriors. Indeed, in a \"White Paper\" prepared by the Commerce Department "
7771 "(one heavily influenced by the copyright warriors) in 1995, this mix of "
7772 "regulatory modalities had already been identified and the strategy to "
7773 "respond already mapped. In response to the changes the Internet had "
7774 "effected, the White Paper argued (1) Congress should strengthen intellectual "
7775 "property law, (2) businesses should adopt innovative marketing techniques, "
7776 "(3) technologists should push to develop code to protect copyrighted "
7777 "material, and (4) educators should educate kids to better protect copyright."
7781 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7782 #: freeculture.xml:6183
7784 "This mixed strategy is just what copyright needed—if it was to "
7785 "preserve the particular balance that existed before the change induced by "
7786 "the Internet. And it's just what we should expect the content industry to "
7787 "push for. It is as American as apple pie to consider the happy life you have "
7788 "as an entitlement, and to look to the law to protect it if something comes "
7789 "along to change that happy life. Homeowners living in a flood plain have no "
7790 "hesitation appealing to the government to rebuild (and rebuild again) when a "
7791 "flood (architecture) wipes away their property (law). Farmers have no "
7792 "hesitation appealing to the government to bail them out when a virus "
7793 "(architecture) devastates their crop. Unions have no hesitation appealing to "
7794 "the government to bail them out when imports (market) wipe out the "
7795 "U.S. steel industry."
7798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7799 #: freeculture.xml:6200
7801 "Thus, there's nothing wrong or surprising in the content industry's campaign "
7802 "to protect itself from the harmful consequences of a technological "
7803 "innovation. And I would be the last person to argue that the changing "
7804 "technology of the Internet has not had a profound effect on the content "
7805 "industry's way of doing business, or as John Seely Brown describes it, its "
7806 "\"architecture of revenue.\""
7810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
7811 #: freeculture.xml:6216
7813 "See Geoffrey Smith, \"Film vs. Digital: Can Kodak Build a Bridge?\" "
7814 "BusinessWeek online, 2 August 1999, available at <ulink "
7815 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #23</ulink>. For a more recent "
7816 "analysis of Kodak's place in the market, see Chana R. Schoenberger, \"Can "
7817 "Kodak Make Up for Lost Moments?\" Forbes.com, 6 October 2003, available at "
7818 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #24</ulink>."
7821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7822 #: freeculture.xml:6208
7824 "But just because a particular interest asks for government support, it "
7825 "doesn't follow that support should be granted. And just because technology "
7826 "has weakened a particular way of doing business, it doesn't follow that the "
7827 "government should intervene to support that old way of doing "
7828 "business. Kodak, for example, has lost perhaps as much as 20 percent of "
7829 "their traditional film market to the emerging technologies of digital "
7830 "cameras.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Does anyone believe the "
7831 "government should ban digital cameras just to support Kodak? Highways have "
7832 "weakened the freight business for railroads. Does anyone think we should ban "
7833 "trucks from roads for the purpose of protecting the railroads? Closer to the "
7834 "subject of this book, remote channel changers have weakened the "
7835 "\"stickiness\" of television advertising (if a boring commercial comes on "
7836 "the TV, the remote makes it easy to surf ), and it may well be that this "
7837 "change has weakened the television advertising market. But does anyone "
7838 "believe we should regulate remotes to reinforce commercial television? "
7839 "(Maybe by limiting them to function only once a second, or to switch to only "
7840 "ten channels within an hour?)"
7844 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
7845 #: freeculture.xml:6248
7846 msgid "Fred Warshofsky, The Patent Wars (New York: Wiley, 1994), 170–71."
7849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><indexterm><primary>
7850 #: freeculture.xml:6257 freeculture.xml:12646
7854 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7855 #: freeculture.xml:6238
7857 "The obvious answer to these obviously rhetorical questions is no. In a free "
7858 "society, with a free market, supported by free enterprise and free trade, "
7859 "the government's role is not to support one way of doing business against "
7860 "others. Its role is not to pick winners and protect them against loss. If "
7861 "the government did this generally, then we would never have any progress. As "
7862 "Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote in 1991, in a memo criticizing software "
7863 "patents, \"established companies have an interest in excluding future "
7864 "competitors.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And relative to a "
7865 "startup, established companies also have the means. (Think RCA and FM "
7866 "radio.) A world in which competitors with new ideas must fight not only the "
7867 "market but also the government is a world in which competitors with new "
7868 "ideas will not succeed. It is a world of stasis and increasingly "
7869 "concentrated stagnation. It is the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. "
7870 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7873 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7874 #: freeculture.xml:6260
7876 "Thus, while it is understandable for industries threatened with new "
7877 "technologies that change the way they do business to look to the government "
7878 "for protection, it is the special duty of policy makers to guarantee that "
7879 "that protection not become a deterrent to progress. It is the duty of policy "
7880 "makers, in other words, to assure that the changes they create, in response "
7881 "to the request of those hurt by changing technology, are changes that "
7882 "preserve the incentives and opportunities for innovation and change."
7885 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7886 #: freeculture.xml:6270
7888 "In the context of laws regulating speech—which include, obviously, "
7889 "copyright law—that duty is even stronger. When the industry "
7890 "complaining about changing technologies is asking Congress to respond in a "
7891 "way that burdens speech and creativity, policy makers should be especially "
7892 "wary of the request. It is always a bad deal for the government to get into "
7893 "the business of regulating speech markets. The risks and dangers of that "
7894 "game are precisely why our framers created the First Amendment to our "
7895 "Constitution: \"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of "
7896 "speech.\" So when Congress is being asked to pass laws that would "
7897 "\"abridge\" the freedom of speech, it should ask— "
7898 "carefully—whether such regulation is justified."
7902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7903 #: freeculture.xml:6284
7905 "My argument just now, however, has nothing to do with whether the changes "
7906 "that are being pushed by the copyright warriors are \"justified.\" My "
7907 "argument is about their effect. For before we get to the question of "
7908 "justification, a hard question that depends a great deal upon your values, "
7909 "we should first ask whether we understand the effect of the changes the "
7910 "content industry wants."
7913 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7914 #: freeculture.xml:6293
7915 msgid "Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow."
7918 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7919 #: freeculture.xml:6296
7921 "In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul "
7922 "Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work demonstrating the "
7923 "insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the insecticide was widely "
7924 "used around the world to kill disease-carrying pests. It was also used to "
7925 "increase farm production."
7928 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7929 #: freeculture.xml:6303
7931 "No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop "
7932 "production is a good thing. No one doubts that the work of Müller was "
7933 "important and valuable and probably saved lives, possibly millions."
7936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><indexterm><primary>
7937 #: freeculture.xml:6307 freeculture.xml:6313
7938 msgid "Carson, Rachel"
7941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><indexterm><primary>
7942 #: freeculture.xml:6314
7943 msgid "Silent Sprint (Carson)"
7946 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7947 #: freeculture.xml:6309
7949 "But in 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which argued that DDT, "
7950 "whatever its primary benefits, was also having unintended environmental "
7951 "consequences. Birds were losing the ability to reproduce. Whole chains of "
7952 "the ecology were being destroyed. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
7953 "id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
7956 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7957 #: freeculture.xml:6317
7959 "No one set out to destroy the environment. Paul Müller certainly did not aim "
7960 "to harm any birds. But the effort to solve one set of problems produced "
7961 "another set which, in the view of some, was far worse than the problems that "
7962 "were originally attacked. Or more accurately, the problems DDT caused were "
7963 "worse than the problems it solved, at least when considering the other, more "
7964 "environmentally friendly ways to solve the problems that DDT was meant to "
7969 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
7970 #: freeculture.xml:6330
7972 "See, for example, James Boyle, \"A Politics of Intellectual Property: "
7973 "Environmentalism for the Net?\" Duke Law Journal 47 (1997): 87."
7977 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7978 #: freeculture.xml:6326
7980 "It is to this image precisely that Duke University law professor James Boyle "
7981 "appeals when he argues that we need an \"environmentalism\" for "
7982 "culture.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His point, and the point I "
7983 "want to develop in the balance of this chapter, is not that the aims of "
7984 "copyright are flawed. Or that authors should not be paid for their work. Or "
7985 "that music should be given away \"for free.\" The point is that some of the "
7986 "ways in which we might protect authors will have unintended consequences for "
7987 "the cultural environment, much like DDT had for the natural environment. And "
7988 "just as criticism of DDT is not an endorsement of malaria or an attack on "
7989 "farmers, so, too, is criticism of one particular set of regulations "
7990 "protecting copyright not an endorsement of anarchy or an attack on authors. "
7991 "It is an environment of creativity that we seek, and we should be aware of "
7992 "our actions' effects on the environment."
7995 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
7996 #: freeculture.xml:6347
7998 "My argument, in the balance of this chapter, tries to map exactly this "
7999 "effect. No doubt the technology of the Internet has had a dramatic effect on "
8000 "the ability of copyright owners to protect their content. But there should "
8001 "also be little doubt that when you add together the changes in copyright law "
8002 "over time, plus the change in technology that the Internet is undergoing "
8003 "just now, the net effect of these changes will not be only that copyrighted "
8004 "work is effectively protected. Also, and generally missed, the net effect of "
8005 "this massive increase in protection will be devastating to the environment "
8009 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8010 #: freeculture.xml:6358
8012 "In a line: To kill a gnat, we are spraying DDT with consequences for free "
8013 "culture that will be far more devastating than that this gnat will be lost."
8016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
8017 #: freeculture.xml:6364
8021 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8022 #: freeculture.xml:6366
8024 "America copied English copyright law. Actually, we copied and improved "
8025 "English copyright law. Our Constitution makes the purpose of \"creative "
8026 "property\" rights clear; its express limitations reinforce the English aim "
8027 "to avoid overly powerful publishers."
8030 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8031 #: freeculture.xml:6372
8033 "The power to establish \"creative property\" rights is granted to Congress "
8034 "in a way that, for our Constitution, at least, is very odd. Article I, "
8035 "section 8, clause 8 of our Constitution states that:"
8039 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8040 #: freeculture.xml:6377
8042 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, "
8043 "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right "
8044 "to their respective Writings and Discoveries. We can call this the "
8045 "\"Progress Clause,\" for notice what this clause does not say. It does not "
8046 "say Congress has the power to grant \"creative property rights.\" It says "
8047 "that Congress has the power to promote progress. The grant of power is its "
8048 "purpose, and its purpose is a public one, not the purpose of enriching "
8049 "publishers, nor even primarily the purpose of rewarding authors."
8052 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8053 #: freeculture.xml:6390
8055 "The Progress Clause expressly limits the term of copyrights. As we saw in "
8056 "chapter 6, the English limited the term of copyright so as to assure that a "
8057 "few would not exercise disproportionate control over culture by exercising "
8058 "disproportionate control over publishing. We can assume the framers followed "
8059 "the English for a similar purpose. Indeed, unlike the English, the framers "
8060 "reinforced that objective, by requiring that copyrights extend \"to "
8064 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8065 #: freeculture.xml:6399
8067 "The design of the Progress Clause reflects something about the "
8068 "Constitution's design in general. To avoid a problem, the framers built "
8069 "structure. To prevent the concentrated power of publishers, they built a "
8070 "structure that kept copyrights away from publishers and kept them short. To "
8071 "prevent the concentrated power of a church, they banned the federal "
8072 "government from establishing a church. To prevent concentrating power in the "
8073 "federal government, they built structures to reinforce the power of the "
8074 "states—including the Senate, whose members were at the time selected "
8075 "by the states, and an electoral college, also selected by the states, to "
8076 "select the president. In each case, a structure built checks and balances "
8077 "into the constitutional frame, structured to prevent otherwise inevitable "
8078 "concentrations of power."
8081 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8082 #: freeculture.xml:6414
8084 "I doubt the framers would recognize the regulation we call \"copyright\" "
8085 "today. The scope of that regulation is far beyond anything they ever "
8086 "considered. To begin to understand what they did, we need to put our "
8087 "\"copyright\" in context: We need to see how it has changed in the 210 years "
8088 "since they first struck its design."
8092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8093 #: freeculture.xml:6421
8095 "Some of these changes come from the law: some in light of changes in "
8096 "technology, and some in light of changes in technology given a particular "
8097 "concentration of market power. In terms of our model, we started here:"
8100 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8101 #: freeculture.xml:6432
8102 msgid "We will end here:"
8105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8106 #: freeculture.xml:6435
8107 msgid ""Copyright" today."
8110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8111 #: freeculture.xml:6436
8112 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1442.png\"></graphic>"
8116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8117 #: freeculture.xml:6439
8118 msgid "Let me explain how."
8121 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
8122 #: freeculture.xml:6444
8123 msgid "Law: Duration"
8126 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
8127 #: freeculture.xml:6459
8128 msgid "Crosskey, William W."
8131 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8132 #: freeculture.xml:6454
8134 "William W. Crosskey, Politics and the Constitution in the History of the "
8135 "United States (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953), vol. 1, "
8136 "485–86: \"extinguish[ing], by plain implication of `the supreme Law of "
8137 "the Land,' the perpetual rights which authors had, or were supposed by some "
8138 "to have, under the Common Law\" (emphasis added). <placeholder "
8139 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
8142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8143 #: freeculture.xml:6446
8145 "When the first Congress enacted laws to protect creative property, it faced "
8146 "the same uncertainty about the status of creative property that the English "
8147 "had confronted in 1774. Many states had passed laws protecting creative "
8148 "property, and some believed that these laws simply supplemented common law "
8149 "rights that already protected creative authorship.<placeholder "
8150 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> This meant that there was no guaranteed public "
8151 "domain in the United States in 1790. If copyrights were protected by the "
8152 "common law, then there was no simple way to know whether a work published in "
8153 "the United States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering "
8154 "uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public domain "
8155 "to reprint and distribute works."
8158 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8159 #: freeculture.xml:6469
8161 "That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting "
8162 "copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law, federal "
8163 "protections for copyrighted works displaced any state law protections. Just "
8164 "as in England the Statute of Anne eventually meant that the copyrights for "
8165 "all English works expired, a federal statute meant that any state copyrights "
8169 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8170 #: freeculture.xml:6477
8172 "In 1790, Congress enacted the first copyright law. It created a federal "
8173 "copyright and secured that copyright for fourteen years. If the author was "
8174 "alive at the end of that fourteen years, then he could opt to renew the "
8175 "copyright for another fourteen years. If he did not renew the copyright, his "
8176 "work passed into the public domain."
8180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8181 #: freeculture.xml:6492
8183 "Although 13,000 titles were published in the United States from 1790 to "
8184 "1799, only 556 copyright registrations were filed; John Tebbel, A History of "
8185 "Book Publishing in the United States, vol. 1, The Creation of an Industry, "
8186 "1630–1865 (New York: Bowker, 1972), 141. Of the 21,000 imprints "
8187 "recorded before 1790, only twelve were copyrighted under the 1790 act; "
8188 "William J. Maher, Copyright Term, Retrospective Extension and the Copyright "
8189 "Law of 1790 in Historical Context, 7–10 (2002), available at <ulink "
8190 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #25</ulink>. Thus, the "
8191 "overwhelming majority of works fell immediately into the public domain. Even "
8192 "those works that were copyrighted fell into the public domain quickly, "
8193 "because the term of copyright was short. The initial term of copyright was "
8194 "fourteen years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen "
8195 "years. Copyright Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 stat. 124."
8198 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8199 #: freeculture.xml:6484
8201 "While there were many works created in the United States in the first ten "
8202 "years of the Republic, only 5 percent of the works were actually registered "
8203 "under the federal copyright regime. Of all the work created in the United "
8204 "States both before 1790 and from 1790 through 1800, 95 percent immediately "
8205 "passed into the public domain; the balance would pass into the pubic domain "
8206 "within twenty-eight years at most, and more likely within fourteen "
8207 "years.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8211 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8212 #: freeculture.xml:6508
8214 "This system of renewal was a crucial part of the American system of "
8215 "copyright. It assured that the maximum terms of copyright would be granted "
8216 "only for works where they were wanted. After the initial term of fourteen "
8217 "years, if it wasn't worth it to an author to renew his copyright, then it "
8218 "wasn't worth it to society to insist on the copyright, either."
8222 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8223 #: freeculture.xml:6523
8225 "Few copyright holders ever chose to renew their copyrights. For instance, of "
8226 "the 25,006 copyrights registered in 1883, only 894 were renewed in 1910. For "
8227 "a year-by-year analysis of copyright renewal rates, see Barbara A. Ringer, "
8228 "\"Study No. 31: Renewal of Copyright,\" Studies on Copyright, vol. 1 (New "
8229 "York: Practicing Law Institute, 1963), 618. For a more recent and "
8230 "comprehensive analysis, see William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, "
8231 "\"Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,\" University of Chicago Law Review 70 "
8232 "(2003): 471, 498–501, and accompanying figures."
8235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8236 #: freeculture.xml:6517
8238 "Fourteen years may not seem long to us, but for the vast majority of "
8239 "copyright owners at that time, it was long enough: Only a small minority of "
8240 "them renewed their copyright after fourteen years; the balance allowed their "
8241 "work to pass into the public domain.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
8246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8247 #: freeculture.xml:6538
8248 msgid "See Ringer, ch. 9, n. 2."
8251 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8252 #: freeculture.xml:6534
8254 "Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work has an "
8255 "actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall out of "
8256 "print after one year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> When that "
8257 "happens, the used books are traded free of copyright regulation. Thus the "
8258 "books are no longer effectively controlled by copyright. The only practical "
8259 "commercial use of the books at that time is to sell the books as used books; "
8260 "that use—because it does not involve publication—is effectively "
8264 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8265 #: freeculture.xml:6546
8267 "In the first hundred years of the Republic, the term of copyright was "
8268 "changed once. In 1831, the term was increased from a maximum of 28 years to "
8269 "a maximum of 42 by increasing the initial term of copyright from 14 years to "
8270 "28 years. In the next fifty years of the Republic, the term increased once "
8271 "again. In 1909, Congress extended the renewal term of 14 years to 28 years, "
8272 "setting a maximum term of 56 years."
8275 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8276 #: freeculture.xml:6554
8278 "Then, beginning in 1962, Congress started a practice that has defined "
8279 "copyright law since. Eleven times in the last forty years, Congress has "
8280 "extended the terms of existing copyrights; twice in those forty years, "
8281 "Congress extended the term of future copyrights. Initially, the extensions "
8282 "of existing copyrights were short, a mere one to two years. In 1976, "
8283 "Congress extended all existing copyrights by nineteen years. And in 1998, "
8284 "in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Congress extended the term "
8285 "of existing and future copyrights by twenty years."
8289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8290 #: freeculture.xml:6564
8292 "The effect of these extensions is simply to toll, or delay, the passing of "
8293 "works into the public domain. This latest extension means that the public "
8294 "domain will have been tolled for thirty-nine out of fifty-five years, or 70 "
8295 "percent of the time since 1962. Thus, in the twenty years after the Sonny "
8296 "Bono Act, while one million patents will pass into the public domain, zero "
8297 "copyrights will pass into the public domain by virtue of the expiration of a "
8301 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8302 #: freeculture.xml:6575
8304 "The effect of these extensions has been exacerbated by another, "
8305 "little-noticed change in the copyright law. Remember I said that the framers "
8306 "established a two-part copyright regime, requiring a copyright owner to "
8307 "renew his copyright after an initial term. The requirement of renewal meant "
8308 "that works that no longer needed copyright protection would pass more "
8309 "quickly into the public domain. The works remaining under protection would "
8310 "be those that had some continuing commercial value."
8313 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8314 #: freeculture.xml:6585
8316 "The United States abandoned this sensible system in 1976. For all works "
8317 "created after 1978, there was only one copyright term—the maximum "
8318 "term. For \"natural\" authors, that term was life plus fifty years. For "
8319 "corporations, the term was seventy-five years. Then, in 1992, Congress "
8320 "abandoned the renewal requirement for all works created before 1978. All "
8321 "works still under copyright would be accorded the maximum term then "
8322 "available. After the Sonny Bono Act, that term was ninety-five years."
8325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8326 #: freeculture.xml:6595
8328 "This change meant that American law no longer had an automatic way to assure "
8329 "that works that were no longer exploited passed into the public domain. And "
8330 "indeed, after these changes, it is unclear whether it is even possible to "
8331 "put works into the public domain. The public domain is orphaned by these "
8332 "changes in copyright law. Despite the requirement that terms be \"limited,\" "
8333 "we have no evidence that anything will limit them."
8337 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8338 #: freeculture.xml:6612
8340 "These statistics are understated. Between the years 1910 and 1962 (the first "
8341 "year the renewal term was extended), the average term was never more than "
8342 "thirty-two years, and averaged thirty years. See Landes and Posner, "
8343 "\"Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,\" loc. cit."
8346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8347 #: freeculture.xml:6604
8349 "The effect of these changes on the average duration of copyright is "
8350 "dramatic. In 1973, more than 85 percent of copyright owners failed to renew "
8351 "their copyright. That meant that the average term of copyright in 1973 was "
8352 "just 32.2 years. Because of the elimination of the renewal requirement, the "
8353 "average term of copyright is now the maximum term. In thirty years, then, "
8354 "the average term has tripled, from 32.2 years to 95 years.<placeholder "
8355 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8358 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
8359 #: freeculture.xml:6621
8363 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8364 #: freeculture.xml:6623
8366 "The \"scope\" of a copyright is the range of rights granted by the law. The "
8367 "scope of American copyright has changed dramatically. Those changes are not "
8368 "necessarily bad. But we should understand the extent of the changes if we're "
8369 "to keep this debate in context."
8372 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8373 #: freeculture.xml:6629
8375 "In 1790, that scope was very narrow. Copyright covered only \"maps, charts, "
8376 "and books.\" That means it didn't cover, for example, music or "
8377 "architecture. More significantly, the right granted by a copyright gave the "
8378 "author the exclusive right to \"publish\" copyrighted works. That means "
8379 "someone else violated the copyright only if he republished the work without "
8380 "the copyright owner's permission. Finally, the right granted by a copyright "
8381 "was an exclusive right to that particular book. The right did not extend to "
8382 "what lawyers call \"derivative works.\" It would not, therefore, interfere "
8383 "with the right of someone other than the author to translate a copyrighted "
8384 "book, or to adapt the story to a different form (such as a drama based on a "
8388 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8389 #: freeculture.xml:6642
8391 "This, too, has changed dramatically. While the contours of copyright today "
8392 "are extremely hard to describe simply, in general terms, the right covers "
8393 "practically any creative work that is reduced to a tangible form. It covers "
8394 "music as well as architecture, drama as well as computer programs. It gives "
8395 "the copyright owner of that creative work not only the exclusive right to "
8396 "\"publish\" the work, but also the exclusive right of control over any "
8397 "\"copies\" of that work. And most significant for our purposes here, the "
8398 "right gives the copyright owner control over not only his or her particular "
8399 "work, but also any \"derivative work\" that might grow out of the original "
8400 "work. In this way, the right covers more creative work, protects the "
8401 "creative work more broadly, and protects works that are based in a "
8402 "significant way on the initial creative work."
8406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8407 #: freeculture.xml:6657
8409 "At the same time that the scope of copyright has expanded, procedural "
8410 "limitations on the right have been relaxed. I've already described the "
8411 "complete removal of the renewal requirement in 1992. In addition to the "
8412 "renewal requirement, for most of the history of American copyright law, "
8413 "there was a requirement that a work be registered before it could receive "
8414 "the protection of a copyright. There was also a requirement that any "
8415 "copyrighted work be marked either with that famous © or the word "
8416 "copyright. And for most of the history of American copyright law, there was "
8417 "a requirement that works be deposited with the government before a copyright "
8421 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8422 #: freeculture.xml:6670
8424 "The reason for the registration requirement was the sensible understanding "
8425 "that for most works, no copyright was required. Again, in the first ten "
8426 "years of the Republic, 95 percent of works eligible for copyright were never "
8427 "copyrighted. Thus, the rule reflected the norm: Most works apparently didn't "
8428 "need copyright, so registration narrowed the regulation of the law to the "
8429 "few that did. The same reasoning justified the requirement that a work be "
8430 "marked as copyrighted—that way it was easy to know whether a copyright "
8431 "was being claimed. The requirement that works be deposited was to assure "
8432 "that after the copyright expired, there would be a copy of the work "
8433 "somewhere so that it could be copied by others without locating the original "
8437 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8438 #: freeculture.xml:6684
8440 "All of these \"formalities\" were abolished in the American system when we "
8441 "decided to follow European copyright law. There is no requirement that you "
8442 "register a work to get a copyright; the copyright now is automatic; the "
8443 "copyright exists whether or not you mark your work with a ©; and the "
8444 "copyright exists whether or not you actually make a copy available for "
8448 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8449 #: freeculture.xml:6692
8450 msgid "Consider a practical example to understand the scope of these differences."
8454 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8455 #: freeculture.xml:6703
8457 "See Thomas Bender and David Sampliner, \"Poets, Pirates, and the Creation of "
8458 "American Literature,\" 29 New York University Journal of International Law "
8459 "and Politics 255 (1997), and James Gilraeth, ed., Federal Copyright Records, "
8460 "1790–1800 (U.S. G.P.O., 1987)."
8463 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8464 #: freeculture.xml:6696
8466 "If, in 1790, you wrote a book and you were one of the 5 percent who actually "
8467 "copyrighted that book, then the copyright law protected you against another "
8468 "publisher's taking your book and republishing it without your "
8469 "permission. The aim of the act was to regulate publishers so as to prevent "
8470 "that kind of unfair competition. In 1790, there were 174 publishers in the "
8471 "United States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Copyright Act "
8472 "was thus a tiny regulation of a tiny proportion of a tiny part of the "
8473 "creative market in the United States—publishers."
8477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8478 #: freeculture.xml:6716
8480 "The act left other creators totally unregulated. If I copied your poem by "
8481 "hand, over and over again, as a way to learn it by heart, my act was totally "
8482 "unregulated by the 1790 act. If I took your novel and made a play based upon "
8483 "it, or if I translated it or abridged it, none of those activities were "
8484 "regulated by the original copyright act. These creative activities remained "
8485 "free, while the activities of publishers were restrained."
8488 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8489 #: freeculture.xml:6726
8491 "Today the story is very different: If you write a book, your book is "
8492 "automatically protected. Indeed, not just your book. Every e-mail, every "
8493 "note to your spouse, every doodle, every creative act that's reduced to a "
8494 "tangible form—all of this is automatically copyrighted. There is no "
8495 "need to register or mark your work. The protection follows the creation, not "
8496 "the steps you take to protect it."
8499 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8500 #: freeculture.xml:6735
8502 "That protection gives you the right (subject to a narrow range of fair use "
8503 "exceptions) to control how others copy the work, whether they copy it to "
8504 "republish it or to share an excerpt."
8507 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8508 #: freeculture.xml:6740
8510 "That much is the obvious part. Any system of copyright would control "
8511 "competing publishing. But there's a second part to the copyright of today "
8512 "that is not at all obvious. This is the protection of \"derivative rights.\" "
8513 "If you write a book, no one can make a movie out of your book without "
8514 "permission. No one can translate it without permission. CliffsNotes can't "
8515 "make an abridgment unless permission is granted. All of these derivative "
8516 "uses of your original work are controlled by the copyright holder. The "
8517 "copyright, in other words, is now not just an exclusive right to your "
8518 "writings, but an exclusive right to your writings and a large proportion of "
8519 "the writings inspired by them."
8522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8523 #: freeculture.xml:6754
8525 "It is this derivative right that would seem most bizarre to our framers, "
8526 "though it has become second nature to us. Initially, this expansion was "
8527 "created to deal with obvious evasions of a narrower copyright. If I write a "
8528 "book, can you change one word and then claim a copyright in a new and "
8529 "different book? Obviously that would make a joke of the copyright, so the "
8530 "law was properly expanded to include those slight modifications as well as "
8531 "the verbatim original work."
8535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8536 #: freeculture.xml:6777
8538 "Jonathan Zittrain, \"The Copyright Cage,\" Legal Affairs, July/August 2003, "
8539 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #26</ulink>."
8542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8543 #: freeculture.xml:6767
8545 "In preventing that joke, the law created an astonishing power within a free "
8546 "culture—at least, it's astonishing when you understand that the law "
8547 "applies not just to the commercial publisher but to anyone with a "
8548 "computer. I understand the wrong in duplicating and selling someone else's "
8549 "work. But whatever that wrong is, transforming someone else's work is a "
8550 "different wrong. Some view transformation as no wrong at all—they "
8551 "believe that our law, as the framers penned it, should not protect "
8552 "derivative rights at all.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Whether "
8553 "or not you go that far, it seems plain that whatever wrong is involved is "
8554 "fundamentally different from the wrong of direct piracy."
8558 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8559 #: freeculture.xml:6792
8561 "Professor Rubenfeld has presented a powerful constitutional argument about "
8562 "the difference that copyright law should draw (from the perspective of the "
8563 "First Amendment) between mere \"copies\" and derivative works. See Jed "
8564 "Rubenfeld, \"The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's Constitutionality,\" "
8565 "Yale Law Journal 112 (2002): 1–60 (see especially pp. 53–59)."
8568 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8569 #: freeculture.xml:6786
8571 "Yet copyright law treats these two different wrongs in the same way. I can "
8572 "go to court and get an injunction against your pirating my book. I can go to "
8573 "court and get an injunction against your transformative use of my "
8574 "book.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> These two different uses of "
8575 "my creative work are treated the same."
8578 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8579 #: freeculture.xml:6803
8581 "This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should you be "
8582 "able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from it without "
8583 "paying me or crediting me? Or if Disney creates a creature called \"Mickey "
8584 "Mouse,\" why should you be able to make Mickey Mouse toys and be the one to "
8585 "trade on the value that Disney originally created?"
8588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8589 #: freeculture.xml:6812
8591 "These are good arguments, and, in general, my point is not that the "
8592 "derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to "
8593 "make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights "
8594 "originally granted."
8597 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
8598 #: freeculture.xml:6820
8599 msgid "Law and Architecture: Reach"
8603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8604 #: freeculture.xml:6827
8606 "This is a simplification of the law, but not much of one. The law certainly "
8607 "regulates more than \"copies\"—a public performance of a copyrighted "
8608 "song, for example, is regulated even though performance per se doesn't make "
8609 "a copy; 17 United States Code, section 106(4). And it certainly sometimes "
8610 "doesn't regulate a \"copy\"; 17 United States Code, section 112(a). But the "
8611 "presumption under the existing law (which regulates \"copies;\" 17 United "
8612 "States Code, section 102) is that if there is a copy, there is a right."
8615 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8616 #: freeculture.xml:6822
8618 "Whereas originally the law regulated only publishers, the change in "
8619 "copyright's scope means that the law today regulates publishers, users, and "
8620 "authors. It regulates them because all three are capable of making copies, "
8621 "and the core of the regulation of copyright law is copies.<placeholder "
8622 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
8626 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8627 #: freeculture.xml:6839
8629 "\"Copies.\" That certainly sounds like the obvious thing for copyright law "
8630 "to regulate. But as with Jack Valenti's argument at the start of this "
8631 "chapter, that \"creative property\" deserves the \"same rights\" as all "
8632 "other property, it is the obvious that we need to be most careful about. For "
8633 "while it may be obvious that in the world before the Internet, copies were "
8634 "the obvious trigger for copyright law, upon reflection, it should be obvious "
8635 "that in the world with the Internet, copies should not be the trigger for "
8636 "copyright law. More precisely, they should not always be the trigger for "
8641 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8642 #: freeculture.xml:6855
8644 "Thus, my argument is not that in each place that copyright law extends, we "
8645 "should repeal it. It is instead that we should have a good argument for its "
8646 "extending where it does, and should not determine its reach on the basis of "
8647 "arbitrary and automatic changes caused by technology."
8650 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8651 #: freeculture.xml:6850
8653 "This is perhaps the central claim of this book, so let me take this very "
8654 "slowly so that the point is not easily missed. My claim is that the Internet "
8655 "should at least force us to rethink the conditions under which the law of "
8656 "copyright automatically applies,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
8657 "because it is clear that the current reach of copyright was never "
8658 "contemplated, much less chosen, by the legislators who enacted copyright "
8662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8663 #: freeculture.xml:6866
8665 "We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely empty "
8669 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8670 #: freeculture.xml:6870
8671 msgid "All potential uses of a book."
8674 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8675 #: freeculture.xml:6871
8676 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1521.png\"></graphic>"
8680 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8681 #: freeculture.xml:6875
8683 "Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent all "
8684 "its potential uses. Most of these uses are unregulated by copyright law, "
8685 "because the uses don't create a copy. If you read a book, that act is not "
8686 "regulated by copyright law. If you give someone the book, that act is not "
8687 "regulated by copyright law. If you resell a book, that act is not regulated "
8688 "(copyright law expressly states that after the first sale of a book, the "
8689 "copyright owner can impose no further conditions on the disposition of the "
8690 "book). If you sleep on the book or use it to hold up a lamp or let your "
8691 "puppy chew it up, those acts are not regulated by copyright law, because "
8692 "those acts do not make a copy."
8695 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8696 #: freeculture.xml:6888
8697 msgid "Examples of unregulated uses of a book."
8700 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8701 #: freeculture.xml:6889
8702 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1531.png\"></graphic>"
8705 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8706 #: freeculture.xml:6892
8708 "Obviously, however, some uses of a copyrighted book are regulated by "
8709 "copyright law. Republishing the book, for example, makes a copy. It is "
8710 "therefore regulated by copyright law. Indeed, this particular use stands at "
8711 "the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the "
8712 "paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first "
8713 "diagram on next page)."
8716 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8717 #: freeculture.xml:6900
8719 "Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses that "
8720 "remain unregulated because the law considers these \"fair uses.\""
8723 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8724 #: freeculture.xml:6905
8726 "Republishing stands at the core of this circle of possible uses of a "
8730 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8731 #: freeculture.xml:6906
8732 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1541.png\"></graphic>"
8735 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8736 #: freeculture.xml:6909
8738 "These are uses that themselves involve copying, but which the law treats as "
8739 "unregulated because public policy demands that they remain unregulated. You "
8740 "are free to quote from this book, even in a review that is quite negative, "
8741 "without my permission, even though that quoting makes a copy. That copy "
8742 "would ordinarily give the copyright owner the exclusive right to say whether "
8743 "the copy is allowed or not, but the law denies the owner any exclusive right "
8744 "over such \"fair uses\" for public policy (and possibly First Amendment) "
8748 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8749 #: freeculture.xml:6920
8750 msgid "Unregulated copying considered "fair uses.""
8753 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8754 #: freeculture.xml:6921
8755 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1542.png\"></graphic>"
8758 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
8759 #: freeculture.xml:6925
8761 "Uses that before were presumptively unregulated are now presumptively "
8765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
8766 #: freeculture.xml:6926
8767 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1551.png\"></graphic>"
8771 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8772 #: freeculture.xml:6930
8774 "In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three "
8775 "sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that "
8776 "are nonetheless deemed \"fair\" regardless of the copyright owner's views."
8780 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
8781 #: freeculture.xml:6938
8783 "I don't mean \"nature\" in the sense that it couldn't be different, but "
8784 "rather that its present instantiation entails a copy. Optical networks need "
8785 "not make copies of content they transmit, and a digital network could be "
8786 "designed to delete anything it copies so that the same number of copies "
8790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8791 #: freeculture.xml:6935
8793 "Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use of a "
8794 "copyrighted work produces a copy.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
8795 "And because of this single, arbitrary feature of the design of a digital "
8796 "network, the scope of category 1 changes dramatically. Uses that before were "
8797 "presumptively unregulated are now presumptively regulated. No longer is "
8798 "there a set of presumptively unregulated uses that define a freedom "
8799 "associated with a copyrighted work. Instead, each use is now subject to the "
8800 "copyright, because each use also makes a copy—category 1 gets sucked "
8801 "into category 2. And those who would defend the unregulated uses of "
8802 "copyrighted work must look exclusively to category 3, fair uses, to bear the "
8803 "burden of this shift."
8807 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8808 #: freeculture.xml:6959
8810 "So let's be very specific to make this general point clear. Before the "
8811 "Internet, if you purchased a book and read it ten times, there would be no "
8812 "plausible copyright-related argument that the copyright owner could make to "
8813 "control that use of her book. Copyright law would have nothing to say about "
8814 "whether you read the book once, ten times, or every night before you went to "
8815 "bed. None of those instances of use—reading— could be regulated "
8816 "by copyright law because none of those uses produced a copy."
8819 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8820 #: freeculture.xml:6972
8822 "But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different set of "
8823 "rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book only once or "
8824 "only once a month, then copyright law would aid the copyright owner in "
8825 "exercising this degree of control, because of the accidental feature of "
8826 "copyright law that triggers its application upon there being a copy. Now if "
8827 "you read the book ten times and the license says you may read it only five "
8828 "times, then whenever you read the book (or any portion of it) beyond the "
8829 "fifth time, you are making a copy of the book contrary to the copyright "
8833 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8834 #: freeculture.xml:6986
8836 "There are some people who think this makes perfect sense. My aim just now is "
8837 "not to argue about whether it makes sense or not. My aim is only to make "
8838 "clear the change. Once you see this point, a few other points also become "
8842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8843 #: freeculture.xml:6992
8845 "First, making category 1 disappear is not anything any policy maker ever "
8846 "intended. Congress did not think through the collapse of the presumptively "
8847 "unregulated uses of copyrighted works. There is no evidence at all that "
8848 "policy makers had this idea in mind when they allowed our policy here to "
8849 "shift. Unregulated uses were an important part of free culture before the "
8853 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8854 #: freeculture.xml:7002
8856 "Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of transformative "
8857 "uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand the wrong in "
8858 "commercial piracy. But the law now purports to regulate any transformation "
8859 "you make of creative work using a machine. \"Copy and paste\" and \"cut and "
8860 "paste\" become crimes. Tinkering with a story and releasing it to others "
8861 "exposes the tinkerer to at least a requirement of justification. However "
8862 "troubling the expansion with respect to copying a particular work, it is "
8863 "extraordinarily troubling with respect to transformative uses of creative "
8868 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8869 #: freeculture.xml:7018
8871 "Third, this shift from category 1 to category 2 puts an extraordinary burden "
8872 "on category 3 (\"fair use\") that fair use never before had to bear. If a "
8873 "copyright owner now tried to control how many times I could read a book "
8874 "on-line, the natural response would be to argue that this is a violation of "
8875 "my fair use rights. But there has never been any litigation about whether I "
8876 "have a fair use right to read, because before the Internet, reading did not "
8877 "trigger the application of copyright law and hence the need for a fair use "
8878 "defense. The right to read was effectively protected before because reading "
8879 "was not regulated."
8882 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8883 #: freeculture.xml:7033
8885 "This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for free "
8886 "culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights depend upon fair "
8887 "use—never even addressing the earlier question about the expansion in "
8888 "effective regulation. A thin protection grounded in fair use makes sense "
8889 "when the vast majority of uses are unregulated. But when everything becomes "
8890 "presumptively regulated, then the protections of fair use are not enough."
8893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8894 #: freeculture.xml:7044
8896 "The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was in the "
8897 "business of making \"trailer\" advertisements for movies available to video "
8898 "stores. The video stores displayed the trailers as a way to sell "
8899 "videos. Video Pipeline got the trailers from the film distributors, put the "
8900 "trailers on tape, and sold the tapes to the retail stores."
8903 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8904 #: freeculture.xml:7051
8906 "The company did this for about fifteen years. Then, in 1997, it began to "
8907 "think about the Internet as another way to distribute these previews. The "
8908 "idea was to expand their \"selling by sampling\" technique by giving on-line "
8909 "stores the same ability to enable \"browsing.\" Just as in a bookstore you "
8910 "can read a few pages of a book before you buy the book, so, too, you would "
8911 "be able to sample a bit from the movie on-line before you bought it."
8915 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8916 #: freeculture.xml:7063
8918 "In 1998, Video Pipeline informed Disney and other film distributors that it "
8919 "intended to distribute the trailers through the Internet (rather than "
8920 "sending the tapes) to distributors of their videos. Two years later, Disney "
8921 "told Video Pipeline to stop. The owner of Video Pipeline asked Disney to "
8922 "talk about the matter—he had built a business on distributing this "
8923 "content as a way to help sell Disney films; he had customers who depended "
8924 "upon his delivering this content. Disney would agree to talk only if Video "
8925 "Pipeline stopped the distribution immediately. Video Pipeline thought it "
8926 "was within their \"fair use\" rights to distribute the clips as they had. So "
8927 "they filed a lawsuit to ask the court to declare that these rights were in "
8928 "fact their rights."
8931 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8932 #: freeculture.xml:7080
8934 "Disney countersued—for $100 million in damages. Those damages were "
8935 "predicated upon a claim that Video Pipeline had \"willfully infringed\" on "
8936 "Disney's copyright. When a court makes a finding of willful infringement, it "
8937 "can award damages not on the basis of the actual harm to the copyright "
8938 "owner, but on the basis of an amount set in the statute. Because Video "
8939 "Pipeline had distributed seven hundred clips of Disney movies to enable "
8940 "video stores to sell copies of those movies, Disney was now suing Video "
8941 "Pipeline for $100 million."
8944 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8945 #: freeculture.xml:7092
8947 "Disney has the right to control its property, of course. But the video "
8948 "stores that were selling Disney's films also had some sort of right to be "
8949 "able to sell the films that they had bought from Disney. Disney's claim in "
8950 "court was that the stores were allowed to sell the films and they were "
8951 "permitted to list the titles of the films they were selling, but they were "
8952 "not allowed to show clips of the films as a way of selling them without "
8953 "Disney's permission."
8956 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8957 #: freeculture.xml:7101
8959 "Now, you might think this is a close case, and I think the courts would "
8960 "consider it a close case. My point here is to map the change that gives "
8961 "Disney this power. Before the Internet, Disney couldn't really control how "
8962 "people got access to their content. Once a video was in the marketplace, the "
8963 "\"first-sale doctrine\" would free the seller to use the video as he wished, "
8964 "including showing portions of it in order to engender sales of the entire "
8965 "movie video. But with the Internet, it becomes possible for Disney to "
8966 "centralize control over access to this content. Because each use of the "
8967 "Internet produces a copy, use on the Internet becomes subject to the "
8968 "copyright owner's control. The technology expands the scope of effective "
8969 "control, because the technology builds a copy into every transaction."
8973 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8974 #: freeculture.xml:7116
8976 "No doubt, a potential is not yet an abuse, and so the potential for control "
8977 "is not yet the abuse of control. Barnes & Noble has the right to say you "
8978 "can't touch a book in their store; property law gives them that right. But "
8979 "the market effectively protects against that abuse. If Barnes & Noble "
8980 "banned browsing, then consumers would choose other bookstores. Competition "
8981 "protects against the extremes. And it may well be (my argument so far does "
8982 "not even question this) that competition would prevent any similar danger "
8983 "when it comes to copyright. Sure, publishers exercising the rights that "
8984 "authors have assigned to them might try to regulate how many times you read "
8985 "a book, or try to stop you from sharing the book with anyone. But in a "
8986 "competitive market such as the book market, the dangers of this happening "
8990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
8991 #: freeculture.xml:7134
8993 "Again, my aim so far is simply to map the changes that this changed "
8994 "architecture enables. Enabling technology to enforce the control of "
8995 "copyright means that the control of copyright is no longer defined by "
8996 "balanced policy. The control of copyright is simply what private owners "
8997 "choose. In some contexts, at least, that fact is harmless. But in some "
8998 "contexts it is a recipe for disaster."
9001 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
9002 #: freeculture.xml:7144
9003 msgid "Architecture and Law: Force"
9006 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9007 #: freeculture.xml:7146
9009 "The disappearance of unregulated uses would be change enough, but a second "
9010 "important change brought about by the Internet magnifies its "
9011 "significance. This second change does not affect the reach of copyright "
9012 "regulation; it affects how such regulation is enforced."
9015 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9016 #: freeculture.xml:7152
9018 "In the world before digital technology, it was generally the law that "
9019 "controlled whether and how someone was regulated by copyright law. The law, "
9020 "meaning a court, meaning a judge: In the end, it was a human, trained in the "
9021 "tradition of the law and cognizant of the balances that tradition embraced, "
9022 "who said whether and how the law would restrict your freedom."
9025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
9026 #: freeculture.xml:7159
9031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9032 #: freeculture.xml:7168
9034 "See David Lange, \"Recognizing the Public Domain,\" Law and Contemporary "
9035 "Problems 44 (1981): 172–73."
9038 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9039 #: freeculture.xml:7161
9041 "There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers and Warner "
9042 "Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of Casablanca. Warner "
9043 "Brothers objected. They wrote a nasty letter to the Marxes, warning them "
9044 "that there would be serious legal consequences if they went forward with "
9045 "their plan.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9049 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9050 #: freeculture.xml:7178
9051 msgid "Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 1–3."
9054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9055 #: freeculture.xml:7174
9057 "This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned Warner Brothers "
9058 "that the Marx Brothers \"were brothers long before you were.\"<placeholder "
9059 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The Marx Brothers therefore owned the word "
9060 "brothers, and if Warner Brothers insisted on trying to control Casablanca, "
9061 "then the Marx Brothers would insist on control over brothers."
9064 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9065 #: freeculture.xml:7185
9067 "An absurd and hollow threat, of course, because Warner Brothers, like the "
9068 "Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a silly "
9069 "claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone (including "
9070 "Warner Brothers) enjoyed."
9073 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9074 #: freeculture.xml:7191
9076 "On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on the "
9077 "Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a machine: "
9078 "Increasingly, the rules of copyright law, as interpreted by the copyright "
9079 "owner, get built into the technology that delivers copyrighted content. It "
9080 "is code, rather than law, that rules. And the problem with code regulations "
9081 "is that, unlike law, code has no shame. Code would not get the humor of the "
9082 "Marx Brothers. The consequence of that is not at all funny."
9085 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9086 #: freeculture.xml:7202
9087 msgid "Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader."
9090 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9091 #: freeculture.xml:7205
9093 "An e-book is a book delivered in electronic form. An Adobe eBook is not a "
9094 "book that Adobe has published; Adobe simply produces the software that "
9095 "publishers use to deliver e-books. It provides the technology, and the "
9096 "publisher delivers the content by using the technology."
9099 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9100 #: freeculture.xml:7212
9101 msgid "On the next page is a picture of an old version of my Adobe eBook Reader."
9105 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9106 #: freeculture.xml:7216
9108 "As you can see, I have a small collection of e-books within this e-book "
9109 "library. Some of these books reproduce content that is in the public domain: "
9110 "Middlemarch, for example, is in the public domain. Some of them reproduce "
9111 "content that is not in the public domain: My own book The Future of Ideas is "
9112 "not yet within the public domain. Consider Middlemarch first. If you click "
9113 "on my e-book copy of Middlemarch, you'll see a fancy cover, and then a "
9114 "button at the bottom called Permissions."
9117 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9118 #: freeculture.xml:7227
9119 msgid "Picture of an old version of Adobe eBook Reader"
9122 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9123 #: freeculture.xml:7228
9124 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1611.png\"></graphic>"
9127 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9128 #: freeculture.xml:7231
9130 "If you click on the Permissions button, you'll see a list of the permissions "
9131 "that the publisher purports to grant with this book."
9134 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9135 #: freeculture.xml:7235
9136 msgid "List of the permissions that the publisher purports to grant."
9139 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9140 #: freeculture.xml:7236
9141 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1612.png\"></graphic>"
9145 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9146 #: freeculture.xml:7240
9148 "According to my eBook Reader, I have the permission to copy to the clipboard "
9149 "of the computer ten text selections every ten days. (So far, I've copied no "
9150 "text to the clipboard.) I also have the permission to print ten pages from "
9151 "the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the permission to use the Read Aloud "
9152 "button to hear Middlemarch read aloud through the computer."
9155 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9156 #: freeculture.xml:7256
9158 "Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the "
9159 "translation): Aristotle's Politics."
9162 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9163 #: freeculture.xml:7260
9164 msgid "E-book of Aristotle;s "Politics""
9167 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9168 #: freeculture.xml:7261
9169 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1621.png\"></graphic>"
9172 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9173 #: freeculture.xml:7264
9175 "According to its permissions, no printing or copying is permitted at "
9176 "all. But fortunately, you can use the Read Aloud button to hear the book."
9179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9180 #: freeculture.xml:7269
9181 msgid "List of the permissions for Aristotle;s "Politics"."
9184 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9185 #: freeculture.xml:7270
9186 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1622.png\"></graphic>"
9189 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9190 #: freeculture.xml:7273
9192 "Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the original "
9193 "e-book version of my last book, The Future of Ideas:"
9196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9197 #: freeculture.xml:7278
9198 msgid "List of the permissions for "The Future of Ideas"."
9201 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9202 #: freeculture.xml:7279
9203 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1631.png\"></graphic>"
9206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9207 #: freeculture.xml:7282
9208 msgid "No copying, no printing, and don't you dare try to listen to this book!"
9212 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9213 #: freeculture.xml:7292
9215 "In principle, a contract might impose a requirement on me. I might, for "
9216 "example, buy a book from you that includes a contract that says I will read "
9217 "it only three times, or that I promise to read it three times. But that "
9218 "obligation (and the limits for creating that obligation) would come from the "
9219 "contract, not from copyright law, and the obligations of contract would not "
9220 "necessarily pass to anyone who subsequently acquired the book."
9223 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9224 #: freeculture.xml:7285
9226 "Now, the Adobe eBook Reader calls these controls \"permissions\"— as "
9227 "if the publisher has the power to control how you use these works. For "
9228 "works under copyright, the copyright owner certainly does have the "
9229 "power—up to the limits of the copyright law. But for work not under "
9230 "copyright, there is no such copyright power.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9231 "id=\"0\"/> When my e-book of Middlemarch says I have the permission to copy "
9232 "only ten text selections into the memory every ten days, what that really "
9233 "means is that the eBook Reader has enabled the publisher to control how I "
9234 "use the book on my computer, far beyond the control that the law would "
9238 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9239 #: freeculture.xml:7307
9241 "The control comes instead from the code—from the technology within "
9242 "which the e-book \"lives.\" Though the e-book says that these are "
9243 "permissions, they are not the sort of \"permissions\" that most of us deal "
9244 "with. When a teenager gets \"permission\" to stay out till midnight, she "
9245 "knows (unless she's Cinderella) that she can stay out till 2 A.M., but will "
9246 "suffer a punishment if she's caught. But when the Adobe eBook Reader says I "
9247 "have the permission to make ten copies of the text into the computer's "
9248 "memory, that means that after I've made ten copies, the computer will not "
9249 "make any more. The same with the printing restrictions: After ten pages, the "
9250 "eBook Reader will not print any more pages. It's the same with the silly "
9251 "restriction that says that you can't use the Read Aloud button to read my "
9252 "book aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if you do; instead, "
9253 "if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine simply won't "
9258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9259 #: freeculture.xml:7325
9261 "These are controls, not permissions. Imagine a world where the Marx Brothers "
9262 "sold word processing software that, when you tried to type \"Warner "
9263 "Brothers,\" erased \"Brothers\" from the sentence."
9266 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9267 #: freeculture.xml:7330
9269 "This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright law as copyright "
9270 "code. The controls over access to content will not be controls that are "
9271 "ratified by courts; the controls over access to content will be controls "
9272 "that are coded by programmers. And whereas the controls that are built into "
9273 "the law are always to be checked by a judge, the controls that are built "
9274 "into the technology have no similar built-in check."
9277 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9278 #: freeculture.xml:7338
9280 "How significant is this? Isn't it always possible to get around the controls "
9281 "built into the technology? Software used to be sold with technologies that "
9282 "limited the ability of users to copy the software, but those were trivial "
9283 "protections to defeat. Why won't it be trivial to defeat these protections "
9287 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9288 #: freeculture.xml:7346
9290 "We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe eBook "
9294 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9295 #: freeculture.xml:7350
9297 "Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public "
9298 "relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free on the "
9299 "Adobe site was a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This wonderful "
9300 "book is in the public domain. Yet when you clicked on Permissions for that "
9301 "book, you got the following report:"
9304 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9305 #: freeculture.xml:7358
9306 msgid "List of the permissions for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"."
9309 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9310 #: freeculture.xml:7360
9311 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1641.png\"></graphic>"
9315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9316 #: freeculture.xml:7364
9318 "Here was a public domain children's book that you were not allowed to copy, "
9319 "not allowed to lend, not allowed to give, and, as the \"permissions\" "
9320 "indicated, not allowed to \"read aloud\"!"
9323 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9324 #: freeculture.xml:7371
9326 "The public relations nightmare attached to that final permission. For the "
9327 "text did not say that you were not permitted to use the Read Aloud button; "
9328 "it said you did not have the permission to read the book aloud. That led "
9329 "some people to think that Adobe was restricting the right of parents, for "
9330 "example, to read the book to their children, which seemed, to say the least, "
9334 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9335 #: freeculture.xml:7379
9337 "Adobe responded quickly that it was absurd to think that it was trying to "
9338 "restrict the right to read a book aloud. Obviously it was only restricting "
9339 "the ability to use the Read Aloud button to have the book read aloud. But "
9340 "the question Adobe never did answer is this: Would Adobe thus agree that a "
9341 "consumer was free to use software to hack around the restrictions built into "
9342 "the eBook Reader? If some company (call it Elcomsoft) developed a program to "
9343 "disable the technological protection built into an Adobe eBook so that a "
9344 "blind person, say, could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe "
9345 "agree that such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer "
9346 "because the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no."
9349 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9350 #: freeculture.xml:7392
9352 "The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most innovative "
9353 "companies developing strategies to balance open access to content with "
9354 "incentives for companies to innovate. But Adobe's technology enables "
9355 "control, and Adobe has an incentive to defend this control. That incentive "
9356 "is understandable, yet what it creates is often crazy."
9359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9360 #: freeculture.xml:7400
9362 "To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite story "
9363 "of mine that makes the same point."
9366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
9367 #: freeculture.xml:7403 freeculture.xml:7445
9368 msgid "Aibo robotic dog"
9371 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9372 #: freeculture.xml:7405
9374 "Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named \"Aibo.\" The Aibo learns "
9375 "tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity and that "
9376 "doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house)."
9380 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9381 #: freeculture.xml:7410
9383 "The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world have set up "
9384 "clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web site to enable "
9385 "information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set up aibopet.com "
9386 "(and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site), and on that site he "
9387 "provided information about how to teach an Aibo to do tricks in addition to "
9388 "the ones Sony had taught it."
9391 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9392 #: freeculture.xml:7419
9394 "\"Teach\" here has a special meaning. Aibos are just cute computers. You "
9395 "teach a computer how to do something by programming it differently. So to "
9396 "say that aibopet.com was giving information about how to teach the dog to do "
9397 "new tricks is just to say that aibopet.com was giving information to users "
9398 "of the Aibo pet about how to hack their computer \"dog\" to make it do new "
9399 "tricks (thus, aibohack.com)."
9402 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9403 #: freeculture.xml:7427
9405 "If you're not a programmer or don't know many programmers, the word hack has "
9406 "a particularly unfriendly connotation. Nonprogrammers hack bushes or "
9407 "weeds. Nonprogrammers in horror movies do even worse. But to programmers, or "
9408 "coders, as I call them, hack is a much more positive term. Hack just means "
9409 "code that enables the program to do something it wasn't originally intended "
9410 "or enabled to do. If you buy a new printer for an old computer, you might "
9411 "find the old computer doesn't run, or \"drive,\" the printer. If you "
9412 "discovered that, you'd later be happy to discover a hack on the Net by "
9413 "someone who has written a driver to enable the computer to drive the printer "
9417 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9418 #: freeculture.xml:7439
9420 "Some hacks are easy. Some are unbelievably hard. Hackers as a community like "
9421 "to challenge themselves and others with increasingly difficult "
9422 "tasks. There's a certain respect that goes with the talent to hack "
9423 "well. There's a well-deserved respect that goes with the talent to hack "
9427 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9428 #: freeculture.xml:7447
9430 "The Aibo fan was displaying a bit of both when he hacked the program and "
9431 "offered to the world a bit of code that would enable the Aibo to dance "
9432 "jazz. The dog wasn't programmed to dance jazz. It was a clever bit of "
9433 "tinkering that turned the dog into a more talented creature than Sony had "
9438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9439 #: freeculture.xml:7454
9441 "I've told this story in many contexts, both inside and outside the United "
9442 "States. Once I was asked by a puzzled member of the audience, is it "
9443 "permissible for a dog to dance jazz in the United States? We forget that "
9444 "stories about the backcountry still flow across much of the world. So let's "
9445 "just be clear before we continue: It's not a crime anywhere (anymore) to "
9446 "dance jazz. Nor is it a crime to teach your dog to dance jazz. Nor should it "
9447 "be a crime (though we don't have a lot to go on here) to teach your robot "
9448 "dog to dance jazz. Dancing jazz is a completely legal activity. One imagines "
9449 "that the owner of aibopet.com thought, What possible problem could there be "
9450 "with teaching a robot dog to dance?"
9453 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9454 #: freeculture.xml:7470
9456 "Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show— not "
9457 "literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic named Ed "
9458 "Felten prepared for a conference. This Princeton academic is well known and "
9459 "respected. He was hired by the government in the Microsoft case to test "
9460 "Microsoft's claims about what could and could not be done with its own "
9461 "code. In that trial, he demonstrated both his brilliance and his "
9462 "coolness. Under heavy badgering by Microsoft lawyers, Ed Felten stood his "
9463 "ground. He was not about to be bullied into being silent about something he "
9467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><indexterm><primary>
9468 #: freeculture.xml:7493 freeculture.xml:9922
9469 msgid "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
9472 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9473 #: freeculture.xml:7483
9475 "See Pamela Samuelson, \"Anticircumvention Rules: Threat to Science,\" "
9476 "Science 293 (2001): 2028; Brendan I. Koerner, \"Play Dead: Sony Muzzles the "
9477 "Techies Who Teach a Robot Dog New Tricks,\" American Prospect, January 2002; "
9478 "\"Court Dismisses Computer Scientists' Challenge to DMCA,\" Intellectual "
9479 "Property Litigation Reporter, 11 December 2001; Bill Holland, \"Copyright "
9480 "Act Raising Free-Speech Concerns,\" Billboard, May 2001; Janelle Brown, \"Is "
9481 "the RIAA Running Scared?\" Salon.com, April 2001; Electronic Frontier "
9482 "Foundation, \"Frequently Asked Questions about Felten and USENIX v. RIAA "
9483 "Legal Case,\" available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
9484 "#27</ulink>. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9488 #: freeculture.xml:7481
9490 "But Felten's bravery was really tested in April 2001.<placeholder "
9491 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> He and a group of colleagues were working on a "
9492 "paper to be submitted at conference. The paper was intended to describe the "
9493 "weakness in an encryption system being developed by the Secure Digital Music "
9494 "Initiative as a technique to control the distribution of music."
9497 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9498 #: freeculture.xml:7501
9500 "The SDMI coalition had as its goal a technology to enable content owners to "
9501 "exercise much better control over their content than the Internet, as it "
9502 "originally stood, granted them. Using encryption, SDMI hoped to develop a "
9503 "standard that would allow the content owner to say \"this music cannot be "
9504 "copied,\" and have a computer respect that command. The technology was to "
9505 "be part of a \"trusted system\" of control that would get content owners to "
9506 "trust the system of the Internet much more."
9509 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9510 #: freeculture.xml:7511
9512 "When SDMI thought it was close to a standard, it set up a competition. In "
9513 "exchange for providing contestants with the code to an SDMI-encrypted bit of "
9514 "content, contestants were to try to crack it and, if they did, report the "
9515 "problems to the consortium."
9519 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9520 #: freeculture.xml:7518
9522 "Felten and his team figured out the encryption system quickly. He and the "
9523 "team saw the weakness of this system as a type: Many encryption systems "
9524 "would suffer the same weakness, and Felten and his team thought it "
9525 "worthwhile to point this out to those who study encryption."
9528 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9529 #: freeculture.xml:7524
9531 "Let's review just what Felten was doing. Again, this is the United "
9532 "States. We have a principle of free speech. We have this principle not just "
9533 "because it is the law, but also because it is a really great idea. A "
9534 "strongly protected tradition of free speech is likely to encourage a wide "
9535 "range of criticism. That criticism is likely, in turn, to improve the "
9536 "systems or people or ideas criticized."
9539 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9540 #: freeculture.xml:7532
9542 "What Felten and his colleagues were doing was publishing a paper describing "
9543 "the weakness in a technology. They were not spreading free music, or "
9544 "building and deploying this technology. The paper was an academic essay, "
9545 "unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the weakness in the "
9546 "SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently constituted, succeed."
9549 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9550 #: freeculture.xml:7540
9552 "What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they then "
9553 "received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the aibopet.com "
9554 "hack. Though a jazz-dancing dog is perfectly legal, Sony wrote:"
9557 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
9558 #: freeculture.xml:7547
9560 "Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent AIBO-ware's "
9561 "copy protection protocol constituting a violation of the anti-circumvention "
9562 "provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
9565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9566 #: freeculture.xml:7553
9568 "And though an academic paper describing the weakness in a system of "
9569 "encryption should also be perfectly legal, Felten received a letter from an "
9570 "RIAA lawyer that read:"
9574 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
9575 #: freeculture.xml:7559
9577 "Any disclosure of information gained from participating in the Public "
9578 "Challenge would be outside the scope of activities permitted by the "
9579 "Agreement and could subject you and your research team to actions under the "
9580 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (\"DMCA\")."
9583 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9584 #: freeculture.xml:7567
9586 "In both cases, this weirdly Orwellian law was invoked to control the spread "
9587 "of information. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act made spreading such "
9588 "information an offense."
9591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9592 #: freeculture.xml:7572
9594 "The DMCA was enacted as a response to copyright owners' first fear about "
9595 "cyberspace. The fear was that copyright control was effectively dead; the "
9596 "response was to find technologies that might compensate. These new "
9597 "technologies would be copyright protection technologies— technologies "
9598 "to control the replication and distribution of copyrighted material. They "
9599 "were designed as code to modify the original code of the Internet, to "
9600 "reestablish some protection for copyright owners."
9603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9604 #: freeculture.xml:7581
9606 "The DMCA was a bit of law intended to back up the protection of this code "
9607 "designed to protect copyrighted material. It was, we could say, legal code "
9608 "intended to buttress software code which itself was intended to support the "
9609 "legal code of copyright."
9612 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9613 #: freeculture.xml:7587
9615 "But the DMCA was not designed merely to protect copyrighted works to the "
9616 "extent copyright law protected them. Its protection, that is, did not end at "
9617 "the line that copyright law drew. The DMCA regulated devices that were "
9618 "designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. It was designed to ban "
9619 "those devices, whether or not the use of the copyrighted material made "
9620 "possible by that circumvention would have been a copyright violation."
9624 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9625 #: freeculture.xml:7596
9627 "Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a "
9628 "copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to dance "
9629 "jazz. That enablement no doubt involved the use of copyrighted material. But "
9630 "as aibopet.com's site was noncommercial, and the use did not enable "
9631 "subsequent copyright infringements, there's no doubt that aibopet.com's hack "
9632 "was fair use of Sony's copyrighted material. Yet fair use is not a defense "
9633 "to the DMCA. The question is not whether the use of the copyrighted material "
9634 "was a copyright violation. The question is whether a copyright protection "
9635 "system was circumvented."
9638 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9639 #: freeculture.xml:7608
9641 "The threat against Felten was more attenuated, but it followed the same line "
9642 "of reasoning. By publishing a paper describing how a copyright protection "
9643 "system could be circumvented, the RIAA lawyer suggested, Felten himself was "
9644 "distributing a circumvention technology. Thus, even though he was not "
9645 "himself infringing anyone's copyright, his academic paper was enabling "
9646 "others to infringe others' copyright."
9649 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9650 #: freeculture.xml:7616
9652 "The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in 1981 by "
9653 "Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that the VCR could "
9654 "be banned because it was a copyright-infringing technology: It enabled "
9655 "consumers to copy films without the permission of the copyright owner. No "
9656 "doubt there were uses of the technology that were legal: Fred Rogers, aka "
9657 "\"Mr. Rogers,\" for example, had testified in that case that he wanted "
9658 "people to feel free to tape Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."
9662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
9663 #: freeculture.xml:7642
9665 "Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, "
9666 "455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the VCR. See James "
9667 "Lardner, Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the VCR "
9668 "(New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 270–71."
9671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
9672 #: freeculture.xml:7627
9674 "Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "
9675 "\"Neighborhood\" at hours when some children cannot use it. I think that "
9676 "it's a real service to families to be able to record such programs and show "
9677 "them at appropriate times. I have always felt that with the advent of all of "
9678 "this new technology that allows people to tape the \"Neighborhood\" "
9679 "off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the \"Neighborhood\" because that's what I "
9680 "produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their "
9681 "family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being "
9682 "programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been "
9683 "\"You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy "
9684 "decisions.\" Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that "
9685 "allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a "
9686 "healthy way, is important.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9690 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9691 #: freeculture.xml:7651
9693 "Even though there were uses that were legal, because there were some uses "
9694 "that were illegal, the court held the companies producing the VCR "
9698 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9699 #: freeculture.xml:7656
9700 msgid "This led Conrad to draw the cartoon below, which we can adopt to the DMCA."
9703 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9704 #: freeculture.xml:7660
9705 msgid "No argument I have can top this picture, but let me try to get close."
9708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9709 #: freeculture.xml:7663
9711 "The anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA target copyright circumvention "
9712 "technologies. Circumvention technologies can be used for different "
9713 "ends. They can be used, for example, to enable massive pirating of "
9714 "copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used to enable the use "
9715 "of particular copyrighted materials in ways that would be considered fair "
9716 "use—a good end."
9720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9721 #: freeculture.xml:7671
9723 "A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most would agree "
9724 "such a use is bad. Or a handgun can be used for target practice or to "
9725 "protect against an intruder. At least some would say that such a use would "
9726 "be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good and bad uses."
9729 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
9730 #: freeculture.xml:7679
9731 msgid "VCR/handgun cartoon."
9734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
9735 #: freeculture.xml:7680
9736 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1711.png\"></graphic>"
9739 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9740 #: freeculture.xml:7683
9742 "The obvious point of Conrad's cartoon is the weirdness of a world where guns "
9743 "are legal, despite the harm they can do, while VCRs (and circumvention "
9744 "technologies) are illegal. Flash: No one ever died from copyright "
9745 "circumvention. Yet the law bans circumvention technologies absolutely, "
9746 "despite the potential that they might do some good, but permits guns, "
9747 "despite the obvious and tragic harm they do."
9750 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9751 #: freeculture.xml:7691
9753 "The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are changing the "
9754 "balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright owners restrict "
9755 "fair use; using the DMCA, they punish those who would attempt to evade the "
9756 "restrictions on fair use that they impose through code. Technology becomes a "
9757 "means by which fair use can be erased; the law of the DMCA backs up that "
9761 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9762 #: freeculture.xml:7699
9764 "This is how code becomes law. The controls built into the technology of copy "
9765 "and access protection become rules the violation of which is also a "
9766 "violation of the law. In this way, the code extends the law—increasing "
9767 "its regulation, even if the subject it regulates (activities that would "
9768 "otherwise plainly constitute fair use) is beyond the reach of the law. Code "
9769 "becomes law; code extends the law; code thus extends the control that "
9770 "copyright owners effect—at least for those copyright holders with the "
9771 "lawyers who can write the nasty letters that Felten and aibopet.com "
9775 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9776 #: freeculture.xml:7709
9778 "There is one final aspect of the interaction between architecture and law "
9779 "that contributes to the force of copyright's regulation. This is the ease "
9780 "with which infringements of the law can be detected. For contrary to the "
9781 "rhetoric common at the birth of cyberspace that on the Internet, no one "
9782 "knows you're a dog, increasingly, given changing technologies deployed on "
9783 "the Internet, it is easy to find the dog who committed a legal wrong. The "
9784 "technologies of the Internet are open to snoops as well as sharers, and the "
9785 "snoops are increasingly good at tracking down the identity of those who "
9786 "violate the rules."
9790 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9791 #: freeculture.xml:7728
9793 "For an early and prescient analysis, see Rebecca Tushnet, \"Legal Fictions, "
9794 "Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law,\" Loyola of Los Angeles "
9795 "Entertainment Law Journal 17 (1997): 651."
9798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9799 #: freeculture.xml:7722
9801 "For example, imagine you were part of a Star Trek fan club. You gathered "
9802 "every month to share trivia, and maybe to enact a kind of fan fiction about "
9803 "the show. One person would play Spock, another, Captain Kirk. The characters "
9804 "would begin with a plot from a real story, then simply continue "
9805 "it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
9808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9809 #: freeculture.xml:7734
9811 "Before the Internet, this was, in effect, a totally unregulated activity. "
9812 "No matter what happened inside your club room, you would never be interfered "
9813 "with by the copyright police. You were free in that space to do as you "
9814 "wished with this part of our culture. You were allowed to build on it as you "
9815 "wished without fear of legal control."
9818 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9819 #: freeculture.xml:7741
9821 "But if you moved your club onto the Internet, and made it generally "
9822 "available for others to join, the story would be very different. Bots "
9823 "scouring the Net for trademark and copyright infringement would quickly find "
9824 "your site. Your posting of fan fiction, depending upon the ownership of the "
9825 "series that you're depicting, could well inspire a lawyer's threat. And "
9826 "ignoring the lawyer's threat would be extremely costly indeed. The law of "
9827 "copyright is extremely efficient. The penalties are severe, and the process "
9831 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9832 #: freeculture.xml:7751
9834 "This change in the effective force of the law is caused by a change in the "
9835 "ease with which the law can be enforced. That change too shifts the law's "
9836 "balance radically. It is as if your car transmitted the speed at which you "
9837 "traveled at every moment that you drove; that would be just one step before "
9838 "the state started issuing tickets based upon the data you transmitted. That "
9839 "is, in effect, what is happening here."
9842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
9843 #: freeculture.xml:7760
9844 msgid "Market: Concentration"
9848 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9849 #: freeculture.xml:7762
9851 "So copyright's duration has increased dramatically—tripled in the past "
9852 "thirty years. And copyright's scope has increased as well—from "
9853 "regulating only publishers to now regulating just about everyone. And "
9854 "copyright's reach has changed, as every action becomes a copy and hence "
9855 "presumptively regulated. And as technologists find better ways to control "
9856 "the use of content, and as copyright is increasingly enforced through "
9857 "technology, copyright's force changes, too. Misuse is easier to find and "
9858 "easier to control. This regulation of the creative process, which began as a "
9859 "tiny regulation governing a tiny part of the market for creative work, has "
9860 "become the single most important regulator of creativity there is. It is a "
9861 "massive expansion in the scope of the government's control over innovation "
9862 "and creativity; it would be totally unrecognizable to those who gave birth "
9863 "to copyright's control."
9866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9867 #: freeculture.xml:7780
9869 "Still, in my view, all of these changes would not matter much if it weren't "
9870 "for one more change that we must also consider. This is a change that is in "
9871 "some sense the most familiar, though its significance and scope are not well "
9872 "understood. It is the one that creates precisely the reason to be concerned "
9873 "about all the other changes I have described."
9876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9877 #: freeculture.xml:7787
9879 "This is the change in the concentration and integration of the media. In "
9880 "the past twenty years, the nature of media ownership has undergone a radical "
9881 "alteration, caused by changes in legal rules governing the media. Before "
9882 "this change happened, the different forms of media were owned by separate "
9883 "media companies. Now, the media is increasingly owned by only a few "
9884 "companies. Indeed, after the changes that the FCC announced in June 2003, "
9885 "most expect that within a few years, we will live in a world where just "
9886 "three companies control more than percent of the media."
9889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9890 #: freeculture.xml:7798
9891 msgid "These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its nature."
9894 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
9895 #: freeculture.xml:7801
9900 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9901 #: freeculture.xml:7807
9903 "FCC Oversight: Hearing Before the Senate Commerce, Science and "
9904 "Transportation Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (22 May 2003) (statement "
9905 "of Senator John McCain)."
9909 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9910 #: freeculture.xml:7814
9912 "Lynette Holloway, \"Despite a Marketing Blitz, CD Sales Continue to Slide,\" "
9913 "New York Times, 23 December 2002."
9917 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
9918 #: freeculture.xml:7820
9920 "Molly Ivins, \"Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,\" Charleston Gazette, 31 "
9924 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9925 #: freeculture.xml:7803
9927 "Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John McCain "
9928 "summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media ownership, \"five "
9929 "companies control 85 percent of our media sources.\"<placeholder "
9930 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The five recording labels of Universal Music "
9931 "Group, BMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI control "
9932 "84.8 percent of the U.S. music market.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9933 "id=\"1\"/> The \"five largest cable companies pipe programming to 74 percent "
9934 "of the cable subscribers nationwide.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
9939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9940 #: freeculture.xml:7825
9942 "The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation, the "
9943 "nation's largest radio broadcasting conglomerate owned fewer than "
9944 "seventy-five stations. Today one company owns more than 1,200 stations. "
9945 "During that period of consolidation, the total number of radio owners "
9946 "dropped by 34 percent. Today, in most markets, the two largest broadcasters "
9947 "control 74 percent of that market's revenues. Overall, just four companies "
9948 "control 90 percent of the nation's radio advertising revenues."
9951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9952 #: freeculture.xml:7836
9954 "Newspaper ownership is becoming more concentrated as well. Today, there are "
9955 "six hundred fewer daily newspapers in the United States than there were "
9956 "eighty years ago, and ten companies control half of the nation's "
9957 "circulation. There are twenty major newspaper publishers in the United "
9958 "States. The top ten film studios receive 99 percent of all film revenue. The "
9959 "ten largest cable companies account for 85 percent of all cable "
9960 "revenue. This is a market far from the free press the framers sought to "
9961 "protect. Indeed, it is a market that is quite well protected— by the "
9965 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
9966 #: freeculture.xml:7850 freeculture.xml:7867
9967 msgid "Fallows, James"
9970 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
9971 #: freeculture.xml:7847
9973 "Concentration in size alone is one thing. The more invidious change is in "
9974 "the nature of that concentration. As author James Fallows put it in a recent "
9975 "article about Rupert Murdoch, <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9978 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
9979 #: freeculture.xml:7865
9981 "James Fallows, \"The Age of Murdoch,\" Atlantic Monthly (September 2003): "
9982 "89. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
9985 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
9986 #: freeculture.xml:7854
9988 "Murdoch's companies now constitute a production system unmatched in its "
9989 "integration. They supply content—Fox movies . . . Fox TV shows "
9990 ". . . Fox-controlled sports broadcasts, plus newspapers and books. They sell "
9991 "the content to the public and to advertisers—in newspapers, on the "
9992 "broadcast network, on the cable channels. And they operate the physical "
9993 "distribution system through which the content reaches the "
9994 "customers. Murdoch's satellite systems now distribute News Corp. content in "
9995 "Europe and Asia; if Murdoch becomes DirecTV's largest single owner, that "
9996 "system will serve the same function in the United States.<placeholder "
9997 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10000 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10001 #: freeculture.xml:7872
10003 "The pattern with Murdoch is the pattern of modern media. Not just large "
10004 "companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies owning as many "
10005 "outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this pattern better than a "
10006 "thousand words could do:"
10009 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure><title>
10010 #: freeculture.xml:7878
10011 msgid "Pattern of modern media ownership."
10014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><figure>
10015 #: freeculture.xml:7879
10016 msgid "<graphic fileref=\"images/1761.png\"></graphic>"
10020 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10021 #: freeculture.xml:7883
10023 "Does this concentration matter? Will it affect what is made, or what is "
10024 "distributed? Or is it merely a more efficient way to produce and distribute "
10028 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10029 #: freeculture.xml:7888
10031 "My view was that concentration wouldn't matter. I thought it was nothing "
10032 "more than a more efficient financial structure. But now, after reading and "
10033 "listening to a barrage of creators try to convince me to the contrary, I am "
10034 "beginning to change my mind."
10037 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10038 #: freeculture.xml:7894
10040 "Here's a representative story that begins to suggest how this integration "
10044 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
10045 #: freeculture.xml:7897
10046 msgid "Lear, Norman"
10049 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
10050 #: freeculture.xml:7899 freeculture.xml:7963
10051 msgid "All in the Family"
10054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10055 #: freeculture.xml:7901
10057 "In 1969, Norman Lear created a pilot for All in the Family. He took the "
10058 "pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It was too edgy, they told "
10059 "Lear. Make it again. Lear made a second pilot, more edgy than the first. ABC "
10060 "was exasperated. You're missing the point, they told Lear. We wanted less "
10065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10066 #: freeculture.xml:7913
10068 "Leonard Hill, \"The Axis of Access,\" remarks before Weidenbaum Center "
10069 "Forum, \"Entertainment Economics: The Movie Industry,\" St. Louis, Missouri, "
10070 "3 April 2003 (transcript of prepared remarks available at <ulink "
10071 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #28</ulink>; for the Lear story, "
10072 "not included in the prepared remarks, see <ulink "
10073 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #29</ulink>)."
10076 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10077 #: freeculture.xml:7908
10079 "Rather than comply, Lear simply took the show elsewhere. CBS was happy to "
10080 "have the series; ABC could not stop Lear from walking. The copyrights that "
10081 "Lear held assured an independence from network control.<placeholder "
10082 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10087 #: freeculture.xml:7925
10089 "The network did not control those copyrights because the law forbade the "
10090 "networks from controlling the content they syndicated. The law required a "
10091 "separation between the networks and the content producers; that separation "
10092 "would guarantee Lear freedom. And as late as 1992, because of these rules, "
10093 "the vast majority of prime time television—75 percent of it—was "
10094 "\"independent\" of the networks."
10098 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10099 #: freeculture.xml:7944
10101 "NewsCorp./DirecTV Merger and Media Consolidation: Hearings on Media "
10102 "Ownership Before the Senate Commerce Committee, 108th Cong., 1st "
10103 "sess. (2003) (testimony of Gene Kimmelman on behalf of Consumers Union and "
10104 "the Consumer Federation of America), available at <ulink "
10105 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #30</ulink>. Kimmelman quotes "
10106 "Victoria Riskin, president of Writers Guild of America, West, in her Remarks "
10107 "at FCC En Banc Hearing, Richmond, Virginia, 27 February 2003."
10110 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10111 #: freeculture.xml:7934
10113 "In 1994, the FCC abandoned the rules that required this independence. After "
10114 "that change, the networks quickly changed the balance. In 1985, there were "
10115 "twenty-five independent television production studios; in 2002, only five "
10116 "independent television studios remained. \"In 1992, only 15 percent of new "
10117 "series were produced for a network by a company it controlled. Last year, "
10118 "the percentage of shows produced by controlled companies more than "
10119 "quintupled to 77 percent.\" \"In 1992, 16 new series were produced "
10120 "independently of conglomerate control, last year there was "
10121 "one.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In 2002, 75 percent of prime "
10122 "time television was owned by the networks that ran it. \"In the ten-year "
10123 "period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television hours per "
10124 "week produced by network studios increased over 200%, whereas the number of "
10125 "prime time television hours per week produced by independent studios "
10126 "decreased 63%.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
10129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10130 #: freeculture.xml:7965
10132 "Today, another Norman Lear with another All in the Family would find that he "
10133 "had the choice either to make the show less edgy or to be fired: The content "
10134 "of any show developed for a network is increasingly owned by the network."
10137 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10138 #: freeculture.xml:7971
10140 "While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership of "
10141 "those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As Barry "
10142 "Diller said to Bill Moyers,"
10146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
10147 #: freeculture.xml:7986
10149 "\"Barry Diller Takes on Media Deregulation,\" Now with Bill Moyers, Bill "
10150 "Moyers, 25 April 2003, edited transcript available at <ulink "
10151 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #31</ulink>."
10154 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
10155 #: freeculture.xml:7977
10157 "Well, if you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their "
10158 "channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their "
10159 "controlled distribution system, then what you get is fewer and fewer actual "
10160 "voices participating in the process. [We u]sed to have dozens and dozens of "
10161 "thriving independent production companies producing television programs. Now "
10162 "you have less than a handful.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10165 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10166 #: freeculture.xml:7993
10168 "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large "
10169 "and concentrated networks is increasingly homogenous. Increasingly "
10170 "safe. Increasingly sterile. The product of news shows from networks like "
10171 "this is increasingly tailored to the message the network wants to "
10172 "convey. This is not the communist party, though from the inside, it must "
10173 "feel a bit like the communist party. No one can question without risk of "
10174 "consequence—not necessarily banishment to Siberia, but punishment "
10175 "nonetheless. Independent, critical, different views are quashed. This is not "
10176 "the environment for a democracy."
10179 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
10180 #: freeculture.xml:8004
10181 msgid "Clark, Kim B."
10185 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10186 #: freeculture.xml:8013
10188 "Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary National "
10189 "Bestseller that Changed the Way We Do Business (Cambridge: Harvard Business "
10190 "School Press, 1997). Christensen acknowledges that the idea was first "
10191 "suggested by Dean Kim Clark. See Kim B. Clark, \"The Interaction of Design "
10192 "Hierarchies and Market Concepts in Technological Evolution,\" Research "
10193 "Policy 14 (1985): 235–51. For a more recent study, see Richard Foster "
10194 "and Sarah Kaplan, Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last "
10195 "Underperform the Market—and How to Successfully Transform Them (New "
10196 "York: Currency/Doubleday, 2001)."
10199 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10200 #: freeculture.xml:8006
10202 "Economics itself offers a parallel that explains why this integration "
10203 "affects creativity. Clay Christensen has written about the \"Innovator's "
10204 "Dilemma\": the fact that large traditional firms find it rational to ignore "
10205 "new, breakthrough technologies that compete with their core business. The "
10206 "same analysis could help explain why large, traditional media companies "
10207 "would find it rational to ignore new cultural trends.<placeholder "
10208 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Lumbering giants not only don't, but should "
10209 "not, sprint. Yet if the field is only open to the giants, there will be far "
10210 "too little sprinting. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
10213 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10214 #: freeculture.xml:8030
10216 "I don't think we know enough about the economics of the media market to say "
10217 "with certainty what concentration and integration will do. The efficiencies "
10218 "are important, and the effect on culture is hard to measure."
10221 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10222 #: freeculture.xml:8036
10224 "But there is a quintessentially obvious example that does strongly suggest "
10228 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10229 #: freeculture.xml:8040
10231 "In addition to the copyright wars, we're in the middle of the drug "
10232 "wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels; "
10233 "criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle."
10237 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10238 #: freeculture.xml:8045
10240 "Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to any "
10241 "position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound mistake. I "
10242 "am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once wrecked by "
10243 "drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all quite legal. I "
10244 "believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral damage from it "
10245 "is so great as to make waging the war insane. When you add together the "
10246 "burdens on the criminal justice system, the desperation of generations of "
10247 "kids whose only real economic opportunities are as drug warriors, the "
10248 "queering of constitutional protections because of the constant surveillance "
10249 "this war requires, and, most profoundly, the total destruction of the legal "
10250 "systems of many South American nations because of the power of the local "
10251 "drug cartels, I find it impossible to believe that the marginal benefit in "
10252 "reduced drug consumption by Americans could possibly outweigh these costs."
10255 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10256 #: freeculture.xml:8064
10258 "You may not be convinced. That's fine. We live in a democracy, and it is "
10259 "through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we depend "
10260 "fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about these issues."
10263 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10264 #: freeculture.xml:8070
10266 "Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched a "
10267 "media campaign as part of the \"war on drugs.\" The campaign produced scores "
10268 "of short film clips about issues related to illegal drugs. In one series "
10269 "(the Nick and Norm series) two men are in a bar, discussing the idea of "
10270 "legalizing drugs as a way to avoid some of the collateral damage from the "
10271 "war. One advances an argument in favor of drug legalization. The other "
10272 "responds in a powerful and effective way against the argument of the "
10273 "first. In the end, the first guy changes his mind (hey, it's "
10274 "television). The plug at the end is a damning attack on the pro-legalization "
10278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10279 #: freeculture.xml:8082
10281 "Fair enough. It's a good ad. Not terribly misleading. It delivers its "
10282 "message well. It's a fair and reasonable message."
10285 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10286 #: freeculture.xml:8086
10288 "But let's say you think it is a wrong message, and you'd like to run a "
10289 "countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to "
10290 "demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the drug "
10291 "war. Can you do it?"
10295 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10296 #: freeculture.xml:8092
10298 "Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the "
10299 "money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in the "
10300 "world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message will be "
10305 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10306 #: freeculture.xml:8109
10308 "The Marijuana Policy Project, in February 2003, sought to place ads that "
10309 "directly responded to the Nick and Norm series on stations within the "
10310 "Washington, D.C., area. Comcast rejected the ads as \"against [their] "
10311 "policy.\" The local NBC affiliate, WRC, rejected the ads without reviewing "
10312 "them. The local ABC affiliate, WJOA, originally agreed to run the ads and "
10313 "accepted payment to do so, but later decided not to run the ads and returned "
10314 "the collected fees. Interview with Neal Levine, 15 October 2003. These "
10315 "restrictions are, of course, not limited to drug policy. See, for example, "
10316 "Nat Ives, \"On the Issue of an Iraq War, Advocacy Ads Meet with Rejection "
10317 "from TV Networks,\" New York Times, 13 March 2003, C4. Outside of "
10318 "election-related air time there is very little that the FCC or the courts "
10319 "are willing to do to even the playing field. For a general overview, see "
10320 "Rhonda Brown, \"Ad Hoc Access: The Regulation of Editorial Advertising on "
10321 "Television and Radio,\" Yale Law and Policy Review 6 (1988): 449–79, "
10322 "and for a more recent summary of the stance of the FCC and the courts, see "
10323 "Radio-Television News Directors Association v. FCC, 184 F. 3d 872 "
10324 "(D.C. Cir. 1999). Municipal authorities exercise the same authority as the "
10325 "networks. In a recent example from San Francisco, the San Francisco transit "
10326 "authority rejected an ad that criticized its Muni diesel buses. Phillip "
10327 "Matier and Andrew Ross, \"Antidiesel Group Fuming After Muni Rejects Ad,\" "
10328 "SFGate.com, 16 June 2003, available at <ulink "
10329 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #32</ulink>. The ground was that "
10330 "the criticism was \"too controversial.\""
10333 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10334 #: freeculture.xml:8099
10336 "No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding "
10337 "\"controversial\" ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed "
10338 "uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial. "
10339 "This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment, but "
10340 "the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to choose what they "
10341 "run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media will refuse one side of a "
10342 "crucial debate the opportunity to present its case. And the courts will "
10343 "defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.<placeholder "
10344 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10347 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10348 #: freeculture.xml:8136
10350 "I'd be happy to defend the networks' rights, as well—if we lived in a "
10351 "media market that was truly diverse. But concentration in the media throws "
10352 "that condition into doubt. If a handful of companies control access to the "
10353 "media, and that handful of companies gets to decide which political "
10354 "positions it will allow to be promoted on its channels, then in an obvious "
10355 "and important way, concentration matters. You might like the positions the "
10356 "handful of companies selects. But you should not like a world in which a "
10357 "mere few get to decide which issues the rest of us get to know about."
10360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
10361 #: freeculture.xml:8148
10365 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10366 #: freeculture.xml:8150
10368 "There is something innocent and obvious about the claim of the copyright "
10369 "warriors that the government should \"protect my property.\" In the "
10370 "abstract, it is obviously true and, ordinarily, totally harmless. No sane "
10371 "sort who is not an anarchist could disagree."
10375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10376 #: freeculture.xml:8156
10378 "But when we see how dramatically this \"property\" has changed— when "
10379 "we recognize how it might now interact with both technology and markets to "
10380 "mean that the effective constraint on the liberty to cultivate our culture "
10381 "is dramatically different—the claim begins to seem less innocent and "
10382 "obvious. Given (1) the power of technology to supplement the law's control, "
10383 "and (2) the power of concentrated markets to weaken the opportunity for "
10384 "dissent, if strictly enforcing the massively expanded \"property\" rights "
10385 "granted by copyright fundamentally changes the freedom within this culture "
10386 "to cultivate and build upon our past, then we have to ask whether this "
10387 "property should be redefined."
10390 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10391 #: freeculture.xml:8172
10393 "Not starkly. Or absolutely. My point is not that we should abolish copyright "
10394 "or go back to the eighteenth century. That would be a total mistake, "
10395 "disastrous for the most important creative enterprises within our culture "
10399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10400 #: freeculture.xml:8178
10402 "But there is a space between zero and one, Internet culture "
10403 "notwithstanding. And these massive shifts in the effective power of "
10404 "copyright regulation, tied to increased concentration of the content "
10405 "industry and resting in the hands of technology that will increasingly "
10406 "enable control over the use of culture, should drive us to consider whether "
10407 "another adjustment is called for. Not an adjustment that increases "
10408 "copyright's power. Not an adjustment that increases its term. Rather, an "
10409 "adjustment to restore the balance that has traditionally defined copyright's "
10410 "regulation—a weakening of that regulation, to strengthen creativity."
10413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10414 #: freeculture.xml:8190
10416 "Copyright law has not been a rock of Gibraltar. It's not a set of constant "
10417 "commitments that, for some mysterious reason, teenagers and geeks now "
10418 "flout. Instead, copyright power has grown dramatically in a short period of "
10419 "time, as the technologies of distribution and creation have changed and as "
10420 "lobbyists have pushed for more control by copyright holders. Changes in the "
10421 "past in response to changes in technology suggest that we may well need "
10422 "similar changes in the future. And these changes have to be reductions in "
10423 "the scope of copyright, in response to the extraordinary increase in control "
10424 "that technology and the market enable."
10428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10429 #: freeculture.xml:8202
10431 "For the single point that is lost in this war on pirates is a point that we "
10432 "see only after surveying the range of these changes. When you add together "
10433 "the effect of changing law, concentrated markets, and changing technology, "
10434 "together they produce an astonishing conclusion: Never in our history have "
10435 "fewer had a legal right to control more of the development of our culture "
10440 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10441 #: freeculture.xml:8224
10443 "Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a similar point in his \"four surrenders\" of "
10444 "copyright law in the digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60."
10447 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10448 #: freeculture.xml:8210
10450 "Not when copyrights were perpetual, for when copyrights were perpetual, they "
10451 "affected only that precise creative work. Not when only publishers had the "
10452 "tools to publish, for the market then was much more diverse. Not when there "
10453 "were only three television networks, for even then, newspapers, film "
10454 "studios, radio stations, and publishers were independent of the "
10455 "networks. Never has copyright protected such a wide range of rights, against "
10456 "as broad a range of actors, for a term that was remotely as long. This form "
10457 "of regulation—a tiny regulation of a tiny part of the creative energy "
10458 "of a nation at the founding—is now a massive regulation of the overall "
10459 "creative process. Law plus technology plus the market now interact to turn "
10460 "this historically benign regulation into the most significant regulation of "
10461 "culture that our free society has known.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
10465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10466 #: freeculture.xml:8229
10467 msgid "This has been a long chapter. Its point can now be briefly stated."
10470 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10471 #: freeculture.xml:8232
10473 "At the start of this book, I distinguished between commercial and "
10474 "noncommercial culture. In the course of this chapter, I have distinguished "
10475 "between copying a work and transforming it. We can now combine these two "
10476 "distinctions and draw a clear map of the changes that copyright law has "
10477 "undergone. In 1790, the law looked like this:"
10480 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
10481 #: freeculture.xml:8245 freeculture.xml:8283
10485 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
10486 #: freeculture.xml:8246 freeculture.xml:8284 freeculture.xml:8323 freeculture.xml:8356
10490 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
10491 #: freeculture.xml:8251 freeculture.xml:8289 freeculture.xml:8328 freeculture.xml:8361
10495 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
10496 #: freeculture.xml:8252 freeculture.xml:8290 freeculture.xml:8291 freeculture.xml:8329 freeculture.xml:8330 freeculture.xml:8362 freeculture.xml:8363 freeculture.xml:8367 freeculture.xml:8368
10500 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
10501 #: freeculture.xml:8253 freeculture.xml:8257 freeculture.xml:8258 freeculture.xml:8295 freeculture.xml:8296 freeculture.xml:8335
10505 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
10506 #: freeculture.xml:8256 freeculture.xml:8294 freeculture.xml:8333 freeculture.xml:8366
10507 msgid "Noncommercial"
10511 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10512 #: freeculture.xml:8265
10514 "The act of publishing a map, chart, and book was regulated by copyright "
10515 "law. Nothing else was. Transformations were free. And as copyright attached "
10516 "only with registration, and only those who intended to benefit commercially "
10517 "would register, copying through publishing of noncommercial work was also "
10521 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10522 #: freeculture.xml:8274
10523 msgid "By the end of the nineteenth century, the law had changed to this:"
10526 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10527 #: freeculture.xml:8303
10529 "Derivative works were now regulated by copyright law—if published, "
10530 "which again, given the economics of publishing at the time, means if offered "
10531 "commercially. But noncommercial publishing and transformation were still "
10532 "essentially free."
10535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10536 #: freeculture.xml:8309
10538 "In 1909 the law changed to regulate copies, not publishing, and after this "
10539 "change, the scope of the law was tied to technology. As the technology of "
10540 "copying became more prevalent, the reach of the law expanded. Thus by 1975, "
10541 "as photocopying machines became more common, we could say the law began to "
10545 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><thead><row><entry>
10546 #: freeculture.xml:8322 freeculture.xml:8355
10550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><table><tgroup><tbody><row><entry>
10551 #: freeculture.xml:8334
10552 msgid "©/Free"
10555 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10556 #: freeculture.xml:8342
10558 "The law was interpreted to reach noncommercial copying through, say, copy "
10559 "machines, but still much of copying outside of the commercial market "
10560 "remained free. But the consequence of the emergence of digital technologies, "
10561 "especially in the context of a digital network, means that the law now looks "
10566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10567 #: freeculture.xml:8375
10569 "Every realm is governed by copyright law, whereas before most creativity was "
10570 "not. The law now regulates the full range of creativity— commercial or "
10571 "not, transformative or not—with the same rules designed to regulate "
10572 "commercial publishers."
10575 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10576 #: freeculture.xml:8383
10578 "Obviously, copyright law is not the enemy. The enemy is regulation that does "
10579 "no good. So the question that we should be asking just now is whether "
10580 "extending the regulations of copyright law into each of these domains "
10581 "actually does any good."
10584 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10585 #: freeculture.xml:8389
10587 "I have no doubt that it does good in regulating commercial copying. But I "
10588 "also have no doubt that it does more harm than good when regulating (as it "
10589 "regulates just now) noncommercial copying and, especially, noncommercial "
10590 "transformation. And increasingly, for the reasons sketched especially in "
10591 "chapters 7 and 8, one might well wonder whether it does more harm than good "
10592 "for commercial transformation. More commercial transformative work would be "
10593 "created if derivative rights were more sharply restricted."
10597 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
10598 #: freeculture.xml:8405
10600 "It was the single most important contribution of the legal realist movement "
10601 "to demonstrate that all property rights are always crafted to balance public "
10602 "and private interests. See Thomas C. Grey, \"The Disintegration of "
10603 "Property,\" in Nomos XXII: Property, J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, "
10604 "eds. (New York: New York University Press, 1980)."
10607 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10608 #: freeculture.xml:8399
10610 "The issue is therefore not simply whether copyright is property. Of course "
10611 "copyright is a kind of \"property,\" and of course, as with any property, "
10612 "the state ought to protect it. But first impressions notwithstanding, "
10613 "historically, this property right (as with all property rights<placeholder "
10614 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>) has been crafted to balance the important "
10615 "need to give authors and artists incentives with the equally important need "
10616 "to assure access to creative work. This balance has always been struck in "
10617 "light of new technologies. And for almost half of our tradition, the "
10618 "\"copyright\" did not control at all the freedom of others to build upon or "
10619 "transform a creative work. American culture was born free, and for almost "
10620 "180 years our country consistently protected a vibrant and rich free "
10625 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10626 #: freeculture.xml:8422
10628 "We achieved that free culture because our law respected important limits on "
10629 "the scope of the interests protected by \"property.\" The very birth of "
10630 "\"copyright\" as a statutory right recognized those limits, by granting "
10631 "copyright owners protection for a limited time only (the story of chapter "
10632 "6). The tradition of \"fair use\" is animated by a similar concern that is "
10633 "increasingly under strain as the costs of exercising any fair use right "
10634 "become unavoidably high (the story of chapter 7). Adding statutory rights "
10635 "where markets might stifle innovation is another familiar limit on the "
10636 "property right that copyright is (chapter 8). And granting archives and "
10637 "libraries a broad freedom to collect, claims of property notwithstanding, is "
10638 "a crucial part of guaranteeing the soul of a culture (chapter 9). Free "
10639 "cultures, like free markets, are built with property. But the nature of the "
10640 "property that builds a free culture is very different from the extremist "
10641 "vision that dominates the debate today."
10644 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
10645 #: freeculture.xml:8441
10647 "Free culture is increasingly the casualty in this war on piracy. In response "
10648 "to a real, if not yet quantified, threat that the technologies of the "
10649 "Internet present to twentieth-century business models for producing and "
10650 "distributing culture, the law and technology are being transformed in a way "
10651 "that will undermine our tradition of free culture. The property right that "
10652 "is copyright is no longer the balanced right that it was, or was intended to "
10653 "be. The property right that is copyright has become unbalanced, tilted "
10654 "toward an extreme. The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened "
10655 "in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check "
10659 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
10660 #: freeculture.xml:8458
10664 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
10665 #: freeculture.xml:8462
10666 msgid "CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera"
10669 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
10670 #: freeculture.xml:8464
10674 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
10675 #: freeculture.xml:8467
10676 msgid "Wells, H. G."
10679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
10680 #: freeculture.xml:8470
10681 msgid ""Country of the Blind, The" (Wells)"
10685 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
10686 #: freeculture.xml:8478
10688 "H. G. Wells, \"The Country of the Blind\" (1904, 1911). See H. G. Wells, The "
10689 "Country of the Blind and Other Stories, Michael Sherborne, ed. (New York: "
10690 "Oxford University Press, 1996)."
10693 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10694 #: freeculture.xml:8474
10696 "In a well-known short story by H. G. Wells, a mountain climber named Nunez "
10697 "trips (literally, down an ice slope) into an unknown and isolated valley in "
10698 "the Peruvian Andes.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The valley is "
10699 "extraordinarily beautiful, with \"sweet water, pasture, an even climate, "
10700 "slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an excellent "
10701 "fruit.\" But the villagers are all blind. Nunez takes this as an "
10702 "opportunity. \"In the Country of the Blind,\" he tells himself, \"the "
10703 "One-Eyed Man is King.\" So he resolves to live with the villagers to explore "
10707 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10708 #: freeculture.xml:8490
10710 "Things don't go quite as he planned. He tries to explain the idea of sight "
10711 "to the villagers. They don't understand. He tells them they are \"blind.\" "
10712 "They don't have the word blind. They think he's just thick. Indeed, as they "
10713 "increasingly notice the things he can't do (hear the sound of grass being "
10714 "stepped on, for example), they increasingly try to control him. He, in turn, "
10715 "becomes increasingly frustrated. \"`You don't understand,' he cried, in a "
10716 "voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and which broke. `You are "
10717 "blind and I can see. Leave me alone!'\""
10721 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10722 #: freeculture.xml:8502
10724 "The villagers don't leave him alone. Nor do they see (so to speak) the "
10725 "virtue of his special power. Not even the ultimate target of his affection, "
10726 "a young woman who to him seems \"the most beautiful thing in the whole of "
10727 "creation,\" understands the beauty of sight. Nunez's description of what he "
10728 "sees \"seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she listened to his "
10729 "description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet white-lit "
10730 "beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence.\" \"She did not believe,\" "
10731 "Wells tells us, and \"she could only half understand, but she was "
10732 "mysteriously delighted.\""
10735 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10736 #: freeculture.xml:8513
10738 "When Nunez announces his desire to marry his \"mysteriously delighted\" "
10739 "love, the father and the village object. \"You see, my dear,\" her father "
10740 "instructs, \"he's an idiot. He has delusions. He can't do anything right.\" "
10741 "They take Nunez to the village doctor."
10744 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10745 #: freeculture.xml:8519
10747 "After a careful examination, the doctor gives his opinion. \"His brain is "
10748 "affected,\" he reports."
10751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10752 #: freeculture.xml:8523
10754 "\"What affects it?\" the father asks. \"Those queer things that are called "
10755 "the eyes . . . are diseased . . . in such a way as to affect his brain.\""
10758 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10759 #: freeculture.xml:8528
10761 "The doctor continues: \"I think I may say with reasonable certainty that in "
10762 "order to cure him completely, all that we need to do is a simple and easy "
10763 "surgical operation—namely, to remove these irritant bodies [the "
10768 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10769 #: freeculture.xml:8534
10771 "\"Thank Heaven for science!\" says the father to the doctor. They inform "
10772 "Nunez of this condition necessary for him to be allowed his bride. (You'll "
10773 "have to read the original to learn what happens in the end. I believe in "
10774 "free culture, but never in giving away the end of a story.) It sometimes "
10775 "happens that the eggs of twins fuse in the mother's womb. That fusion "
10776 "produces a \"chimera.\" A chimera is a single creature with two sets of "
10777 "DNA. The DNA in the blood, for example, might be different from the DNA of "
10778 "the skin. This possibility is an underused plot for murder mysteries. \"But "
10779 "the DNA shows with 100 percent certainty that she was not the person whose "
10780 "blood was at the scene. . . .\""
10783 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10784 #: freeculture.xml:8551
10786 "Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A "
10787 "single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is "
10788 "the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have "
10789 "the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different "
10790 "sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a \"person\" should reflect "
10794 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10795 #: freeculture.xml:8559
10797 "The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and "
10798 "culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly "
10799 "enough, \"the copyright wars,\" the more I think we're dealing with a "
10800 "chimera. For example, in the battle over the question \"What is p2p file "
10801 "sharing?\" both sides have it right, and both sides have it wrong. One side "
10802 "says, \"File sharing is just like two kids taping each others' "
10803 "records—the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty years "
10804 "without any question at all.\" That's true, at least in part. When I tell my "
10805 "best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but rather than just send "
10806 "the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all relevant respects, "
10807 "just like what every executive in every recording company no doubt did as a "
10808 "kid: sharing music."
10811 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10812 #: freeculture.xml:8573
10814 "But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a "
10815 "p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my "
10816 "friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of \"friends\" beyond "
10817 "recognition to say \"my ten thousand best friends\" can get access. Whether "
10818 "or not sharing my music with my best friend is what \"we have always been "
10819 "allowed to do,\" we have not always been allowed to share music with \"our "
10820 "ten thousand best friends.\""
10823 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10824 #: freeculture.xml:8582
10826 "Likewise, when the other side says, \"File sharing is just like walking into "
10827 "a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with it,\" "
10828 "that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) releases a "
10829 "new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free copy to "
10830 "take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower."
10834 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10835 #: freeculture.xml:8592
10837 "But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from "
10838 "Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from "
10839 "Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on "
10840 "my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a "
10841 "CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under "
10842 "California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if "
10843 "I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)"
10846 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10847 #: freeculture.xml:8602
10849 "The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it "
10850 "is both—both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is "
10851 "a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we "
10852 "need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What "
10853 "rules should govern it?"
10857 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
10858 #: freeculture.xml:8617
10860 "For an excellent summary, see the report prepared by GartnerG2 and the "
10861 "Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, \"Copyright "
10862 "and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,\" 27 June 2003, available at "
10863 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #33</ulink>. Reps. John "
10864 "Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) have introduced a bill "
10865 "that would treat unauthorized on-line copying as a felony offense with "
10866 "punishments ranging as high as five years imprisonment; see Jon Healey, "
10867 "\"House Bill Aims to Up Stakes on Piracy,\" Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2003, "
10868 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
10869 "#34</ulink>. Civil penalties are currently set at $150,000 per copied "
10870 "song. For a recent (and unsuccessful) legal challenge to the RIAA's demand "
10871 "that an ISP reveal the identity of a user accused of sharing more than 600 "
10872 "songs through a family computer, see RIAA v. Verizon Internet Services (In "
10873 "re. Verizon Internet Services), 240 F. Supp. 2d 24 (D.D.C. 2003). Such a "
10874 "user could face liability ranging as high as $90 million. Such astronomical "
10875 "figures furnish the RIAA with a powerful arsenal in its prosecution of file "
10876 "sharers. Settlements ranging from $12,000 to $17,500 for four students "
10877 "accused of heavy file sharing on university networks must have seemed a mere "
10878 "pittance next to the $98 billion the RIAA could seek should the matter "
10879 "proceed to court. See Elizabeth Young, \"Downloading Could Lead to Fines,\" "
10880 "redandblack.com, August 2003, available at <ulink "
10881 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #35</ulink>. For an example of "
10882 "the RIAA's targeting of student file sharing, and of the subpoenas issued to "
10883 "universities to reveal student file-sharer identities, see James Collins, "
10884 "\"RIAA Steps Up Bid to Force BC, MIT to Name Students,\" Boston Globe, 8 "
10885 "August 2003, D3, available at <ulink "
10886 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #36</ulink>."
10889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10890 #: freeculture.xml:8609
10892 "We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, "
10893 "with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We "
10894 "could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because "
10895 "file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to "
10896 "monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit "
10897 "this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either "
10898 "been proposed or actually implemented.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
10902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10903 #: freeculture.xml:8654
10905 "Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as "
10906 "though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no "
10907 "copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted "
10908 "content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if "
10909 "at all, by social norms but not by law."
10912 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10913 #: freeculture.xml:8661
10915 "Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than "
10916 "embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that "
10917 "recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a "
10918 "system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how "
10919 "awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe "
10920 "either extreme would be worse than a reasonable alternative. But I believe "
10921 "the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse of the two extremes."
10925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10926 #: freeculture.xml:8673
10928 "Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of "
10929 "the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is "
10930 "occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders "
10931 "a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in "
10932 "this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity "
10936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10937 #: freeculture.xml:8681
10939 "I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to \"steal\" music. My "
10940 "focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this war will "
10941 "also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so broadly among "
10942 "our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation that this power "
10943 "will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing of one cycle of "
10944 "innovation around technologies to distribute content. The law is responsible "
10945 "for this passing. As the vice president for global public policy at one of "
10946 "these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing the DMCA's added "
10947 "protection for copyrighted material,"
10950 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
10951 #: freeculture.xml:8694
10953 "eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, "
10954 "and we want to protect those rights."
10957 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
10958 #: freeculture.xml:8698
10960 "But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major "
10961 "labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it "
10962 "necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market "
10963 "forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different "
10968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
10969 #: freeculture.xml:8715
10971 "WIPO and the DMCA One Year Later: Assessing Consumer Access to Digital "
10972 "Entertainment on the Internet and Other Media: Hearing Before the "
10973 "Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, House "
10974 "Committee on Commerce, 106th Cong. 29 (1999) (statement of Peter Harter, "
10975 "vice president, Global Public Policy and Standards, EMusic.com), available "
10976 "in LEXIS, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony File."
10979 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
10980 #: freeculture.xml:8706
10982 "This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with "
10983 "respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for "
10984 "digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in "
10985 "turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, "
10986 "both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital "
10987 "media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made "
10988 "this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting "
10989 "everyone's interests.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
10992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
10993 #: freeculture.xml:8730
10995 "In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of \"the "
10996 "major labels.\" Its position on these matters has now changed."
10999 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11000 #: freeculture.xml:8735
11002 "Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It "
11003 "will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill "
11004 "opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable."
11007 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
11008 #: freeculture.xml:8743
11009 msgid "CHAPTER TWELVE: Harms"
11012 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11013 #: freeculture.xml:8746
11015 "To fight \"piracy,\" to protect \"property,\" the content industry has "
11016 "launched a war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought "
11017 "the government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both "
11018 "direct and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages "
11019 "will be suffered most by our own people."
11022 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11023 #: freeculture.xml:8754
11025 "My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in "
11026 "particular, the consequences for \"free culture.\" But my aim now is to "
11027 "extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war "
11031 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11032 #: freeculture.xml:8761
11034 "In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first "
11035 "time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of "
11036 "the property called \"intellectual property\" is at its greatest in our "
11040 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11041 #: freeculture.xml:8769
11043 "Yet \"common sense\" does not see it this way. Common sense is still on the "
11044 "side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme claims of control "
11045 "in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical rejection of "
11046 "\"piracy\" still has play."
11050 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
11051 #: freeculture.xml:8776
11053 "There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe "
11054 "just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident "
11055 "the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two "
11056 "protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight "
11057 "today's monopolists of culture."
11060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
11061 #: freeculture.xml:8783
11062 msgid "Constraining Creators"
11065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11066 #: freeculture.xml:8785
11068 "In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. "
11069 "These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share "
11070 "content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done "
11071 "since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and "
11072 "sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are "
11073 "different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on "
11074 "Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about "
11075 "the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to "
11076 "hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against "
11077 "statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave "
11078 "together a string—a mash-up— of songs from your favorite artists "
11079 "in a collage and make it available on the Net."
11082 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11083 #: freeculture.xml:8800
11085 "This digital \"capturing and sharing\" is in part an extension of the "
11086 "capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and in "
11087 "part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it explodes "
11088 "the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of digital "
11089 "\"capturing and sharing\" promises a world of extraordinarily diverse "
11090 "creativity that can be easily and broadly shared. And as that creativity is "
11091 "applied to democracy, it will enable a broad range of citizens to use "
11092 "technology to express and criticize and contribute to the culture all "
11097 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11098 #: freeculture.xml:8811
11100 "Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture "
11101 "that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated "
11102 "from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of "
11103 "neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended "
11104 "across the globe."
11107 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11108 #: freeculture.xml:8821
11110 "Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the "
11111 "current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a "
11112 "moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that "
11113 "offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog "
11114 "cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize "
11115 "politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote "
11116 "topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread "
11117 "across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is "
11118 "presumptively illegal."
11122 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11123 #: freeculture.xml:8844
11125 "See Lynne W. Jeter, Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at WorldCom (Hoboken, "
11126 "N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 176, 204; for details of the settlement, "
11127 "see MCI press release, \"MCI Wins U.S. District Court Approval for SEC "
11128 "Settlement\" (7 July 2003), available at <ulink "
11129 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #37</ulink>."
11132 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11133 #: freeculture.xml:8864
11134 msgid "Bush, George W."
11137 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11138 #: freeculture.xml:8855
11140 "The bill, modeled after California's tort reform model, was passed in the "
11141 "House of Representatives but defeated in a Senate vote in July 2003. For an "
11142 "overview, see Tanya Albert, \"Measure Stalls in Senate: `We'll Be Back,' Say "
11143 "Tort Reformers,\" amednews.com, 28 July 2003, available at <ulink "
11144 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #38</ulink>, and \"Senate Turns "
11145 "Back Malpractice Caps,\" CBSNews.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
11146 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #39</ulink>. President Bush has "
11147 "continued to urge tort reform in recent months. <placeholder "
11148 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11151 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11152 #: freeculture.xml:8832
11154 "That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of "
11155 "extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is "
11156 "impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the "
11157 "same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The "
11158 "four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 "
11159 "was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search "
11160 "engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World-Com—which "
11161 "defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in "
11162 "market capitalization of over $200 billion—received a fine of a mere "
11163 "$750 million.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And under legislation "
11164 "being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the "
11165 "wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in "
11166 "damages for pain and suffering.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> Can "
11167 "common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for "
11168 "downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's "
11169 "negligently butchering a patient?"
11173 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11174 #: freeculture.xml:8891
11176 "See Danit Lidor, \"Artists Just Wanna Be Free,\" Wired, 7 July 2003, "
11177 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
11178 "#40</ulink>. For an overview of the exhibition, see <ulink "
11179 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #41</ulink>."
11182 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11183 #: freeculture.xml:8871
11185 "The consequence of this legal uncertainty, tied to these extremely high "
11186 "penalties, is that an extraordinary amount of creativity will either never "
11187 "be exercised, or never be exercised in the open. We drive this creative "
11188 "process underground by branding the modern-day Walt Disneys \"pirates.\" We "
11189 "make it impossible for businesses to rely upon a public domain, because the "
11190 "boundaries of the public domain are designed to be unclear. It never pays to "
11191 "do anything except pay for the right to create, and hence only those who can "
11192 "pay are allowed to create. As was the case in the Soviet Union, though for "
11193 "very different reasons, we will begin to see a world of underground "
11194 "art—not because the message is necessarily political, or because the "
11195 "subject is controversial, but because the very act of creating the art is "
11196 "legally fraught. Already, exhibits of \"illegal art\" tour the United "
11197 "States.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> In what does their "
11198 "\"illegality\" consist? In the act of mixing the culture around us with an "
11199 "expression that is critical or reflective."
11202 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11203 #: freeculture.xml:8902
11205 "Part of the reason for this fear of illegality has to do with the changing "
11206 "law. I described that change in detail in chapter 10. But an even bigger "
11207 "part has to do with the increasing ease with which infractions can be "
11208 "tracked. As users of file-sharing systems discovered in 2002, it is a "
11209 "trivial matter for copyright owners to get courts to order Internet service "
11210 "providers to reveal who has what content. It is as if your cassette tape "
11211 "player transmitted a list of the songs that you played in the privacy of "
11212 "your own home that anyone could tune into for whatever reason they chose."
11215 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11216 #: freeculture.xml:8913
11218 "Never in our history has a painter had to worry about whether his painting "
11219 "infringed on someone else's work; but the modern-day painter, using the "
11220 "tools of Photoshop, sharing content on the Web, must worry all the "
11221 "time. Images are all around, but the only safe images to use in the act of "
11222 "creation are those purchased from Corbis or another image farm. And in "
11223 "purchasing, censoring happens. There is a free market in pencils; we needn't "
11224 "worry about its effect on creativity. But there is a highly regulated, "
11225 "monopolized market in cultural icons; the right to cultivate and transform "
11226 "them is not similarly free."
11229 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11230 #: freeculture.xml:8924
11232 "Lawyers rarely see this because lawyers are rarely empirical. As I described "
11233 "in chapter 7, in response to the story about documentary filmmaker Jon Else, "
11234 "I have been lectured again and again by lawyers who insist Else's use was "
11235 "fair use, and hence I am wrong to say that the law regulates such a use."
11239 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11240 #: freeculture.xml:8933
11242 "But fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend "
11243 "your right to create. And as lawyers love to forget, our system for "
11244 "defending rights such as fair use is astonishingly bad—in practically "
11245 "every context, but especially here. It costs too much, it delivers too "
11246 "slowly, and what it delivers often has little connection to the justice "
11247 "underlying the claim. The legal system may be tolerable for the very rich. "
11248 "For everyone else, it is an embarrassment to a tradition that prides itself "
11249 "on the rule of law."
11252 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11253 #: freeculture.xml:8943
11255 "Judges and lawyers can tell themselves that fair use provides adequate "
11256 "\"breathing room\" between regulation by the law and the access the law "
11257 "should allow. But it is a measure of how out of touch our legal system has "
11258 "become that anyone actually believes this. The rules that publishers impose "
11259 "upon writers, the rules that film distributors impose upon filmmakers, the "
11260 "rules that newspapers impose upon journalists— these are the real laws "
11261 "governing creativity. And these rules have little relationship to the "
11262 "\"law\" with which judges comfort themselves."
11265 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11266 #: freeculture.xml:8954
11268 "For in a world that threatens $150,000 for a single willful infringement of "
11269 "a copyright, and which demands tens of thousands of dollars to even defend "
11270 "against a copyright infringement claim, and which would never return to the "
11271 "wrongfully accused defendant anything of the costs she suffered to defend "
11272 "her right to speak—in that world, the astonishingly broad regulations "
11273 "that pass under the name \"copyright\" silence speech and creativity. And in "
11274 "that world, it takes a studied blindness for people to continue to believe "
11275 "they live in a culture that is free."
11278 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11279 #: freeculture.xml:8965
11280 msgid "As Jed Horovitz, the businessman behind Video Pipeline, said to me,"
11284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
11285 #: freeculture.xml:8969
11287 "We're losing [creative] opportunities right and left. Creative people are "
11288 "being forced not to express themselves. Thoughts are not being "
11289 "expressed. And while a lot of stuff may [still] be created, it still won't "
11290 "get distributed. Even if the stuff gets made . . . you're not going to get "
11291 "it distributed in the mainstream media unless you've got a little note from "
11292 "a lawyer saying, \"This has been cleared.\" You're not even going to get it "
11293 "on PBS without that kind of permission. That's the point at which they "
11297 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
11298 #: freeculture.xml:8982
11299 msgid "Constraining Innovators"
11302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11303 #: freeculture.xml:8984
11305 "The story of the last section was a crunchy-lefty story—creativity "
11306 "quashed, artists who can't speak, yada yada yada. Maybe that doesn't get you "
11307 "going. Maybe you think there's enough weird art out there, and enough "
11308 "expression that is critical of what seems to be just about everything. And "
11309 "if you think that, you might think there's little in this story to worry "
11313 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11314 #: freeculture.xml:8992
11316 "But there's an aspect of this story that is not lefty in any sense. Indeed, "
11317 "it is an aspect that could be written by the most extreme promarket "
11318 "ideologue. And if you're one of these sorts (and a special one at that, 188 "
11319 "pages into a book like this), then you can see this other aspect by "
11320 "substituting \"free market\" every place I've spoken of \"free culture.\" "
11321 "The point is the same, even if the interests affecting culture are more "
11325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11326 #: freeculture.xml:9001
11328 "The charge I've been making about the regulation of culture is the same "
11329 "charge free marketers make about regulating markets. Everyone, of course, "
11330 "concedes that some regulation of markets is necessary—at a minimum, we "
11331 "need rules of property and contract, and courts to enforce both. Likewise, "
11332 "in this culture debate, everyone concedes that at least some framework of "
11333 "copyright is also required. But both perspectives vehemently insist that "
11334 "just because some regulation is good, it doesn't follow that more regulation "
11335 "is better. And both perspectives are constantly attuned to the ways in which "
11336 "regulation simply enables the powerful industries of today to protect "
11337 "themselves against the competitors of tomorrow."
11340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
11341 #: freeculture.xml:9013 freeculture.xml:9114
11342 msgid "Barry, Hank"
11346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11347 #: freeculture.xml:9015
11349 "This is the single most dramatic effect of the shift in regulatory strategy "
11350 "that I described in chapter 10. The consequence of this massive threat of "
11351 "liability tied to the murky boundaries of copyright law is that innovators "
11352 "who want to innovate in this space can safely innovate only if they have the "
11353 "sign-off from last generation's dominant industries. That lesson has been "
11354 "taught through a series of cases that were designed and executed to teach "
11355 "venture capitalists a lesson. That lesson—what former Napster CEO Hank "
11356 "Barry calls a \"nuclear pall\" that has fallen over the Valley—has "
11360 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11361 #: freeculture.xml:9027
11363 "Consider one example to make the point, a story whose beginning I told in "
11364 "The Future of Ideas and which has progressed in a way that even I (pessimist "
11365 "extraordinaire) would never have predicted."
11368 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11369 #: freeculture.xml:9032
11371 "In 1997, Michael Roberts launched a company called MP3.com. MP3.com was "
11372 "keen to remake the music business. Their goal was not just to facilitate new "
11373 "ways to get access to content. Their goal was also to facilitate new ways to "
11374 "create content. Unlike the major labels, MP3.com offered creators a venue to "
11375 "distribute their creativity, without demanding an exclusive engagement from "
11379 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11380 #: freeculture.xml:9040
11382 "To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to "
11383 "recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to "
11384 "leverage the revealed preferences of music listeners to recommend new "
11385 "artists. If you like Lyle Lovett, you're likely to enjoy Bonnie Raitt. And "
11389 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11390 #: freeculture.xml:9047
11392 "This idea required a simple way to gather data about user preferences. "
11393 "MP3.com came up with an extraordinarily clever way to gather this preference "
11394 "data. In January 2000, the company launched a service called "
11395 "my.mp3.com. Using software provided by MP3.com, a user would sign into an "
11396 "account and then insert into her computer a CD. The software would identify "
11397 "the CD, and then give the user access to that content. So, for example, if "
11398 "you inserted a CD by Jill Sobule, then wherever you were—at work or at "
11399 "home—you could get access to that music once you signed into your "
11400 "account. The system was therefore a kind of music-lockbox."
11404 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11405 #: freeculture.xml:9059
11407 "No doubt some could use this system to illegally copy content. But that "
11408 "opportunity existed with or without MP3.com. The aim of the my.mp3.com "
11409 "service was to give users access to their own content, and as a by-product, "
11410 "by seeing the content they already owned, to discover the kind of content "
11414 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11415 #: freeculture.xml:9068
11417 "To make this system function, however, MP3.com needed to copy 50,000 CDs to "
11418 "a server. (In principle, it could have been the user who uploaded the music, "
11419 "but that would have taken a great deal of time, and would have produced a "
11420 "product of questionable quality.) It therefore purchased 50,000 CDs from a "
11421 "store, and started the process of making copies of those CDs. Again, it "
11422 "would not serve the content from those copies to anyone except those who "
11423 "authenticated that they had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while "
11424 "this was 50,000 copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers "
11425 "something they had already bought."
11428 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11429 #: freeculture.xml:9080
11431 "Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels, headed "
11432 "by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled with four of "
11433 "the five. Nine months later, a federal judge found MP3.com to have been "
11434 "guilty of willful infringement with respect to the fifth. Applying the law "
11435 "as it is, the judge imposed a fine against MP3.com of $118 million. MP3.com "
11436 "then settled with the remaining plaintiff, Vivendi Universal, paying over "
11437 "$54 million. Vivendi purchased MP3.com just about a year later."
11440 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11441 #: freeculture.xml:9090
11442 msgid "That part of the story I have told before. Now consider its conclusion."
11445 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11446 #: freeculture.xml:9093
11448 "After Vivendi purchased MP3.com, Vivendi turned around and filed a "
11449 "malpractice lawsuit against the lawyers who had advised it that they had a "
11450 "good faith claim that the service they wanted to offer would be considered "
11451 "legal under copyright law. This lawsuit alleged that it should have been "
11452 "obvious that the courts would find this behavior illegal; therefore, this "
11453 "lawsuit sought to punish any lawyer who had dared to suggest that the law "
11454 "was less restrictive than the labels demanded."
11458 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11459 #: freeculture.xml:9103
11461 "The clear purpose of this lawsuit (which was settled for an unspecified "
11462 "amount shortly after the story was no longer covered in the press) was to "
11463 "send an unequivocal message to lawyers advising clients in this space: It is "
11464 "not just your clients who might suffer if the content industry directs its "
11465 "guns against them. It is also you. So those of you who believe the law "
11466 "should be less restrictive should realize that such a view of the law will "
11467 "cost you and your firm dearly."
11470 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
11471 #: freeculture.xml:9113
11472 msgid "Hummer, John"
11476 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11477 #: freeculture.xml:9121
11479 "See Joseph Menn, \"Universal, EMI Sue Napster Investor,\" Los Angeles Times, "
11480 "23 April 2003. For a parallel argument about the effects on innovation in "
11481 "the distribution of music, see Janelle Brown, \"The Music Revolution Will "
11482 "Not Be Digitized,\" Salon.com, 1 June 2001, available at <ulink "
11483 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #42</ulink>. See also Jon "
11484 "Healey, \"Online Music Services Besieged,\" Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2001."
11487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11488 #: freeculture.xml:9116
11490 "This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003, Universal "
11491 "and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the venture capital firm "
11492 "(VC) that had funded Napster at a certain stage of its development, its "
11493 "cofounder ( John Hummer), and general partner (Hank Barry).<placeholder "
11494 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The claim here, as well, was that the VC should "
11495 "have recognized the right of the content industry to control how the "
11496 "industry should develop. They should be held personally liable for funding a "
11497 "company whose business turned out to be beyond the law. Here again, the aim "
11498 "of the lawsuit is transparent: Any VC now recognizes that if you fund a "
11499 "company whose business is not approved of by the dinosaurs, you are at risk "
11500 "not just in the marketplace, but in the courtroom as well. Your investment "
11501 "buys you not only a company, it also buys you a lawsuit. So extreme has the "
11502 "environment become that even car manufacturers are afraid of technologies "
11503 "that touch content. In an article in Business 2.0, Rafe Needleman describes "
11504 "a discussion with BMW:"
11507 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><indexterm><primary>
11508 #: freeculture.xml:9145
11512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11513 #: freeculture.xml:9160
11514 msgid "Needleman, Rafe"
11517 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11518 #: freeculture.xml:9156
11520 "Rafe Needleman, \"Driving in Cars with MP3s,\" Business 2.0, 16 June 2003, "
11521 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
11522 "#43</ulink>. I am grateful to Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli for this example. "
11523 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11526 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
11527 #: freeculture.xml:9147
11529 "I asked why, with all the storage capacity and computer power in the car, "
11530 "there was no way to play MP3 files. I was told that BMW engineers in Germany "
11531 "had rigged a new vehicle to play MP3s via the car's built-in sound system, "
11532 "but that the company's marketing and legal departments weren't comfortable "
11533 "with pushing this forward for release stateside. Even today, no new cars are "
11534 "sold in the United States with bona fide MP3 players. . . . <placeholder "
11535 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11538 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11539 #: freeculture.xml:9165
11541 "This is the world of the mafia—filled with \"your money or your life\" "
11542 "offers, governed in the end not by courts but by the threats that the law "
11543 "empowers copyright holders to exercise. It is a system that will obviously "
11544 "and necessarily stifle new innovation. It is hard enough to start a "
11545 "company. It is impossibly hard if that company is constantly threatened by "
11550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11551 #: freeculture.xml:9175
11553 "The point is not that businesses should have a right to start illegal "
11554 "enterprises. The point is the definition of \"illegal.\" The law is a mess "
11555 "of uncertainty. We have no good way to know how it should apply to new "
11556 "technologies. Yet by reversing our tradition of judicial deference, and by "
11557 "embracing the astonishingly high penalties that copyright law imposes, that "
11558 "uncertainty now yields a reality which is far more conservative than is "
11559 "right. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not "
11560 "only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much less driving. The same "
11561 "principle applies to innovation. If innovation is constantly checked by this "
11562 "uncertain and unlimited liability, we will have much less vibrant innovation "
11563 "and much less creativity."
11566 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11567 #: freeculture.xml:9190
11569 "The point is directly parallel to the crunchy-lefty point about fair "
11570 "use. Whatever the \"real\" law is, realism about the effect of law in both "
11571 "contexts is the same. This wildly punitive system of regulation will "
11572 "systematically stifle creativity and innovation. It will protect some "
11573 "industries and some creators, but it will harm industry and creativity "
11574 "generally. Free market and free culture depend upon vibrant competition. "
11575 "Yet the effect of the law today is to stifle just this kind of competition. "
11576 "The effect is to produce an overregulated culture, just as the effect of too "
11577 "much control in the market is to produce an overregulatedregulated market."
11581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11582 #: freeculture.xml:9207
11584 "The building of a permission culture, rather than a free culture, is the "
11585 "first important way in which the changes I have described will burden "
11586 "innovation. A permission culture means a lawyer's culture—a culture in "
11587 "which the ability to create requires a call to your lawyer. Again, I am not "
11588 "antilawyer, at least when they're kept in their proper place. I am certainly "
11589 "not antilaw. But our profession has lost the sense of its limits. And "
11590 "leaders in our profession have lost an appreciation of the high costs that "
11591 "our profession imposes upon others. The inefficiency of the law is an "
11592 "embarrassment to our tradition. And while I believe our profession should "
11593 "therefore do everything it can to make the law more efficient, it should at "
11594 "least do everything it can to limit the reach of the law where the law is "
11595 "not doing any good. The transaction costs buried within a permission culture "
11596 "are enough to bury a wide range of creativity. Someone needs to do a lot of "
11597 "justifying to justify that result. The uncertainty of the law is one burden "
11598 "on innovation. There is a second burden that operates more directly. This is "
11599 "the effort by many in the content industry to use the law to directly "
11600 "regulate the technology of the Internet so that it better protects their "
11604 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11605 #: freeculture.xml:9232
11607 "The motivation for this response is obvious. The Internet enables the "
11608 "efficient spread of content. That efficiency is a feature of the Internet's "
11609 "design. But from the perspective of the content industry, this feature is a "
11610 "\"bug.\" The efficient spread of content means that content distributors "
11611 "have a harder time controlling the distribution of content. One obvious "
11612 "response to this efficiency is thus to make the Internet less efficient. If "
11613 "the Internet enables \"piracy,\" then, this response says, we should break "
11614 "the kneecaps of the Internet."
11618 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11619 #: freeculture.xml:9248
11621 "\"Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World,\" GartnerG2 and the "
11622 "Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (2003), "
11623 "33–35, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
11628 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11629 #: freeculture.xml:9264
11630 msgid "GartnerG2, 26–27."
11633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11634 #: freeculture.xml:9244
11636 "The examples of this form of legislation are many. At the urging of the "
11637 "content industry, some in Congress have threatened legislation that would "
11638 "require computers to determine whether the content they access is protected "
11639 "or not, and to disable the spread of protected content.<placeholder "
11640 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Congress has already launched proceedings to "
11641 "explore a mandatory \"broadcast flag\" that would be required on any device "
11642 "capable of transmitting digital video (i.e., a computer), and that would "
11643 "disable the copying of any content that is marked with a broadcast "
11644 "flag. Other members of Congress have proposed immunizing content providers "
11645 "from liability for technology they might deploy that would hunt down "
11646 "copyright violators and disable their machines.<placeholder "
11647 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
11651 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11652 #: freeculture.xml:9269
11654 "In one sense, these solutions seem sensible. If the problem is the code, why "
11655 "not regulate the code to remove the problem. But any regulation of technical "
11656 "infrastructure will always be tuned to the particular technology of the "
11657 "day. It will impose significant burdens and costs on the technology, but "
11658 "will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly those requirements."
11662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11663 #: freeculture.xml:9283
11665 "See David McGuire, \"Tech Execs Square Off Over Piracy,\" Newsbytes, "
11666 "February 2002 (Entertainment)."
11669 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11670 #: freeculture.xml:9280
11672 "In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by Intel, "
11673 "tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation would "
11674 "impose.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Their argument was "
11675 "obviously not that copyright should not be protected. Instead, they argued, "
11676 "any protection should not do more harm than good."
11679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11680 #: freeculture.xml:9291
11682 "There is one more obvious way in which this war has harmed "
11683 "innovation—again, a story that will be quite familiar to the free "
11687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11688 #: freeculture.xml:9297
11690 "Copyright may be property, but like all property, it is also a form of "
11691 "regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others. When "
11692 "done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done wrong, it is "
11693 "regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors."
11697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11698 #: freeculture.xml:9306
11699 msgid "Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2001)."
11702 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11703 #: freeculture.xml:9303
11705 "As I described in chapter 10, despite this feature of copyright as "
11706 "regulation, and subject to important qualifications outlined by Jessica "
11707 "Litman in her book Digital Copyright,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
11708 "id=\"0\"/> overall this history of copyright is not bad. As chapter 10 "
11709 "details, when new technologies have come along, Congress has struck a "
11710 "balance to assure that the new is protected from the old. Compulsory, or "
11711 "statutory, licenses have been one part of that strategy. Free use (as in the "
11712 "case of the VCR) has been another."
11715 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11716 #: freeculture.xml:9316
11718 "But that pattern of deference to new technologies has now changed with the "
11719 "rise of the Internet. Rather than striking a balance between the claims of a "
11720 "new technology and the legitimate rights of content creators, both the "
11721 "courts and Congress have imposed legal restrictions that will have the "
11722 "effect of smothering the new to benefit the old."
11726 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11727 #: freeculture.xml:9324
11729 "The only circuit court exception is found in Recording Industry Association "
11730 "of America (RIAA) v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, 180 F. 3d 1072 (9th "
11731 "Cir. 1999). There the court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit reasoned that "
11732 "makers of a portable MP3 player were not liable for contributory copyright "
11733 "infringement for a device that is unable to record or redistribute music (a "
11734 "device whose only copying function is to render portable a music file "
11735 "already stored on a user's hard drive). At the district court level, the "
11736 "only exception is found in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, "
11737 "Ltd., 259 F. Supp. 2d 1029 (C.D. Cal., 2003), where the court found the "
11738 "link between the distributor and any given user's conduct too attenuated to "
11739 "make the distributor liable for contributory or vicarious infringement "
11744 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11745 #: freeculture.xml:9343
11747 "For example, in July 2002, Representative Howard Berman introduced the "
11748 "Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention Act (H.R. 5211), which would immunize "
11749 "copyright holders from liability for damage done to computers when the "
11750 "copyright holders use technology to stop copyright infringement. In August "
11751 "2002, Representative Billy Tauzin introduced a bill to mandate that "
11752 "technologies capable of rebroadcasting digital copies of films broadcast on "
11753 "TV (i.e., computers) respect a \"broadcast flag\" that would disable copying "
11754 "of that content. And in March of the same year, Senator Fritz Hollings "
11755 "introduced the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, "
11756 "which mandated copyright protection technology in all digital media "
11757 "devices. See GartnerG2, \"Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster "
11758 "World,\" 27 June 2003, 33–34, available at <ulink "
11759 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #44</ulink>."
11762 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11763 #: freeculture.xml:9323
11765 "The response by the courts has been fairly universal.<placeholder "
11766 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It has been mirrored in the responses "
11767 "threatened and actually implemented by Congress. I won't catalog all of "
11768 "those responses here.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> But there is "
11769 "one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is the story of the "
11770 "demise of Internet radio."
11774 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11775 #: freeculture.xml:9366
11777 "As I described in chapter 4, when a radio station plays a song, the "
11778 "recording artist doesn't get paid for that \"radio performance\" unless he "
11779 "or she is also the composer. So, for example if Marilyn Monroe had recorded "
11780 "a version of \"Happy Birthday\"—to memorialize her famous performance "
11781 "before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden— then whenever that "
11782 "recording was played on the radio, the current copyright owners of \"Happy "
11783 "Birthday\" would get some money, whereas Marilyn Monroe would not."
11786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11787 #: freeculture.xml:9377
11789 "The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some sense. The "
11790 "justification was that radio was a kind of advertising. The recording artist "
11791 "thus benefited because by playing her music, the radio station was making it "
11792 "more likely that her records would be purchased. Thus, the recording artist "
11793 "got something, even if only indirectly. Probably this reasoning had less to "
11794 "do with the result than with the power of radio stations: Their lobbyists "
11795 "were quite good at stopping any efforts to get Congress to require "
11796 "compensation to the recording artists."
11799 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11800 #: freeculture.xml:9389
11802 "Enter Internet radio. Like regular radio, Internet radio is a technology to "
11803 "stream content from a broadcaster to a listener. The broadcast travels "
11804 "across the Internet, not across the ether of radio spectrum. Thus, I can "
11805 "\"tune in\" to an Internet radio station in Berlin while sitting in San "
11806 "Francisco, even though there's no way for me to tune in to a regular radio "
11807 "station much beyond the San Francisco metropolitan area."
11810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11811 #: freeculture.xml:9399
11813 "This feature of the architecture of Internet radio means that there are "
11814 "potentially an unlimited number of radio stations that a user could tune in "
11815 "to using her computer, whereas under the existing architecture for broadcast "
11816 "radio, there is an obvious limit to the number of broadcasters and clear "
11817 "broadcast frequencies. Internet radio could therefore be more competitive "
11818 "than regular radio; it could provide a wider range of selections. And "
11819 "because the potential audience for Internet radio is the whole world, niche "
11820 "stations could easily develop and market their content to a relatively large "
11821 "number of users worldwide. According to some estimates, more than eighty "
11822 "million users worldwide have tuned in to this new form of radio."
11826 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11827 #: freeculture.xml:9415
11829 "Internet radio is thus to radio what FM was to AM. It is an improvement "
11830 "potentially vastly more significant than the FM improvement over AM, since "
11831 "not only is the technology better, so, too, is the competition. Indeed, "
11832 "there is a direct parallel between the fight to establish FM radio and the "
11833 "fight to protect Internet radio. As one author describes Howard Armstrong's "
11834 "struggle to enable FM radio,"
11838 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
11839 #: freeculture.xml:9444
11840 msgid "Lessing, 239."
11843 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
11844 #: freeculture.xml:9427
11846 "An almost unlimited number of FM stations was possible in the shortwaves, "
11847 "thus ending the unnatural restrictions imposed on radio in the crowded "
11848 "longwaves. If FM were freely developed, the number of stations would be "
11849 "limited only by economics and competition rather than by technical "
11850 "restrictions. . . . Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in "
11851 "radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when "
11852 "governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of "
11853 "mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was "
11854 "broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing "
11855 "presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention "
11856 "as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its "
11857 "shackles.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
11861 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11862 #: freeculture.xml:9453
11863 msgid "Ibid., 229."
11866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11867 #: freeculture.xml:9449
11869 "This potential for FM radio was never realized—not because Armstrong "
11870 "was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "
11871 "\"vested interests, habits, customs and legislation\"<placeholder "
11872 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> to retard the growth of this competing "
11876 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11877 #: freeculture.xml:9460
11879 "Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there "
11880 "is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio "
11881 "stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the "
11882 "law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, "
11883 "what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?"
11887 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11888 #: freeculture.xml:9468
11890 "But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new "
11891 "industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful "
11892 "lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet "
11893 "radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule "
11894 "for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While "
11895 "terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when "
11896 "it plays her hypothetical recording of \"Happy Birthday\" on the air, "
11897 "Internet radio does. Not only is the law not neutral toward Internet "
11898 "radio—the law actually burdens Internet radio more than it burdens "
11899 "terrestrial radio."
11902 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
11903 #: freeculture.xml:9508
11904 msgid "CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel)"
11907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
11908 #: freeculture.xml:9491
11910 "This example was derived from fees set by the original Copyright Arbitration "
11911 "Royalty Panel (CARP) proceedings, and is drawn from an example offered by "
11912 "Professor William Fisher. Conference Proceedings, iLaw (Stanford), 3 July "
11913 "2003, on file with author. Professors Fisher and Zittrain submitted "
11914 "testimony in the CARP proceeding that was ultimately rejected. See Jonathan "
11915 "Zittrain, Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings and Ephemeral "
11916 "Recordings, Docket No. 2000-9, CARP DTRA 1 and 2, available at <ulink "
11917 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #45</ulink>. For an excellent "
11918 "analysis making a similar point, see Randal C. Picker, \"Copyright as Entry "
11919 "Policy: The Case of Digital Distribution,\" Antitrust Bulletin (Summer/Fall "
11920 "2002): 461: \"This was not confusion, these are just old-fashioned entry "
11921 "barriers. Analog radio stations are protected from digital entrants, "
11922 "reducing entry in radio and diversity. Yes, this is done in the name of "
11923 "getting royalties to copyright holders, but, absent the play of powerful "
11924 "interests, that could have been done in a media-neutral way.\" <placeholder "
11925 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
11928 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11929 #: freeculture.xml:9484
11931 "This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher "
11932 "estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed adfree popular music to "
11933 "(on average) ten thousand listeners, twenty-four hours a day, the total "
11934 "artist fees that radio station would owe would be over $1 million a "
11935 "year.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> A regular radio station "
11936 "broadcasting the same content would pay no equivalent fee."
11939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
11940 #: freeculture.xml:9514
11942 "The burden is not financial only. Under the original rules that were "
11943 "proposed, an Internet radio station (but not a terrestrial radio station) "
11944 "would have to collect the following data from every listening transaction:"
11947 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11948 #: freeculture.xml:9521
11949 msgid "name of the service;"
11952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11953 #: freeculture.xml:9524
11954 msgid "channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID);"
11957 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11958 #: freeculture.xml:9527
11959 msgid "type of program (archived/looped/live);"
11962 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11963 #: freeculture.xml:9530
11964 msgid "date of transmission;"
11967 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11968 #: freeculture.xml:9533
11969 msgid "time of transmission;"
11972 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11973 #: freeculture.xml:9536
11974 msgid "time zone of origination of transmission;"
11977 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11978 #: freeculture.xml:9539
11979 msgid "numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program;"
11982 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11983 #: freeculture.xml:9542
11984 msgid "duration of transmission (to nearest second);"
11987 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11988 #: freeculture.xml:9545
11989 msgid "sound recording title;"
11992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11993 #: freeculture.xml:9548
11994 msgid "ISRC code of the recording;"
11997 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
11998 #: freeculture.xml:9551
12000 "release year of the album per copyright notice and in the case of "
12001 "compilation albums, the release year of the album and copy- right date of "
12005 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12006 #: freeculture.xml:9554
12007 msgid "featured recording artist;"
12010 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12011 #: freeculture.xml:9557
12012 msgid "retail album title;"
12015 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12016 #: freeculture.xml:9560
12017 msgid "recording label;"
12020 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12021 #: freeculture.xml:9563
12022 msgid "UPC code of the retail album;"
12025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12026 #: freeculture.xml:9566
12027 msgid "catalog number;"
12030 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12031 #: freeculture.xml:9569
12032 msgid "copyright owner information;"
12035 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12036 #: freeculture.xml:9572
12037 msgid "musical genre of the channel or program (station format);"
12040 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12041 #: freeculture.xml:9575
12042 msgid "name of the service or entity;"
12045 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12046 #: freeculture.xml:9578
12047 msgid "channel or program;"
12050 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12051 #: freeculture.xml:9581
12052 msgid "date and time that the user logged in (in the user's time zone);"
12055 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12056 #: freeculture.xml:9584
12057 msgid "date and time that the user logged out (in the user's time zone);"
12060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12061 #: freeculture.xml:9587
12062 msgid "time zone where the signal was received (user);"
12065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12066 #: freeculture.xml:9590
12067 msgid "Unique User identifier;"
12070 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
12071 #: freeculture.xml:9593
12072 msgid "the country in which the user received the transmissions."
12075 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12076 #: freeculture.xml:9598
12078 "The Librarian of Congress eventually suspended these reporting requirements, "
12079 "pending further study. And he also changed the original rates set by the "
12080 "arbitration panel charged with setting rates. But the basic difference "
12081 "between Internet radio and terrestrial radio remains: Internet radio has to "
12082 "pay a type of copyright fee that terrestrial radio does not."
12085 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12086 #: freeculture.xml:9606
12088 "Why? What justifies this difference? Was there any study of the economic "
12089 "consequences from Internet radio that would justify these differences? Was "
12090 "the motive to protect artists against piracy?"
12093 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12094 #: freeculture.xml:9612
12096 "In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious to "
12097 "everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public Policy at "
12098 "Real Networks, told me,"
12102 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
12103 #: freeculture.xml:9618
12105 "The RIAA, which was representing the record labels, presented some testimony "
12106 "about what they thought a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, and "
12107 "it was much higher. It was ten times higher than what radio stations pay to "
12108 "perform the same songs for the same period of time. And so the attorneys "
12109 "representing the webcasters asked the RIAA, . . . \"How do you come up with "
12110 "a rate that's so much higher? Why is it worth more than radio? Because here "
12111 "we have hundreds of thousands of webcasters who want to pay, and that should "
12112 "establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so high, you're going to "
12113 "drive the small webcasters out of business. . . .\""
12116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
12117 #: freeculture.xml:9634
12119 "And the RIAA experts said, \"Well, we don't really model this as an industry "
12120 "with thousands of webcasters, we think it should be an industry with, you "
12121 "know, five or seven big players who can pay a high rate and it's a stable, "
12122 "predictable market.\" (Emphasis added.)"
12125 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12126 #: freeculture.xml:9641
12128 "Translation: The aim is to use the law to eliminate competition, so that "
12129 "this platform of potentially immense competition, which would cause the "
12130 "diversity and range of content available to explode, would not cause pain to "
12131 "the dinosaurs of old. There is no one, on either the right or the left, who "
12132 "should endorse this use of the law. And yet there is practically no one, on "
12133 "either the right or the left, who is doing anything effective to prevent it."
12136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
12137 #: freeculture.xml:9651
12138 msgid "Corrupting Citizens"
12141 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12142 #: freeculture.xml:9653
12144 "Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives "
12145 "dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity "
12146 "for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables."
12149 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12150 #: freeculture.xml:9659
12152 "In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important "
12153 "to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts "
12154 "citizens and weakens the rule of law."
12158 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12159 #: freeculture.xml:9668
12161 "Mike Graziano and Lee Rainie, \"The Music Downloading Deluge,\" Pew Internet "
12162 "and American Life Project (24 April 2001), available at <ulink "
12163 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #46</ulink>. The Pew Internet "
12164 "and American Life Project reported that 37 million Americans had downloaded "
12165 "music files from the Internet by early 2001."
12169 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12170 #: freeculture.xml:9664
12172 "The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war "
12173 "of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number "
12174 "of citizens. According to The New York Times, 43 million Americans "
12175 "downloaded music in May 2002.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
12176 "According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 million Americans is a "
12177 "felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 percent of America "
12178 "into criminals. As the RIAA launches lawsuits against not only the Napsters "
12179 "and Kazaas of the world, but against students building search engines, and "
12180 "increasingly against ordinary users downloading content, the technologies "
12181 "for sharing will advance to further protect and hide illegal use. It is an "
12182 "arms race or a civil war, with the extremes of one side inviting a more "
12183 "extreme response by the other."
12187 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12188 #: freeculture.xml:9702
12190 "Alex Pham, \"The Labels Strike Back: N.Y. Girl Settles RIAA Case,\" Los "
12191 "Angeles Times, 10 September 2003, Business."
12194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12195 #: freeculture.xml:9689
12197 "The content industry's tactics exploit the failings of the American legal "
12198 "system. When the RIAA brought suit against Jesse Jordan, it knew that in "
12199 "Jordan it had found a scapegoat, not a defendant. The threat of having to "
12200 "pay either all the money in the world in damages ($15,000,000) or almost all "
12201 "the money in the world to defend against paying all the money in the world "
12202 "in damages ($250,000 in legal fees) led Jordan to choose to pay all the "
12203 "money he had in the world ($12,000) to make the suit go away. The same "
12204 "strategy animates the RIAA's suits against individual users. In September "
12205 "2003, the RIAA sued 261 individuals—including a twelve-year-old girl "
12206 "living in public housing and a seventy-year-old man who had no idea what "
12207 "file sharing was.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> As these "
12208 "scapegoats discovered, it will always cost more to defend against these "
12209 "suits than it would cost to simply settle. (The twelve year old, for "
12210 "example, like Jesse Jordan, paid her life savings of $2,000 to settle the "
12211 "case.) Our law is an awful system for defending rights. It is an "
12212 "embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law as it is, is "
12213 "that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights they oppose."
12217 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12218 #: freeculture.xml:9724
12220 "Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, \"Alcohol Consumption During "
12221 "Prohibition,\" American Economic Review 81, no. 2 (1991): 242."
12225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12226 #: freeculture.xml:9732
12228 "National Drug Control Policy: Hearing Before the House Government Reform "
12229 "Committee, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (5 March 2003) (statement of John "
12230 "P. Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy)."
12234 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12235 #: freeculture.xml:9742
12237 "See James Andreoni, Brian Erard, and Jonathon Feinstein, \"Tax Compliance,\" "
12238 "Journal of Economic Literature 36 (1998): 818 (survey of compliance "
12242 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12243 #: freeculture.xml:9714
12245 "Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just something "
12246 "more extreme than anything we've seen before. We experimented with alcohol "
12247 "prohibition, at a time when the per capita consumption of alcohol was 1.5 "
12248 "gallons per capita per year. The war against drinking initially reduced that "
12249 "consumption to just 30 percent of its preprohibition levels, but by the end "
12250 "of prohibition, consumption was up to 70 percent of the preprohibition "
12251 "level. Americans were drinking just about as much, but now, a vast number "
12252 "were criminals.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> We have launched a "
12253 "war on drugs aimed at reducing the consumption of regulated narcotics that 7 "
12254 "percent (or 16 million) Americans now use.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
12255 "id=\"1\"/> That is a drop from the high (so to speak) in 1979 of 14 percent "
12256 "of the population. We regulate automobiles to the point where the vast "
12257 "majority of Americans violate the law every day. We run such a complex tax "
12258 "system that a majority of cash businesses regularly cheat.<placeholder "
12259 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> We pride ourselves on our \"free society,\" but "
12260 "an endless array of ordinary behavior is regulated within our society. And "
12261 "as a result, a huge proportion of Americans regularly violate at least some "
12265 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12266 #: freeculture.xml:9751
12268 "This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly "
12269 "salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law students "
12270 "about the importance of \"ethics.\" As my colleague Charlie Nesson told a "
12271 "class at Stanford, each year law schools admit thousands of students who "
12272 "have illegally downloaded music, illegally consumed alcohol and sometimes "
12273 "drugs, illegally worked without paying taxes, illegally driven cars. These "
12274 "are kids for whom behaving illegally is increasingly the norm. And then we, "
12275 "as law professors, are supposed to teach them how to behave "
12276 "ethically—how to say no to bribes, or keep client funds separate, or "
12277 "honor a demand to disclose a document that will mean that your case is "
12278 "over. Generations of Americans—more significantly in some parts of "
12279 "America than in others, but still, everywhere in America today—can't "
12280 "live their lives both normally and legally, since \"normally\" entails a "
12281 "certain degree of illegality."
12284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12285 #: freeculture.xml:9768
12287 "The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law more "
12288 "severely or to change the law. We, as a society, have to learn how to make "
12289 "that choice more rationally. Whether a law makes sense depends, in part, at "
12290 "least, upon whether the costs of the law, both intended and collateral, "
12291 "outweigh the benefits. If the costs, intended and collateral, do outweigh "
12292 "the benefits, then the law ought to be changed. Alternatively, if the costs "
12293 "of the existing system are much greater than the costs of an alternative, "
12294 "then we have a good reason to consider the alternative."
12298 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12299 #: freeculture.xml:9781
12301 "My point is not the idiotic one: Just because people violate a law, we "
12302 "should therefore repeal it. Obviously, we could reduce murder statistics "
12303 "dramatically by legalizing murder on Wednesdays and Fridays. But that "
12304 "wouldn't make any sense, since murder is wrong every day of the week. A "
12305 "society is right to ban murder always and everywhere."
12308 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12309 #: freeculture.xml:9788
12311 "My point is instead one that democracies understood for generations, but "
12312 "that we recently have learned to forget. The rule of law depends upon people "
12313 "obeying the law. The more often, and more repeatedly, we as citizens "
12314 "experience violating the law, the less we respect the law. Obviously, in "
12315 "most cases, the important issue is the law, not respect for the law. I don't "
12316 "care whether the rapist respects the law or not; I want to catch and "
12317 "incarcerate the rapist. But I do care whether my students respect the "
12318 "law. And I do care if the rules of law sow increasing disrespect because of "
12319 "the extreme of regulation they impose. Twenty million Americans have come "
12320 "of age since the Internet introduced this different idea of \"sharing.\" We "
12321 "need to be able to call these twenty million Americans \"citizens,\" not "
12325 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12326 #: freeculture.xml:9802
12328 "When at least forty-three million citizens download content from the "
12329 "Internet, and when they use tools to combine that content in ways "
12330 "unauthorized by copyright holders, the first question we should be asking is "
12331 "not how best to involve the FBI. The first question should be whether this "
12332 "particular prohibition is really necessary in order to achieve the proper "
12333 "ends that copyright law serves. Is there another way to assure that artists "
12334 "get paid without transforming forty-three million Americans into felons? "
12335 "Does it make sense if there are other ways to assure that artists get paid "
12336 "without transforming America into a nation of felons?"
12339 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12340 #: freeculture.xml:9814
12341 msgid "This abstract point can be made more clear with a particular example."
12345 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12346 #: freeculture.xml:9817
12348 "We all own CDs. Many of us still own phonograph records. These pieces of "
12349 "plastic encode music that in a certain sense we have bought. The law "
12350 "protects our right to buy and sell that plastic: It is not a copyright "
12351 "infringement for me to sell all my classical records at a used record store "
12352 "and buy jazz records to replace them. That \"use\" of the recordings is "
12356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12357 #: freeculture.xml:9828
12359 "But as the MP3 craze has demonstrated, there is another use of phonograph "
12360 "records that is effectively free. Because these recordings were made without "
12361 "copy-protection technologies, I am \"free\" to copy, or \"rip,\" music from "
12362 "my records onto a computer hard disk. Indeed, Apple Corporation went so far "
12363 "as to suggest that \"freedom\" was a right: In a series of commercials, "
12364 "Apple endorsed the \"Rip, Mix, Burn\" capacities of digital technologies."
12367 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
12368 #: freeculture.xml:9836
12372 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12373 #: freeculture.xml:9838
12375 "This \"use\" of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a large "
12376 "process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing them in "
12377 "one archive. Then, using Apple's iTunes, or a wonderful program called "
12378 "Andromeda, we can build different play lists of our music: Bach, Baroque, "
12379 "Love Songs, Love Songs of Significant Others—the potential is "
12380 "endless. And by reducing the costs of mixing play lists, these technologies "
12381 "help build a creativity with play lists that is itself independently "
12382 "valuable. Compilations of songs are creative and meaningful in their own "
12386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12387 #: freeculture.xml:9849
12389 "This use is enabled by unprotected media—either CDs or records. But "
12390 "unprotected media also enable file sharing. File sharing threatens (or so "
12391 "the content industry believes) the ability of creators to earn a fair return "
12392 "from their creativity. And thus, many are beginning to experiment with "
12393 "technologies to eliminate unprotected media. These technologies, for "
12394 "example, would enable CDs that could not be ripped. Or they might enable spy "
12395 "programs to identify ripped content on people's machines."
12399 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12400 #: freeculture.xml:9859
12402 "If these technologies took off, then the building of large archives of your "
12403 "own music would become quite difficult. You might hang in hacker circles, "
12404 "and get technology to disable the technologies that protect the "
12405 "content. Trading in those technologies is illegal, but maybe that doesn't "
12406 "bother you much. In any case, for the vast majority of people, these "
12407 "protection technologies would effectively destroy the archiving use of "
12408 "CDs. The technology, in other words, would force us all back to the world "
12409 "where we either listened to music by manipulating pieces of plastic or were "
12410 "part of a massively complex \"digital rights management\" system."
12413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12414 #: freeculture.xml:9873
12416 "If the only way to assure that artists get paid were the elimination of the "
12417 "ability to freely move content, then these technologies to interfere with "
12418 "the freedom to move content would be justifiable. But what if there were "
12419 "another way to assure that artists are paid, without locking down any "
12420 "content? What if, in other words, a different system could assure "
12421 "compensation to artists while also preserving the freedom to move content "
12425 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12426 #: freeculture.xml:9882
12428 "My point just now is not to prove that there is such a system. I offer a "
12429 "version of such a system in the last chapter of this book. For now, the only "
12430 "point is the relatively uncontroversial one: If a different system achieved "
12431 "the same legitimate objectives that the existing copyright system achieved, "
12432 "but left consumers and creators much more free, then we'd have a very good "
12433 "reason to pursue this alternative—namely, freedom. The choice, in "
12434 "other words, would not be between property and piracy; the choice would be "
12435 "between different property systems and the freedoms each allowed."
12438 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12439 #: freeculture.xml:9893
12441 "I believe there is a way to assure that artists are paid without turning "
12442 "forty-three million Americans into felons. But the salient feature of this "
12443 "alternative is that it would lead to a very different market for producing "
12444 "and distributing creativity. The dominant few, who today control the vast "
12445 "majority of the distribution of content in the world, would no longer "
12446 "exercise this extreme of control. Rather, they would go the way of the "
12447 "horse-drawn buggy."
12450 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12451 #: freeculture.xml:9902
12453 "Except that this generation's buggy manufacturers have already saddled "
12454 "Congress, and are riding the law to protect themselves against this new form "
12455 "of competition. For them the choice is between fortythree million Americans "
12456 "as criminals and their own survival."
12459 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12460 #: freeculture.xml:9908
12462 "It is understandable why they choose as they do. It is not understandable "
12463 "why we as a democracy continue to choose as we do. Jack Valenti is charming; "
12464 "but not so charming as to justify giving up a tradition as deep and "
12465 "important as our tradition of free culture. There's one more aspect to this "
12466 "corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and follows "
12467 "directly from any war of prohibition. As Electronic Frontier Foundation "
12468 "attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the \"collateral damage\" that "
12469 "\"arises whenever you turn a very large percentage of the population into "
12470 "criminals.\" This is the collateral damage to civil liberties generally. "
12471 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12475 #: freeculture.xml:9925
12476 msgid "\"If you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker,\" von Lohmann explains,"
12479 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
12480 #: freeculture.xml:9930
12482 "then all of a sudden a lot of basic civil liberty protections evaporate to "
12483 "one degree or another. . . . If you're a copyright infringer, how can you "
12484 "hope to have any privacy rights? If you're a copyright infringer, how can "
12485 "you hope to be secure against seizures of your computer? How can you hope to "
12486 "continue to receive Internet access? . . . Our sensibilities change as soon "
12487 "as we think, \"Oh, well, but that person's a criminal, a lawbreaker.\" Well, "
12488 "what this campaign against file sharing has done is turn a remarkable "
12489 "percentage of the American Internet-using population into \"lawbreakers.\""
12492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12493 #: freeculture.xml:9942
12495 "And the consequence of this transformation of the American public into "
12496 "criminals is that it becomes trivial, as a matter of due process, to "
12497 "effectively erase much of the privacy most would presume."
12500 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12501 #: freeculture.xml:9947
12503 "Users of the Internet began to see this generally in 2003 as the RIAA "
12504 "launched its campaign to force Internet service providers to turn over the "
12505 "names of customers who the RIAA believed were violating copyright "
12506 "law. Verizon fought that demand and lost. With a simple request to a judge, "
12507 "and without any notice to the customer at all, the identity of an Internet "
12508 "user is revealed."
12512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12513 #: freeculture.xml:9965
12515 "See Frank Ahrens, \"RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in "
12516 "Calif., 12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,\" Washington Post, 10 "
12517 "September 2003, E1; Chris Cobbs, \"Worried Parents Pull Plug on File "
12518 "`Stealing'; With the Music Industry Cracking Down on File Swapping, Parents "
12519 "are Yanking Software from Home PCs to Avoid Being Sued,\" Orlando Sentinel "
12520 "Tribune, 30 August 2003, C1; Jefferson Graham, \"Recording Industry Sues "
12521 "Parents,\" USA Today, 15 September 2003, 4D; John Schwartz, \"She Says She's "
12522 "No Music Pirate. No Snoop Fan, Either,\" New York Times, 25 September 2003, "
12523 "C1; Margo Varadi, \"Is Brianna a Criminal?\" Toronto Star, 18 September "
12527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12528 #: freeculture.xml:9956
12530 "The RIAA then expanded this campaign, by announcing a general strategy to "
12531 "sue individual users of the Internet who are alleged to have downloaded "
12532 "copyrighted music from file-sharing systems. But as we've seen, the "
12533 "potential damages from these suits are astronomical: If a family's computer "
12534 "is used to download a single CD's worth of music, the family could be liable "
12535 "for $2 million in damages. That didn't stop the RIAA from suing a number of "
12536 "these families, just as they had sued Jesse Jordan.<placeholder "
12537 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12541 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12542 #: freeculture.xml:9983
12544 "See \"Revealed: How RIAA Tracks Downloaders: Music Industry Discloses Some "
12545 "Methods Used,\" CNN.com, available at <ulink "
12546 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #47</ulink>."
12549 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12550 #: freeculture.xml:9979
12552 "Even this understates the espionage that is being waged by the RIAA. A "
12553 "report from CNN late last summer described a strategy the RIAA had adopted "
12554 "to track Napster users.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Using a "
12555 "sophisticated hashing algorithm, the RIAA took what is in effect a "
12556 "fingerprint of every song in the Napster catalog. Any copy of one of those "
12557 "MP3s will have the same \"fingerprint.\""
12561 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
12562 #: freeculture.xml:10004
12564 "See Jeff Adler, \"Cambridge: On Campus, Pirates Are Not Penitent,\" Boston "
12565 "Globe, 18 May 2003, City Weekly, 1; Frank Ahrens, \"Four Students Sued over "
12566 "Music Sites; Industry Group Targets File Sharing at Colleges,\" Washington "
12567 "Post, 4 April 2003, E1; Elizabeth Armstrong, \"Students `Rip, Mix, Burn' at "
12568 "Their Own Risk,\" Christian Science Monitor, 2 September 2003, 20; Robert "
12569 "Becker and Angela Rozas, \"Music Pirate Hunt Turns to Loyola; Two Students "
12570 "Names Are Handed Over; Lawsuit Possible,\" Chicago Tribune, 16 July 2003, "
12571 "1C; Beth Cox, \"RIAA Trains Antipiracy Guns on Universities,\" Internet "
12572 "News, 30 January 2003, available at <ulink "
12573 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #48</ulink>; Benny Evangelista, "
12574 "\"Download Warning 101: Freshman Orientation This Fall to Include Record "
12575 "Industry Warnings Against File Sharing,\" San Francisco Chronicle, 11 August "
12576 "2003, E11; \"Raid, Letters Are Weapons at Universities,\" USA Today, 26 "
12577 "September 2000, 3D."
12580 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12581 #: freeculture.xml:9992
12583 "So imagine the following not-implausible scenario: Imagine a friend gives a "
12584 "CD to your daughter—a collection of songs just like the cassettes you "
12585 "used to make as a kid. You don't know, and neither does your daughter, where "
12586 "these songs came from. But she copies these songs onto her computer. She "
12587 "then takes her computer to college and connects it to a college network, and "
12588 "if the college network is \"cooperating\" with the RIAA's espionage, and she "
12589 "hasn't properly protected her content from the network (do you know how to "
12590 "do that yourself ?), then the RIAA will be able to identify your daughter as "
12591 "a \"criminal.\" And under the rules that universities are beginning to "
12592 "deploy,<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> your daughter can lose the "
12593 "right to use the university's computer network. She can, in some cases, be "
12598 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12599 #: freeculture.xml:10023
12601 "Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire a "
12602 "lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can plead that "
12603 "she didn't know anything about the source of the songs or that they came "
12604 "from Napster. And it may well be that the university believes her. But the "
12605 "university might not believe her. It might treat this \"contraband\" as "
12606 "presumptive of guilt. And as any number of college students have already "
12607 "learned, our presumptions about innocence disappear in the middle of wars of "
12608 "prohibition. This war is no different. Says von Lohmann,"
12611 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
12612 #: freeculture.xml:10038
12614 "So when we're talking about numbers like forty to sixty million Americans "
12615 "that are essentially copyright infringers, you create a situation where the "
12616 "civil liberties of those people are very much in peril in a general "
12617 "matter. [I don't] think [there is any] analog where you could randomly "
12618 "choose any person off the street and be confident that they were committing "
12619 "an unlawful act that could put them on the hook for potential felony "
12620 "liability or hundreds of millions of dollars of civil liability. Certainly "
12621 "we all speed, but speeding isn't the kind of an act for which we routinely "
12622 "forfeit civil liberties. Some people use drugs, and I think that's the "
12623 "closest analog, [but] many have noted that the war against drugs has eroded "
12624 "all of our civil liberties because it's treated so many Americans as "
12625 "criminals. Well, I think it's fair to say that file sharing is an order of "
12626 "magnitude larger number of Americans than drug use. . . . If forty to sixty "
12627 "million Americans have become lawbreakers, then we're really on a slippery "
12628 "slope to lose a lot of civil liberties for all forty to sixty million of "
12632 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
12633 #: freeculture.xml:10058
12635 "When forty to sixty million Americans are considered \"criminals\" under the "
12636 "law, and when the law could achieve the same objective— securing "
12637 "rights to authors—without these millions being considered "
12638 "\"criminals,\" who is the villain? Americans or the law? Which is American, "
12639 "a constant war on our own people or a concerted effort through our democracy "
12640 "to change our law?"
12643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
12644 #: freeculture.xml:10071
12648 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12649 #: freeculture.xml:10075
12651 "So here's the picture: You're standing at the side of the road. Your car is "
12652 "on fire. You are angry and upset because in part you helped start the "
12653 "fire. Now you don't know how to put it out. Next to you is a bucket, filled "
12654 "with gasoline. Obviously, gasoline won't put the fire out."
12657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12658 #: freeculture.xml:10081
12660 "As you ponder the mess, someone else comes along. In a panic, she grabs the "
12661 "bucket. Before you have a chance to tell her to stop—or before she "
12662 "understands just why she should stop—the bucket is in the air. The "
12663 "gasoline is about to hit the blazing car. And the fire that gasoline will "
12664 "ignite is about to ignite everything around."
12667 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12668 #: freeculture.xml:10089
12670 "A war about copyright rages all around—and we're all focusing on the "
12671 "wrong thing. No doubt, current technologies threaten existing businesses. "
12672 "No doubt they may threaten artists. But technologies change. The industry "
12673 "and technologists have plenty of ways to use technology to protect "
12674 "themselves against the current threats of the Internet. This is a fire that "
12675 "if let alone would burn itself out."
12679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12680 #: freeculture.xml:10098
12682 "Yet policy makers are not willing to leave this fire to itself. Primed with "
12683 "plenty of lobbyists' money, they are keen to intervene to eliminate the "
12684 "problem they perceive. But the problem they perceive is not the real threat "
12685 "this culture faces. For while we watch this small fire in the corner, there "
12686 "is a massive change in the way culture is made that is happening all around."
12689 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12690 #: freeculture.xml:10106
12692 "Somehow we have to find a way to turn attention to this more important and "
12693 "fundamental issue. Somehow we have to find a way to avoid pouring gasoline "
12697 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12698 #: freeculture.xml:10111
12700 "We have not found that way yet. Instead, we seem trapped in a simpler, "
12701 "binary view. However much many people push to frame this debate more "
12702 "broadly, it is the simple, binary view that remains. We rubberneck to look "
12703 "at the fire when we should be keeping our eyes on the road."
12706 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
12707 #: freeculture.xml:10117
12709 "This challenge has been my life these last few years. It has also been my "
12710 "failure. In the two chapters that follow, I describe one small brace of "
12711 "efforts, so far failed, to find a way to refocus this debate. We must "
12712 "understand these failures if we're to understand what success will require."
12715 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
12716 #: freeculture.xml:10126
12717 msgid "CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred"
12720 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12721 #: freeculture.xml:10128
12723 "In 1995, a father was frustrated that his daughters didn't seem to like "
12724 "Hawthorne. No doubt there was more than one such father, but at least one "
12725 "did something about it. Eric Eldred, a retired computer programmer living in "
12726 "New Hampshire, decided to put Hawthorne on the Web. An electronic version, "
12727 "Eldred thought, with links to pictures and explanatory text, would make this "
12728 "nineteenth-century author's work come alive."
12731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12732 #: freeculture.xml:10137
12734 "It didn't work—at least for his daughters. They didn't find Hawthorne "
12735 "any more interesting than before. But Eldred's experiment gave birth to a "
12736 "hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build a library of public "
12737 "domain works by scanning these works and making them available for free."
12741 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12742 #: freeculture.xml:10144
12744 "Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain works, "
12745 "though even a copy would have been of great value to people across the world "
12746 "who can't get access to printed versions of these works. Instead, Eldred was "
12747 "producing derivative works from these public domain works. Just as Disney "
12748 "turned Grimm into stories more accessible to the twentieth century, Eldred "
12749 "transformed Hawthorne, and many others, into a form more "
12750 "accessible—technically accessible—today."
12753 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12754 #: freeculture.xml:10155
12756 "Eldred's freedom to do this with Hawthorne's work grew from the same source "
12757 "as Disney's. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter had passed into the public domain in "
12758 "1907. It was free for anyone to take without the permission of the Hawthorne "
12759 "estate or anyone else. Some, such as Dover Press and Penguin Classics, take "
12760 "works from the public domain and produce printed editions, which they sell "
12761 "in bookstores across the country. Others, such as Disney, take these stories "
12762 "and turn them into animated cartoons, sometimes successfully (Cinderella), "
12763 "sometimes not (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Planet). These are all "
12764 "commercial publications of public domain works."
12768 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
12769 #: freeculture.xml:10178
12771 "There's a parallel here with pornography that is a bit hard to describe, but "
12772 "it's a strong one. One phenomenon that the Internet created was a world of "
12773 "noncommercial pornographers—people who were distributing porn but were "
12774 "not making money directly or indirectly from that distribution. Such a "
12775 "class didn't exist before the Internet came into being because the costs of "
12776 "distributing porn were so high. Yet this new class of distributors got "
12777 "special attention in the Supreme Court, when the Court struck down the "
12778 "Communications Decency Act of 1996. It was partly because of the burden on "
12779 "noncommercial speakers that the statute was found to exceed Congress's "
12780 "power. The same point could have been made about noncommercial publishers "
12781 "after the advent of the Internet. The Eric Eldreds of the world before the "
12782 "Internet were extremely few. Yet one would think it at least as important to "
12783 "protect the Eldreds of the world as to protect noncommercial pornographers."
12786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12787 #: freeculture.xml:10167
12789 "The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of public "
12790 "domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally thousands of "
12791 "others. Hundreds of thousands from across the world have discovered this "
12792 "platform of expression and now use it to share works that are, by law, free "
12793 "for the taking. This has produced what we might call the \"noncommercial "
12794 "publishing industry,\" which before the Internet was limited to people with "
12795 "large egos or with political or social causes. But with the Internet, it "
12796 "includes a wide range of individuals and groups dedicated to spreading "
12797 "culture generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12800 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12801 #: freeculture.xml:10195
12803 "As I said, Eldred lives in New Hampshire. In 1998, Robert Frost's collection "
12804 "of poems New Hampshire was slated to pass into the public domain. Eldred "
12805 "wanted to post that collection in his free public library. But Congress got "
12806 "in the way. As I described in chapter 10, in 1998, for the eleventh time in "
12807 "forty years, Congress extended the terms of existing copyrights—this "
12808 "time by twenty years. Eldred would not be free to add any works more recent "
12809 "than 1923 to his collection until 2019. Indeed, no copyrighted work would "
12810 "pass into the public domain until that year (and not even then, if Congress "
12811 "extends the term again). By contrast, in the same period, more than 1 "
12812 "million patents will pass into the public domain."
12816 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
12817 #: freeculture.xml:10215
12819 "The full text is: \"Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to "
12820 "last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the "
12821 "Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our "
12822 "copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is "
12823 "also Jack Valenti's proposal for a term to last forever less one "
12824 "day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress,\" 144 "
12825 "Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-2 (October 7, 1998)."
12828 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12829 #: freeculture.xml:10210
12831 "This was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), enacted in "
12832 "memory of the congressman and former musician Sonny Bono, who, his widow, "
12833 "Mary Bono, says, believed that \"copyrights should be forever.\"<placeholder "
12834 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
12837 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12838 #: freeculture.xml:10226
12840 "Eldred decided to fight this law. He first resolved to fight it through "
12841 "civil disobedience. In a series of interviews, Eldred announced that he "
12842 "would publish as planned, CTEA notwithstanding. But because of a second law "
12843 "passed in 1998, the NET (No Electronic Theft) Act, his act of publishing "
12844 "would make Eldred a felon—whether or not anyone complained. This was a "
12845 "dangerous strategy for a disabled programmer to undertake."
12848 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12849 #: freeculture.xml:10235
12851 "It was here that I became involved in Eldred's battle. I was a "
12852 "constitutional scholar whose first passion was constitutional "
12853 "interpretation. And though constitutional law courses never focus upon the "
12854 "Progress Clause of the Constitution, it had always struck me as importantly "
12855 "different. As you know, the Constitution says,"
12858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
12859 #: freeculture.xml:10246
12861 "Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science . . . by securing "
12862 "for limited Times to Authors . . . exclusive Right to their "
12863 ". . . Writings. . . ."
12866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12867 #: freeculture.xml:10252
12869 "As I've described, this clause is unique within the power-granting clause of "
12870 "Article I, section 8 of our Constitution. Every other clause granting power "
12871 "to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for "
12872 "example, to regulate \"commerce among the several states\" or \"declare "
12873 "War.\" But here, the \"something\" is something quite specific—to "
12874 "\"promote . . . Progress\"—through means that are also specific— "
12875 "by \"securing\" \"exclusive Rights\" (i.e., copyrights) \"for limited "
12879 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
12880 #: freeculture.xml:10271 freeculture.xml:11729
12881 msgid "Jaszi, Peter"
12884 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12885 #: freeculture.xml:10262
12887 "In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of extending "
12888 "existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me about this was, if "
12889 "Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution's "
12890 "requirement that terms be \"limited\" will have no practical effect. If "
12891 "every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power to extend "
12892 "its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly "
12893 "forbids—perpetual terms \"on the installment plan,\" as Professor "
12894 "Peter Jaszi so nicely put it. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
12897 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12898 #: freeculture.xml:10274
12900 "As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember sitting "
12901 "late at the office, scouring on-line databases for any serious consideration "
12902 "of the question. No one had ever challenged Congress's practice of extending "
12903 "existing terms. That failure may in part be why Congress seemed so "
12904 "untroubled in its habit. That, and the fact that the practice had become so "
12905 "lucrative for Congress. Congress knows that copyright owners will be willing "
12906 "to pay a great deal of money to see their copyright terms extended. And so "
12907 "Congress is quite happy to keep this gravy train going."
12910 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12911 #: freeculture.xml:10285
12913 "For this is the core of the corruption in our present system of "
12914 "government. \"Corruption\" not in the sense that representatives are "
12915 "bribed. Rather, \"corruption\" in the sense that the system induces the "
12916 "beneficiaries of Congress's acts to raise and give money to Congress to "
12917 "induce it to act. There's only so much time; there's only so much Congress "
12918 "can do. Why not limit its actions to those things it must do—and those "
12919 "things that pay? Extending copyright terms pays."
12922 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12923 #: freeculture.xml:10294
12925 "If that's not obvious to you, consider the following: Say you're one of the "
12926 "very few lucky copyright owners whose copyright continues to make money one "
12927 "hundred years after it was created. The Estate of Robert Frost is a good "
12928 "example. Frost died in 1963. His poetry continues to be extraordinarily "
12929 "valuable. Thus the Robert Frost estate benefits greatly from any extension "
12930 "of copyright, since no publisher would pay the estate any money if the poems "
12931 "Frost wrote could be published by anyone for free."
12934 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12935 #: freeculture.xml:10304
12937 "So imagine the Robert Frost estate is earning $100,000 a year from three of "
12938 "Frost's poems. And imagine the copyright for those poems is about to "
12939 "expire. You sit on the board of the Robert Frost estate. Your financial "
12940 "adviser comes to your board meeting with a very grim report:"
12944 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12945 #: freeculture.xml:10311
12947 "\"Next year,\" the adviser announces, \"our copyrights in works A, B, and C "
12948 "will expire. That means that after next year, we will no longer be receiving "
12949 "the annual royalty check of $100,000 from the publishers of those works."
12952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12953 #: freeculture.xml:10319
12955 "\"There's a proposal in Congress, however,\" she continues, \"that could "
12956 "change this. A few congressmen are floating a bill to extend the terms of "
12957 "copyright by twenty years. That bill would be extraordinarily valuable to "
12958 "us. So we should hope this bill passes.\""
12961 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12962 #: freeculture.xml:10325
12964 "\"Hope?\" a fellow board member says. \"Can't we be doing something about "
12968 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12969 #: freeculture.xml:10329
12971 "\"Well, obviously, yes,\" the adviser responds. \"We could contribute to the "
12972 "campaigns of a number of representatives to try to assure that they support "
12976 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12977 #: freeculture.xml:10334
12979 "You hate politics. You hate contributing to campaigns. So you want to know "
12980 "whether this disgusting practice is worth it. \"How much would we get if "
12981 "this extension were passed?\" you ask the adviser. \"How much is it worth?\""
12984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12985 #: freeculture.xml:10340
12987 "\"Well,\" the adviser says, \"if you're confident that you will continue to "
12988 "get at least $100,000 a year from these copyrights, and you use the "
12989 "`discount rate' that we use to evaluate estate investments (6 percent), then "
12990 "this law would be worth $1,146,000 to the estate.\""
12993 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
12994 #: freeculture.xml:10346
12996 "You're a bit shocked by the number, but you quickly come to the correct "
13000 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13001 #: freeculture.xml:10350
13003 "\"So you're saying it would be worth it for us to pay more than $1,000,000 "
13004 "in campaign contributions if we were confident those contributions would "
13005 "assure that the bill was passed?\""
13008 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13009 #: freeculture.xml:10356
13011 "\"Absolutely,\" the adviser responds. \"It is worth it to you to contribute "
13012 "up to the `present value' of the income you expect from these "
13013 "copyrights. Which for us means over $1,000,000.\""
13017 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13018 #: freeculture.xml:10362
13020 "You quickly get the point—you as the member of the board and, I trust, "
13021 "you the reader. Each time copyrights are about to expire, every beneficiary "
13022 "in the position of the Robert Frost estate faces the same choice: If they "
13023 "can contribute to get a law passed to extend copyrights, they will benefit "
13024 "greatly from that extension. And so each time copyrights are about to "
13025 "expire, there is a massive amount of lobbying to get the copyright term "
13029 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13030 #: freeculture.xml:10373
13032 "Thus a congressional perpetual motion machine: So long as legislation can be "
13033 "bought (albeit indirectly), there will be all the incentive in the world to "
13034 "buy further extensions of copyright."
13038 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13039 #: freeculture.xml:10386
13041 "Associated Press, \"Disney Lobbying for Copyright Extension No Mickey Mouse "
13042 "Effort; Congress OKs Bill Granting Creators 20 More Years,\" Chicago "
13043 "Tribune, 17 October 1998, 22."
13047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13048 #: freeculture.xml:10393
13050 "See Nick Brown, \"Fair Use No More?: Copyright in the Information Age,\" "
13051 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #49</ulink>."
13055 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13056 #: freeculture.xml:10400
13058 "Alan K. Ota, \"Disney in Washington: The Mouse That Roars,\" Congressional "
13059 "Quarterly This Week, 8 August 1990, available at <ulink "
13060 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #50</ulink>."
13063 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13064 #: freeculture.xml:10379
13066 "In the lobbying that led to the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term "
13067 "Extension Act, this \"theory\" about incentives was proved real. Ten of the "
13068 "thirteen original sponsors of the act in the House received the maximum "
13069 "contribution from Disney's political action committee; in the Senate, eight "
13070 "of the twelve sponsors received contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13071 "id=\"0\"/> The RIAA and the MPAA are estimated to have spent over $1.5 "
13072 "million lobbying in the 1998 election cycle. They paid out more than "
13073 "$200,000 in campaign contributions.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> "
13074 "Disney is estimated to have contributed more than $800,000 to reelection "
13075 "campaigns in the cycle.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/>"
13078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13079 #: freeculture.xml:10408
13081 "Constitutional law is not oblivious to the obvious. Or at least, it need not "
13082 "be. So when I was considering Eldred's complaint, this reality about the "
13083 "never-ending incentives to increase the copyright term was central to my "
13084 "thinking. In my view, a pragmatic court committed to interpreting and "
13085 "applying the Constitution of our framers would see that if Congress has the "
13086 "power to extend existing terms, then there would be no effective "
13087 "constitutional requirement that terms be \"limited.\" If they could extend "
13088 "it once, they would extend it again and again and again."
13092 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13093 #: freeculture.xml:10421
13095 "It was also my judgment that this Supreme Court would not allow Congress to "
13096 "extend existing terms. As anyone close to the Supreme Court's work knows, "
13097 "this Court has increasingly restricted the power of Congress when it has "
13098 "viewed Congress's actions as exceeding the power granted to it by the "
13099 "Constitution. Among constitutional scholars, the most famous example of this "
13100 "trend was the Supreme Court's decision in 1995 to strike down a law that "
13101 "banned the possession of guns near schools."
13104 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13105 #: freeculture.xml:10434
13107 "Since 1937, the Supreme Court had interpreted Congress's granted powers very "
13108 "broadly; so, while the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate "
13109 "only \"commerce among the several states\" (aka \"interstate commerce\"), "
13110 "the Supreme Court had interpreted that power to include the power to "
13111 "regulate any activity that merely affected interstate commerce."
13114 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13115 #: freeculture.xml:10444
13117 "As the economy grew, this standard increasingly meant that there was no "
13118 "limit to Congress's power to regulate, since just about every activity, when "
13119 "considered on a national scale, affects interstate commerce. A Constitution "
13120 "designed to limit Congress's power was instead interpreted to impose no "
13124 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13125 #: freeculture.xml:10453
13127 "The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rehnquist's command, changed that in "
13128 "United States v. Lopez. The government had argued that possessing guns near "
13129 "schools affected interstate commerce. Guns near schools increase crime, "
13130 "crime lowers property values, and so on. In the oral argument, the Chief "
13131 "Justice asked the government whether there was any activity that would not "
13132 "affect interstate commerce under the reasoning the government advanced. The "
13133 "government said there was not; if Congress says an activity affects "
13134 "interstate commerce, then that activity affects interstate commerce. The "
13135 "Supreme Court, the government said, was not in the position to second-guess "
13140 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13141 #: freeculture.xml:10469
13142 msgid "United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 564 (1995)."
13146 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13147 #: freeculture.xml:10475
13148 msgid "United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)."
13151 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13152 #: freeculture.xml:10466
13154 "\"We pause to consider the implications of the government's arguments,\" the "
13155 "Chief Justice wrote.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> If anything "
13156 "Congress says is interstate commerce must therefore be considered interstate "
13157 "commerce, then there would be no limit to Congress's power. The decision in "
13158 "Lopez was reaffirmed five years later in United States "
13159 "v. Morrison.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
13163 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13164 #: freeculture.xml:10482
13166 "If it is a principle about enumerated powers, then the principle carries "
13167 "from one enumerated power to another. The animating point in the context of "
13168 "the Commerce Clause was that the interpretation offered by the government "
13169 "would allow the government unending power to regulate commerce—the "
13170 "limitation to interstate commerce notwithstanding. The same point is true in "
13171 "the context of the Copyright Clause. Here, too, the government's "
13172 "interpretation would allow the government unending power to regulate "
13173 "copyrights—the limitation to \"limited times\" notwithstanding."
13177 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13178 #: freeculture.xml:10480
13180 "If a principle were at work here, then it should apply to the Progress "
13181 "Clause as much as the Commerce Clause.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13182 "id=\"0\"/> And if it is applied to the Progress Clause, the principle should "
13183 "yield the conclusion that Congress can't extend an existing term. If "
13184 "Congress could extend an existing term, then there would be no \"stopping "
13185 "point\" to Congress's power over terms, though the Constitution expressly "
13186 "states that there is such a limit. Thus, the same principle applied to the "
13187 "power to grant copyrights should entail that Congress is not allowed to "
13188 "extend the term of existing copyrights."
13191 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13192 #: freeculture.xml:10506
13194 "If, that is, the principle announced in Lopez stood for a principle. Many "
13195 "believed the decision in Lopez stood for politics—a conservative "
13196 "Supreme Court, which believed in states' rights, using its power over "
13197 "Congress to advance its own personal political preferences. But I rejected "
13198 "that view of the Supreme Court's decision. Indeed, shortly after the "
13199 "decision, I wrote an article demonstrating the \"fidelity\" in such an "
13200 "interpretation of the Constitution. The idea that the Supreme Court decides "
13201 "cases based upon its politics struck me as extraordinarily boring. I was "
13202 "not going to devote my life to teaching constitutional law if these nine "
13203 "Justices were going to be petty politicians."
13206 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13207 #: freeculture.xml:10520
13209 "Now let's pause for a moment to make sure we understand what the argument in "
13210 "Eldred was not about. By insisting on the Constitution's limits to "
13211 "copyright, obviously Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious "
13212 "sense, he was fighting a kind of piracy—piracy of the public "
13213 "domain. When Robert Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey "
13214 "Mouse, the maximum copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of "
13215 "interim changes, Frost and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year "
13216 "monopoly for their work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the "
13217 "Constitution envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six "
13218 "years, they created new work. But now these entities were using their "
13219 "power—expressed through the power of lobbyists' money—to get "
13220 "another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be "
13221 "taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects "
13226 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13227 #: freeculture.xml:10543
13229 "Brief of the Nashville Songwriters Association, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 "
13230 "U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01-618), n.10, available at <ulink "
13231 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #51</ulink>."
13234 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13235 #: freeculture.xml:10538
13237 "Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the "
13238 "Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public "
13239 "domain is nothing more than \"legal piracy.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
13240 "id=\"0\"/> But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our "
13241 "constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the "
13242 "Constitution's requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a "
13243 "pirate's charter."
13246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13247 #: freeculture.xml:10553
13249 "As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a "
13250 "way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the "
13251 "development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, "
13252 "we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly "
13253 "extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for "
13254 "the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long "
13255 "as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."
13258 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13259 #: freeculture.xml:10565
13261 "It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. "
13262 "Mickey Mouse and \"Rhapsody in Blue.\" These works are too valuable for "
13263 "copyright owners to ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright "
13264 "extensions is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's. Forget Mickey "
13265 "Mouse. Forget Robert Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s "
13266 "that have continuing commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes "
13267 "not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not "
13268 "famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result."
13272 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13273 #: freeculture.xml:10586
13275 "The figure of 2 percent is an extrapolation from the study by the "
13276 "Congressional Research Service, in light of the estimated renewal "
13277 "ranges. See Brief of Petitioners, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 7, available at <ulink "
13278 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #52</ulink>."
13281 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13282 #: freeculture.xml:10580
13284 "If you look at the work created in the first twenty years (1923 to 1942) "
13285 "affected by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, 2 percent of that "
13286 "work has any continuing commercial value. It was the copyright holders for "
13287 "that 2 percent who pushed the CTEA through. But the law and its effect were "
13288 "not limited to that 2 percent. The law extended the terms of copyright "
13289 "generally.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13293 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13294 #: freeculture.xml:10595
13296 "Think practically about the consequence of this extension—practically, "
13297 "as a businessperson, and not as a lawyer eager for more legal work. In 1930, "
13298 "10,047 books were published. In 2000, 174 of those books were still in "
13299 "print. Let's say you were Brewster Kahle, and you wanted to make available "
13300 "to the world in your iArchive project the remaining 9,873. What would you "
13304 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13305 #: freeculture.xml:10607
13307 "Well, first, you'd have to determine which of the 9,873 books were still "
13308 "under copyright. That requires going to a library (these data are not "
13309 "on-line) and paging through tomes of books, cross-checking the titles and "
13310 "authors of the 9,873 books with the copyright registration and renewal "
13311 "records for works published in 1930. That will produce a list of books still "
13315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13316 #: freeculture.xml:10615
13318 "Then for the books still under copyright, you would need to locate the "
13319 "current copyright owners. How would you do that?"
13322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13323 #: freeculture.xml:10619
13325 "Most people think that there must be a list of these copyright owners "
13326 "somewhere. Practical people think this way. How could there be thousands and "
13327 "thousands of government monopolies without there being at least a list?"
13330 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13331 #: freeculture.xml:10626
13333 "But there is no list. There may be a name from 1930, and then in 1959, of "
13334 "the person who registered the copyright. But just think practically about "
13335 "how impossibly difficult it would be to track down thousands of such "
13336 "records—especially since the person who registered is not necessarily "
13337 "the current owner. And we're just talking about 1930!"
13340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13341 #: freeculture.xml:10635
13343 "\"But there isn't a list of who owns property generally,\" the apologists "
13344 "for the system respond. \"Why should there be a list of copyright owners?\""
13347 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13348 #: freeculture.xml:10641
13350 "Well, actually, if you think about it, there are plenty of lists of who owns "
13351 "what property. Think about deeds on houses, or titles to cars. And where "
13352 "there isn't a list, the code of real space is pretty good at suggesting who "
13353 "the owner of a bit of property is. (A swing set in your backyard is probably "
13354 "yours.) So formally or informally, we have a pretty good way to know who "
13355 "owns what tangible property."
13359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13360 #: freeculture.xml:10650
13362 "So: You walk down a street and see a house. You can know who owns the house "
13363 "by looking it up in the courthouse registry. If you see a car, there is "
13364 "ordinarily a license plate that will link the owner to the car. If you see a "
13365 "bunch of children's toys sitting on the front lawn of a house, it's fairly "
13366 "easy to determine who owns the toys. And if you happen to see a baseball "
13367 "lying in a gutter on the side of the road, look around for a second for some "
13368 "kids playing ball. If you don't see any kids, then okay: Here's a bit of "
13369 "property whose owner we can't easily determine. It is the exception that "
13370 "proves the rule: that we ordinarily know quite well who owns what property."
13373 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13374 #: freeculture.xml:10665
13376 "Compare this story to intangible property. You go into a library. The "
13377 "library owns the books. But who owns the copyrights? As I've already "
13378 "described, there's no list of copyright owners. There are authors' names, of "
13379 "course, but their copyrights could have been assigned, or passed down in an "
13380 "estate like Grandma's old jewelry. To know who owns what, you would have to "
13381 "hire a private detective. The bottom line: The owner cannot easily be "
13382 "located. And in a regime like ours, in which it is a felony to use such "
13383 "property without the property owner's permission, the property isn't going "
13387 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13388 #: freeculture.xml:10677
13390 "The consequence with respect to old books is that they won't be digitized, "
13391 "and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the consequence for other "
13392 "creative works is much more dire."
13395 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13396 #: freeculture.xml:10682
13397 msgid "Agee, Michael"
13401 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13402 #: freeculture.xml:10695
13404 "See David G. Savage, \"High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright Law,\" Los "
13405 "Angeles Times, 6 October 2002; David Streitfeld, \"Classic Movies, Songs, "
13406 "Books at Stake; Supreme Court Hears Arguments Today on Striking Down "
13407 "Copyright Extension,\" Orlando Sentinel Tribune, 9 October 2002."
13410 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13411 #: freeculture.xml:10684
13413 "Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which "
13414 "owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a direct "
13415 "beneficiary of the Bono Act. The Laurel and Hardy films were made between "
13416 "1921 and 1951. Only one of these films, The Lucky Dog, is currently out of "
13417 "copyright. But for the CTEA, films made after 1923 would have begun entering "
13418 "the public domain. Because Agee controls the exclusive rights for these "
13419 "popular films, he makes a great deal of money. According to one estimate, "
13420 "\"Roach has sold about 60,000 videocassettes and 50,000 DVDs of the duo's "
13421 "silent films.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13424 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13425 #: freeculture.xml:10703
13427 "Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in this "
13428 "culture: selflessness. He argued in a brief before the Supreme Court that "
13429 "the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act will, if left standing, destroy "
13430 "a whole generation of American film."
13434 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13435 #: freeculture.xml:10709
13437 "His argument is straightforward. A tiny fraction of this work has any "
13438 "continuing commercial value. The rest—to the extent it survives at "
13439 "all—sits in vaults gathering dust. It may be that some of this work "
13440 "not now commercially valuable will be deemed to be valuable by the owners of "
13441 "the vaults. For this to occur, however, the commercial benefit from the work "
13442 "must exceed the costs of making the work available for distribution."
13446 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13447 #: freeculture.xml:10726
13449 "Brief of Hal Roach Studios and Michael Agee as Amicus Curiae Supporting the "
13450 "Petitoners, Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) (No. 01- 618), 12. See "
13451 "also Brief of Amicus Curiae filed on behalf of Petitioners by the Internet "
13452 "Archive, Eldred v. Ashcroft, available at <ulink "
13453 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #53</ulink>."
13456 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13457 #: freeculture.xml:10720
13459 "We can't know the benefits, but we do know a lot about the costs. For most "
13460 "of the history of film, the costs of restoring film were very high; digital "
13461 "technology has lowered these costs substantially. While it cost more than "
13462 "$10,000 to restore a ninety-minute black-and-white film in 1993, it can now "
13463 "cost as little as $100 to digitize one hour of mm film.<placeholder "
13464 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13467 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13468 #: freeculture.xml:10736
13470 "Restoration technology is not the only cost, nor the most important. "
13471 "Lawyers, too, are a cost, and increasingly, a very important one. In "
13472 "addition to preserving the film, a distributor needs to secure the rights. "
13473 "And to secure the rights for a film that is under copyright, you need to "
13474 "locate the copyright owner."
13477 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13478 #: freeculture.xml:10744
13480 "Or more accurately, owners. As we've seen, there isn't only a single "
13481 "copyright associated with a film; there are many. There isn't a single "
13482 "person whom you can contact about those copyrights; there are as many as can "
13483 "hold the rights, which turns out to be an extremely large number. Thus the "
13484 "costs of clearing the rights to these films is exceptionally high."
13487 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13488 #: freeculture.xml:10753
13490 "\"But can't you just restore the film, distribute it, and then pay the "
13491 "copyright owner when she shows up?\" Sure, if you want to commit a "
13492 "felony. And even if you're not worried about committing a felony, when she "
13493 "does show up, she'll have the right to sue you for all the profits you have "
13494 "made. So, if you're successful, you can be fairly confident you'll be "
13495 "getting a call from someone's lawyer. And if you're not successful, you "
13496 "won't make enough to cover the costs of your own lawyer. Either way, you "
13497 "have to talk to a lawyer. And as is too often the case, saying you have to "
13498 "talk to a lawyer is the same as saying you won't make any money."
13502 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13503 #: freeculture.xml:10764
13505 "For some films, the benefit of releasing the film may well exceed these "
13506 "costs. But for the vast majority of them, there is no way the benefit would "
13507 "outweigh the legal costs. Thus, for the vast majority of old films, Agee "
13508 "argued, the film will not be restored and distributed until the copyright "
13512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13513 #: freeculture.xml:10774
13515 "But by the time the copyright for these films expires, the film will have "
13516 "expired. These films were produced on nitrate-based stock, and nitrate stock "
13517 "dissolves over time. They will be gone, and the metal canisters in which "
13518 "they are now stored will be filled with nothing more than dust."
13521 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13522 #: freeculture.xml:10782
13524 "Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has "
13525 "continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a "
13526 "crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright "
13527 "creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that "
13528 "tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an \"engine of free expression.\""
13531 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13532 #: freeculture.xml:10791
13534 "But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative "
13535 "work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books "
13536 "go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and "
13537 "film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a "
13538 "creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the "
13539 "commercial life ends."
13542 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13543 #: freeculture.xml:10801
13545 "Yet that doesn't mean the life of the creative work ends. We don't keep "
13546 "libraries of books in order to compete with Barnes & Noble, and we don't "
13547 "have archives of films because we expect people to choose between spending "
13548 "Friday night watching new movies and spending Friday night watching a 1930 "
13549 "news documentary. The noncommercial life of culture is important and "
13550 "valuable—for entertainment but also, and more importantly, for "
13551 "knowledge. To understand who we are, and where we came from, and how we have "
13552 "made the mistakes that we have, we need to have access to this history."
13556 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13557 #: freeculture.xml:10814
13559 "Copyrights in this context do not drive an engine of free expression. In "
13560 "this context, there is no need for an exclusive right. Copyrights in this "
13561 "context do no good."
13564 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13565 #: freeculture.xml:10821
13567 "Yet, for most of our history, they also did little harm. For most of our "
13568 "history, when a work ended its commercial life, there was no "
13569 "copyright-related use that would be inhibited by an exclusive right. When a "
13570 "book went out of print, you could not buy it from a publisher. But you "
13571 "could still buy it from a used book store, and when a used book store sells "
13572 "it, in America, at least, there is no need to pay the copyright owner "
13573 "anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its commercial life ended "
13574 "was a use that was independent of copyright law."
13577 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13578 #: freeculture.xml:10831
13580 "The same was effectively true of film. Because the costs of restoring a "
13581 "film—the real economic costs, not the lawyer costs—were so high, "
13582 "it was never at all feasible to preserve or restore film. Like the remains "
13583 "of a great dinner, when it's over, it's over. Once a film passed out of its "
13584 "commercial life, it may have been archived for a bit, but that was the end "
13585 "of its life so long as the market didn't have more to offer."
13588 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13589 #: freeculture.xml:10840
13591 "In other words, though copyright has been relatively short for most of our "
13592 "history, long copyrights wouldn't have mattered for the works that lost "
13593 "their commercial value. Long copyrights for these works would not have "
13594 "interfered with anything."
13597 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13598 #: freeculture.xml:10846
13599 msgid "But this situation has now changed."
13602 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13603 #: freeculture.xml:10849
13605 "One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital technologies "
13606 "is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of. Digital "
13607 "technologies now make it possible to preserve and give access to all sorts "
13608 "of knowledge. Once a book goes out of print, we can now imagine digitizing "
13609 "it and making it available to everyone, forever. Once a film goes out of "
13610 "distribution, we could digitize it and make it available to everyone, "
13611 "forever. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it "
13612 "passes out of its commercial life. It is now possible to preserve and assure "
13613 "universal access to this knowledge and culture, whereas before it was not."
13617 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13618 #: freeculture.xml:10862
13620 "And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this "
13621 "digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of "
13622 "copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission "
13623 "of the copyright owner. The same with music, film, or any other aspect of "
13624 "our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things "
13625 "available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to "
13626 "explore, is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a "
13627 "radically different context."
13630 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13631 #: freeculture.xml:10872
13633 "Here is the core of the harm that comes from extending terms: Now that "
13634 "technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in "
13635 "the way. And it doesn't get in the way for any useful copyright purpose, for "
13636 "the purpose of copyright is to enable the commercial market that spreads "
13637 "culture. No, we are talking about culture after it has lived its commercial "
13638 "life. In this context, copyright is serving no purpose at all related to the "
13639 "spread of knowledge. In this context, copyright is not an engine of free "
13640 "expression. Copyright is a brake."
13643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13644 #: freeculture.xml:10883
13646 "You may well ask, \"But if digital technologies lower the costs for Brewster "
13647 "Kahle, then they will lower the costs for Random House, too. So won't "
13648 "Random House do as well as Brewster Kahle in spreading culture widely?\""
13651 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13652 #: freeculture.xml:10889
13654 "Maybe. Someday. But there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that "
13655 "publishers would be as complete as libraries. If Barnes & Noble offered "
13656 "to lend books from its stores for a low price, would that eliminate the need "
13657 "for libraries? Only if you think that the only role of a library is to serve "
13658 "what \"the market\" would demand. But if you think the role of a library is "
13659 "bigger than this—if you think its role is to archive culture, whether "
13660 "there's a demand for any particular bit of that culture or not—then we "
13661 "can't count on the commercial market to do our library work for us."
13665 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
13666 #: freeculture.xml:10912
13668 "Jason Schultz, \"The Myth of the 1976 Copyright `Chaos' Theory,\" 20 "
13669 "December 2002, available at <ulink "
13670 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #54</ulink>."
13673 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13674 #: freeculture.xml:10900
13676 "I would be the first to agree that it should do as much as it can: We should "
13677 "rely upon the market as much as possible to spread and enable culture. My "
13678 "message is absolutely not antimarket. But where we see the market is not "
13679 "doing the job, then we should allow nonmarket forces the freedom to fill the "
13680 "gaps. As one researcher calculated for American culture, 94 percent of the "
13681 "films, books, and music produced between and 1946 is not commercially "
13682 "available. However much you love the commercial market, if access is a "
13683 "value, then 6 percent is a failure to provide that value.<placeholder "
13684 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
13687 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13688 #: freeculture.xml:10919
13690 "In January 1999, we filed a lawsuit on Eric Eldred's behalf in federal "
13691 "district court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to declare the Sonny "
13692 "Bono Copyright Term Extension Act unconstitutional. The two central claims "
13693 "that we made were (1) that extending existing terms violated the "
13694 "Constitution's \"limited Times\" requirement, and (2) that extending terms "
13695 "by another twenty years violated the First Amendment."
13698 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13699 #: freeculture.xml:10927
13701 "The district court dismissed our claims without even hearing an argument. A "
13702 "panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also dismissed our "
13703 "claims, though after hearing an extensive argument. But that decision at "
13704 "least had a dissent, by one of the most conservative judges on that "
13705 "court. That dissent gave our claims life."
13708 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13709 #: freeculture.xml:10934
13711 "Judge David Sentelle said the CTEA violated the requirement that copyrights "
13712 "be for \"limited Times\" only. His argument was as elegant as it was simple: "
13713 "If Congress can extend existing terms, then there is no \"stopping point\" "
13714 "to Congress's power under the Copyright Clause. The power to extend existing "
13715 "terms means Congress is not required to grant terms that are \"limited.\" "
13716 "Thus, Judge Sentelle argued, the court had to interpret the term \"limited "
13717 "Times\" to give it meaning. And the best interpretation, Judge Sentelle "
13718 "argued, would be to deny Congress the power to extend existing terms."
13721 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13722 #: freeculture.xml:10945
13724 "We asked the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as a whole to hear the "
13725 "case. Cases are ordinarily heard in panels of three, except for important "
13726 "cases or cases that raise issues specific to the circuit as a whole, where "
13727 "the court will sit \"en banc\" to hear the case."
13731 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13732 #: freeculture.xml:10951
13734 "The Court of Appeals rejected our request to hear the case en banc. This "
13735 "time, Judge Sentelle was joined by the most liberal member of the "
13736 "D.C. Circuit, Judge David Tatel. Both the most conservative and the most "
13737 "liberal judges in the D.C. Circuit believed Congress had overstepped its "
13741 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13742 #: freeculture.xml:10960
13744 "It was here that most expected Eldred v. Ashcroft would die, for the Supreme "
13745 "Court rarely reviews any decision by a court of appeals. (It hears about one "
13746 "hundred cases a year, out of more than five thousand appeals.) And it "
13747 "practically never reviews a decision that upholds a statute when no other "
13748 "court has yet reviewed the statute."
13751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13752 #: freeculture.xml:10967
13754 "But in February 2002, the Supreme Court surprised the world by granting our "
13755 "petition to review the D.C. Circuit opinion. Argument was set for October of "
13756 "2002. The summer would be spent writing briefs and preparing for argument."
13759 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13760 #: freeculture.xml:10973
13762 "It is over a year later as I write these words. It is still astonishingly "
13763 "hard. If you know anything at all about this story, you know that we lost "
13764 "the appeal. And if you know something more than just the minimum, you "
13765 "probably think there was no way this case could have been won. After our "
13766 "defeat, I received literally thousands of missives by well-wishers and "
13767 "supporters, thanking me for my work on behalf of this noble but doomed "
13768 "cause. And none from this pile was more significant to me than the e-mail "
13769 "from my client, Eric Eldred."
13772 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13773 #: freeculture.xml:10983
13775 "But my client and these friends were wrong. This case could have been "
13776 "won. It should have been won. And no matter how hard I try to retell this "
13777 "story to myself, I can never escape believing that my own mistake lost it."
13780 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13781 #: freeculture.xml:10988 freeculture.xml:11002
13782 msgid "Steward, Geoffrey"
13786 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13787 #: freeculture.xml:10990
13789 "The mistake was made early, though it became obvious only at the very "
13790 "end. Our case had been supported from the very beginning by an extraordinary "
13791 "lawyer, Geoffrey Stewart, and by the law firm he had moved to, Jones, Day, "
13792 "Reavis and Pogue. Jones Day took a great deal of heat from its "
13793 "copyright-protectionist clients for supporting us. They ignored this "
13794 "pressure (something that few law firms today would ever do), and throughout "
13795 "the case, they gave it everything they could."
13798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13799 #: freeculture.xml:11000 freeculture.xml:11341 freeculture.xml:11356 freeculture.xml:11450 freeculture.xml:11672 freeculture.xml:11703 freeculture.xml:11790
13803 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13804 #: freeculture.xml:11001
13805 msgid "Bromberg, Dan"
13808 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13809 #: freeculture.xml:11004
13811 "There were three key lawyers on the case from Jones Day. Geoff Stewart was "
13812 "the first, but then Dan Bromberg and Don Ayer became quite "
13813 "involved. Bromberg and Ayer in particular had a common view about how this "
13814 "case would be won: We would only win, they repeatedly told me, if we could "
13815 "make the issue seem \"important\" to the Supreme Court. It had to seem as if "
13816 "dramatic harm were being done to free speech and free culture; otherwise, "
13817 "they would never vote against \"the most powerful media companies in the "
13821 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13822 #: freeculture.xml:11014
13824 "I hate this view of the law. Of course I thought the Sonny Bono Act was a "
13825 "dramatic harm to free speech and free culture. Of course I still think it "
13826 "is. But the idea that the Supreme Court decides the law based on how "
13827 "important they believe the issues are is just wrong. It might be \"right\" "
13828 "as in \"true,\" I thought, but it is \"wrong\" as in \"it just shouldn't be "
13829 "that way.\" As I believed that any faithful interpretation of what the "
13830 "framers of our Constitution did would yield the conclusion that the CTEA was "
13831 "unconstitutional, and as I believed that any faithful interpretation of what "
13832 "the First Amendment means would yield the conclusion that the power to "
13833 "extend existing copyright terms is unconstitutional, I was not persuaded "
13834 "that we had to sell our case like soap. Just as a law that bans the "
13835 "swastika is unconstitutional not because the Court likes Nazis but because "
13836 "such a law would violate the Constitution, so too, in my view, would the "
13837 "Court decide whether Congress's law was constitutional based on the "
13838 "Constitution, not based on whether they liked the values that the framers "
13839 "put in the Constitution."
13842 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13843 #: freeculture.xml:11035
13845 "In any case, I thought, the Court must already see the danger and the harm "
13846 "caused by this sort of law. Why else would they grant review? There was no "
13847 "reason to hear the case in the Supreme Court if they weren't convinced that "
13848 "this regulation was harmful. So in my view, we didn't need to persuade them "
13849 "that this law was bad, we needed to show why it was unconstitutional."
13853 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13854 #: freeculture.xml:11043
13856 "There was one way, however, in which I felt politics would matter and in "
13857 "which I thought a response was appropriate. I was convinced that the Court "
13858 "would not hear our arguments if it thought these were just the arguments of "
13859 "a group of lefty loons. This Supreme Court was not about to launch into a "
13860 "new field of judicial review if it seemed that this field of review was "
13861 "simply the preference of a small political minority. Although my focus in "
13862 "the case was not to demonstrate how bad the Sonny Bono Act was but to "
13863 "demonstrate that it was unconstitutional, my hope was to make this argument "
13864 "against a background of briefs that covered the full range of political "
13865 "views. To show that this claim against the CTEA was grounded in law and not "
13866 "politics, then, we tried to gather the widest range of credible "
13867 "critics—credible not because they were rich and famous, but because "
13868 "they, in the aggregate, demonstrated that this law was unconstitutional "
13869 "regardless of one's politics."
13872 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13873 #: freeculture.xml:11062
13875 "The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's organization, "
13876 "Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the very beginning. "
13877 "Mrs. Schlafly viewed the CTEA as a sellout by Congress. In November 1998, "
13878 "she wrote a stinging editorial attacking the Republican Congress for "
13879 "allowing the law to pass. As she wrote, \"Do you sometimes wonder why bills "
13880 "that create a financial windfall to narrow special interests slide easily "
13881 "through the intricate legislative process, while bills that benefit the "
13882 "general public seem to get bogged down?\" The answer, as the editorial "
13883 "documented, was the power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's "
13884 "contributions to the key players on the committees. It was money, not "
13885 "justice, that gave Mickey Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, "
13889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13890 #: freeculture.xml:11078
13892 "In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief supporting "
13893 "our position. Their brief made the argument that became the core claim in "
13894 "the Supreme Court: If Congress can extend the term of existing copyrights, "
13895 "there is no limit to Congress's power to set terms. That strong "
13896 "conservative argument persuaded a strong conservative judge, Judge Sentelle."
13900 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13901 #: freeculture.xml:11087
13903 "In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as it "
13904 "gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free Software "
13905 "Foundation (home of the GNU project that made GNU/ Linux possible). They "
13906 "included a powerful brief about the costs of uncertainty by Intel. There "
13907 "were two law professors' briefs, one by copyright scholars and one by First "
13908 "Amendment scholars. There was an exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the "
13909 "world's experts in the history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there "
13910 "was a new brief by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments."
13913 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13914 #: freeculture.xml:11100
13916 "Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal argument, "
13917 "there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and archives, including "
13918 "the Internet Archive, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the "
13919 "National Writers Union."
13922 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13923 #: freeculture.xml:11106
13925 "But two briefs captured the policy argument best. One made the argument I've "
13926 "already described: A brief by Hal Roach Studios argued that unless the law "
13927 "was struck, a whole generation of American film would disappear. The other "
13928 "made the economic argument absolutely clear."
13931 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13932 #: freeculture.xml:11112
13933 msgid "Akerlof, George"
13936 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13937 #: freeculture.xml:11113
13938 msgid "Arrow, Kenneth"
13941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13942 #: freeculture.xml:11114
13943 msgid "Buchanan, James"
13946 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13947 #: freeculture.xml:11115
13948 msgid "Coase, Ronald"
13951 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
13952 #: freeculture.xml:11116
13953 msgid "Friedman, Milton"
13956 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13957 #: freeculture.xml:11118
13959 "This economists' brief was signed by seventeen economists, including five "
13960 "Nobel Prize winners, including Ronald Coase, James Buchanan, Milton "
13961 "Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, and George Akerlof. The economists, as the list of "
13962 "Nobel winners demonstrates, spanned the political spectrum. Their "
13963 "conclusions were powerful: There was no plausible claim that extending the "
13964 "terms of existing copyrights would do anything to increase incentives to "
13965 "create. Such extensions were nothing more than \"rent-seeking\"—the "
13966 "fancy term economists use to describe special-interest legislation gone "
13970 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><indexterm><primary>
13971 #: freeculture.xml:11141 freeculture.xml:11154 freeculture.xml:11347 freeculture.xml:11708
13972 msgid "Fried, Charles"
13975 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13976 #: freeculture.xml:11129
13978 "The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered to "
13979 "write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with us from "
13980 "the start. But when the case got to the Supreme Court, we added three "
13981 "lawyers to help us frame this argument to this Court: Alan Morrison, a "
13982 "lawyer from Public Citizen, a Washington group that had made constitutional "
13983 "history with a series of seminal victories in the Supreme Court defending "
13984 "individual rights; my colleague and dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued "
13985 "many cases in the Court, and who had advised us early on about a First "
13986 "Amendment strategy; and finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried. "
13987 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
13990 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
13991 #: freeculture.xml:11144
13993 "Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor "
13994 "general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give media "
13995 "companies the special favor of extended copyright terms. Fried was the only "
13996 "one who turned down that lucrative assignment to stand up for something he "
13997 "believed in. He had been Ronald Reagan's chief lawyer in the Supreme "
13998 "Court. He had helped craft the line of cases that limited Congress's power "
13999 "in the context of the Commerce Clause. And while he had argued many "
14000 "positions in the Supreme Court that I personally disagreed with, his joining "
14001 "the cause was a vote of confidence in our argument. <placeholder "
14002 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
14005 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14006 #: freeculture.xml:11157
14008 "The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of friends, as "
14009 "well. Significantly, however, none of these \"friends\" included historians "
14010 "or economists. The briefs on the other side of the case were written "
14011 "exclusively by major media companies, congressmen, and copyright holders."
14014 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14015 #: freeculture.xml:11164
14017 "The media companies were not surprising. They had the most to gain from the "
14018 "law. The congressmen were not surprising either—they were defending "
14019 "their power and, indirectly, the gravy train of contributions such power "
14020 "induced. And of course it was not surprising that the copyright holders "
14021 "would defend the idea that they should continue to have the right to control "
14022 "who did what with content they wanted to control."
14026 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
14027 #: freeculture.xml:11180
14029 "Brief of Amici Dr. Seuss Enterprise et al., Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. "
14030 "(2003) (No. 01-618), 19."
14034 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
14035 #: freeculture.xml:11188
14037 "Dinitia Smith, \"Immortal Words, Immortal Royalties? Even Mickey Mouse Joins "
14038 "the Fray,\" New York Times, 28 March 1998, B7."
14042 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14043 #: freeculture.xml:11173
14045 "Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was better for the "
14046 "Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to Dr. Seuss's work— better "
14047 "than allowing it to fall into the public domain—because if this "
14048 "creativity were in the public domain, then people could use it to \"glorify "
14049 "drugs or to create pornography.\"<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
14050 "That was also the motive of the Gershwin estate, which defended its "
14051 "\"protection\" of the work of George Gershwin. They refuse, for example, to "
14052 "license Porgy and Bess to anyone who refuses to use African Americans in the "
14053 "cast.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> That's their view of how this "
14054 "part of American culture should be controlled, and they wanted this law to "
14055 "help them effect that control."
14058 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14059 #: freeculture.xml:11198
14061 "This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this debate. "
14062 "When Congress decides to extend the term of existing copyrights, Congress is "
14063 "making a choice about which speakers it will favor. Famous and beloved "
14064 "copyright owners, such as the Gershwin estate and Dr. Seuss, come to "
14065 "Congress and say, \"Give us twenty years to control the speech about these "
14066 "icons of American culture. We'll do better with them than anyone else.\" "
14067 "Congress of course likes to reward the popular and famous by giving them "
14068 "what they want. But when Congress gives people an exclusive right to speak "
14069 "in a certain way, that's just what the First Amendment is traditionally "
14073 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14074 #: freeculture.xml:11210
14076 "We argued as much in a final brief. Not only would upholding the CTEA mean "
14077 "that there was no limit to the power of Congress to extend "
14078 "copyrights—extensions that would further concentrate the market; it "
14079 "would also mean that there was no limit to Congress's power to play "
14080 "favorites, through copyright, with who has the right to speak. Between "
14081 "February and October, there was little I did beyond preparing for this "
14082 "case. Early on, as I said, I set the strategy."
14085 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14086 #: freeculture.xml:11219
14088 "The Supreme Court was divided into two important camps. One camp we called "
14089 "\"the Conservatives.\" The other we called \"the Rest.\" The Conservatives "
14090 "included Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O'Connor, Justice Scalia, Justice "
14091 "Kennedy, and Justice Thomas. These five had been the most consistent in "
14092 "limiting Congress's power. They were the five who had supported the "
14093 "Lopez/Morrison line of cases that said that an enumerated power had to be "
14094 "interpreted to assure that Congress's powers had limits."
14097 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
14098 #: freeculture.xml:11228 freeculture.xml:11252 freeculture.xml:11601 freeculture.xml:11613
14099 msgid "Breyer, Stephen"
14103 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14104 #: freeculture.xml:11230
14106 "The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on "
14107 "Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, Justice "
14108 "Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer—had repeatedly argued that the "
14109 "Constitution gives Congress broad discretion to decide how best to implement "
14110 "its powers. In case after case, these justices had argued that the Court's "
14111 "role should be one of deference. Though the votes of these four justices "
14112 "were the votes that I personally had most consistently agreed with, they "
14113 "were also the votes that we were least likely to get."
14116 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14117 #: freeculture.xml:11242
14119 "In particular, the least likely was Justice Ginsburg's. In addition to her "
14120 "general view about deference to Congress (except where issues of gender are "
14121 "involved), she had been particularly deferential in the context of "
14122 "intellectual property protections. She and her daughter (an excellent and "
14123 "well-known intellectual property scholar) were cut from the same "
14124 "intellectual property cloth. We expected she would agree with the writings "
14125 "of her daughter: that Congress had the power in this context to do as it "
14126 "wished, even if what Congress wished made little sense."
14129 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14130 #: freeculture.xml:11254
14132 "Close behind Justice Ginsburg were two justices whom we also viewed as "
14133 "unlikely allies, though possible surprises. Justice Souter strongly favored "
14134 "deference to Congress, as did Justice Breyer. But both were also very "
14135 "sensitive to free speech concerns. And as we strongly believed, there was a "
14136 "very important free speech argument against these retrospective extensions."
14139 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14140 #: freeculture.xml:11262
14142 "The only vote we could be confident about was that of Justice "
14143 "Stevens. History will record Justice Stevens as one of the greatest judges "
14144 "on this Court. His votes are consistently eclectic, which just means that no "
14145 "simple ideology explains where he will stand. But he had consistently argued "
14146 "for limits in the context of intellectual property generally. We were fairly "
14147 "confident he would recognize limits here."
14150 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14151 #: freeculture.xml:11270
14153 "This analysis of \"the Rest\" showed most clearly where our focus had to be: "
14154 "on the Conservatives. To win this case, we had to crack open these five and "
14155 "get at least a majority to go our way. Thus, the single overriding argument "
14156 "that animated our claim rested on the Conservatives' most important "
14157 "jurisprudential innovation—the argument that Judge Sentelle had relied "
14158 "upon in the Court of Appeals, that Congress's power must be interpreted so "
14159 "that its enumerated powers have limits."
14163 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14164 #: freeculture.xml:11280
14166 "This then was the core of our strategy—a strategy for which I am "
14167 "responsible. We would get the Court to see that just as with the Lopez case, "
14168 "under the government's argument here, Congress would always have unlimited "
14169 "power to extend existing terms. If anything was plain about Congress's power "
14170 "under the Progress Clause, it was that this power was supposed to be "
14171 "\"limited.\" Our aim would be to get the Court to reconcile Eldred with "
14172 "Lopez: If Congress's power to regulate commerce was limited, then so, too, "
14173 "must Congress's power to regulate copyright be limited."
14176 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14177 #: freeculture.xml:11293
14179 "The argument on the government's side came down to this: Congress has done "
14180 "it before. It should be allowed to do it again. The government claimed that "
14181 "from the very beginning, Congress has been extending the term of existing "
14182 "copyrights. So, the government argued, the Court should not now say that "
14183 "practice is unconstitutional."
14186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14187 #: freeculture.xml:11302
14189 "There was some truth to the government's claim, but not much. We certainly "
14190 "agreed that Congress had extended existing terms in and in 1909. And of "
14191 "course, in 1962, Congress began extending existing terms "
14192 "regularly—eleven times in forty years."
14196 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14197 #: freeculture.xml:11309
14199 "But this \"consistency\" should be kept in perspective. Congress extended "
14200 "existing terms once in the first hundred years of the Republic. It then "
14201 "extended existing terms once again in the next fifty. Those rare extensions "
14202 "are in contrast to the now regular practice of extending existing "
14203 "terms. Whatever restraint Congress had had in the past, that restraint was "
14204 "now gone. Congress was now in a cycle of extensions; there was no reason to "
14205 "expect that cycle would end. This Court had not hesitated to intervene where "
14206 "Congress was in a similar cycle of extension. There was no reason it "
14207 "couldn't intervene here. Oral argument was scheduled for the first week in "
14208 "October. I arrived in D.C. two weeks before the argument. During those two "
14209 "weeks, I was repeatedly \"mooted\" by lawyers who had volunteered to help in "
14210 "the case. Such \"moots\" are basically practice rounds, where wannabe "
14211 "justices fire questions at wannabe winners."
14214 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14215 #: freeculture.xml:11332
14217 "I was convinced that to win, I had to keep the Court focused on a single "
14218 "point: that if this extension is permitted, then there is no limit to the "
14219 "power to set terms. Going with the government would mean that terms would be "
14220 "effectively unlimited; going with us would give Congress a clear line to "
14221 "follow: Don't extend existing terms. The moots were an effective practice; I "
14222 "found ways to take every question back to this central idea."
14225 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14226 #: freeculture.xml:11343
14228 "One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the skeptic. He "
14229 "had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor General Charles "
14230 "Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And in his review "
14231 "of the moot, he let his concern speak: <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14236 #: freeculture.xml:11350
14238 "\"I'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be "
14239 "willing to upset this practice that the government says has been a "
14240 "consistent practice for two hundred years. You have to make them see the "
14241 "harm—passionately get them to see the harm. For if they don't see "
14242 "that, then we haven't any chance of winning.\""
14246 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14247 #: freeculture.xml:11358
14249 "He may have argued many cases before this Court, I thought, but he didn't "
14250 "understand its soul. As a clerk, I had seen the Justices do the right "
14251 "thing—not because of politics but because it was right. As a law "
14252 "professor, I had spent my life teaching my students that this Court does the "
14253 "right thing—not because of politics but because it is right. As I "
14254 "listened to Ayer's plea for passion in pressing politics, I understood his "
14255 "point, and I rejected it. Our argument was right. That was enough. Let the "
14256 "politicians learn to see that it was also good. The night before the "
14257 "argument, a line of people began to form in front of the Supreme Court. The "
14258 "case had become a focus of the press and of the movement to free "
14259 "culture. Hundreds stood in line for the chance to see the "
14260 "proceedings. Scores spent the night on the Supreme Court steps so that they "
14261 "would be assured a seat."
14264 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14265 #: freeculture.xml:11375
14267 "Not everyone has to wait in line. People who know the Justices can ask for "
14268 "seats they control. (I asked Justice Scalia's chambers for seats for my "
14269 "parents, for example.) Members of the Supreme Court bar can get a seat in a "
14270 "special section reserved for them. And senators and congressmen have a "
14271 "special place where they get to sit, too. And finally, of course, the press "
14272 "has a gallery, as do clerks working for the Justices on the Court. As we "
14273 "entered that morning, there was no place that was not taken. This was an "
14274 "argument about intellectual property law, yet the halls were filled. As I "
14275 "walked in to take my seat at the front of the Court, I saw my parents "
14276 "sitting on the left. As I sat down at the table, I saw Jack Valenti sitting "
14277 "in the special section ordinarily reserved for family of the Justices."
14280 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14281 #: freeculture.xml:11390
14283 "When the Chief Justice called me to begin my argument, I began where I "
14284 "intended to stay: on the question of the limits on Congress's power. This "
14285 "was a case about enumerated powers, I said, and whether those enumerated "
14286 "powers had any limit."
14289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14290 #: freeculture.xml:11396
14292 "Justice O'Connor stopped me within one minute of my opening. The history "
14293 "was bothering her."
14296 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14297 #: freeculture.xml:11401
14299 "justice o'connor: Congress has extended the term so often through the years, "
14300 "and if you are right, don't we run the risk of upsetting previous extensions "
14301 "of time? I mean, this seems to be a practice that began with the very first "
14305 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14306 #: freeculture.xml:11408
14308 "She was quite willing to concede \"that this flies directly in the face of "
14309 "what the framers had in mind.\" But my response again and again was to "
14310 "emphasize limits on Congress's power."
14314 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14315 #: freeculture.xml:11414
14317 "mr. lessig: Well, if it flies in the face of what the framers had in mind, "
14318 "then the question is, is there a way of interpreting their words that gives "
14319 "effect to what they had in mind, and the answer is yes."
14322 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14323 #: freeculture.xml:11422
14325 "There were two points in this argument when I should have seen where the "
14326 "Court was going. The first was a question by Justice Kennedy, who observed,"
14329 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14330 #: freeculture.xml:11428
14332 "justice kennedy: Well, I suppose implicit in the argument that the '76 act, "
14333 "too, should have been declared void, and that we might leave it alone "
14334 "because of the disruption, is that for all these years the act has impeded "
14335 "progress in science and the useful arts. I just don't see any empirical "
14336 "evidence for that."
14339 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14340 #: freeculture.xml:11436
14342 "Here follows my clear mistake. Like a professor correcting a student, I "
14346 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14347 #: freeculture.xml:11442
14349 "mr. lessig: Justice, we are not making an empirical claim at all. Nothing "
14350 "in our Copyright Clause claim hangs upon the empirical assertion about "
14351 "impeding progress. Our only argument is this is a structural limit necessary "
14352 "to assure that what would be an effectively perpetual term not be permitted "
14353 "under the copyright laws."
14356 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14357 #: freeculture.xml:11452
14359 "That was a correct answer, but it wasn't the right answer. The right answer "
14360 "was instead that there was an obvious and profound harm. Any number of "
14361 "briefs had been written about it. He wanted to hear it. And here was the "
14362 "place Don Ayer's advice should have mattered. This was a softball; my answer "
14363 "was a swing and a miss."
14366 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14367 #: freeculture.xml:11459
14369 "The second came from the Chief, for whom the whole case had been "
14370 "crafted. For the Chief Justice had crafted the Lopez ruling, and we hoped "
14371 "that he would see this case as its second cousin."
14375 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14376 #: freeculture.xml:11464
14378 "It was clear a second into his question that he wasn't at all sympathetic. "
14379 "To him, we were a bunch of anarchists. As he asked:"
14382 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14383 #: freeculture.xml:11472
14385 "chief justice: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy "
14386 "verbatim other people's books, don't you?"
14389 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14390 #: freeculture.xml:11476
14392 "mr. lessig: We want the right to copy verbatim works that should be in the "
14393 "public domain and would be in the public domain but for a statute that "
14394 "cannot be justified under ordinary First Amendment analysis or under a "
14395 "proper reading of the limits built into the Copyright Clause."
14398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14399 #: freeculture.xml:11485
14401 "Things went better for us when the government gave its argument; for now the "
14402 "Court picked up on the core of our claim. As Justice Scalia asked Solicitor "
14406 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14407 #: freeculture.xml:11491
14409 "justice scalia: You say that the functional equivalent of an unlimited time "
14410 "would be a violation [of the Constitution], but that's precisely the "
14411 "argument that's being made by petitioners here, that a limited time which is "
14412 "extendable is the functional equivalent of an unlimited time."
14415 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14416 #: freeculture.xml:11500
14418 "When Olson was finished, it was my turn to give a closing rebuttal. Olson's "
14419 "flailing had revived my anger. But my anger still was directed to the "
14420 "academic, not the practical. The government was arguing as if this were the "
14421 "first case ever to consider limits on Congress's Copyright and Patent Clause "
14422 "power. Ever the professor and not the advocate, I closed by pointing out the "
14423 "long history of the Court imposing limits on Congress's power in the name of "
14424 "the Copyright and Patent Clause— indeed, the very first case striking "
14425 "a law of Congress as exceeding a specific enumerated power was based upon "
14426 "the Copyright and Patent Clause. All true. But it wasn't going to move the "
14427 "Court to my side."
14431 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14432 #: freeculture.xml:11513
14434 "As I left the court that day, I knew there were a hundred points I wished I "
14435 "could remake. There were a hundred questions I wished I had answered "
14436 "differently. But one way of thinking about this case left me optimistic."
14439 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14440 #: freeculture.xml:11521
14442 "The government had been asked over and over again, what is the limit? Over "
14443 "and over again, it had answered there is no limit. This was precisely the "
14444 "answer I wanted the Court to hear. For I could not imagine how the Court "
14445 "could understand that the government believed Congress's power was unlimited "
14446 "under the terms of the Copyright Clause, and sustain the government's "
14447 "argument. The solicitor general had made my argument for me. No matter how "
14448 "often I tried, I could not understand how the Court could find that "
14449 "Congress's power under the Commerce Clause was limited, but under the "
14450 "Copyright Clause, unlimited. In those rare moments when I let myself believe "
14451 "that we may have prevailed, it was because I felt this Court—in "
14452 "particular, the Conservatives—would feel itself constrained by the "
14453 "rule of law that it had established elsewhere."
14456 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14457 #: freeculture.xml:11540
14459 "The morning of January 15, 2003, I was five minutes late to the office and "
14460 "missed the 7:00 A.M. call from the Supreme Court clerk. Listening to the "
14461 "message, I could tell in an instant that she had bad news to report.The "
14462 "Supreme Court had affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals. Seven "
14463 "justices had voted in the majority. There were two dissents."
14466 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14467 #: freeculture.xml:11547
14469 "A few seconds later, the opinions arrived by e-mail. I took the phone off "
14470 "the hook, posted an announcement to our blog, and sat down to see where I "
14471 "had been wrong in my reasoning."
14474 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14475 #: freeculture.xml:11552
14477 "My reasoning. Here was a case that pitted all the money in the world against "
14478 "reasoning. And here was the last naïve law professor, scouring the pages, "
14479 "looking for reasoning."
14482 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14483 #: freeculture.xml:11557
14485 "I first scoured the opinion, looking for how the Court would distinguish the "
14486 "principle in this case from the principle in Lopez. The argument was nowhere "
14487 "to be found. The case was not even cited. The argument that was the core "
14488 "argument of our case did not even appear in the Court's opinion."
14492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14493 #: freeculture.xml:11568
14495 "Justice Ginsburg simply ignored the enumerated powers argument. Consistent "
14496 "with her view that Congress's power was not limited generally, she had found "
14497 "Congress's power not limited here."
14500 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14501 #: freeculture.xml:11574
14503 "Her opinion was perfectly reasonable—for her, and for Justice "
14504 "Souter. Neither believes in Lopez. It would be too much to expect them to "
14505 "write an opinion that recognized, much less explained, the doctrine they had "
14506 "worked so hard to defeat."
14509 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14510 #: freeculture.xml:11580
14512 "But as I realized what had happened, I couldn't quite believe what I was "
14513 "reading. I had said there was no way this Court could reconcile limited "
14514 "powers with the Commerce Clause and unlimited powers with the Progress "
14515 "Clause. It had never even occurred to me that they could reconcile the two "
14516 "simply by not addressing the argument. There was no inconsistency because "
14517 "they would not talk about the two together. There was therefore no "
14518 "principle that followed from the Lopez case: In that context, Congress's "
14519 "power would be limited, but in this context it would not."
14522 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14523 #: freeculture.xml:11591
14525 "Yet by what right did they get to choose which of the framers' values they "
14526 "would respect? By what right did they—the silent five—get to "
14527 "select the part of the Constitution they would enforce based on the values "
14528 "they thought important? We were right back to the argument that I said I "
14529 "hated at the start: I had failed to convince them that the issue here was "
14530 "important, and I had failed to recognize that however much I might hate a "
14531 "system in which the Court gets to pick the constitutional values that it "
14532 "will respect, that is the system we have."
14535 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14536 #: freeculture.xml:11603
14538 "Justices Breyer and Stevens wrote very strong dissents. Stevens's opinion "
14539 "was crafted internal to the law: He argued that the tradition of "
14540 "intellectual property law should not support this unjustified extension of "
14541 "terms. He based his argument on a parallel analysis that had governed in the "
14542 "context of patents (so had we). But the rest of the Court discounted the "
14543 "parallel—without explaining how the very same words in the Progress "
14544 "Clause could come to mean totally different things depending upon whether "
14545 "the words were about patents or copyrights. The Court let Justice Stevens's "
14546 "charge go unanswered."
14550 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14551 #: freeculture.xml:11616
14553 "Justice Breyer's opinion, perhaps the best opinion he has ever written, was "
14554 "external to the Constitution. He argued that the term of copyrights has "
14555 "become so long as to be effectively unlimited. We had said that under the "
14556 "current term, a copyright gave an author 99.8 percent of the value of a "
14557 "perpetual term. Breyer said we were wrong, that the actual number was "
14558 "99.9997 percent of a perpetual term. Either way, the point was clear: If the "
14559 "Constitution said a term had to be \"limited,\" and the existing term was so "
14560 "long as to be effectively unlimited, then it was unconstitutional."
14563 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14564 #: freeculture.xml:11627
14566 "These two justices understood all the arguments we had made. But because "
14567 "neither believed in the Lopez case, neither was willing to push it as a "
14568 "reason to reject this extension. The case was decided without anyone having "
14569 "addressed the argument that we had carried from Judge Sentelle. It was "
14570 "Hamlet without the Prince."
14573 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14574 #: freeculture.xml:11634
14576 "Defeat brings depression. They say it is a sign of health when depression "
14577 "gives way to anger. My anger came quickly, but it didn't cure the "
14578 "depression. This anger was of two sorts."
14581 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14582 #: freeculture.xml:11639
14584 "It was first anger with the five \"Conservatives.\" It would have been one "
14585 "thing for them to have explained why the principle of Lopez didn't apply in "
14586 "this case. That wouldn't have been a very convincing argument, I don't "
14587 "believe, having read it made by others, and having tried to make it "
14588 "myself. But it at least would have been an act of integrity. These justices "
14589 "in particular have repeatedly said that the proper mode of interpreting the "
14590 "Constitution is \"originalism\"—to first understand the framers' text, "
14591 "interpreted in their context, in light of the structure of the "
14592 "Constitution. That method had produced Lopez and many other \"originalist\" "
14593 "rulings. Where was their \"originalism\" now?"
14597 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14598 #: freeculture.xml:11652
14600 "Here, they had joined an opinion that never once tried to explain what the "
14601 "framers had meant by crafting the Progress Clause as they did; they joined "
14602 "an opinion that never once tried to explain how the structure of that clause "
14603 "would affect the interpretation of Congress's power. And they joined an "
14604 "opinion that didn't even try to explain why this grant of power could be "
14605 "unlimited, whereas the Commerce Clause would be limited. In short, they had "
14606 "joined an opinion that did not apply to, and was inconsistent with, their "
14607 "own method for interpreting the Constitution. This opinion may well have "
14608 "yielded a result that they liked. It did not produce a reason that was "
14609 "consistent with their own principles."
14612 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14613 #: freeculture.xml:11667
14615 "My anger with the Conservatives quickly yielded to anger with myself. For I "
14616 "had let a view of the law that I liked interfere with a view of the law as "
14620 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14621 #: freeculture.xml:11674
14623 "Most lawyers, and most law professors, have little patience for idealism "
14624 "about courts in general and this Supreme Court in particular. Most have a "
14625 "much more pragmatic view. When Don Ayer said that this case would be won "
14626 "based on whether I could convince the Justices that the framers' values were "
14627 "important, I fought the idea, because I didn't want to believe that that is "
14628 "how this Court decides. I insisted on arguing this case as if it were a "
14629 "simple application of a set of principles. I had an argument that followed "
14630 "in logic. I didn't need to waste my time showing it should also follow in "
14635 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14636 #: freeculture.xml:11685
14638 "As I read back over the transcript from that argument in October, I can see "
14639 "a hundred places where the answers could have taken the conversation in "
14640 "different directions, where the truth about the harm that this unchecked "
14641 "power will cause could have been made clear to this Court. Justice Kennedy "
14642 "in good faith wanted to be shown. I, idiotically, corrected his "
14643 "question. Justice Souter in good faith wanted to be shown the First "
14644 "Amendment harms. I, like a math teacher, reframed the question to make the "
14645 "logical point. I had shown them how they could strike this law of Congress "
14646 "if they wanted to. There were a hundred places where I could have helped "
14647 "them want to, yet my stubbornness, my refusal to give in, stopped me. I have "
14648 "stood before hundreds of audiences trying to persuade; I have used passion "
14649 "in that effort to persuade; but I refused to stand before this audience and "
14650 "try to persuade with the passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis "
14651 "on which a court should decide the issue."
14654 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14655 #: freeculture.xml:11705
14657 "Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it have "
14658 "been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or Kathleen "
14659 "Sullivan? <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
14662 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14663 #: freeculture.xml:11711
14665 "My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court was not "
14666 "ready, my friends insisted. This was a loss that was destined. It would take "
14667 "a great deal more to show our society why our framers were right. And when "
14668 "we do that, we will be able to show that Court."
14671 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14672 #: freeculture.xml:11717
14674 "Maybe, but I doubt it. These Justices have no financial interest in doing "
14675 "anything except the right thing. They are not lobbied. They have little "
14676 "reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had stepped "
14677 "down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could have "
14681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14682 #: freeculture.xml:11724
14684 "And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in "
14685 "January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading "
14686 "intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this case "
14687 "was a mistake. \"The Court is not ready,\" Peter Jaszi said; this issue "
14688 "should not be raised until it is. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
14693 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14694 #: freeculture.xml:11732
14696 "After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and publicly, "
14697 "that he was wrong. But if indeed that Court could not have been persuaded, "
14698 "then that is all the evidence that's needed to know that here again Peter "
14699 "was right. Either I was not ready to argue this case in a way that would do "
14700 "some good or they were not ready to hear this case in a way that would do "
14701 "some good. Either way, the decision to bring this case—a decision I "
14702 "had made four years before—was wrong. While the reaction to the Sonny "
14703 "Bono Act itself was almost unanimously negative, the reaction to the Court's "
14704 "decision was mixed. No one, at least in the press, tried to say that "
14705 "extending the term of copyright was a good idea. We had won that battle over "
14706 "ideas. Where the decision was praised, it was praised by papers that had "
14707 "been skeptical of the Court's activism in other cases. Deference was a good "
14708 "thing, even if it left standing a silly law. But where the decision was "
14709 "attacked, it was attacked because it left standing a silly and harmful "
14710 "law. The New York Times wrote in its editorial,"
14713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><blockquote><para>
14714 #: freeculture.xml:11753
14716 "In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing "
14717 "the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright "
14718 "perpetuity. The public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should "
14719 "not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative "
14720 "output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful "
14721 "creative ferment."
14724 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14725 #: freeculture.xml:11762
14727 "The best responses were in the cartoons. There was a gaggle of hilarious "
14728 "images—of Mickey in jail and the like. The best, from my view of the "
14729 "case, was Ruben Bolling's, reproduced on the next page. The \"powerful and "
14730 "wealthy\" line is a bit unfair. But the punch in the face felt exactly like "
14734 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14735 #: freeculture.xml:11769
14737 "The image that will always stick in my head is that evoked by the quote from "
14738 "The New York Times. That \"grand experiment\" we call the \"public domain\" "
14739 "is over? When I can make light of it, I think, \"Honey, I shrunk the "
14740 "Constitution.\" But I can rarely make light of it. We had in our "
14741 "Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the "
14742 "Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would "
14743 "have made them see differently."
14746 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
14747 #: freeculture.xml:11780
14748 msgid "CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Eldred II"
14751 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14752 #: freeculture.xml:11782
14754 "The day Eldred was decided, fate would have it that I was to travel to "
14755 "Washington, D.C. (The day the rehearing petition in Eldred was "
14756 "denied—meaning the case was really finally over—fate would have "
14757 "it that I was giving a speech to technologists at Disney World.) This was a "
14758 "particularly long flight to my least favorite city. The drive into the city "
14759 "from Dulles was delayed because of traffic, so I opened up my computer and "
14760 "wrote an op-ed piece."
14763 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14764 #: freeculture.xml:11792
14766 "It was an act of contrition. During the whole of the flight from San "
14767 "Francisco to Washington, I had heard over and over again in my head the same "
14768 "advice from Don Ayer: You need to make them see why it is important. And "
14769 "alternating with that command was the question of Justice Kennedy: \"For all "
14770 "these years the act has impeded progress in science and the useful arts. I "
14771 "just don't see any empirical evidence for that.\" And so, having failed in "
14772 "the argument of constitutional principle, finally, I turned to an argument "
14777 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14778 #: freeculture.xml:11802
14780 "The New York Times published the piece. In it, I proposed a simple fix: "
14781 "Fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner would be "
14782 "required to register the work and pay a small fee. If he paid the fee, he "
14783 "got the benefit of the full term of copyright. If he did not, the work "
14784 "passed into the public domain."
14787 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14788 #: freeculture.xml:11810
14790 "We called this the Eldred Act, but that was just to give it a name. Eric "
14791 "Eldred was kind enough to let his name be used once again, but as he said "
14792 "early on, it won't get passed unless it has another name."
14795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14796 #: freeculture.xml:11815
14798 "Or another two names. For depending upon your perspective, this is either "
14799 "the \"Public Domain Enhancement Act\" or the \"Copyright Term Deregulation "
14800 "Act.\" Either way, the essence of the idea is clear and obvious: Remove "
14801 "copyright where it is doing nothing except blocking access and the spread of "
14802 "knowledge. Leave it for as long as Congress allows for those works where its "
14803 "worth is at least $1. But for everything else, let the content go."
14806 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
14807 #: freeculture.xml:11823 freeculture.xml:12021
14808 msgid "Forbes, Steve"
14811 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14812 #: freeculture.xml:11825
14814 "The reaction to this idea was amazingly strong. Steve Forbes endorsed it in "
14815 "an editorial. I received an avalanche of e-mail and letters expressing "
14816 "support. When you focus the issue on lost creativity, people can see the "
14817 "copyright system makes no sense. As a good Republican might say, here "
14818 "government regulation is simply getting in the way of innovation and "
14819 "creativity. And as a good Democrat might say, here the government is "
14820 "blocking access and the spread of knowledge for no good reason. Indeed, "
14821 "there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans on this "
14822 "issue. Anyone can recognize the stupid harm of the present system."
14825 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14826 #: freeculture.xml:11837
14828 "Indeed, many recognized the obvious benefit of the registration "
14829 "requirement. For one of the hardest things about the current system for "
14830 "people who want to license content is that there is no obvious place to look "
14831 "for the current copyright owners. Since registration is not required, since "
14832 "marking content is not required, since no formality at all is required, it "
14833 "is often impossibly hard to locate copyright owners to ask permission to use "
14834 "or license their work. This system would lower these costs, by establishing "
14835 "at least one registry where copyright owners could be identified."
14838 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
14839 #: freeculture.xml:11847
14840 msgid "Berlin Act (1908)"
14843 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><indexterm><primary>
14844 #: freeculture.xml:11848 freeculture.xml:11887
14845 msgid "Berne Convention (1908)"
14849 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para><footnote><para>
14850 #: freeculture.xml:11855
14852 "Until the 1908 Berlin Act of the Berne Convention, national copyright "
14853 "legislation sometimes made protection depend upon compliance with "
14854 "formalities such as registration, deposit, and affixation of notice of the "
14855 "author's claim of copyright. However, starting with the 1908 act, every text "
14856 "of the Convention has provided that \"the enjoyment and the exercise\" of "
14857 "rights guaranteed by the Convention \"shall not be subject to any "
14858 "formality.\" The prohibition against formalities is presently embodied in "
14859 "Article 5(2) of the Paris Text of the Berne Convention. Many countries "
14860 "continue to impose some form of deposit or registration requirement, albeit "
14861 "not as a condition of copyright. French law, for example, requires the "
14862 "deposit of copies of works in national repositories, principally the "
14863 "National Museum. Copies of books published in the United Kingdom must be "
14864 "deposited in the British Library. The German Copyright Act provides for a "
14865 "Registrar of Authors where the author's true name can be filed in the case "
14866 "of anonymous or pseudonymous works. Paul Goldstein, International "
14867 "Intellectual Property Law, Cases and Materials (New York: Foundation Press, "
14868 "2001), 153–54."
14871 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14872 #: freeculture.xml:11851
14874 "As I described in chapter 10, formalities in copyright law were removed in "
14875 "1976, when Congress followed the Europeans by abandoning any formal "
14876 "requirement before a copyright is granted.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
14877 "id=\"0\"/> The Europeans are said to view copyright as a \"natural right.\" "
14878 "Natural rights don't need forms to exist. Traditions, like the "
14879 "Anglo-American tradition that required copyright owners to follow form if "
14880 "their rights were to be protected, did not, the Europeans thought, properly "
14881 "respect the dignity of the author. My right as a creator turns on my "
14882 "creativity, not upon the special favor of the government."
14885 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14886 #: freeculture.xml:11881
14888 "That's great rhetoric. It sounds wonderfully romantic. But it is absurd "
14889 "copyright policy. It is absurd especially for authors, because a world "
14890 "without formalities harms the creator. The ability to spread \"Walt Disney "
14891 "creativity\" is destroyed when there is no simple way to know what's "
14892 "protected and what's not."
14895 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14896 #: freeculture.xml:11889
14898 "The fight against formalities achieved its first real victory in Berlin in "
14899 "1908. International copyright lawyers amended the Berne Convention in 1908, "
14900 "to require copyright terms of life plus fifty years, as well as the "
14901 "abolition of copyright formalities. The formalities were hated because the "
14902 "stories of inadvertent loss were increasingly common. It was as if a Charles "
14903 "Dickens character ran all copyright offices, and the failure to dot an i or "
14904 "cross a t resulted in the loss of widows' only income."
14907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14908 #: freeculture.xml:11899
14910 "These complaints were real and sensible. And the strictness of the "
14911 "formalities, especially in the United States, was absurd. The law should "
14912 "always have ways of forgiving innocent mistakes. There is no reason "
14913 "copyright law couldn't, as well. Rather than abandoning formalities totally, "
14914 "the response in Berlin should have been to embrace a more equitable system "
14918 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14919 #: freeculture.xml:11907
14921 "Even that would have been resisted, however, because registration in the "
14922 "nineteenth and twentieth centuries was still expensive. It was also a "
14923 "hassle. The abolishment of formalities promised not only to save the "
14924 "starving widows, but also to lighten an unnecessary regulatory burden "
14925 "imposed upon creators."
14929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14930 #: freeculture.xml:11915
14932 "In addition to the practical complaint of authors in 1908, there was a moral "
14933 "claim as well. There was no reason that creative property should be a "
14934 "second-class form of property. If a carpenter builds a table, his rights "
14935 "over the table don't depend upon filing a form with the government. He has "
14936 "a property right over the table \"naturally,\" and he can assert that right "
14937 "against anyone who would steal the table, whether or not he has informed the "
14938 "government of his ownership of the table."
14941 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14942 #: freeculture.xml:11927
14944 "This argument is correct, but its implications are misleading. For the "
14945 "argument in favor of formalities does not depend upon creative property "
14946 "being second-class property. The argument in favor of formalities turns upon "
14947 "the special problems that creative property presents. The law of "
14948 "formalities responds to the special physics of creative property, to assure "
14949 "that it can be efficiently and fairly spread."
14952 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14953 #: freeculture.xml:11936
14955 "No one thinks, for example, that land is second-class property just because "
14956 "you have to register a deed with a court if your sale of land is to be "
14957 "effective. And few would think a car is second-class property just because "
14958 "you must register the car with the state and tag it with a license. In both "
14959 "of those cases, everyone sees that there is an important reason to secure "
14960 "registration—both because it makes the markets more efficient and "
14961 "because it better secures the rights of the owner. Without a registration "
14962 "system for land, landowners would perpetually have to guard their "
14963 "property. With registration, they can simply point the police to a "
14964 "deed. Without a registration system for cars, auto theft would be much "
14965 "easier. With a registration system, the thief has a high burden to sell a "
14966 "stolen car. A slight burden is placed on the property owner, but those "
14967 "burdens produce a much better system of protection for property generally."
14971 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14972 #: freeculture.xml:11952
14974 "It is similarly special physics that makes formalities important in "
14975 "copyright law. Unlike a carpenter's table, there's nothing in nature that "
14976 "makes it relatively obvious who might own a particular bit of creative "
14977 "property. A recording of Lyle Lovett's latest album can exist in a billion "
14978 "places without anything necessarily linking it back to a particular "
14979 "owner. And like a car, there's no way to buy and sell creative property with "
14980 "confidence unless there is some simple way to authenticate who is the author "
14981 "and what rights he has. Simple transactions are destroyed in a world without "
14982 "formalities. Complex, expensive, lawyer transactions take their place."
14985 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14986 #: freeculture.xml:11966
14988 "This was the understanding of the problem with the Sonny Bono Act that we "
14989 "tried to demonstrate to the Court. This was the part it didn't \"get.\" "
14990 "Because we live in a system without formalities, there is no way easily to "
14991 "build upon or use culture from our past. If copyright terms were, as Justice "
14992 "Story said they would be, \"short,\" then this wouldn't matter much. For "
14993 "fourteen years, under the framers' system, a work would be presumptively "
14994 "controlled. After fourteen years, it would be presumptively uncontrolled."
14997 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
14998 #: freeculture.xml:11976
15000 "But now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to "
15001 "know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious "
15002 "burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an "
15003 "Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights "
15004 "to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity "
15005 "in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities."
15008 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15009 #: freeculture.xml:11985
15011 "The Eldred Act was designed to respond to exactly this problem. If it is "
15012 "worth $1 to you, then register your work and you can get the longer "
15013 "term. Others will know how to contact you and, therefore, how to get your "
15014 "permission if they want to use your work. And you will get the benefit of an "
15015 "extended copyright term."
15018 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15019 #: freeculture.xml:11992
15021 "If it isn't worth it to you to register to get the benefit of an extended "
15022 "term, then it shouldn't be worth it for the government to defend your "
15023 "monopoly over that work either. The work should pass into the public domain "
15024 "where anyone can copy it, or build archives with it, or create a movie based "
15025 "on it. It should become free if it is not worth $1 to you."
15028 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15029 #: freeculture.xml:11999
15031 "Some worry about the burden on authors. Won't the burden of registering the "
15032 "work mean that the $1 is really misleading? Isn't the hassle worth more than "
15033 "$1? Isn't that the real problem with registration?"
15037 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15038 #: freeculture.xml:12005
15040 "It is. The hassle is terrible. The system that exists now is awful. I "
15041 "completely agree that the Copyright Office has done a terrible job (no doubt "
15042 "because they are terribly funded) in enabling simple and cheap "
15043 "registrations. Any real solution to the problem of formalities must address "
15044 "the real problem of governments standing at the core of any system of "
15045 "formalities. In this book, I offer such a solution. That solution "
15046 "essentially remakes the Copyright Office. For now, assume it was Amazon that "
15047 "ran the registration system. Assume it was one-click registration. The "
15048 "Eldred Act would propose a simple, one-click registration fifty years after "
15049 "a work was published. Based upon historical data, that system would move up "
15050 "to 98 percent of commercial work, commercial work that no longer had a "
15051 "commercial life, into the public domain within fifty years. What do you "
15055 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15056 #: freeculture.xml:12023
15058 "When Steve Forbes endorsed the idea, some in Washington began to pay "
15059 "attention. Many people contacted me pointing to representatives who might be "
15060 "willing to introduce the Eldred Act. And I had a few who directly suggested "
15061 "that they might be willing to take the first step."
15064 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15065 #: freeculture.xml:12029
15067 "One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get the "
15068 "bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international law. It "
15069 "imposed the simplest requirement upon copyright owners possible. In May "
15070 "2003, it looked as if the bill would be introduced. On May 16, I posted on "
15071 "the Eldred Act blog, \"we are close.\" There was a general reaction in the "
15072 "blog community that something good might happen here."
15075 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15076 #: freeculture.xml:12038
15078 "But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and the "
15079 "MPAA general counsel came to the congresswoman's office to give the view of "
15080 "the MPAA. Aided by his lawyer, as Valenti told me, Valenti informed the "
15081 "congresswoman that the MPAA would oppose the Eldred Act. The reasons are "
15082 "embarrassingly thin. More importantly, their thinness shows something clear "
15083 "about what this debate is really about."
15087 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15088 #: freeculture.xml:12046
15090 "The MPAA argued first that Congress had \"firmly rejected the central "
15091 "concept in the proposed bill\"—that copyrights be renewed. That was "
15092 "true, but irrelevant, as Congress's \"firm rejection\" had occurred long "
15093 "before the Internet made subsequent uses much more likely. Second, they "
15094 "argued that the proposal would harm poor copyright owners—apparently "
15095 "those who could not afford the $1 fee. Third, they argued that Congress had "
15096 "determined that extending a copyright term would encourage restoration "
15097 "work. Maybe in the case of the small percentage of work covered by copyright "
15098 "law that is still commercially valuable, but again this was irrelevant, as "
15099 "the proposal would not cut off the extended term unless the $1 fee was not "
15100 "paid. Fourth, the MPAA argued that the bill would impose \"enormous\" costs, "
15101 "since a registration system is not free. True enough, but those costs are "
15102 "certainly less than the costs of clearing the rights for a copyright whose "
15103 "owner is not known. Fifth, they worried about the risks if the copyright to "
15104 "a story underlying a film were to pass into the public domain. But what risk "
15105 "is that? If it is in the public domain, then the film is a valid derivative "
15109 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15110 #: freeculture.xml:12067
15112 "Finally, the MPAA argued that existing law enabled copyright owners to do "
15113 "this if they wanted. But the whole point is that there are thousands of "
15114 "copyright owners who don't even know they have a copyright to give. Whether "
15115 "they are free to give away their copyright or not—a controversial "
15116 "claim in any case—unless they know about a copyright, they're not "
15120 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15121 #: freeculture.xml:12075
15123 "At the beginning of this book, I told two stories about the law reacting to "
15124 "changes in technology. In the one, common sense prevailed. In the other, "
15125 "common sense was delayed. The difference between the two stories was the "
15126 "power of the opposition—the power of the side that fought to defend "
15127 "the status quo. In both cases, a new technology threatened old "
15128 "interests. But in only one case did those interest's have the power to "
15129 "protect themselves against this new competitive threat."
15132 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15133 #: freeculture.xml:12085
15135 "I used these two cases as a way to frame the war that this book has been "
15136 "about. For here, too, a new technology is forcing the law to react. And "
15137 "here, too, we should ask, is the law following or resisting common sense? If "
15138 "common sense supports the law, what explains this common sense?"
15142 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15143 #: freeculture.xml:12094
15145 "When the issue is piracy, it is right for the law to back the copyright "
15146 "owners. The commercial piracy that I described is wrong and harmful, and the "
15147 "law should work to eliminate it. When the issue is p2p sharing, it is easy "
15148 "to understand why the law backs the owners still: Much of this sharing is "
15149 "wrong, even if much is harmless. When the issue is copyright terms for the "
15150 "Mickey Mouses of the world, it is possible still to understand why the law "
15151 "favors Hollywood: Most people don't recognize the reasons for limiting "
15152 "copyright terms; it is thus still possible to see good faith within the "
15156 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15157 #: freeculture.xml:12105
15159 "But when the copyright owners oppose a proposal such as the Eldred Act, "
15160 "then, finally, there is an example that lays bare the naked selfinterest "
15161 "driving this war. This act would free an extraordinary range of content that "
15162 "is otherwise unused. It wouldn't interfere with any copyright owner's desire "
15163 "to exercise continued control over his content. It would simply liberate "
15164 "what Kevin Kelly calls the \"Dark Content\" that fills archives around the "
15165 "world. So when the warriors oppose a change like this, we should ask one "
15169 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15170 #: freeculture.xml:12115
15171 msgid "What does this industry really want?"
15174 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15175 #: freeculture.xml:12118
15177 "With very little effort, the warriors could protect their content. So the "
15178 "effort to block something like the Eldred Act is not really about protecting "
15179 "their content. The effort to block the Eldred Act is an effort to assure "
15180 "that nothing more passes into the public domain. It is another step to "
15181 "assure that the public domain will never compete, that there will be no use "
15182 "of content that is not commercially controlled, and that there will be no "
15183 "commercial use of content that doesn't require their permission first."
15186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15187 #: freeculture.xml:12128
15189 "The opposition to the Eldred Act reveals how extreme the other side is. The "
15190 "most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not "
15191 "the protection of \"property\" but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim "
15192 "is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all "
15193 "there is is what is theirs."
15197 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15198 #: freeculture.xml:12135
15200 "It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard "
15201 "to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain "
15202 "tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed. Just as RCA feared the "
15203 "competition of FM, they fear the competition of a public domain connected to "
15204 "a public that now has the means to create with it and to share its own "
15208 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15209 #: freeculture.xml:12147
15211 "What is hard to understand is why the public takes this view. It is as if "
15212 "the law made airplanes trespassers. The MPAA stands with the Causbys and "
15213 "demands that their remote and useless property rights be respected, so that "
15214 "these remote and forgotten copyright holders might block the progress of "
15218 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
15219 #: freeculture.xml:12154
15221 "All this seems to follow easily from this untroubled acceptance of the "
15222 "\"property\" in intellectual property. Common sense supports it, and so long "
15223 "as it does, the assaults will rain down upon the technologies of the "
15224 "Internet. The consequence will be an increasing \"permission society.\" The "
15225 "past can be cultivated only if you can identify the owner and gain "
15226 "permission to build upon his work. The future will be controlled by this "
15227 "dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past."
15230 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
15231 #: freeculture.xml:12166
15235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15236 #: freeculture.xml:12168
15238 "There are more than 35 million people with the AIDS virus "
15239 "worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. "
15240 "Seventeen million have already died. Seventeen million Africans is "
15241 "proportional percentage-wise to seven million Americans. More importantly, "
15242 "it is seventeen million Africans."
15245 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15246 #: freeculture.xml:12175
15248 "There is no cure for AIDS, but there are drugs to slow its progression. "
15249 "These antiretroviral therapies are still experimental, but they have already "
15250 "had a dramatic effect. In the United States, AIDS patients who regularly "
15251 "take a cocktail of these drugs increase their life expectancy by ten to "
15252 "twenty years. For some, the drugs make the disease almost invisible."
15256 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15257 #: freeculture.xml:12190
15259 "Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, \"Final Report: Integrating "
15260 "Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy\" (London, 2002), "
15261 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15262 "#55</ulink>. According to a World Health Organization press release issued 9 "
15263 "July 2002, only 230,000 of the 6 million who need drugs in the developing "
15264 "world receive them—and half of them are in Brazil."
15267 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15268 #: freeculture.xml:12183
15270 "These drugs are expensive. When they were first introduced in the United "
15271 "States, they cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per person per year. Today, "
15272 "some cost $25,000 per year. At these prices, of course, no African nation "
15273 "can afford the drugs for the vast majority of its population: $15,000 is "
15274 "thirty times the per capita gross national product of Zimbabwe. At these "
15275 "prices, the drugs are totally unavailable.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15280 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15281 #: freeculture.xml:12201
15283 "These prices are not high because the ingredients of the drugs are "
15284 "expensive. These prices are high because the drugs are protected by "
15285 "patents. The drug companies that produced these life-saving mixes enjoy at "
15286 "least a twenty-year monopoly for their inventions. They use that monopoly "
15287 "power to extract the most they can from the market. That power is in turn "
15288 "used to keep the prices high."
15291 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15292 #: freeculture.xml:12209
15294 "There are many who are skeptical of patents, especially drug patents. I am "
15295 "not. Indeed, of all the areas of research that might be supported by "
15296 "patents, drug research is, in my view, the clearest case where patents are "
15297 "needed. The patent gives the drug company some assurance that if it is "
15298 "successful in inventing a new drug to treat a disease, it will be able to "
15299 "earn back its investment and more. This is socially an extremely valuable "
15300 "incentive. I am the last person who would argue that the law should abolish "
15301 "it, at least without other changes."
15304 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15305 #: freeculture.xml:12220
15307 "But it is one thing to support patents, even drug patents. It is another "
15308 "thing to determine how best to deal with a crisis. And as African leaders "
15309 "began to recognize the devastation that AIDS was bringing, they started "
15310 "looking for ways to import HIV treatments at costs significantly below the "
15314 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
15315 #: freeculture.xml:12238 freeculture.xml:12673
15316 msgid "Braithwaite, John"
15319 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15320 #: freeculture.xml:12236
15322 "See Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism: Who Owns the "
15323 "Knowledge Economy? (New York: The New Press, 2003), 37. <placeholder "
15324 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"1\"/>"
15327 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15328 #: freeculture.xml:12227
15330 "In 1997, South Africa tried one tack. It passed a law to allow the "
15331 "importation of patented medicines that had been produced or sold in another "
15332 "nation's market with the consent of the patent owner. For example, if the "
15333 "drug was sold in India, it could be imported into Africa from India. This is "
15334 "called \"parallel importation,\" and it is generally permitted under "
15335 "international trade law and is specifically permitted within the European "
15336 "Union.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15340 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15341 #: freeculture.xml:12248
15343 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), Patent Protection and "
15344 "Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a Report Prepared "
15345 "for the World Intellectual Property Organization (Washington, D.C., 2000), "
15346 "14, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15347 "#56</ulink>. For a firsthand account of the struggle over South Africa, see "
15348 "Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human "
15349 "Resources, House Committee on Government Reform, H. Rep., 1st sess., "
15350 "Ser. No. 106-126 (22 July 1999), 150–57 (statement of James Love)."
15354 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15355 #: freeculture.xml:12280
15357 "International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), Patent Protection and "
15358 "Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa, a Report Prepared "
15359 "for the World Intellectual Property Organization (Washington, D.C., 2000), "
15363 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15364 #: freeculture.xml:12243
15366 "However, the United States government opposed the bill. Indeed, more than "
15367 "opposed. As the International Intellectual Property Association "
15368 "characterized it, \"The U.S. government pressured South Africa . . . not to "
15369 "permit compulsory licensing or parallel imports.\"<placeholder "
15370 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Through the Office of the United States Trade "
15371 "Representative, the government asked South Africa to change the "
15372 "law—and to add pressure to that request, in 1998, the USTR listed "
15373 "South Africa for possible trade sanctions. That same year, more than forty "
15374 "pharmaceutical companies began proceedings in the South African courts to "
15375 "challenge the government's actions. The United States was then joined by "
15376 "other governments from the EU. Their claim, and the claim of the "
15377 "pharmaceutical companies, was that South Africa was violating its "
15378 "obligations under international law by discriminating against a particular "
15379 "kind of patent— pharmaceutical patents. The demand of these "
15380 "governments, with the United States in the lead, was that South Africa "
15381 "respect these patents as it respects any other patent, regardless of any "
15382 "effect on the treatment of AIDS within South Africa.<placeholder "
15383 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/>"
15386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15387 #: freeculture.xml:12286
15389 "We should place the intervention by the United States in context. No doubt "
15390 "patents are not the most important reason that Africans don't have access to "
15391 "drugs. Poverty and the total absence of an effective health care "
15392 "infrastructure matter more. But whether patents are the most important "
15393 "reason or not, the price of drugs has an effect on their demand, and patents "
15394 "affect price. And so, whether massive or marginal, there was an effect from "
15395 "our government's intervention to stop the flow of medications into Africa."
15398 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15399 #: freeculture.xml:12296
15401 "By stopping the flow of HIV treatment into Africa, the United States "
15402 "government was not saving drugs for United States citizens. This is not "
15403 "like wheat (if they eat it, we can't); instead, the flow that the United "
15404 "States intervened to stop was, in effect, a flow of knowledge: information "
15405 "about how to take chemicals that exist within Africa, and turn those "
15406 "chemicals into drugs that would save 15 to 30 million lives."
15409 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15410 #: freeculture.xml:12304
15412 "Nor was the intervention by the United States going to protect the profits "
15413 "of United States drug companies—at least, not substantially. It was "
15414 "not as if these countries were in the position to buy the drugs for the "
15415 "prices the drug companies were charging. Again, the Africans are wildly too "
15416 "poor to afford these drugs at the offered prices. Stopping the parallel "
15417 "import of these drugs would not substantially increase the sales by "
15423 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15424 #: freeculture.xml:12319
15426 "See Sabin Russell, \"New Crusade to Lower AIDS Drug Costs: Africa's Needs at "
15427 "Odds with Firms' Profit Motive,\" San Francisco Chronicle, 24 May 1999, A1, "
15428 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #57</ulink> "
15429 "(\"compulsory licenses and gray markets pose a threat to the entire system "
15430 "of intellectual property protection\"); Robert Weissman, \"AIDS and "
15431 "Developing Countries: Democratizing Access to Essential Medicines,\" Foreign "
15432 "Policy in Focus 4:23 (August 1999), available at <ulink "
15433 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #58</ulink> (describing "
15434 "U.S. policy); John A. Harrelson, \"TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents, and the "
15435 "HIV/AIDS Crisis: Finding the Proper Balance Between Intellectual Property "
15436 "Rights and Compassion, a Synopsis,\" Widener Law Symposium Journal (Spring "
15440 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15441 #: freeculture.xml:12313
15443 "Instead, the argument in favor of restricting this flow of information, "
15444 "which was needed to save the lives of millions, was an argument about the "
15445 "sanctity of property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> It was "
15446 "because \"intellectual property\" would be violated that these drugs should "
15447 "not flow into Africa. It was a principle about the importance of "
15448 "\"intellectual property\" that led these government actors to intervene "
15449 "against the South African response to AIDS."
15452 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15453 #: freeculture.xml:12340
15455 "Now just step back for a moment. There will be a time thirty years from now "
15456 "when our children look back at us and ask, how could we have let this "
15457 "happen? How could we allow a policy to be pursued whose direct cost would be "
15458 "to speed the death of 15 to 30 million Africans, and whose only real benefit "
15459 "would be to uphold the \"sanctity\" of an idea? What possible justification "
15460 "could there ever be for a policy that results in so many deaths? What "
15461 "exactly is the insanity that would allow so many to die for such an "
15465 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15466 #: freeculture.xml:12350
15468 "Some blame the drug companies. I don't. They are corporations. Their "
15469 "managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a "
15470 "certain patent policy not because of ideals, but because it is the policy "
15471 "that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money "
15472 "because of a certain corruption within our political system— a "
15473 "corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for."
15476 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15477 #: freeculture.xml:12358
15479 "The corruption is our own politicians' failure of integrity. For the drug "
15480 "companies would love—they say, and I believe them—to sell their "
15481 "drugs as cheaply as they can to countries in Africa and elsewhere. There "
15482 "are issues they'd have to resolve to make sure the drugs didn't get back "
15483 "into the United States, but those are mere problems of technology. They "
15484 "could be overcome."
15488 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15489 #: freeculture.xml:12366
15491 "A different problem, however, could not be overcome. This is the fear of the "
15492 "grandstanding politician who would call the presidents of the drug companies "
15493 "before a Senate or House hearing, and ask, \"How is it you can sell this HIV "
15494 "drug in Africa for only $1 a pill, but the same drug would cost an American "
15495 "$1,500?\" Because there is no \"sound bite\" answer to that question, its "
15496 "effect would be to induce regulation of prices in America. The drug "
15497 "companies thus avoid this spiral by avoiding the first step. They reinforce "
15498 "the idea that property should be sacred. They adopt a rational strategy in "
15499 "an irrational context, with the unintended consequence that perhaps millions "
15500 "die. And that rational strategy thus becomes framed in terms of this "
15501 "ideal—the sanctity of an idea called \"intellectual property.\""
15504 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15505 #: freeculture.xml:12381
15507 "So when the common sense of your child confronts you, what will you say? "
15508 "When the common sense of a generation finally revolts against what we have "
15509 "done, how will we justify what we have done? What is the argument?"
15512 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15513 #: freeculture.xml:12387
15515 "A sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly support the patent "
15516 "system without having to reach everyone everywhere in exactly the same "
15517 "way. Just as a sensible copyright policy could endorse and strongly support "
15518 "a copyright system without having to regulate the spread of culture "
15519 "perfectly and forever, a sensible patent policy could endorse and strongly "
15520 "support a patent system without having to block the spread of drugs to a "
15521 "country not rich enough to afford market prices in any case. A sensible "
15522 "policy, in other words, could be a balanced policy. For most of our history, "
15523 "both copyright and patent policies were balanced in just this sense."
15527 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15528 #: freeculture.xml:12399
15530 "But we as a culture have lost this sense of balance. We have lost the "
15531 "critical eye that helps us see the difference between truth and extremism. "
15532 "A certain property fundamentalism, having no connection to our tradition, "
15533 "now reigns in this culture—bizarrely, and with consequences more grave "
15534 "to the spread of ideas and culture than almost any other single policy "
15535 "decision that we as a democracy will make. A simple idea blinds us, and "
15536 "under the cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if "
15537 "any of us looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas "
15538 "that we don't even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who "
15539 "are dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in "
15540 "culture that we don't even question when the control of that property "
15541 "removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture "
15542 "democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for "
15543 "anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way "
15544 "to make this common sense open its eyes."
15547 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15548 #: freeculture.xml:12419
15550 "So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet "
15551 "see what there could be to revolt about. The extremism that now dominates "
15552 "this debate fits with ideas that seem natural, and that fit is reinforced by "
15553 "the RCAs of our day. They wage a frantic war to fight \"piracy,\" and "
15554 "devastate a culture for creativity. They defend the idea of \"creative "
15555 "property,\" while transforming real creators into modern-day "
15556 "sharecroppers. They are insulted by the idea that rights should be balanced, "
15557 "even though each of the major players in this content war was itself a "
15558 "beneficiary of a more balanced ideal. The hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a city "
15559 "like Washington, hypocrisy is not even noticed. Powerful lobbies, complex "
15560 "issues, and MTV attention spans produce the \"perfect storm\" for free "
15565 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15566 #: freeculture.xml:12436
15568 "Jonathan Krim, \"The Quiet War over Open-Source,\" Washington Post, August "
15569 "2003, E1, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15570 "#59</ulink>; William New, \"Global Group's Shift on `Open Source' Meeting "
15571 "Spurs Stir,\" National Journal's Technology Daily, 19 August 2003, available "
15572 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #60</ulink>; William "
15573 "New, \"U.S. Official Opposes `Open Source' Talks at WIPO,\" National "
15574 "Journal's Technology Daily, 19 August 2003, available at <ulink "
15575 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #61</ulink>."
15579 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15580 #: freeculture.xml:12433
15582 "In August 2003, a fight broke out in the United States about a decision by "
15583 "the World Intellectual Property Organization to cancel a "
15584 "meeting.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> At the request of a wide "
15585 "range of interests, WIPO had decided to hold a meeting to discuss \"open and "
15586 "collaborative projects to create public goods.\" These are projects that "
15587 "have been successful in producing public goods without relying exclusively "
15588 "upon a proprietary use of intellectual property. Examples include the "
15589 "Internet and the World Wide Web, both of which were developed on the basis "
15590 "of protocols in the public domain. It included an emerging trend to support "
15591 "open academic journals, including the Public Library of Science project that "
15592 "I describe in the Afterword. It included a project to develop single "
15593 "nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are thought to have great "
15594 "significance in biomedical research. (That nonprofit project comprised a "
15595 "consortium of the Wellcome Trust and pharmaceutical and technological "
15596 "companies, including Amersham Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Aventis, Bayer, "
15597 "Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffmann-La Roche, Glaxo-SmithKline, IBM, Motorola, "
15598 "Novartis, Pfizer, and Searle.) It included the Global Positioning System, "
15599 "which Ronald Reagan set free in the early 1980s. And it included \"open "
15600 "source and free software.\""
15603 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15604 #: freeculture.xml:12466
15606 "The aim of the meeting was to consider this wide range of projects from one "
15607 "common perspective: that none of these projects relied upon intellectual "
15608 "property extremism. Instead, in all of them, intellectual property was "
15609 "balanced by agreements to keep access open or to impose limitations on the "
15610 "way in which proprietary claims might be used."
15614 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15615 #: freeculture.xml:12474
15617 "I should disclose that I was one of the people who asked WIPO for the "
15621 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15622 #: freeculture.xml:12473
15624 "From the perspective of this book, then, the conference was "
15625 "ideal.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The projects within its "
15626 "scope included both commercial and noncommercial work. They primarily "
15627 "involved science, but from many perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue "
15628 "for this discussion, since WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing "
15629 "with intellectual property issues."
15633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15634 #: freeculture.xml:12484
15636 "Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact about "
15637 "WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a preparatory "
15638 "conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At a "
15639 "press conference before the address, I was asked what I would say. I "
15640 "responded that I would be talking a little about the importance of balance "
15641 "in intellectual property for the development of an information society. The "
15642 "moderator for the event then promptly interrupted to inform me and the "
15643 "assembled reporters that no question about intellectual property would be "
15644 "discussed by WSIS, since those questions were the exclusive domain of "
15645 "WIPO. In the talk that I had prepared, I had actually made the issue of "
15646 "intellectual property relatively minor. But after this astonishing "
15647 "statement, I made intellectual property the sole focus of my talk. There was "
15648 "no way to talk about an \"Information Society\" unless one also talked about "
15649 "the range of information and culture that would be free. My talk did not "
15650 "make my immoderate moderator very happy. And she was no doubt correct that "
15651 "the scope of intellectual property protections was ordinarily the stuff of "
15652 "WIPO. But in my view, there couldn't be too much of a conversation about how "
15653 "much intellectual property is needed, since in my view, the very idea of "
15654 "balance in intellectual property had been lost."
15657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15658 #: freeculture.xml:12508
15660 "So whether or not WSIS can discuss balance in intellectual property, I had "
15661 "thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And thus the "
15662 "meeting about \"open and collaborative projects to create public goods\" "
15663 "seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda."
15666 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15667 #: freeculture.xml:12514
15669 "But there is one project within that list that is highly controversial, at "
15670 "least among lobbyists. That project is \"open source and free software.\" "
15671 "Microsoft in particular is wary of discussion of the subject. From its "
15672 "perspective, a conference to discuss open source and free software would be "
15673 "like a conference to discuss Apple's operating system. Both open source and "
15674 "free software compete with Microsoft's software. And internationally, many "
15675 "governments have begun to explore requirements that they use open source or "
15676 "free software, rather than \"proprietary software,\" for their own internal "
15681 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15682 #: freeculture.xml:12537
15684 "Microsoft's position about free and open source software is more "
15685 "sophisticated. As it has repeatedly asserted, it has no problem with \"open "
15686 "source\" software or software in the public domain. Microsoft's principal "
15687 "opposition is to \"free software\" licensed under a \"copyleft\" license, "
15688 "meaning a license that requires the licensee to adopt the same terms on any "
15689 "derivative work. See Bradford L. Smith, \"The Future of Software: Enabling "
15690 "the Marketplace to Decide,\" Government Policy Toward Open Source Software "
15691 "(Washington, D.C.: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, "
15692 "American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2002), 69, "
15693 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
15694 "#62</ulink>. See also Craig Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president, The "
15695 "Commercial Software Model, discussion at New York University Stern School of "
15696 "Business (3 May 2001), available at <ulink "
15697 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #63</ulink>."
15700 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15701 #: freeculture.xml:12525
15703 "I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to make clear "
15704 "that the distinction is not between commercial and noncommercial "
15705 "software. There are many important companies that depend fundamentally upon "
15706 "open source and free software, IBM being the most prominent. IBM is "
15707 "increasingly shifting its focus to the GNU/Linux operating system, the most "
15708 "famous bit of \"free software\"—and IBM is emphatically a commercial "
15709 "entity. Thus, to support \"open source and free software\" is not to oppose "
15710 "commercial entities. It is, instead, to support a mode of software "
15711 "development that is different from Microsoft's.<placeholder "
15712 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
15716 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15717 #: freeculture.xml:12559
15719 "More important for our purposes, to support \"open source and free "
15720 "software\" is not to oppose copyright. \"Open source and free software\" is "
15721 "not software in the public domain. Instead, like Microsoft's software, the "
15722 "copyright owners of free and open source software insist quite strongly that "
15723 "the terms of their software license be respected by adopters of free and "
15724 "open source software. The terms of that license are no doubt different from "
15725 "the terms of a proprietary software license. Free software licensed under "
15726 "the General Public License (GPL), for example, requires that the source code "
15727 "for the software be made available by anyone who modifies and redistributes "
15728 "the software. But that requirement is effective only if copyright governs "
15729 "software. If copyright did not govern software, then free software could not "
15730 "impose the same kind of requirements on its adopters. It thus depends upon "
15731 "copyright law just as Microsoft does."
15735 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15736 #: freeculture.xml:12585
15738 "Krim, \"The Quiet War over Open-Source,\" available at <ulink "
15739 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #64</ulink>."
15742 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15743 #: freeculture.xml:12577
15745 "It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software developer, "
15746 "Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and understandable that it would "
15747 "use its lobbyists to get the United States government to oppose it, as "
15748 "well. And indeed, that is just what was reported to have happened. According "
15749 "to Jonathan Krim of the Washington Post, Microsoft's lobbyists succeeded in "
15750 "getting the United States government to veto the meeting.<placeholder "
15751 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And without U.S. backing, the meeting was "
15755 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15756 #: freeculture.xml:12591
15758 "I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own interests, "
15759 "consistent with the law. And lobbying governments is plainly consistent with "
15760 "the law. There was nothing surprising about its lobbying here, and nothing "
15761 "terribly surprising about the most powerful software producer in the United "
15762 "States having succeeded in its lobbying efforts."
15765 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15766 #: freeculture.xml:12599
15768 "What was surprising was the United States government's reason for opposing "
15769 "the meeting. Again, as reported by Krim, Lois Boland, acting director of "
15770 "international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, explained "
15771 "that \"open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which is to "
15772 "promote intellectual-property rights.\" She is quoted as saying, \"To hold a "
15773 "meeting which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights seems to "
15774 "us to be contrary to the goals of WIPO.\""
15777 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15778 #: freeculture.xml:12609
15779 msgid "These statements are astonishing on a number of levels."
15782 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15783 #: freeculture.xml:12613
15785 "First, they are just flat wrong. As I described, most open source and free "
15786 "software relies fundamentally upon the intellectual property right called "
15787 "\"copyright\". Without it, restrictions imposed by those licenses wouldn't "
15788 "work. Thus, to say it \"runs counter\" to the mission of promoting "
15789 "intellectual property rights reveals an extraordinary gap in "
15790 "understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a first-year "
15791 "law student, but an embarrassment from a high government official dealing "
15792 "with intellectual property issues."
15795 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15796 #: freeculture.xml:12623
15798 "Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to \"promote\" "
15799 "intellectual property maximally? As I had been scolded at the preparatory "
15800 "conference of WSIS, WIPO is to consider not only how best to protect "
15801 "intellectual property, but also what the best balance of intellectual "
15802 "property is. As every economist and lawyer knows, the hard question in "
15803 "intellectual property law is to find that balance. But that there should be "
15804 "limits is, I had thought, uncontested. One wants to ask Ms. Boland, are "
15805 "generic drugs (drugs based on drugs whose patent has expired) contrary to "
15806 "the WIPO mission? Does the public domain weaken intellectual property? Would "
15807 "it have been better if the protocols of the Internet had been patented?"
15810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15811 #: freeculture.xml:12636
15813 "Third, even if one believed that the purpose of WIPO was to maximize "
15814 "intellectual property rights, in our tradition, intellectual property rights "
15815 "are held by individuals and corporations. They get to decide what to do with "
15816 "those rights because, again, they are their rights. If they want to "
15817 "\"waive\" or \"disclaim\" their rights, that is, within our tradition, "
15818 "totally appropriate. When Bill Gates gives away more than $20 billion to do "
15819 "good in the world, that is not inconsistent with the objectives of the "
15820 "property system. That is, on the contrary, just what a property system is "
15821 "supposed to be about: giving individuals the right to decide what to do with "
15822 "their property. <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
15826 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15827 #: freeculture.xml:12649
15829 "When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting \"which "
15830 "has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights,\" she's saying that "
15831 "WIPO has an interest in interfering with the choices of the individuals who "
15832 "own intellectual property rights. That somehow, WIPO's objective should be "
15833 "to stop an individual from \"waiving\" or \"disclaiming\" an intellectual "
15834 "property right. That the interest of WIPO is not just that intellectual "
15835 "property rights be maximized, but that they also should be exercised in the "
15836 "most extreme and restrictive way possible."
15839 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15840 #: freeculture.xml:12661
15842 "There is a history of just such a property system that is well known in the "
15843 "Anglo-American tradition. It is called \"feudalism.\" Under feudalism, not "
15844 "only was property held by a relatively small number of individuals and "
15845 "entities. And not only were the rights that ran with that property powerful "
15846 "and extensive. But the feudal system had a strong interest in assuring that "
15847 "property holders within that system not weaken feudalism by liberating "
15848 "people or property within their control to the free market. Feudalism "
15849 "depended upon maximum control and concentration. It fought any freedom that "
15850 "might interfere with that control."
15853 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
15854 #: freeculture.xml:12678
15856 "See Drahos with Braithwaite, Information Feudalism, 210–20. "
15857 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
15860 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15861 #: freeculture.xml:12675
15863 "As Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite relate, this is precisely the choice we "
15864 "are now making about intellectual property.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
15865 "id=\"0\"/> We will have an information society. That much is certain. Our "
15866 "only choice now is whether that information society will be free or "
15867 "feudal. The trend is toward the feudal."
15870 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15871 #: freeculture.xml:12686
15873 "When this battle broke, I blogged it. A spirited debate within the comment "
15874 "section ensued. Ms. Boland had a number of supporters who tried to show why "
15875 "her comments made sense. But there was one comment that was particularly "
15876 "depressing for me. An anonymous poster wrote,"
15880 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><blockquote><para>
15881 #: freeculture.xml:12693
15883 "George, you misunderstand Lessig: He's only talking about the world as it "
15884 "should be (\"the goal of WIPO, and the goal of any government, should be to "
15885 "promote the right balance of intellectual property rights, not simply to "
15886 "promote intellectual property rights\"), not as it is. If we were talking "
15887 "about the world as it is, then of course Boland didn't say anything "
15888 "wrong. But in the world as Lessig would have it, then of course she "
15889 "did. Always pay attention to the distinction between Lessig's world and "
15893 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15894 #: freeculture.xml:12705
15896 "I missed the irony the first time I read it. I read it quickly and thought "
15897 "the poster was supporting the idea that seeking balance was what our "
15898 "government should be doing. (Of course, my criticism of Ms. Boland was not "
15899 "about whether she was seeking balance or not; my criticism was that her "
15900 "comments betrayed a first-year law student's mistake. I have no illusion "
15901 "about the extremism of our government, whether Republican or Democrat. My "
15902 "only illusion apparently is about whether our government should speak the "
15906 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15907 #: freeculture.xml:12715
15909 "Obviously, however, the poster was not supporting that idea. Instead, the "
15910 "poster was ridiculing the very idea that in the real world, the \"goal\" of "
15911 "a government should be \"to promote the right balance\" of intellectual "
15912 "property. That was obviously silly to him. And it obviously betrayed, he "
15913 "believed, my own silly utopianism. \"Typical for an academic,\" the poster "
15914 "might well have continued."
15917 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15918 #: freeculture.xml:12723
15920 "I understand criticism of academic utopianism. I think utopianism is silly, "
15921 "too, and I'd be the first to poke fun at the absurdly unrealistic ideals of "
15922 "academics throughout history (and not just in our own country's history)."
15925 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15926 #: freeculture.xml:12729
15928 "But when it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government "
15929 "should be to \"seek balance,\" then count me with the silly, for that means "
15930 "that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be obvious to "
15931 "everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the government is "
15932 "simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea of holding the "
15933 "government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea of demanding of "
15934 "the government that it speak truth and not lies is just naïve, then who "
15935 "have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, become?"
15939 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15940 #: freeculture.xml:12740
15942 "It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the "
15943 "truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something "
15944 "more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy "
15945 "to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our "
15946 "tradition for most of our history—free culture."
15949 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15950 #: freeculture.xml:12749
15952 "If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon. There are moments "
15953 "of hope in this struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was "
15954 "considering relaxing ownership rules, which would thereby further increase "
15955 "the concentration in media ownership, an extraordinary bipartisan coalition "
15956 "formed to fight this change. For perhaps the first time in history, "
15957 "interests as diverse as the NRA, the ACLU, Moveon.org, William Safire, Ted "
15958 "Turner, and CodePink Women for Peace organized to oppose this change in FCC "
15959 "policy. An astonishing 700,000 letters were sent to the FCC, demanding more "
15960 "hearings and a different result."
15963 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15964 #: freeculture.xml:12761
15966 "This activism did not stop the FCC, but soon after, a broad coalition in the "
15967 "Senate voted to reverse the FCC decision. The hostile hearings leading up to "
15968 "that vote revealed just how powerful this movement had become. There was no "
15969 "substantial support for the FCC's decision, and there was broad and "
15970 "sustained support for fighting further concentration in the media."
15973 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15974 #: freeculture.xml:12769
15976 "But even this movement misses an important piece of the puzzle. Largeness "
15977 "as such is not bad. Freedom is not threatened just because some become very "
15978 "rich, or because there are only a handful of big players. The poor quality "
15979 "of Big Macs or Quarter Pounders does not mean that you can't get a good "
15980 "hamburger from somewhere else."
15983 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15984 #: freeculture.xml:12776
15986 "The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but "
15987 "instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in "
15988 "copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies "
15989 "that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this "
15990 "concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of "
15991 "rights—property rights of a historically extreme form—that makes "
15992 "their bigness bad."
15995 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
15996 #: freeculture.xml:12786
15998 "It is therefore significant that so many would rally to demand competition "
15999 "and increased diversity. Still, if the rally is understood as being about "
16000 "bigness alone, it is not terribly surprising. We Americans have a long "
16001 "history of fighting \"big,\" wisely or not. That we could be motivated to "
16002 "fight \"big\" again is not something new."
16005 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16006 #: freeculture.xml:12793
16008 "It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number "
16009 "could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of "
16010 "\"intellectual property.\" Not because balance is alien to our tradition; "
16011 "indeed, as I've argued, balance is our tradition. But because the muscle to "
16012 "think critically about the scope of anything called \"property\" is not well "
16013 "exercised within this tradition anymore."
16016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16017 #: freeculture.xml:12801
16019 "If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our "
16023 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16024 #: freeculture.xml:12804
16029 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16030 #: freeculture.xml:12809
16032 "John Borland, \"RIAA Sues 261 File Swappers,\" CNET News.com, September "
16033 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
16034 "#65</ulink>; Paul R. La Monica, \"Music Industry Sues Swappers,\" CNN/Money, "
16035 "8 September 2003, available at <ulink "
16036 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #66</ulink>; Soni Sangha and "
16037 "Phyllis Furman with Robert Gearty, \"Sued for a Song, N.Y.C. 12-Yr-Old Among "
16038 "261 Cited as Sharers,\" New York Daily News, 9 September 2003, 3; Frank "
16039 "Ahrens, \"RIAA's Lawsuits Meet Surprised Targets; Single Mother in Calif., "
16040 "12-Year-Old Girl in N.Y. Among Defendants,\" Washington Post, 10 September "
16041 "2003, E1; Katie Dean, \"Schoolgirl Settles with RIAA,\" Wired News, 10 "
16042 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
16043 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #67</ulink>."
16047 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16048 #: freeculture.xml:12827
16050 "Jon Wiederhorn, \"Eminem Gets Sued . . . by a Little Old Lady,\" mtv.com, 17 "
16051 "September 2003, available at <ulink "
16052 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #68</ulink>."
16057 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16058 #: freeculture.xml:12834
16060 "Kenji Hall, Associated Press, \"Japanese Book May Be Inspiration for Dylan "
16061 "Songs,\" Kansascity.com, 9 July 2003, available at <ulink "
16062 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #69</ulink>."
16065 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16066 #: freeculture.xml:12806
16068 "As I write these final words, the news is filled with stories about the RIAA "
16069 "lawsuits against almost three hundred individuals.<placeholder "
16070 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> Eminem has just been sued for \"sampling\" "
16071 "someone else's music.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> The story "
16072 "about Bob Dylan \"stealing\" from a Japanese author has just finished making "
16073 "the rounds.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"2\"/> An insider from "
16074 "Hollywood—who insists he must remain anonymous—reports \"an "
16075 "amazing conversation with these studio guys. They've got extraordinary [old] "
16076 "content that they'd love to use but can't because they can't begin to clear "
16077 "the rights. They've got scores of kids who could do amazing things with the "
16078 "content, but it would take scores of lawyers to clean it first.\" "
16079 "Congressmen are talking about deputizing computer viruses to bring down "
16080 "computers thought to violate the law. Universities are threatening expulsion "
16081 "for kids who use a computer to share content."
16084 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
16085 #: freeculture.xml:12851 freeculture.xml:13201
16086 msgid "Creative Commons"
16089 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><indexterm><primary>
16090 #: freeculture.xml:12852
16091 msgid "Gil, Gilberto"
16095 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16096 #: freeculture.xml:12857
16098 "\"BBC Plans to Open Up Its Archive to the Public,\" BBC press release, 24 "
16099 "August 2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
16104 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para><footnote><para>
16105 #: freeculture.xml:12866
16107 "\"Creative Commons and Brazil,\" Creative Commons Weblog, 6 August 2003, "
16108 "available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #71</ulink>."
16112 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16113 #: freeculture.xml:12854
16115 "Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced that it "
16116 "will build a \"Creative Archive,\" from which British citizens can download "
16117 "BBC content, and rip, mix, and burn it.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
16118 "id=\"0\"/> And in Brazil, the culture minister, Gilberto Gil, himself a folk "
16119 "hero of Brazilian music, has joined with Creative Commons to release content "
16120 "and free licenses in that Latin American country.<placeholder "
16121 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"1\"/> I've told a dark story. The truth is more "
16122 "mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to "
16123 "understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free "
16124 "culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without "
16125 "the potential of digital technology being destroyed. It will take some "
16126 "thought, and more importantly, it will take some will to transform the RCAs "
16127 "of our day into the Causbys."
16131 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16132 #: freeculture.xml:12880
16134 "Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this "
16135 "potential is ever to be realized."
16138 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
16139 #: freeculture.xml:12888
16144 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16145 #: freeculture.xml:12892
16147 "At least some who have read this far will agree with me that something must "
16148 "be done to change where we are heading. The balance of this book maps what "
16152 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16153 #: freeculture.xml:12897
16155 "I divide this map into two parts: that which anyone can do now, and that "
16156 "which requires the help of lawmakers. If there is one lesson that we can "
16157 "draw from the history of remaking common sense, it is that it requires "
16158 "remaking how many people think about the very same issue."
16161 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16162 #: freeculture.xml:12903
16164 "That means this movement must begin in the streets. It must recruit a "
16165 "significant number of parents, teachers, librarians, creators, authors, "
16166 "musicians, filmmakers, scientists—all to tell this story in their own "
16167 "words, and to tell their neighbors why this battle is so important."
16170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
16171 #: freeculture.xml:12910
16173 "Once this movement has its effect in the streets, it has some hope of having "
16174 "an effect in Washington. We are still a democracy. What people think "
16175 "matters. Not as much as it should, at least when an RCA stands opposed, but "
16176 "still, it matters. And thus, in the second part below, I sketch changes that "
16177 "Congress could make to better secure a free culture."
16180 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
16181 #: freeculture.xml:12919
16185 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16186 #: freeculture.xml:12921
16188 "Common sense is with the copyright warriors because the debate so far has "
16189 "been framed at the extremes—as a grand either/or: either property or "
16190 "anarchy, either total control or artists won't be paid. If that really is "
16191 "the choice, then the warriors should win."
16194 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16195 #: freeculture.xml:12927
16197 "The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in "
16198 "this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who "
16199 "believe in maximal copyright—\"All Rights Reserved\"— and those "
16200 "who reject copyright—\"No Rights Reserved.\" The \"All Rights "
16201 "Reserved\" sorts believe that you should ask permission before you \"use\" a "
16202 "copyrighted work in any way. The \"No Rights Reserved\" sorts believe you "
16203 "should be able to do with content as you wish, regardless of whether you "
16204 "have permission or not."
16208 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16209 #: freeculture.xml:12937
16211 "When the Internet was first born, its initial architecture effectively "
16212 "tilted in the \"no rights reserved\" direction. Content could be copied "
16213 "perfectly and cheaply; rights could not easily be controlled. Thus, "
16214 "regardless of anyone's desire, the effective regime of copyright under the "
16215 "original design of the Internet was \"no rights reserved.\" Content was "
16216 "\"taken\" regardless of the rights. Any rights were effectively unprotected."
16219 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16220 #: freeculture.xml:12949
16222 "This initial character produced a reaction (opposite, but not quite equal) "
16223 "by copyright owners. That reaction has been the topic of this book. Through "
16224 "legislation, litigation, and changes to the network's design, copyright "
16225 "holders have been able to change the essential character of the environment "
16226 "of the original Internet. If the original architecture made the effective "
16227 "default \"no rights reserved,\" the future architecture will make the "
16228 "effective default \"all rights reserved.\" The architecture and law that "
16229 "surround the Internet's design will increasingly produce an environment "
16230 "where all use of content requires permission. The \"cut and paste\" world "
16231 "that defines the Internet today will become a \"get permission to cut and "
16232 "paste\" world that is a creator's nightmare."
16235 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16236 #: freeculture.xml:12963
16238 "What's needed is a way to say something in the middle—neither \"all "
16239 "rights reserved\" nor \"no rights reserved\" but \"some rights "
16240 "reserved\"— and thus a way to respect copyrights but enable creators "
16241 "to free content as they see fit. In other words, we need a way to restore a "
16242 "set of freedoms that we could just take for granted before."
16245 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
16246 #: freeculture.xml:12972
16247 msgid "Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples"
16250 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16251 #: freeculture.xml:12974
16253 "If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will "
16254 "recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about privacy. Before the "
16255 "Internet, most of us didn't have to worry much about data about our lives "
16256 "that we broadcast to the world. If you walked into a bookstore and browsed "
16257 "through some of the works of Karl Marx, you didn't need to worry about "
16258 "explaining your browsing habits to your neighbors or boss. The \"privacy\" "
16259 "of your browsing habits was assured."
16262 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16263 #: freeculture.xml:12984
16264 msgid "What made it assured?"
16267 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16268 #: freeculture.xml:12988
16270 "Well, if we think in terms of the modalities I described in chapter 10, your "
16271 "privacy was assured because of an inefficient architecture for gathering "
16272 "data and hence a market constraint (cost) on anyone who wanted to gather "
16273 "that data. If you were a suspected spy for North Korea, working for the CIA, "
16274 "no doubt your privacy would not be assured. But that's because the CIA "
16275 "would (we hope) find it valuable enough to spend the thousands required to "
16276 "track you. But for most of us (again, we can hope), spying doesn't pay. The "
16277 "highly inefficient architecture of real space means we all enjoy a fairly "
16278 "robust amount of privacy. That privacy is guaranteed to us by friction. Not "
16279 "by law (there is no law protecting \"privacy\" in public places), and in "
16280 "many places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead, "
16281 "by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy."
16284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
16285 #: freeculture.xml:13002
16289 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16290 #: freeculture.xml:13004
16292 "Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular has "
16293 "become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you browse the "
16294 "pages, Amazon collects the data about what you've looked at. You know this "
16295 "because at the side of the page, there's a list of \"recently viewed\" "
16296 "pages. Now, because of the architecture of the Net and the function of "
16297 "cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the data than not. The friction "
16298 "has disappeared, and hence any \"privacy\" protected by the friction "
16302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16303 #: freeculture.xml:13014
16305 "Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry about "
16306 "libraries. If you're one of those crazy lefties who thinks that people "
16307 "should have the \"right\" to browse in a library without the government "
16308 "knowing which books you look at (I'm one of those lefties, too), then this "
16309 "change in the technology of monitoring might concern you. If it becomes "
16310 "simple to gather and sort who does what in electronic spaces, then the "
16311 "friction-induced privacy of yesterday disappears."
16315 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
16316 #: freeculture.xml:13030
16318 "See, for example, Marc Rotenberg, \"Fair Information Practices and the "
16319 "Architecture of Privacy (What Larry Doesn't Get),\" Stanford Technology Law "
16320 "Review 1 (2001): par. 6–18, available at <ulink "
16321 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #72</ulink> (describing examples "
16322 "in which technology defines privacy policy). See also Jeffrey Rosen, The "
16323 "Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age (New York: "
16324 "Random House, 2004) (mapping tradeoffs between technology and privacy)."
16328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16329 #: freeculture.xml:13024
16331 "It is this reality that explains the push of many to define \"privacy\" on "
16332 "the Internet. It is the recognition that technology can remove what friction "
16333 "before gave us that leads many to push for laws to do what friction "
16334 "did.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> And whether you're in favor of "
16335 "those laws or not, it is the pattern that is important here. We must take "
16336 "affirmative steps to secure a kind of freedom that was passively provided "
16337 "before. A change in technology now forces those who believe in privacy to "
16338 "affirmatively act where, before, privacy was given by default."
16341 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16342 #: freeculture.xml:13048
16344 "A similar story could be told about the birth of the free software "
16345 "movement. When computers with software were first made available "
16346 "commercially, the software—both the source code and the "
16347 "binaries— was free. You couldn't run a program written for a Data "
16348 "General machine on an IBM machine, so Data General and IBM didn't care much "
16349 "about controlling their software."
16352 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><indexterm><primary>
16353 #: freeculture.xml:13055
16354 msgid "Stallman, Richard"
16357 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16358 #: freeculture.xml:13057
16360 "That was the world Richard Stallman was born into, and while he was a "
16361 "researcher at MIT, he grew to love the community that developed when one was "
16362 "free to explore and tinker with the software that ran on machines. Being a "
16363 "smart sort himself, and a talented programmer, Stallman grew to depend upon "
16364 "the freedom to add to or modify other people's work."
16367 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16368 #: freeculture.xml:13065
16370 "In an academic setting, at least, that's not a terribly radical idea. In a "
16371 "math department, anyone would be free to tinker with a proof that someone "
16372 "offered. If you thought you had a better way to prove a theorem, you could "
16373 "take what someone else did and change it. In a classics department, if you "
16374 "believed a colleague's translation of a recently discovered text was flawed, "
16375 "you were free to improve it. Thus, to Stallman, it seemed obvious that you "
16376 "should be free to tinker with and improve the code that ran a machine. This, "
16377 "too, was knowledge. Why shouldn't it be open for criticism like anything "
16381 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16382 #: freeculture.xml:13077
16384 "No one answered that question. Instead, the architecture of revenue for "
16385 "computing changed. As it became possible to import programs from one system "
16386 "to another, it became economically attractive (at least in the view of some) "
16387 "to hide the code of your program. So, too, as companies started selling "
16388 "peripherals for mainframe systems. If I could just take your printer driver "
16389 "and copy it, then that would make it easier for me to sell a printer to the "
16390 "market than it was for you."
16394 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16395 #: freeculture.xml:13086
16397 "Thus, the practice of proprietary code began to spread, and by the early "
16398 "1980s, Stallman found himself surrounded by proprietary code. The world of "
16399 "free software had been erased by a change in the economics of computing. And "
16400 "as he believed, if he did nothing about it, then the freedom to change and "
16401 "share software would be fundamentally weakened."
16404 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16405 #: freeculture.xml:13095
16407 "Therefore, in 1984, Stallman began a project to build a free operating "
16408 "system, so that at least a strain of free software would survive. That was "
16409 "the birth of the GNU project, into which Linus Torvalds's \"Linux\" kernel "
16410 "was added to produce the GNU/Linux operating system."
16413 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16414 #: freeculture.xml:13101
16416 "Stallman's technique was to use copyright law to build a world of software "
16417 "that must be kept free. Software licensed under the Free Software "
16418 "Foundation's GPL cannot be modified and distributed unless the source code "
16419 "for that software is made available as well. Thus, anyone building upon "
16420 "GPL'd software would have to make their buildings free as well. This would "
16421 "assure, Stallman believed, that an ecology of code would develop that "
16422 "remained free for others to build upon. His fundamental goal was freedom; "
16423 "innovative creative code was a byproduct."
16426 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16427 #: freeculture.xml:13112
16429 "Stallman was thus doing for software what privacy advocates now do for "
16430 "privacy. He was seeking a way to rebuild a kind of freedom that was taken "
16431 "for granted before. Through the affirmative use of licenses that bind "
16432 "copyrighted code, Stallman was affirmatively reclaiming a space where free "
16433 "software would survive. He was actively protecting what before had been "
16434 "passively guaranteed."
16437 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16438 #: freeculture.xml:13120
16440 "Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates with "
16441 "the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and scientific "
16442 "journals are produced."
16446 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16447 #: freeculture.xml:13125
16449 "As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that "
16450 "printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them to "
16451 "libraries is perhaps not the most efficient way to distribute "
16452 "knowledge. Instead, journals are increasingly becoming electronic, and "
16453 "libraries and their users are given access to these electronic journals "
16454 "through password-protected sites. Something similar to this has been "
16455 "happening in law for almost thirty years: Lexis and Westlaw have had "
16456 "electronic versions of case reports available to subscribers to their "
16457 "service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not copyrighted, and anyone is "
16458 "free to go to a library and read it, Lexis and Westlaw are also free to "
16459 "charge users for the privilege of gaining access to that Supreme Court "
16460 "opinion through their respective services."
16463 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16464 #: freeculture.xml:13141
16466 "There's nothing wrong in general with this, and indeed, the ability to "
16467 "charge for access to even public domain materials is a good incentive for "
16468 "people to develop new and innovative ways to spread knowledge. The law has "
16469 "agreed, which is why Lexis and Westlaw have been allowed to flourish. And if "
16470 "there's nothing wrong with selling the public domain, then there could be "
16471 "nothing wrong, in principle, with selling access to material that is not in "
16472 "the public domain."
16475 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16476 #: freeculture.xml:13150
16478 "But what if the only way to get access to social and scientific data was "
16479 "through proprietary services? What if no one had the ability to browse this "
16480 "data except by paying for a subscription?"
16483 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16484 #: freeculture.xml:13155
16486 "As many are beginning to notice, this is increasingly the reality with "
16487 "scientific journals. When these journals were distributed in paper form, "
16488 "libraries could make the journals available to anyone who had access to the "
16489 "library. Thus, patients with cancer could become cancer experts because the "
16490 "library gave them access. Or patients trying to understand the risks of a "
16491 "certain treatment could research those risks by reading all available "
16492 "articles about that treatment. This freedom was therefore a function of the "
16493 "institution of libraries (norms) and the technology of paper journals "
16494 "(architecture)—namely, that it was very hard to control access to a "
16498 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16499 #: freeculture.xml:13167
16501 "As journals become electronic, however, the publishers are demanding that "
16502 "libraries not give the general public access to the journals. This means "
16503 "that the freedoms provided by print journals in public libraries begin to "
16504 "disappear. Thus, as with privacy and with software, a changing technology "
16505 "and market shrink a freedom taken for granted before."
16509 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16510 #: freeculture.xml:13175
16512 "This shrinking freedom has led many to take affirmative steps to restore the "
16513 "freedom that has been lost. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), for "
16514 "example, is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making scientific research "
16515 "available to anyone with a Web connection. Authors of scientific work submit "
16516 "that work to the Public Library of Science. That work is then subject to "
16517 "peer review. If accepted, the work is then deposited in a public, electronic "
16518 "archive and made permanently available for free. PLoS also sells a print "
16519 "version of its work, but the copyright for the print journal does not "
16520 "inhibit the right of anyone to redistribute the work for free."
16523 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16524 #: freeculture.xml:13188
16526 "This is one of many such efforts to restore a freedom taken for granted "
16527 "before, but now threatened by changing technology and markets. There's no "
16528 "doubt that this alternative competes with the traditional publishers and "
16529 "their efforts to make money from the exclusive distribution of content. But "
16530 "competition in our tradition is presumptively a good—especially when "
16531 "it helps spread knowledge and science."
16534 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
16535 #: freeculture.xml:13199
16536 msgid "Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea"
16539 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16540 #: freeculture.xml:13204
16542 "The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the "
16543 "increasing control effected through law and technology."
16546 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16547 #: freeculture.xml:13208
16549 "Enter the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation "
16550 "established in Massachusetts, but with its home at Stanford University. Its "
16551 "aim is to build a layer of reasonable copyright on top of the extremes that "
16552 "now reign. It does this by making it easy for people to build upon other "
16553 "people's work, by making it simple for creators to express the freedom for "
16554 "others to take and build upon their work. Simple tags, tied to "
16555 "human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses, make this "
16560 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16561 #: freeculture.xml:13218
16563 "Simple—which means without a middleman, or without a lawyer. By "
16564 "developing a free set of licenses that people can attach to their content, "
16565 "Creative Commons aims to mark a range of content that can easily, and "
16566 "reliably, be built upon. These tags are then linked to machine-readable "
16567 "versions of the license that enable computers automatically to identify "
16568 "content that can easily be shared. These three expressions together—a "
16569 "legal license, a human-readable description, and machine-readable "
16570 "tags—constitute a Creative Commons license. A Creative Commons license "
16571 "constitutes a grant of freedom to anyone who accesses the license, and more "
16572 "importantly, an expression of the ideal that the person associated with the "
16573 "license believes in something different than the \"All\" or \"No\" "
16574 "extremes. Content is marked with the CC mark, which does not mean that "
16575 "copyright is waived, but that certain freedoms are given."
16578 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16579 #: freeculture.xml:13236
16581 "These freedoms are beyond the freedoms promised by fair use. Their precise "
16582 "contours depend upon the choices the creator makes. The creator can choose a "
16583 "license that permits any use, so long as attribution is given. She can "
16584 "choose a license that permits only noncommercial use. She can choose a "
16585 "license that permits any use so long as the same freedoms are given to other "
16586 "uses (\"share and share alike\"). Or any use so long as no derivative use is "
16587 "made. Or any use at all within developing nations. Or any sampling use, so "
16588 "long as full copies are not made. Or lastly, any educational use."
16591 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16592 #: freeculture.xml:13247
16594 "These choices thus establish a range of freedoms beyond the default of "
16595 "copyright law. They also enable freedoms that go beyond traditional fair "
16596 "use. And most importantly, they express these freedoms in a way that "
16597 "subsequent users can use and rely upon without the need to hire a "
16598 "lawyer. Creative Commons thus aims to build a layer of content, governed by "
16599 "a layer of reasonable copyright law, that others can build upon. Voluntary "
16600 "choice of individuals and creators will make this content available. And "
16601 "that content will in turn enable us to rebuild a public domain."
16605 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16606 #: freeculture.xml:13258
16608 "This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And of "
16609 "course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such "
16610 "freedoms. But the point that distinguishes the Creative Commons from many is "
16611 "that we are not interested only in talking about a public domain or in "
16612 "getting legislators to help build a public domain. Our aim is to build a "
16613 "movement of consumers and producers of content (\"content conducers,\" as "
16614 "attorney Mia Garlick calls them) who help build the public domain and, by "
16615 "their work, demonstrate the importance of the public domain to other "
16619 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16620 #: freeculture.xml:13270
16622 "The aim is not to fight the \"All Rights Reserved\" sorts. The aim is to "
16623 "complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a culture are "
16624 "produced by insane and unintended consequences of laws written centuries "
16625 "ago, applied to a technology that only Jefferson could have imagined. The "
16626 "rules may well have made sense against a background of technologies from "
16627 "centuries ago, but they do not make sense against the background of digital "
16628 "technologies. New rules—with different freedoms, expressed in ways so "
16629 "that humans without lawyers can use them—are needed. Creative Commons "
16630 "gives people a way effectively to begin to build those rules."
16633 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16634 #: freeculture.xml:13282
16636 "Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some participate "
16637 "to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for example, is a science "
16638 "fiction author. His first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was "
16639 "released on-line and for free, under a Creative Commons license, on the same "
16640 "day that it went on sale in bookstores."
16643 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16644 #: freeculture.xml:13289
16646 "Why would a publisher ever agree to this? I suspect his publisher reasoned "
16647 "like this: There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy "
16648 "Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who may never "
16649 "hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free on the "
16650 "Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead of buying "
16651 "it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download Cory's book, like "
16652 "it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods. If there are more "
16653 "(2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing Cory's book free on-line "
16654 "will probably increase sales of Cory's book."
16657 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16658 #: freeculture.xml:13301
16660 "Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that conclusion. "
16661 "The book's first printing was exhausted months before the publisher had "
16662 "expected. This first novel of a science fiction author was a total success."
16666 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16667 #: freeculture.xml:13307
16669 "The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content was "
16670 "confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who wrote a "
16671 "book about the free software movement titled Free for All, made an "
16672 "electronic version of his book free on-line under a Creative Commons license "
16673 "after the book went out of print. He then monitored used book store prices "
16674 "for the book. As predicted, as the number of downloads increased, the used "
16675 "book price for his book increased, as well."
16679 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
16680 #: freeculture.xml:13333
16682 "Willful Infringement: A Report from the Front Lines of the Real Culture Wars "
16683 "(2003), produced by Jed Horovitz, directed by Greg Hittelman, a Fiat Lucre "
16684 "production, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
16688 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16689 #: freeculture.xml:13318
16691 "These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary "
16692 "content. I believe that is a wonderful and common use of the Commons. There "
16693 "are others who use Creative Commons licenses for other reasons. Many who use "
16694 "the \"sampling license\" do so because anything else would be "
16695 "hypocritical. The sampling license says that others are free, for commercial "
16696 "or noncommercial purposes, to sample content from the licensed work; they "
16697 "are just not free to make full copies of the licensed work available to "
16698 "others. This is consistent with their own art—they, too, sample from "
16699 "others. Because the legal costs of sampling are so high (Walter Leaphart, "
16700 "manager of the rap group Public Enemy, which was born sampling the music of "
16701 "others, has stated that he does not \"allow\" Public Enemy to sample "
16702 "anymore, because the legal costs are so high<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
16703 "id=\"0\"/>), these artists release into the creative environment content "
16704 "that others can build upon, so that their form of creativity might grow."
16707 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16708 #: freeculture.xml:13342
16710 "Finally, there are many who mark their content with a Creative Commons "
16711 "license just because they want to express to others the importance of "
16712 "balance in this debate. If you just go along with the system as it is, you "
16713 "are effectively saying you believe in the \"All Rights Reserved\" "
16714 "model. Good for you, but many do not. Many believe that however appropriate "
16715 "that rule is for Hollywood and freaks, it is not an appropriate description "
16716 "of how most creators view the rights associated with their content. The "
16717 "Creative Commons license expresses this notion of \"Some Rights Reserved,\" "
16718 "and gives many the chance to say it to others."
16722 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16723 #: freeculture.xml:13354
16725 "In the first six months of the Creative Commons experiment, over 1 million "
16726 "objects were licensed with these free-culture licenses. The next step is "
16727 "partnerships with middleware content providers to help them build into their "
16728 "technologies simple ways for users to mark their content with Creative "
16729 "Commons freedoms. Then the next step is to watch and celebrate creators who "
16730 "build content based upon content set free."
16733 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16734 #: freeculture.xml:13364
16736 "These are first steps to rebuilding a public domain. They are not mere "
16737 "arguments; they are action. Building a public domain is the first step to "
16738 "showing people how important that domain is to creativity and "
16739 "innovation. Creative Commons relies upon voluntary steps to achieve this "
16740 "rebuilding. They will lead to a world in which more than voluntary steps are "
16744 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16745 #: freeculture.xml:13372
16747 "Creative Commons is just one example of voluntary efforts by individuals and "
16748 "creators to change the mix of rights that now govern the creative field. The "
16749 "project does not compete with copyright; it complements it. Its aim is not "
16750 "to defeat the rights of authors, but to make it easier for authors and "
16751 "creators to exercise their rights more flexibly and cheaply. That "
16752 "difference, we believe, will enable creativity to spread more easily."
16755 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><title>
16756 #: freeculture.xml:13386
16760 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16761 #: freeculture.xml:13388
16763 "We will not reclaim a free culture by individual action alone. It will also "
16764 "take important reforms of laws. We have a long way to go before the "
16765 "politicians will listen to these ideas and implement these reforms. But "
16766 "that also means that we have time to build awareness around the changes that "
16770 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><para>
16771 #: freeculture.xml:13395
16773 "In this chapter, I outline five kinds of changes: four that are general, and "
16774 "one that's specific to the most heated battle of the day, music. Each is a "
16775 "step, not an end. But any of these steps would carry us a long way to our "
16779 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
16780 #: freeculture.xml:13402
16781 msgid "1. More Formalities"
16784 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16785 #: freeculture.xml:13404
16787 "If you buy a house, you have to record the sale in a deed. If you buy land "
16788 "upon which to build a house, you have to record the purchase in a deed. If "
16789 "you buy a car, you get a bill of sale and register the car. If you buy an "
16790 "airplane ticket, it has your name on it."
16794 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16795 #: freeculture.xml:13411
16797 "These are all formalities associated with property. They are requirements "
16798 "that we all must bear if we want our property to be protected."
16801 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16802 #: freeculture.xml:13416
16804 "In contrast, under current copyright law, you automatically get a copyright, "
16805 "regardless of whether you comply with any formality. You don't have to "
16806 "register. You don't even have to mark your content. The default is control, "
16807 "and \"formalities\" are banished."
16810 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16811 #: freeculture.xml:13422
16815 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16816 #: freeculture.xml:13425
16818 "As I suggested in chapter 10, the motivation to abolish formalities was a "
16819 "good one. In the world before digital technologies, formalities imposed a "
16820 "burden on copyright holders without much benefit. Thus, it was progress when "
16821 "the law relaxed the formal requirements that a copyright owner must bear to "
16822 "protect and secure his work. Those formalities were getting in the way."
16825 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16826 #: freeculture.xml:13433
16828 "But the Internet changes all this. Formalities today need not be a "
16829 "burden. Rather, the world without formalities is the world that burdens "
16830 "creativity. Today, there is no simple way to know who owns what, or with "
16831 "whom one must deal in order to use or build upon the creative work of "
16832 "others. There are no records, there is no system to trace— there is no "
16833 "simple way to know how to get permission. Yet given the massive increase in "
16834 "the scope of copyright's rule, getting permission is a necessary step for "
16835 "any work that builds upon our past. And thus, the lack of formalities forces "
16836 "many into silence where they otherwise could speak."
16840 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
16841 #: freeculture.xml:13447
16843 "The proposal I am advancing here would apply to American works only. "
16844 "Obviously, I believe it would be beneficial for the same idea to be adopted "
16845 "by other countries as well."
16848 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16849 #: freeculture.xml:13445
16851 "The law should therefore change this requirement<placeholder "
16852 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>—but it should not change it by going back "
16853 "to the old, broken system. We should require formalities, but we should "
16854 "establish a system that will create the incentives to minimize the burden of "
16855 "these formalities."
16858 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
16859 #: freeculture.xml:13455
16861 "The important formalities are three: marking copyrighted work, registering "
16862 "copyrights, and renewing the claim to copyright. Traditionally, the first of "
16863 "these three was something the copyright owner did; the second two were "
16864 "something the government did. But a revised system of formalities would "
16865 "banish the government from the process, except for the sole purpose of "
16866 "approving standards developed by others."
16869 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><title>
16870 #: freeculture.xml:13467
16871 msgid "REGISTRATION AND RENEWAL"
16874 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16875 #: freeculture.xml:13469
16877 "Under the old system, a copyright owner had to file a registration with the "
16878 "Copyright Office to register or renew a copyright. When filing that "
16879 "registration, the copyright owner paid a fee. As with most government "
16880 "agencies, the Copyright Office had little incentive to minimize the burden "
16881 "of registration; it also had little incentive to minimize the fee. And as "
16882 "the Copyright Office is not a main target of government policymaking, the "
16883 "office has historically been terribly underfunded. Thus, when people who "
16884 "know something about the process hear this idea about formalities, their "
16885 "first reaction is panic—nothing could be worse than forcing people to "
16886 "deal with the mess that is the Copyright Office."
16889 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16890 #: freeculture.xml:13482
16892 "Yet it is always astonishing to me that we, who come from a tradition of "
16893 "extraordinary innovation in governmental design, can no longer think "
16894 "innovatively about how governmental functions can be designed. Just because "
16895 "there is a public purpose to a government role, it doesn't follow that the "
16896 "government must actually administer the role. Instead, we should be creating "
16897 "incentives for private parties to serve the public, subject to standards "
16898 "that the government sets."
16901 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16902 #: freeculture.xml:13491
16904 "In the context of registration, one obvious model is the Internet. There "
16905 "are at least 32 million Web sites registered around the world. Domain name "
16906 "owners for these Web sites have to pay a fee to keep their registration "
16907 "alive. In the main top-level domains (.com, .org, .net), there is a central "
16908 "registry. The actual registrations are, however, performed by many competing "
16909 "registrars. That competition drives the cost of registering down, and more "
16910 "importantly, it drives the ease with which registration occurs up."
16914 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16915 #: freeculture.xml:13501
16917 "We should adopt a similar model for the registration and renewal of "
16918 "copyrights. The Copyright Office may well serve as the central registry, but "
16919 "it should not be in the registrar business. Instead, it should establish a "
16920 "database, and a set of standards for registrars. It should approve "
16921 "registrars that meet its standards. Those registrars would then compete with "
16922 "one another to deliver the cheapest and simplest systems for registering and "
16923 "renewing copyrights. That competition would substantially lower the burden "
16924 "of this formality—while producing a database of registrations that "
16925 "would facilitate the licensing of content."
16928 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><title>
16929 #: freeculture.xml:13516
16933 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16934 #: freeculture.xml:13518
16936 "It used to be that the failure to include a copyright notice on a creative "
16937 "work meant that the copyright was forfeited. That was a harsh punishment for "
16938 "failing to comply with a regulatory rule—akin to imposing the death "
16939 "penalty for a parking ticket in the world of creative rights. Here again, "
16940 "there is no reason that a marking requirement needs to be enforced in this "
16941 "way. And more importantly, there is no reason a marking requirement needs to "
16942 "be enforced uniformly across all media."
16945 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16946 #: freeculture.xml:13528
16948 "The aim of marking is to signal to the public that this work is copyrighted "
16949 "and that the author wants to enforce his rights. The mark also makes it easy "
16950 "to locate a copyright owner to secure permission to use the work."
16953 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16954 #: freeculture.xml:13534
16956 "One of the problems the copyright system confronted early on was that "
16957 "different copyrighted works had to be differently marked. It wasn't clear "
16958 "how or where a statue was to be marked, or a record, or a film. A new "
16959 "marking requirement could solve these problems by recognizing the "
16960 "differences in media, and by allowing the system of marking to evolve as "
16961 "technologies enable it to. The system could enable a special signal from the "
16962 "failure to mark—not the loss of the copyright, but the loss of the "
16963 "right to punish someone for failing to get permission first."
16967 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para><footnote><para>
16968 #: freeculture.xml:13551
16970 "There would be a complication with derivative works that I have not solved "
16971 "here. In my view, the law of derivatives creates a more complicated system "
16972 "than is justified by the marginal incentive it creates."
16976 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16977 #: freeculture.xml:13544
16979 "Let's start with the last point. If a copyright owner allows his work to be "
16980 "published without a copyright notice, the consequence of that failure need "
16981 "not be that the copyright is lost. The consequence could instead be that "
16982 "anyone has the right to use this work, until the copyright owner complains "
16983 "and demonstrates that it is his work and he doesn't give "
16984 "permission.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The meaning of an "
16985 "unmarked work would therefore be \"use unless someone complains.\" If "
16986 "someone does complain, then the obligation would be to stop using the work "
16987 "in any new work from then on though no penalty would attach for existing "
16988 "uses. This would create a strong incentive for copyright owners to mark "
16992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
16993 #: freeculture.xml:13564
16995 "That in turn raises the question about how work should best be marked. Here "
16996 "again, the system needs to adjust as the technologies evolve. The best way "
16997 "to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the Copyright Office's role to "
16998 "that of approving standards for marking content that have been crafted "
17002 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
17003 #: freeculture.xml:13571
17005 "For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for "
17006 "marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The Copyright "
17007 "Office would hold a hearing, at which other proposals could be made. The "
17008 "Copyright Office would then select the proposal that it judged preferable, "
17009 "and it would base that choice solely upon the consideration of which method "
17010 "could best be integrated into the registration and renewal system. We would "
17011 "not count on the government to innovate; but we would count on the "
17012 "government to keep the product of innovation in line with its other "
17013 "important functions."
17016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
17017 #: freeculture.xml:13582
17019 "Finally, marking content clearly would simplify registration requirements. "
17020 "If photographs were marked by author and year, there would be little reason "
17021 "not to allow a photographer to reregister, for example, all photographs "
17022 "taken in a particular year in one quick step. The aim of the formality is "
17023 "not to burden the creator; the system itself should be kept as simple as "
17027 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
17028 #: freeculture.xml:13590
17030 "The objective of formalities is to make things clear. The existing system "
17031 "does nothing to make things clear. Indeed, it seems designed to make things "
17035 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><sect3><para>
17036 #: freeculture.xml:13595
17038 "If formalities such as registration were reinstated, one of the most "
17039 "difficult aspects of relying upon the public domain would be removed. It "
17040 "would be simple to identify what content is presumptively free; it would be "
17041 "simple to identify who controls the rights for a particular kind of content; "
17042 "it would be simple to assert those rights, and to renew that assertion at "
17043 "the appropriate time."
17046 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
17047 #: freeculture.xml:13607
17048 msgid "2. Shorter Terms"
17051 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17052 #: freeculture.xml:13609
17054 "The term of copyright has gone from fourteen years to ninety-five years for "
17055 "corporate authors, and life of the author plus seventy years for natural "
17060 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17061 #: freeculture.xml:13621
17063 "\"A Radical Rethink,\" Economist, 366:8308 (25 January 2003): 15, available "
17064 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #74</ulink>."
17067 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17068 #: freeculture.xml:13614
17070 "In The Future of Ideas, I proposed a seventy-five-year term, granted in "
17071 "five-year increments with a requirement of renewal every five years. That "
17072 "seemed radical enough at the time. But after we lost Eldred v. Ashcroft, "
17073 "the proposals became even more radical. The Economist endorsed a proposal "
17074 "for a fourteen-year copyright term.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> "
17075 "Others have proposed tying the term to the term for patents."
17078 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17079 #: freeculture.xml:13628
17081 "I agree with those who believe that we need a radical change in copyright's "
17082 "term. But whether fourteen years or seventy-five, there are four principles "
17083 "that are important to keep in mind about copyright terms."
17087 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17088 #: freeculture.xml:13636
17090 "Keep it short: The term should be as long as necessary to give incentives to "
17091 "create, but no longer. If it were tied to very strong protections for "
17092 "authors (so authors were able to reclaim rights from publishers), rights to "
17093 "the same work (not derivative works) might be extended further. The key is "
17094 "not to tie the work up with legal regulations when it no longer benefits an "
17100 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17101 #: freeculture.xml:13644
17103 "Keep it simple: The line between the public domain and protected content "
17104 "must be kept clear. Lawyers like the fuzziness of \"fair use,\" and the "
17105 "distinction between \"ideas\" and \"expression.\" That kind of law gives "
17106 "them lots of work. But our framers had a simpler idea in mind: protected "
17107 "versus unprotected. The value of short terms is that there is little need "
17108 "to build exceptions into copyright when the term itself is kept short. A "
17109 "clear and active \"lawyer-free zone\" makes the complexities of \"fair use\" "
17110 "and \"idea/expression\" less necessary to navigate."
17114 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para><footnote><para>
17115 #: freeculture.xml:13664
17117 "Department of Veterans Affairs, Veteran's Application for Compensation "
17118 "and/or Pension, VA Form 21-526 (OMB Approved No. 2900-0001), available at "
17119 "<ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #75</ulink>."
17122 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17123 #: freeculture.xml:13657
17125 "Keep it alive: Copyright should have to be renewed. Especially if the "
17126 "maximum term is long, the copyright owner should be required to signal "
17127 "periodically that he wants the protection continued. This need not be an "
17128 "onerous burden, but there is no reason this monopoly protection has to be "
17129 "granted for free. On average, it takes ninety minutes for a veteran to apply "
17130 "for a pension.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> If we make veterans "
17131 "suffer that burden, I don't see why we couldn't require authors to spend ten "
17132 "minutes every fifty years to file a single form."
17136 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17137 #: freeculture.xml:13675
17139 "Keep it prospective: Whatever the term of copyright should be, the clearest "
17140 "lesson that economists teach is that a term once given should not be "
17141 "extended. It might have been a mistake in 1923 for the law to offer authors "
17142 "only a fifty-six-year term. I don't think so, but it's possible. If it was a "
17143 "mistake, then the consequence was that we got fewer authors to create in "
17144 "1923 than we otherwise would have. But we can't correct that mistake today "
17145 "by increasing the term. No matter what we do today, we will not increase the "
17146 "number of authors who wrote in 1923. Of course, we can increase the reward "
17147 "that those who write now get (or alternatively, increase the copyright "
17148 "burden that smothers many works that are today invisible). But increasing "
17149 "their reward will not increase their creativity in 1923. What's not done is "
17150 "not done, and there's nothing we can do about that now."
17153 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17154 #: freeculture.xml:13690
17156 "These changes together should produce an average copyright term that is much "
17157 "shorter than the current term. Until 1976, the average term was just 32.2 "
17158 "years. We should be aiming for the same."
17161 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17162 #: freeculture.xml:13695
17164 "No doubt the extremists will call these ideas \"radical.\" (After all, I "
17165 "call them \"extremists.\") But again, the term I recommended was longer than "
17166 "the term under Richard Nixon. How \"radical\" can it be to ask for a more "
17167 "generous copyright law than Richard Nixon presided over?"
17170 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
17171 #: freeculture.xml:13705
17172 msgid "3. Free Use Vs. Fair Use"
17175 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17176 #: freeculture.xml:13707
17178 "As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally granted "
17179 "property owners the right to control their property from the ground to the "
17180 "heavens. The airplane came along. The scope of property rights quickly "
17181 "changed. There was no fuss, no constitutional challenge. It made no sense "
17182 "anymore to grant that much control, given the emergence of that new "
17186 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17187 #: freeculture.xml:13715
17189 "Our Constitution gives Congress the power to give authors \"exclusive "
17190 "right\" to \"their writings.\" Congress has given authors an exclusive right "
17191 "to \"their writings\" plus any derivative writings (made by others) that are "
17192 "sufficiently close to the author's original work. Thus, if I write a book, "
17193 "and you base a movie on that book, I have the power to deny you the right to "
17194 "release that movie, even though that movie is not \"my writing.\""
17198 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17199 #: freeculture.xml:13728
17201 "Benjamin Kaplan, An Unhurried View of Copyright (New York: Columbia "
17202 "University Press, 1967), 32."
17205 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17206 #: freeculture.xml:13724
17208 "Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it expanded the "
17209 "exclusive right of copyright to include a right to control translations and "
17210 "dramatizations of a work.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> The "
17211 "courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation ever "
17212 "since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's greatest "
17213 "judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan."
17217 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para><footnote><para>
17218 #: freeculture.xml:13741
17222 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><blockquote><para>
17223 #: freeculture.xml:13737
17225 "So inured have we become to the extension of the monopoly to a large range "
17226 "of so-called derivative works, that we no longer sense the oddity of "
17227 "accepting such an enlargement of copyright while yet intoning the "
17228 "abracadabra of idea and expression.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17231 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17232 #: freeculture.xml:13746
17234 "I think it's time to recognize that there are airplanes in this field and "
17235 "the expansiveness of these rights of derivative use no longer make "
17236 "sense. More precisely, they don't make sense for the period of time that a "
17237 "copyright runs. And they don't make sense as an amorphous grant. Consider "
17238 "each limitation in turn."
17242 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17243 #: freeculture.xml:13753
17245 "Term: If Congress wants to grant a derivative right, then that right should "
17246 "be for a much shorter term. It makes sense to protect John Grisham's right "
17247 "to sell the movie rights to his latest novel (or at least I'm willing to "
17248 "assume it does); but it does not make sense for that right to run for the "
17249 "same term as the underlying copyright. The derivative right could be "
17250 "important in inducing creativity; it is not important long after the "
17251 "creative work is done."
17254 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17255 #: freeculture.xml:13764
17257 "Scope: Likewise should the scope of derivative rights be narrowed. Again, "
17258 "there are some cases in which derivative rights are important. Those should "
17259 "be specified. But the law should draw clear lines around regulated and "
17260 "unregulated uses of copyrighted material. When all \"reuse\" of creative "
17261 "material was within the control of businesses, perhaps it made sense to "
17262 "require lawyers to negotiate the lines. It no longer makes sense for lawyers "
17263 "to negotiate the lines. Think about all the creative possibilities that "
17264 "digital technologies enable; now imagine pouring molasses into the "
17265 "machines. That's what this general requirement of permission does to the "
17266 "creative process. Smothers it."
17269 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17270 #: freeculture.xml:13776
17272 "This was the point that Alben made when describing the making of the Clint "
17273 "Eastwood CD. While it makes sense to require negotiation for foreseeable "
17274 "derivative rights—turning a book into a movie, or a poem into a "
17275 "musical score—it doesn't make sense to require negotiation for the "
17276 "unforeseeable. Here, a statutory right would make much more sense."
17279 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
17280 #: freeculture.xml:13792
17281 msgid "Goldstein, Paul"
17284 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17285 #: freeculture.xml:13790
17287 "Paul Goldstein, Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox "
17288 "(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 187–216. <placeholder "
17289 "type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/>"
17292 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17293 #: freeculture.xml:13784
17295 "In each of these cases, the law should mark the uses that are protected, and "
17296 "the presumption should be that other uses are not protected. This is the "
17297 "reverse of the recommendation of my colleague Paul Goldstein.<placeholder "
17298 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> His view is that the law should be written so "
17299 "that expanded protections follow expanded uses."
17302 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17303 #: freeculture.xml:13798
17305 "Goldstein's analysis would make perfect sense if the cost of the legal "
17306 "system were small. But as we are currently seeing in the context of the "
17307 "Internet, the uncertainty about the scope of protection, and the incentives "
17308 "to protect existing architectures of revenue, combined with a strong "
17309 "copyright, weaken the process of innovation."
17313 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17314 #: freeculture.xml:13805
17316 "The law could remedy this problem either by removing protection beyond the "
17317 "part explicitly drawn or by granting reuse rights upon certain statutory "
17318 "conditions. Either way, the effect would be to free a great deal of culture "
17319 "to others to cultivate. And under a statutory rights regime, that reuse "
17320 "would earn artists more income."
17323 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
17324 #: freeculture.xml:13815
17325 msgid "4. Liberate the Music—Again"
17328 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17329 #: freeculture.xml:13817
17331 "The battle that got this whole war going was about music, so it wouldn't be "
17332 "fair to end this book without addressing the issue that is, to most people, "
17333 "most pressing—music. There is no other policy issue that better "
17334 "teaches the lessons of this book than the battles around the sharing of "
17338 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17339 #: freeculture.xml:13824
17341 "The appeal of file-sharing music was the crack cocaine of the Internet's "
17342 "growth. It drove demand for access to the Internet more powerfully than any "
17343 "other single application. It was the Internet's killer app—possibly in "
17344 "two senses of that word. It no doubt was the application that drove demand "
17345 "for bandwidth. It may well be the application that drives demand for "
17346 "regulations that in the end kill innovation on the network."
17349 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17350 #: freeculture.xml:13833
17352 "The aim of copyright, with respect to content in general and music in "
17353 "particular, is to create the incentives for music to be composed, performed, "
17354 "and, most importantly, spread. The law does this by giving an exclusive "
17355 "right to a composer to control public performances of his work, and to a "
17356 "performing artist to control copies of her performance."
17359 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17360 #: freeculture.xml:13840
17362 "File-sharing networks complicate this model by enabling the spread of "
17363 "content for which the performer has not been paid. But of course, that's not "
17364 "all the file-sharing networks do. As I described in chapter 5, they enable "
17365 "four different kinds of sharing:"
17369 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17370 #: freeculture.xml:13848
17372 "There are some who are using sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing "
17377 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17378 #: freeculture.xml:13853
17380 "There are also some who are using sharing networks to sample, on the way to "
17386 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17387 #: freeculture.xml:13859
17389 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
17390 "that is no longer sold but is still under copyright or that would have been "
17391 "too cumbersome to buy off the Net."
17395 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17396 #: freeculture.xml:13865
17398 "There are many who are using file-sharing networks to get access to content "
17399 "that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright owner plainly "
17403 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17404 #: freeculture.xml:13871
17406 "Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It must "
17407 "avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The eagerness "
17408 "with which the law aims to eliminate type A, moreover, should depend upon "
17409 "the magnitude of type B. As with VCRs, if the net effect of sharing is "
17410 "actually not very harmful, the need for regulation is significantly "
17414 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17415 #: freeculture.xml:13879
17417 "As I said in chapter 5, the actual harm caused by sharing is controversial. "
17418 "For the purposes of this chapter, however, I assume the harm is real. I "
17419 "assume, in other words, that type A sharing is significantly greater than "
17420 "type B, and is the dominant use of sharing networks."
17423 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17424 #: freeculture.xml:13886
17426 "Nonetheless, there is a crucial fact about the current technological context "
17427 "that we must keep in mind if we are to understand how the law should "
17431 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17432 #: freeculture.xml:13891
17434 "Today, file sharing is addictive. In ten years, it won't be. It is addictive "
17435 "today because it is the easiest way to gain access to a broad range of "
17436 "content. It won't be the easiest way to get access to a broad range of "
17437 "content in ten years. Today, access to the Internet is cumbersome and "
17438 "slow—we in the United States are lucky to have broadband service at "
17439 "1.5 MBs, and very rarely do we get service at that speed both up and "
17440 "down. Although wireless access is growing, most of us still get access "
17441 "across wires. Most only gain access through a machine with a keyboard. The "
17442 "idea of the always on, always connected Internet is mainly just an idea."
17446 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17447 #: freeculture.xml:13903
17449 "But it will become a reality, and that means the way we get access to the "
17450 "Internet today is a technology in transition. Policy makers should not make "
17451 "policy on the basis of technology in transition. They should make policy on "
17452 "the basis of where the technology is going. The question should not be, how "
17453 "should the law regulate sharing in this world? The question should be, what "
17454 "law will we require when the network becomes the network it is clearly "
17455 "becoming? That network is one in which every machine with electricity is "
17456 "essentially on the Net; where everywhere you are—except maybe the "
17457 "desert or the Rockies—you can instantaneously be connected to the "
17458 "Internet. Imagine the Internet as ubiquitous as the best cell-phone service, "
17459 "where with the flip of a device, you are connected."
17463 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17464 #: freeculture.xml:13935
17466 "See, for example, \"Music Media Watch,\" The J@pan Inc. Newsletter, 3 April "
17467 "2002, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17471 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17472 #: freeculture.xml:13918
17474 "In that world, it will be extremely easy to connect to services that give "
17475 "you access to content on the fly—such as Internet radio, content that "
17476 "is streamed to the user when the user demands. Here, then, is the critical "
17477 "point: When it is extremely easy to connect to services that give access to "
17478 "content, it will be easier to connect to services that give you access to "
17479 "content than it will be to download and store content on the many devices "
17480 "you will have for playing content. It will be easier, in other words, to "
17481 "subscribe than it will be to be a database manager, as everyone in the "
17482 "download-sharing world of Napster-like technologies essentially is. Content "
17483 "services will compete with content sharing, even if the services charge "
17484 "money for the content they give access to. Already cell-phone services in "
17485 "Japan offer music (for a fee) streamed over cell phones (enhanced with plugs "
17486 "for headphones). The Japanese are paying for this content even though "
17487 "\"free\" content is available in the form of MP3s across the "
17488 "Web.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17492 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17493 #: freeculture.xml:13942
17495 "This point about the future is meant to suggest a perspective on the "
17496 "present: It is emphatically temporary. The \"problem\" with file "
17497 "sharing—to the extent there is a real problem—is a problem that "
17498 "will increasingly disappear as it becomes easier to connect to the "
17499 "Internet. And thus it is an extraordinary mistake for policy makers today "
17500 "to be \"solving\" this problem in light of a technology that will be gone "
17501 "tomorrow. The question should not be how to regulate the Internet to "
17502 "eliminate file sharing (the Net will evolve that problem away). The question "
17503 "instead should be how to assure that artists get paid, during this "
17504 "transition between twentieth-century models for doing business and "
17505 "twenty-first-century technologies."
17508 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17509 #: freeculture.xml:13958
17511 "The answer begins with recognizing that there are different \"problems\" "
17512 "here to solve. Let's start with type D content—uncopyrighted content "
17513 "or copyrighted content that the artist wants shared. The \"problem\" with "
17514 "this content is to make sure that the technology that would enable this kind "
17515 "of sharing is not rendered illegal. You can think of it this way: Pay phones "
17516 "are used to deliver ransom demands, no doubt. But there are many who need "
17517 "to use pay phones who have nothing to do with ransoms. It would be wrong to "
17518 "ban pay phones in order to eliminate kidnapping."
17521 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17522 #: freeculture.xml:13969
17524 "Type C content raises a different \"problem.\" This is content that was, at "
17525 "one time, published and is no longer available. It may be unavailable "
17526 "because the artist is no longer valuable enough for the record label he "
17527 "signed with to carry his work. Or it may be unavailable because the work is "
17528 "forgotten. Either way, the aim of the law should be to facilitate the access "
17529 "to this content, ideally in a way that returns something to the artist."
17532 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17533 #: freeculture.xml:13978
17535 "Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of print, "
17536 "it may still be available in libraries and used book stores. But libraries "
17537 "and used book stores don't pay the copyright owner when someone reads or "
17538 "buys an out-of-print book. That makes total sense, of course, since any "
17539 "other system would be so burdensome as to eliminate the possibility of used "
17540 "book stores' existing. But from the author's perspective, this \"sharing\" "
17541 "of his content without his being compensated is less than ideal."
17544 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17545 #: freeculture.xml:13988
17547 "The model of used book stores suggests that the law could simply deem "
17548 "out-of-print music fair game. If the publisher does not make copies of the "
17549 "music available for sale, then commercial and noncommercial providers would "
17550 "be free, under this rule, to \"share\" that content, even though the sharing "
17551 "involved making a copy. The copy here would be incidental to the trade; in a "
17552 "context where commercial publishing has ended, trading music should be as "
17553 "free as trading books."
17557 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17558 #: freeculture.xml:13999
17560 "Alternatively, the law could create a statutory license that would ensure "
17561 "that artists get something from the trade of their work. For example, if the "
17562 "law set a low statutory rate for the commercial sharing of content that was "
17563 "not offered for sale by a commercial publisher, and if that rate were "
17564 "automatically transferred to a trust for the benefit of the artist, then "
17565 "businesses could develop around the idea of trading this content, and "
17566 "artists would benefit from this trade."
17569 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17570 #: freeculture.xml:14009
17572 "This system would also create an incentive for publishers to keep works "
17573 "available commercially. Works that are available commercially would not be "
17574 "subject to this license. Thus, publishers could protect the right to charge "
17575 "whatever they want for content if they kept the work commercially "
17576 "available. But if they don't keep it available, and instead, the computer "
17577 "hard disks of fans around the world keep it alive, then any royalty owed for "
17578 "such copying should be much less than the amount owed a commercial "
17582 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17583 #: freeculture.xml:14019
17585 "The hard case is content of types A and B, and again, this case is hard only "
17586 "because the extent of the problem will change over time, as the technologies "
17587 "for gaining access to content change. The law's solution should be as "
17588 "flexible as the problem is, understanding that we are in the middle of a "
17589 "radical transformation in the technology for delivering and accessing "
17593 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17594 #: freeculture.xml:14027
17596 "So here's a solution that will at first seem very strange to both sides in "
17597 "this war, but which upon reflection, I suggest, should make some sense."
17600 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17601 #: freeculture.xml:14031
17603 "Stripped of the rhetoric about the sanctity of property, the basic claim of "
17604 "the content industry is this: A new technology (the Internet) has harmed a "
17605 "set of rights that secure copyright. If those rights are to be protected, "
17606 "then the content industry should be compensated for that harm. Just as the "
17607 "technology of tobacco harmed the health of millions of Americans, or the "
17608 "technology of asbestos caused grave illness to thousands of miners, so, too, "
17609 "has the technology of digital networks harmed the interests of the content "
17614 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17615 #: freeculture.xml:14042
17617 "I love the Internet, and so I don't like likening it to tobacco or "
17618 "asbestos. But the analogy is a fair one from the perspective of the law. "
17619 "And it suggests a fair response: Rather than seeking to destroy the "
17620 "Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming content "
17621 "providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple way to "
17622 "compensate those who are harmed."
17625 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para><indexterm><primary>
17626 #: freeculture.xml:14086
17627 msgid "Fisher, William"
17630 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17631 #: freeculture.xml:14053
17633 "William Fisher, Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities (last revised: 10 "
17634 "October 2000), available at <ulink "
17635 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #77</ulink>; William Fisher, "
17636 "Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment "
17637 "(forthcoming) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), ch. 6, available "
17638 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #78</ulink>. Professor "
17639 "Netanel has proposed a related idea that would exempt noncommercial sharing "
17640 "from the reach of copyright and would establish compensation to artists to "
17641 "balance any loss. See Neil Weinstock Netanel, \"Impose a Noncommercial Use "
17642 "Levy to Allow Free P2P File Sharing,\" available at <ulink "
17643 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #79</ulink>. For other proposals, "
17644 "see Lawrence Lessig, \"Who's Holding Back Broadband?\" Washington Post, 8 "
17645 "January 2002, A17; Philip S. Corwin on behalf of Sharman Networks, A Letter "
17646 "to Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations "
17647 "Committee, 26 February 2002, available at <ulink "
17648 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #80</ulink>; Serguei Osokine, A "
17649 "Quick Case for Intellectual Property Use Fee (IPUF), 3 March 2002, available "
17650 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #81</ulink>; Jefferson "
17651 "Graham, \"Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly,\" USA Today, 13 "
17652 "May 2002, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17653 "#82</ulink>; Steven M. Cherry, \"Getting Copyright Right,\" IEEE Spectrum "
17654 "Online, 1 July 2002, available at <ulink "
17655 "url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #83</ulink>; Declan McCullagh, "
17656 "\"Verizon's Copyright Campaign,\" CNET News.com, 27 August 2002, available "
17657 "at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #84</ulink>. Fisher's "
17658 "proposal is very similar to Richard Stallman's proposal for DAT. Unlike "
17659 "Fisher's, Stallman's proposal would not pay artists directly proportionally, "
17660 "though more popular artists would get more than the less popular. As is "
17661 "typical with Stallman, his proposal predates the current debate by about a "
17662 "decade. See <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link #85</ulink>. "
17663 "<placeholder type=\"indexterm\" id=\"0\"/> <placeholder type=\"indexterm\" "
17667 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17668 #: freeculture.xml:14050
17670 "The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been floated by "
17671 "Harvard law professor William Fisher.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" "
17672 "id=\"0\"/> Fisher suggests a very clever way around the current impasse of "
17673 "the Internet. Under his plan, all content capable of digital transmission "
17674 "would (1) be marked with a digital watermark (don't worry about how easy it "
17675 "is to evade these marks; as you'll see, there's no incentive to evade "
17676 "them). Once the content is marked, then entrepreneurs would develop (2) "
17677 "systems to monitor how many items of each content were distributed. On the "
17678 "basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be compensated. The "
17679 "compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate tax."
17682 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17683 #: freeculture.xml:14099
17685 "Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million "
17686 "questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book, Promises to "
17687 "Keep. The modification that I would make is relatively simple: Fisher "
17688 "imagines his proposal replacing the existing copyright system. I imagine it "
17689 "complementing the existing system. The aim of the proposal would be to "
17690 "facilitate compensation to the extent that harm could be shown. This "
17691 "compensation would be temporary, aimed at facilitating a transition between "
17692 "regimes. And it would require renewal after a period of years. If it "
17693 "continues to make sense to facilitate free exchange of content, supported "
17694 "through a taxation system, then it can be continued. If this form of "
17695 "protection is no longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the old "
17696 "system of controlling access."
17700 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17701 #: freeculture.xml:14114
17703 "Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim is "
17704 "not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that the system "
17705 "supports the widest range of \"semiotic democracy\" possible. But the aims "
17706 "of semiotic democracy would be satisfied if the other changes I described "
17707 "were accomplished—in particular, the limits on derivative uses. A "
17708 "system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden semiotic "
17709 "democracy if there were few limitations on what one was allowed to do with "
17710 "the content itself."
17713 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17714 #: freeculture.xml:14127
17716 "No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of \"harm\" "
17717 "to an industry. But the difficulty of making that calculation would be "
17718 "outweighed by the benefit of facilitating innovation. This background system "
17719 "to compensate would also not need to interfere with innovative proposals "
17720 "such as Apple's MusicStore. As experts predicted when Apple launched the "
17721 "MusicStore, it could beat \"free\" by being easier than free is. This has "
17722 "proven correct: Apple has sold millions of songs at even the very high price "
17723 "of 99 cents a song. (At 99 cents, the cost is the equivalent of a per-song "
17724 "CD price, though the labels have none of the costs of a CD to pay.) Apple's "
17725 "move was countered by Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a "
17726 "song. And no doubt there will be a great deal of competition to offer and "
17727 "sell music on-line."
17730 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17731 #: freeculture.xml:14142
17733 "This competition has already occurred against the background of \"free\" "
17734 "music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable television have known for "
17735 "thirty years, and the sellers of bottled water for much more than that, "
17736 "there is nothing impossible at all about \"competing with free.\" Indeed, if "
17737 "anything, the competition spurs the competitors to offer new and better "
17738 "products. This is precisely what the competitive market was to be "
17739 "about. Thus in Singapore, though piracy is rampant, movie theaters are often "
17740 "luxurious—with \"first class\" seats, and meals served while you watch "
17741 "a movie—as they struggle and succeed in finding ways to compete with "
17745 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17746 #: freeculture.xml:14154
17748 "This regime of competition, with a backstop to assure that artists don't "
17749 "lose, would facilitate a great deal of innovation in the delivery of "
17750 "content. That competition would continue to shrink type A sharing. It would "
17751 "inspire an extraordinary range of new innovators—ones who would have a "
17752 "right to the content, and would no longer fear the uncertain and "
17753 "barbarically severe punishments of the law."
17756 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17757 #: freeculture.xml:14163
17758 msgid "In summary, then, my proposal is this:"
17762 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17763 #: freeculture.xml:14168
17765 "The Internet is in transition. We should not be regulating a technology in "
17766 "transition. We should instead be regulating to minimize the harm to "
17767 "interests affected by this technological change, while enabling, and "
17768 "encouraging, the most efficient technology we can create."
17771 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17772 #: freeculture.xml:14175
17773 msgid "We can minimize that harm while maximizing the benefit to innovation by"
17777 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17778 #: freeculture.xml:14181
17779 msgid "guaranteeing the right to engage in type D sharing;"
17783 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17784 #: freeculture.xml:14185
17786 "permitting noncommercial type C sharing without liability, and commercial "
17787 "type C sharing at a low and fixed rate set by statute;"
17791 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><orderedlist><listitem><para>
17792 #: freeculture.xml:14191
17794 "while in this transition, taxing and compensating for type A sharing, to the "
17795 "extent actual harm is demonstrated."
17798 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17799 #: freeculture.xml:14196
17801 "But what if \"piracy\" doesn't disappear? What if there is a competitive "
17802 "market providing content at a low cost, but a significant number of "
17803 "consumers continue to \"take\" content for nothing? Should the law do "
17807 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17808 #: freeculture.xml:14202
17810 "Yes, it should. But, again, what it should do depends upon how the facts "
17811 "develop. These changes may not eliminate type A sharing. But the real issue "
17812 "is not whether it eliminates sharing in the abstract. The real issue is its "
17813 "effect on the market. Is it better (a) to have a technology that is 95 "
17814 "percent secure and produces a market of size x, or (b) to have a technology "
17815 "that is 50 percent secure but produces a market of five times x? Less secure "
17816 "might produce more unauthorized sharing, but it is likely to also produce a "
17817 "much bigger market in authorized sharing. The most important thing is to "
17818 "assure artists' compensation without breaking the Internet. Once that's "
17819 "assured, then it may well be appropriate to find ways to track down the "
17824 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17825 #: freeculture.xml:14216
17827 "But we're a long way away from whittling the problem down to this subset of "
17828 "type A sharers. And our focus until we're there should not be on finding "
17829 "ways to break the Internet. Our focus until we're there should be on how to "
17830 "make sure the artists are paid, while protecting the space for innovation "
17831 "and creativity that the Internet is."
17834 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><title>
17835 #: freeculture.xml:14227
17836 msgid "5. Fire Lots of Lawyers"
17839 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17840 #: freeculture.xml:14229
17842 "I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe "
17843 "in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, "
17844 "not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at "
17845 "the end that I would love to live."
17848 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17849 #: freeculture.xml:14235
17851 "Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers "
17852 "have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that "
17853 "our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where "
17854 "the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession "
17855 "to question or counter that one strong view queers the law."
17859 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17860 #: freeculture.xml:14252
17862 "Lawrence Lessig, \"Copyright's First Amendment\" (Melville B. Nimmer "
17863 "Memorial Lecture), UCLA Law Review 48 (2001): 1057, 1069–70."
17866 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17867 #: freeculture.xml:14243
17869 "The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a \"radical\" by "
17870 "many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are "
17871 "precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures "
17872 "in the history of this branch of the law. Many, for example, thought crazy "
17873 "the challenge that we brought to the Copyright Term Extension Act. Yet just "
17874 "thirty years ago, the dominant scholar and practitioner in the field of "
17875 "copyright, Melville Nimmer, thought it obvious.<placeholder "
17876 "type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/>"
17879 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17880 #: freeculture.xml:14258
17882 "However, my criticism of the role that lawyers have played in this debate is "
17883 "not just about a professional bias. It is more importantly about our failure "
17884 "to actually reckon the costs of the law."
17888 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para><footnote><para>
17889 #: freeculture.xml:14268
17891 "A good example is the work of Professor Stan Liebowitz. Liebowitz is to be "
17892 "commended for his careful review of data about infringement, leading him to "
17893 "question his own publicly stated position—twice. He initially "
17894 "predicted that downloading would substantially harm the industry. He then "
17895 "revised his view in light of the data, and he has since revised his view "
17896 "again. Compare Stan J. Liebowitz, Rethinking the Network Economy: The True "
17897 "Forces That Drive the Digital Marketplace (New York: Amacom, 2002), "
17898 "(reviewing his original view but expressing skepticism) with Stan J. "
17899 "Liebowitz, \"Will MP3s Annihilate the Record Industry?\" working paper, June "
17900 "2003, available at <ulink url=\"http://free-culture.cc/notes/\">link "
17901 "#86</ulink>. Liebowitz's careful analysis is extremely valuable in "
17902 "estimating the effect of file-sharing technology. In my view, however, he "
17903 "underestimates the costs of the legal system. See, for example, Rethinking, "
17907 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17908 #: freeculture.xml:14263
17910 "Economists are supposed to be good at reckoning costs and benefits. But "
17911 "more often than not, economists, with no clue about how the legal system "
17912 "actually functions, simply assume that the transaction costs of the legal "
17913 "system are slight.<placeholder type=\"footnote\" id=\"0\"/> They see a "
17914 "system that has been around for hundreds of years, and they assume it works "
17915 "the way their elementary school civics class taught them it works."
17919 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17920 #: freeculture.xml:14291
17922 "But the legal system doesn't work. Or more accurately, it doesn't work for "
17923 "anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is "
17924 "corrupt. I don't think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is "
17925 "at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so "
17926 "astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done."
17929 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17930 #: freeculture.xml:14299
17932 "These costs distort free culture in many ways. A lawyer's time is billed at "
17933 "the largest firms at more than $400 per hour. How much time should such a "
17934 "lawyer spend reading cases carefully, or researching obscure strands of "
17935 "authority? The answer is the increasing reality: very little. The law "
17936 "depended upon the careful articulation and development of doctrine, but the "
17937 "careful articulation and development of legal doctrine depends upon careful "
17938 "work. Yet that careful work costs too much, except in the most high-profile "
17939 "and costly cases."
17942 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17943 #: freeculture.xml:14309
17945 "The costliness and clumsiness and randomness of this system mock our "
17946 "tradition. And lawyers, as well as academics, should consider it their duty "
17947 "to change the way the law works—or better, to change the law so that "
17948 "it works. It is wrong that the system works well only for the top 1 percent "
17949 "of the clients. It could be made radically more efficient, and inexpensive, "
17950 "and hence radically more just."
17953 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17954 #: freeculture.xml:14317
17956 "But until that reform is complete, we as a society should keep the law away "
17957 "from areas that we know it will only harm. And that is precisely what the "
17958 "law will too often do if too much of our culture is left to its review."
17961 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17962 #: freeculture.xml:14323
17964 "Think about the amazing things your kid could do or make with digital "
17965 "technology—the film, the music, the Web page, the blog. Or think about "
17966 "the amazing things your community could facilitate with digital "
17967 "technology—a wiki, a barn raising, activism to change something. "
17968 "Think about all those creative things, and then imagine cold molasses poured "
17969 "onto the machines. This is what any regime that requires permission "
17970 "produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia."
17974 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17975 #: freeculture.xml:14332
17977 "The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should "
17978 "regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely "
17979 "test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic "
17980 "question: \"Will it do good?\" When challenged about the expanding reach of "
17981 "the law, the lawyer answers, \"Why not?\""
17984 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><sect1><sect2><para>
17985 #: freeculture.xml:14341
17987 "We should ask, \"Why?\" Show me why your regulation of culture is "
17988 "needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your "
17992 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
17993 #: freeculture.xml:14350
17997 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
17998 #: freeculture.xml:14352
18000 "Throughout this text, there are references to links on the World Wide "
18001 "Web. As anyone who has tried to use the Web knows, these links can be highly "
18002 "unstable. I have tried to remedy the instability by redirecting readers to "
18003 "the original source through the Web site associated with this book. For each "
18004 "link below, you can go to http://free-culture.cc/notes and locate the "
18005 "original source by clicking on the number after the # sign. If the original "
18006 "link remains alive, you will be redirected to that link. If the original "
18007 "link has disappeared, you will be redirected to an appropriate reference for "
18011 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><title>
18012 #: freeculture.xml:14367
18013 msgid "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
18016 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18017 #: freeculture.xml:14369
18019 "This book is the product of a long and as yet unsuccessful struggle that "
18020 "began when I read of Eric Eldred's war to keep books free. Eldred's work "
18021 "helped launch a movement, the free culture movement, and it is to him that "
18022 "this book is dedicated."
18025 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18026 #: freeculture.xml:14375
18028 "I received guidance in various places from friends and academics, including "
18029 "Glenn Brown, Peter DiCola, Jennifer Mnookin, Richard Posner, Mark Rose, and "
18030 "Kathleen Sullivan. And I received correction and guidance from many amazing "
18031 "students at Stanford Law School and Stanford University. They included "
18032 "Andrew B. Coan, John Eden, James P. Fellers, Christopher Guzelian, Erica "
18033 "Goldberg, Robert Hallman, Andrew Harris, Matthew Kahn, Brian Link, Ohad "
18034 "Mayblum, Alina Ng, and Erica Platt. I am particularly grateful to Catherine "
18035 "Crump and Harry Surden, who helped direct their research, and to Laura "
18036 "Lynch, who brilliantly managed the army that they assembled, and provided "
18037 "her own critical eye on much of this."
18041 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18042 #: freeculture.xml:14388
18044 "Yuko Noguchi helped me to understand the laws of Japan as well as its "
18045 "culture. I am thankful to her, and to the many in Japan who helped me "
18046 "prepare this book: Joi Ito, Takayuki Matsutani, Naoto Misaki, Michihiro "
18047 "Sasaki, Hiromichi Tanaka, Hiroo Yamagata, and Yoshihiro Yonezawa. I am "
18048 "thankful as well as to Professor Nobuhiro Nakayama, and the Tokyo University "
18049 "Business Law Center, for giving me the chance to spend time in Japan, and to "
18050 "Tadashi Shiraishi and Kiyokazu Yamagami for their generous help while I was "
18054 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18055 #: freeculture.xml:14399
18057 "These are the traditional sorts of help that academics regularly draw "
18058 "upon. But in addition to them, the Internet has made it possible to receive "
18059 "advice and correction from many whom I have never even met. Among those who "
18060 "have responded with extremely helpful advice to requests on my blog about "
18061 "the book are Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, David Gerstein, and Peter DiMauro, as "
18062 "well as a long list of those who had specific ideas about ways to develop my "
18063 "argument. They included Richard Bondi, Steven Cherry, David Coe, Nik "
18064 "Cubrilovic, Bob Devine, Charles Eicher, Thomas Guida, Elihu M. Gerson, "
18065 "Jeremy Hunsinger, Vaughn Iverson, John Karabaic, Jeff Keltner, James "
18066 "Lindenschmidt, K. L. Mann, Mark Manning, Nora McCauley, Jeffrey McHugh, Evan "
18067 "McMullen, Fred Norton, John Pormann, Pedro A. D. Rezende, Shabbir Safdar, "
18068 "Saul Schleimer, Clay Shirky, Adam Shostack, Kragen Sitaker, Chris Smith, "
18069 "Bruce Steinberg, Andrzej Jan Taramina, Sean Walsh, Matt Wasserman, Miljenko "
18070 "Williams, \"Wink,\" Roger Wood, \"Ximmbo da Jazz,\" and Richard Yanco. (I "
18071 "apologize if I have missed anyone; with computers come glitches, and a crash "
18072 "of my e-mail system meant I lost a bunch of great replies.)"
18075 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18076 #: freeculture.xml:14419
18078 "Richard Stallman and Michael Carroll each read the whole book in draft, and "
18079 "each provided extremely helpful correction and advice. Michael helped me to "
18080 "see more clearly the significance of the regulation of derivitive works. And "
18081 "Richard corrected an embarrassingly large number of errors. While my work is "
18082 "in part inspired by Stallman's, he does not agree with me in important "
18083 "places throughout this book."
18086 #. type: Content of: <book><chapter><para>
18087 #: freeculture.xml:14428
18089 "Finally, and forever, I am thankful to Bettina, who has always insisted that "
18090 "there would be unending happiness away from these battles, and who has "
18091 "always been right. This slow learner is, as ever, grateful for her perpetual "
18092 "patience and love."