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--- a/freeculture.xml
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@@ -176,11 +176,11 @@ Excerpt from an editorial titled The Coming of Copyright Perpetuity,
-Cartoon in by Paul Conrad, copyright Tribune
+Cartoon in by Paul Conrad, copyright Tribune
Media Services, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
-Diagram in courtesy of the office of FCC
+Diagram in courtesy of the office of FCC
Commissioner, Michael J. Copps.
@@ -322,9 +322,7 @@ c INDEX
PREFACE
-
- Pogue, David
-
+Pogue, DavidAt the end of his review of my first
book, Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, David
@@ -360,7 +358,7 @@ off. It is an argument about how the battles that now rage regarding life
on-line have fundamentally affected people who aren't online. There
is no switch that will insulate us from the Internet's effect.
-
+
But unlike Code, the argument here is not much
about the Internet itself. It is instead about the consequence of the
@@ -397,7 +395,9 @@ disinterested, then the story I tell here will trouble you. For the
changes I describe affect values that both sides of our political
culture deem fundamental.
+power, concentration ofCodePink Women in Peace
+Safire, WilliamStevens, Ted
We saw a glimpse of this bipartisan outrage in the early summer of
@@ -409,7 +409,6 @@ Women for Peace and the National Rifle Association, between liberal
Olympia Snowe and conservative Ted Stevens, he formulated perhaps
most simply just what was at stake: the concentration of power. And as
he asked,
-Safire, William
@@ -433,6 +432,7 @@ altering the way our culture gets made; that change should worry
you—whether or not you care about the Internet, and whether you're on
Safire's left or on his right.
+The inspiration for the title and for
much of the argument of this book comes from the work of Richard
@@ -477,17 +477,7 @@ book is written.
INTRODUCTION
-
- air traffic, land ownership vs.
-
-
- land ownership, air traffic and
-
-
- property rights
- air traffic vs.
-
-Wright brothers
+Wright brothersOn December 17, 1903, on a windy North Carolina beach for just
shy of one hundred seconds, the Wright brothers demonstrated that a
@@ -496,6 +486,9 @@ and its importance widely understood. Almost immediately, there
was an explosion of interest in this newfound technology of manned
flight, and a gaggle of innovators began to build upon it.
+air traffic, land ownership vs.
+land ownership, air traffic and
+property rightsair traffic vs.
At the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane, American
law held that a property owner presumptively owned not just the surface
@@ -509,6 +502,7 @@ years, scholars had puzzled about how best to interpret the idea that
rights in land ran to the heavens. Did that mean that you owned the
stars? Could you prosecute geese for their willful and regular trespass?
+
Then came airplanes, and for the first time, this principle of American
law—deep within the foundations of our tradition, and acknowledged
@@ -533,6 +527,8 @@ property, and the Causbys wanted it to stop.
Causby, Thomas LeeCausby, Tinie
+Douglas, William O.
+Supreme Court, U.S.on airspace vs. land rights
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Causbys' case. Congress had
declared the airways public, but if one's property really extended to the
@@ -570,6 +566,7 @@ Goldstein, Real Property (Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press
Common sense revolts at the idea.
+
This is how the law usually works. Not often this abruptly or
impatiently, but eventually, this is how it works. It was Douglas's style not to
@@ -602,15 +599,15 @@ end, the force of what seems obvious to everyone else—the p
common sense—would prevail. Their private interest would not be
allowed to defeat an obvious public gain.
-
-
-
-
- Armstrong, Edwin Howard
-
+
+
+
+
+Armstrong, Edwin HowardBell, Alexander GrahamEdison, ThomasFaraday, Michael
+radioFM spectrum ofEdwin Howard Armstrong is one of
America's forgotten inventor geniuses. He came to the great American
@@ -662,6 +659,8 @@ Lawrence Lessing, Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong
+RCA
+mediaownership concentration in
As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly
superior radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong
@@ -671,13 +670,13 @@ the United States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by
a handful of networks.
+Sarnoff, David
RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager
that Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So
Sarnoff was quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device
that removed static from radio. But when Armstrong demonstrated
his invention, Sarnoff was not pleased.
-Sarnoff, David
@@ -692,16 +691,15 @@ www.webstationone.com/fecha, available at
-
- Lessing, Lawrence
-
+FM radio
+Sarnoff, David
Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company
launched a campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a
superior technology, Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author
described,
-Sarnoff, David
+Lessing, Lawrence
The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight
@@ -713,6 +711,7 @@ on which RCA had grown to power.Lessing, 226.
+FCCon FM radio
RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further
tests were needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew
@@ -737,7 +736,7 @@ Lessing, 256.
-
+AT&T
To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television,
@@ -749,6 +748,8 @@ FM relaying stations would mean radio stations would have to buy
wired links from AT&T.) The spread of FM radio was thus choked, at
least temporarily.
+
+
Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted
Armstrong's patents. After incorporating FM technology into the
@@ -761,7 +762,8 @@ would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' fees. Defeated, broken, and
now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note to his wife and then
stepped out of a thirteenth-story window to his death.
-
+
+
This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and
rarely with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From
@@ -778,6 +780,9 @@ another, are sustained through this subtle corruption of our political
process. RCA had what the Causbys did not: the power to stifle the
effect of technological change.
+
+
+Internetdevelopment ofThere's no single inventor of the Internet. Nor is there any good date
upon which to mark its birth. Yet in a very short time, the Internet
@@ -813,6 +818,10 @@ old as the Republic itself. Most, if they recognized this change,
would reject it. Yet most don't even see the change that the Internet
has introduced.
+
+Barlow, Joel
+culturecommercial vs. noncommercial
+Webster, Noah
We can glimpse a sense of this change by distinguishing between
commercial and noncommercial culture, and by mapping the law's
@@ -824,8 +833,6 @@ parks or on
street corners telling stories that kids and others consumed, that was
noncommercial culture. When Noah Webster published his Reader, or
Joel Barlow his poetry, that was commercial culture.
-Barlow, Joel
-Webster, Noah
At the beginning of our history, and for just about the whole of our
@@ -838,6 +845,7 @@ individuals shared and transformed their culture—telling
stories, reenacting scenes from plays or TV, participating in fan
clubs, sharing music, making tapes—were left alone by the law.
+Copyright infringement lawsuitscommercial creativity as primary purpose of
The focus of the law was on commercial creativity. At first slightly,
then quite extensively, the law protected the incentives of creators by
@@ -860,6 +868,8 @@ and it has become an increasingly important part in America. But in no
sense was it dominant within our tradition. It was instead just one
part, a controlled part, balanced with the free.
+free culture permission culture vs.
+permission culture free culture vs.
This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now
been erased.
@@ -879,6 +889,7 @@ been undone. The consequence is that we are less and less a free
culture, more and more a permission culture.
+protection of artists vs. business interests
This change gets justified as necessary to protect commercial
creativity. And indeed, protectionism is precisely its
@@ -892,6 +903,7 @@ shared have united to induce lawmakers to use the law to protect
them. It is the story of RCA and Armstrong; it is the dream of the
Causbys.
+
For the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many
to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture
@@ -920,6 +932,8 @@ more efficient, more vibrant technology for building culture. They are
succeeding in their plan to remake the Internet before the Internet
remakes them.
+
+Valenti, Jack on creative property rights
It doesn't seem this way to many. The battles over copyright and the
@@ -951,6 +965,10 @@ and a much more dramatic change. My fear is that unless we come to see
this change, the war to rid the world of Internet pirates will also rid our
culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start.
+Constitution, U.S.First Amendment to
+copyright lawas protection of creators
+First Amendment
+Netanel, Neil Weinstock
These values built a tradition that, for at least the first 180 years of
our Republic, guaranteed creators the right to build freely upon their
@@ -998,6 +1016,7 @@ come to understand the source of this war. We must resolve it soon.
Causby, Thomas LeeCausby, Tinie
+intellectual property rightsLike the Causbys' battle, this war is, in part, about property. The
property of this war is not as tangible as the Causbys', and no
@@ -1026,6 +1045,7 @@ war. Unlike
the lucky Wright brothers, the Internet has not inspired a revolution
on its side.
+power, concentration of
My hope is to push this common sense along. I have become increasingly
amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property and, more
@@ -1072,6 +1092,7 @@ sheriff arresting an airplane for trespass. But the consequences of
this silliness will be much more profound.
+The struggle that rages just now centers on two ideas: piracy and
property. My aim in this book's next two parts is to explore these two
@@ -1110,9 +1131,10 @@ to which most of us remain oblivious.
PIRACY
-
- Mansfield, William Murray, Lord
-
+copyright lawEnglish
+Mansfield, William Murray, Lord
+music publishing
+sheet musicSince the inception of the law regulating creative property, there has
been a war against piracy. The precise contours of this concept,
@@ -1129,8 +1151,10 @@ of them for his own use.Bach v. Longman, 98 Eng. Rep. 1274 (1777) (Mansfield).
-
+
+Internet efficient content distribution on
+peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharingefficiency of
Today we are in the middle of another war against piracy. The
Internet has provoked this war. The Internet makes possible the
@@ -1148,6 +1172,7 @@ sharing of copyrighted content. That sharing in turn has excited the
war, as copyright owners fear the sharing will rob the author of the
profit.
+
The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and
increasingly to technology to defend their property against this
@@ -1175,11 +1200,11 @@ from someone else without permission is wrong. It is a form of
piracy.
+ASCAPDreyfuss, Rochelle
-Girl Schouts
-
- if value, then right theory
-
+Girl Scouts
+creative propertyif value, then right theory of
+if value, then right theory
This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law
professor Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the if value, then right
@@ -1203,7 +1228,7 @@ Speech, No One Wins, Boston Globe, 24 November 20
There was value (the songs) so there must have been a
right—even against the Girl Scouts.
-ASCAP
+
This idea is certainly a possible understanding of how creative
property should work. It might well be a possible design for a system
@@ -1212,7 +1237,9 @@ of law protecting creative property. But the if value, then right
theory of creative property has never been America's theory of
creative property. It has never taken hold within our law.
-
+
+copyright lawon republishing vs. transformation of original work
+creativitylegal restrictions on
Instead, in our tradition, intellectual property is an instrument. It
sets the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains
@@ -1227,6 +1254,7 @@ work on the one hand and building upon or transforming that work on
the other. Copyright law at its birth had only publishing as its concern;
copyright law today regulates both.
+
Before the technologies of the Internet, this conflation didn't matter
all that much. The technologies of publishing were expensive; that
@@ -1235,6 +1263,7 @@ entities could bear the burden of the law—even the burden of the
Byzantine complexity that copyright law has become. It was just one
more expense of doing business.
+copyright lawcreativity impeded byFlorida, RichardRise of the Creative Class, The (Florida)
@@ -1272,6 +1301,7 @@ under which it will be enabled are much more tenuous.
Unfortunately, we are also seeing an extraordinary rise of regulation of
this creative class.
+
These burdens make no sense in our tradition. We should begin by
understanding that tradition a bit more and by placing in their proper
@@ -1282,12 +1312,11 @@ context the current battles about behavior labeled piracy.CHAPTER ONE: Creators
-
- animated cartoons
-
-
- cartoon films
-
+animated cartoons
+cartoon films
+filmsanimated
+Steamboat Willie
+Mickey MouseIn 1928, a cartoon character was born. An early Mickey Mouse
made his debut in May of that year, in a silent flop called Plane Crazy.
@@ -1295,6 +1324,7 @@ In November, in New York City's Colony Theater, in the first widely
distributed cartoon synchronized with sound, Steamboat Willie brought
to life the character that would become Mickey Mouse.
+Disney, Walt
Synchronized sound had been introduced to film a year earlier in the
movie The Jazz Singer. That success led Walt Disney to copy the
@@ -1330,11 +1360,11 @@ Cartoons (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 34–35.
+Iwerks, Ub
Disney's then partner, and one of animation's most extraordinary
talents, Ub Iwerks, put it more strongly: I have never been so thrilled
in my life. Nothing since has ever equaled it.
-Iwerks, Ub
Disney had created something very new, based upon something relatively
@@ -1345,6 +1375,9 @@ Disney's invention that set the standard that others struggled to
match. And quite often, Disney's great genius, his spark of
creativity, was built upon the work of others.
+
+Keaton, Buster
+Steamboat Bill, Jr.
This much is familiar. What you might not know is that 1928 also marks
another important transition. In that year, a comic (as opposed to
@@ -1359,6 +1392,8 @@ Jr. was a classic of this form, famous among film buffs for its
incredible stunts. The film was classic Keaton—wildly popular
and among the best of its genre.
+derivative workspiracy vs.
+piracyderivative work vs.Steamboat Bill, Jr. appeared before Disney's cartoon Steamboat
Willie.
@@ -1382,6 +1417,12 @@ Steamboat Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the song Steamboat Bill,
that we get Steamboat Willie, and then from Steamboat Willie, Mickey
Mouse.
+
+
+
+
+creativityby transforming previous works
+Disney, Inc.
This borrowing was nothing unique, either for Disney or for the
industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream
@@ -1401,6 +1442,7 @@ were built upon a base that was borrowed. Disney added to the work of
others before him, creating something new out of something just barely
old.
+Grimm fairy tales
Sometimes this borrowing was slight. Sometimes it was significant.
Think about the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. If you're as
@@ -1432,7 +1474,7 @@ creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his
own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of
his culture. Rip, mix, and burn.
-
+
This is a kind of creativity. It is a creativity that we should
remember and celebrate. There are some who would say that there is no
@@ -1442,6 +1484,12 @@ would be a bit misleading. It is, more precisely, Walt Disney
creativity—a form of expression and genius that builds upon the
culture around us and makes it something different.
+
+
+
+copyrightduration of
+public domaindefined
+public domaintraditional term for conversion to In 1928, the culture that Disney was free to draw upon was
relatively fresh. The public domain in 1928 was not very old and was
therefore quite vibrant. The average term of copyright was just around
@@ -1473,6 +1521,8 @@ for Disney to use and build upon in 1928. It was free for
anyone— whether connected or not, whether rich or not, whether
approved or not—to use and build upon.
+
+
This is the ways things always were—until quite recently. For most
of our history, the public domain was just over the horizon. From
@@ -1487,12 +1537,22 @@ permission. Yet today, the public domain is presumptive only for
content from before the Great Depression.
+
+
+
+
+Disney, WaltOf course, Walt Disney had no monopoly on Walt Disney creativity.
Nor does America. The norm of free culture has, until recently, and
except within totalitarian nations, been broadly exploited and quite
universal.
+comics, Japanese
+derivative workspiracy vs.
+Japanese comics
+manga
+piracyderivative work vs.
Consider, for example, a form of creativity that seems strange to many
Americans but that is inescapable within Japanese culture: manga, or
@@ -1518,6 +1578,8 @@ But my purpose here is not to understand manga. It is to describe a
variant on manga that from a lawyer's perspective is quite odd, but
from a Disney perspective is quite familiar.
+creativityby transforming previous works
+doujinshi comics
This is the phenomenon of doujinshi. Doujinshi are also comics, but
they are a kind of copycat comic. A rich ethic governs the creation of
@@ -1533,6 +1595,7 @@ must be different if they are to be considered true doujinshi. Indeed,
there are committees that review doujinshi for inclusion within shows
and reject any copycat comic that is merely a copy.
+Disney, Walt
These copycat comics are not a tiny part of the manga market. They are
huge. More than 33,000 circles of creators from across Japan produce
@@ -1544,6 +1607,8 @@ competes with that market, but there is no sustained effort by those
who control the commercial manga market to shut the doujinshi market
down. It flourishes, despite the competition and despite the law.
+copyright lawJapanese
+Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The most puzzling feature of the doujinshi market, for those trained
in the law, at least, is that it is allowed to exist at all. Under
@@ -1558,9 +1623,8 @@ the permission of the original copyright owner is illegal. It is an
infringement of the original copyright to make a copy or a derivative
work without the original copyright owner's permission.
-
- Winick, Judd
-
+
+Winick, Judd
Yet this illegal market exists and indeed flourishes in Japan, and in
the view of many, it is precisely because it exists that Japanese manga
@@ -1576,6 +1640,7 @@ For an excellent history, see Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics
+Superman comics
American comics now are quite different, Winick explains, in part
@@ -1585,7 +1650,10 @@ and you have to stick to them. There are things Superman cannot
do. As a creator, it's frustrating having to stick to some parameters
which are fifty years old.
-
+
+copyright lawJapanese
+comics, Japanese
+Mehra, Salil
The norm in Japan mitigates this legal difficulty. Some say it is
precisely the benefit accruing to the Japanese manga market that
@@ -1605,6 +1673,9 @@ individual self-interest and decide not to press their legal
rights. This is essentially a prisoner's dilemma solved.
+
+
+
The problem with this story, however, as Mehra plainly acknowledges,
is that the mechanism producing this laissez faire response is not
@@ -1616,6 +1687,8 @@ individual manga artists have sued doujinshi artists, why is there not
a more general pattern of blocking this free taking by the doujinshi
culture?
+
+
I spent four wonderful months in Japan, and I asked this question
as often as I could. Perhaps the best account in the end was offered by
@@ -1635,6 +1708,7 @@ uncompensated sharing? Does piracy here hurt the victims of the
piracy, or does it help them? Would lawyers fighting this piracy help
their clients or hurt them?
+Let's pause for a moment.
@@ -1649,6 +1723,7 @@ celebrants. I believe in the value of property in general, and I also
believe in the value of that weird form of property that lawyers call
intellectual property.
+Vaidhyanathan, Siva
The term intellectual property is of relatively recent origin. See
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs, 11 (New York: New York
University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas
@@ -1656,12 +1731,14 @@ University Press, 2001). See also Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Idea
describes a set of property rights—copyright, patents,
trademark, and trade-secret—but the nature of those rights is
very different.
-Vaidhyanathan, Siva
A large, diverse society cannot survive without property; a large,
diverse, and modern society cannot flourish without intellectual
property.
+Disney, Walt
+Grimm fairy tales
+Keaton, Buster
But it takes just a second's reflection to realize that there is
plenty of value out there that property doesn't capture. I don't
@@ -1677,6 +1754,7 @@ Disney's use would have been considered fair. There was nothing
wrong with the taking from the Grimms because the Grimms' work was in
the public domain.
+free culturederivative works based on
Thus, even though the things that Disney took—or more generally,
the things taken by anyone exercising Walt Disney creativity—are
@@ -1686,6 +1764,12 @@ valuable, our tradition does not treat those takings as wrong. Some
things remain free for the taking within a free culture, and that
freedom is good.
+
+copyright lawJapanese
+comics, Japanese
+doujinshi comics
+Japanese comics
+manga
The same with the doujinshi culture. If a doujinshi artist broke into
a publisher's office and ran off with a thousand copies of his latest
@@ -1694,12 +1778,20 @@ saying the artist was wrong. In addition to having trespassed, he would
have stolen something of value. The law bans that stealing in whatever
form, whether large or small.
+
Yet there is an obvious reluctance, even among Japanese lawyers, to
say that the copycat comic artists are stealing. This form of Walt
Disney creativity is seen as fair and right, even if lawyers in
particular find it hard to say why.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Shakespeare, William
It's the same with a thousand examples that appear everywhere once you
begin to look. Scientists build upon the work of other scientists
@@ -1725,6 +1817,7 @@ every society has left a certain bit of its culture free for the taking—fr
societies more fully than unfree, perhaps, but all societies to some degree.
+
The hard question is therefore not whether a
culture is free. All cultures are free to some degree. The hard
@@ -1742,18 +1835,15 @@ Free cultures are cultures that leave a great deal open for others to
build upon; unfree, or permission, cultures leave much less. Ours was a
free culture. It is becoming much less so.
+CHAPTER TWO: Mere Copyists
-
- camera technology
-
-
- photography
-Daguerre, Louis
+camera technology
+photographyIn 1839, Louis Daguerre invented
the first practical technology for producing what we would call
@@ -1764,6 +1854,7 @@ zealous and wealthy amateurs. (There was even an American Daguerre
Association that helped regulate the industry, as do all such
associations, by keeping competition down so as to keep prices up.)
+Talbot, William
Yet despite high prices, the demand for daguerreotypes was strong.
This pushed inventors to find simpler and cheaper ways to make
@@ -1774,11 +1865,8 @@ the 1870s, dry plates were developed, making it easier to separate the
taking of a picture from its developing. These were still plates of
glass, and thus it was still not a process within reach of most
amateurs.
-Talbot, William
-
- Eastman, George
-
+Eastman, George
The technological change that made mass photography possible
didn't happen until 1888, and was the creation of a single man. George
@@ -1791,6 +1879,8 @@ a developer, driving the costs of photography down substantially. By
lowering the costs, Eastman expected he could dramatically broaden the
population of photographers.
+Kodak cameras
+Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)
Eastman developed flexible, emulsion-coated paper film and placed
rolls of it in small, simple cameras: the Kodak. The device was
@@ -1799,7 +1889,6 @@ do the rest.
Reese V. Jenkins, Images and Enterprise (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 112.
As he described in The Kodak Primer:
-Kodak Primer, The (Eastman)
@@ -1814,12 +1903,13 @@ preliminary study, without a darkroom and without
chemicals.
+Coe, Brian
Brian Coe, The Birth of Photography (New York: Taplinger Publishing,
1977), 53.
-Coe, Brian
Quayle, Dan
+60 Minutes
Do you remember when Dan Quayle was interacting with Murphy Brown?
Remember that back and forth surreal experience of a politician
@@ -5767,6 +5909,7 @@ original back and forth exchanges between the two, the
impossible. … Those materials are almost unfindable. …
+newspapersarchives of
Why is that? Why is it that the part of our culture that is recorded
in newspapers remains perpetually accessible, while the part that is
@@ -5783,6 +5926,8 @@ of knowledge and to assure that a copy of the work would be around
once the copyright expired, so that others might access and copy the
work.
+Library of Congress
+filmsarchive of
These rules applied to film as well. But in 1915, the Library
of Congress made an exception for film. Film could be copyrighted so
@@ -5811,6 +5956,7 @@ broadcasters. No library had any right to them; the government didn't
demand them. The content of this part of American culture is
practically invisible to anyone who would look.
+September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of
Kahle was eager to correct this. Before September 11, 2001, he and
@@ -5823,10 +5969,13 @@ Anyone could see how news reports from around the world covered the
events of that day.
Movie Archive
-
- archive.org
- Internet Archive
-
+archive.orgInternet Archive
+
+filmsarchive of
+Internet Archive
+Duck and Cover film
+ephemeral films
+Prelinger, Rick
Kahle had the same idea with film. Working with Rick Prelinger, whose
archive of film includes close to 45,000 ephemeral films (meaning
@@ -5882,18 +6031,12 @@ build an archive of knowledge about our history. In this second life,
the content can continue to inform even if that information is no
longer sold.
-
- books
- out of print
-
+booksout of print
The same has always been true about books. A book goes out of print
very quickly (the average today is after about a year
-
- books
- out of print
-
+booksout of print
Dave Barns, Fledgling Career in Antique Books: Woodstock Landlord,
Bar Owner Starts a New Chapter by Adopting Business,Chicago Tribune,
5 September 1997, at Metro Lake 1L. Of books published between 1927
@@ -5945,10 +6088,7 @@ we are for the first time at a point where that dream is possible. As
Kahle describes,
-
- books
- total number of
-
+bookstotal number of
It looks like there's about two to three million recordings of music.
Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of
@@ -5963,6 +6103,7 @@ proud of. Up there with the Library of Alexandria, putting a man on
the moon, and the invention of the printing press.
+Disney, Walt
Kahle is not the only librarian. The Internet Archive is not the only
archive. But Kahle and the Internet Archive suggest what the future of
@@ -6003,6 +6144,13 @@ Kennedy has Valenti in the background. In his almost forty years of
running the MPAA, Valenti has established himself as perhaps the most
prominent and effective lobbyist in Washington.
+Disney, Inc.
+Sony Pictures Entertainment
+MGM
+Paramount Pictures
+Twentieth Century Fox
+Universal Pictures
+Warner Brothers
The MPAA is the American branch of the international Motion Picture
Association. It was formed in 1922 as a trade association whose goal
@@ -6014,13 +6162,6 @@ producers and distributors of motion picture and television programs
in the United States: Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM,
Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, and
Warner Brothers.
-Disney, Inc.
-Sony Pictures Entertainment
-MGM
-Paramount Pictures
-Twentieth Century Fox
-Universal Pictures
-Warner Brothers
@@ -6181,6 +6322,7 @@ should be accorded the same rights as every other property-right
owner. He is effectively arguing for a change in our Constitution
itself.
+Jefferson, Thomas
Arguing for a change in our Constitution is not necessarily wrong.
There was much in our original Constitution that was plainly wrong.
@@ -6201,6 +6343,8 @@ creative property be given the same rights as all other property? Why
did they require that for creative property there must be a public
domain?
+
+
To answer this question, we need to get some perspective on the
history of these creative property rights, and the control that they
@@ -6302,9 +6446,7 @@ be; my claim is not about comprehensiveness), these four are among the
most significant, and any regulator (whether controlling or freeing)
must consider how these four in particular interact.
-
- driving speed, constraints on
-
+driving speed, constraints onarchitecture, constraint effected throughmarket constraintsnorms, regulatory influence of
@@ -6582,16 +6724,14 @@ effect of the changes the content industry wants.
Here's the metaphor that will capture the argument to follow.
-
- DDT
-
+DDT
+Müller, Paul Hermann
In 1873, the chemical DDT was first synthesized. In 1948, Swiss
chemist Paul Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for his work
demonstrating the insecticidal properties of DDT. By the 1950s, the
insecticide was widely used around the world to kill disease-carrying
pests. It was also used to increase farm production.
-Müller, Paul Hermann
No one doubts that killing disease-carrying pests or increasing crop
@@ -6762,6 +6902,7 @@ States was controlled or free. Just as in England, this lingering
uncertainty would make it hard for publishers to rely upon a public
domain to reprint and distribute works.
+Statute of Anne (1710)
That uncertainty ended after Congress passed legislation granting
copyrights. Because federal law overrides any contrary state law,
@@ -6827,14 +6968,8 @@ M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, Indefinitely Renewable Copyright,University of Chicago Law Review 70 (2003): 471, 498–501, and
accompanying figures.
-
- books
- out of print
-
-
- books
- resales of
-
+booksout of print
+booksresales of
Even today, this structure would make sense. Most creative work
has an actual commercial life of just a couple of years. Most books fall
@@ -7103,6 +7238,8 @@ pp. 53–59).
These two different uses of my creative work are treated the same.
+Disney, Walt
+Mickey Mouse
This again may seem right to you. If I wrote a book, then why should
you be able to write a movie that takes my story and makes money from
@@ -7167,17 +7304,19 @@ current reach of copyright was never contemplated, much less chosen,
by the legislators who enacted copyright law.
-We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely
+We can see this point abstractly by beginning with this largely
empty circle.
All potential uses of a book.
-
- books
- three types of uses of
-
+booksthree types of uses of
+copyright lawcopies as core issue of
+Internetcopyright applicability altered by technology of
+technologycopyright intent altered by
+derivative workspiracy vs.
+piracyderivative work vs.
Think about a book in real space, and imagine this circle to represent
@@ -7204,6 +7343,8 @@ at the core of this circle of possible uses of a copyrighted work. It is the
paradigmatic use properly regulated by copyright regulation (see first
diagram on next page).
+
+
Finally, there is a tiny sliver of otherwise regulated copying uses
that remain unregulated because the law considers these fair uses.
@@ -7238,11 +7379,8 @@ In real space, then, the possible uses of a book are divided into three
sorts: (1) unregulated uses, (2) regulated uses, and (3) regulated uses that
are nonetheless deemed fair regardless of the copyright owner's views.
-
-
- books
- on Internet
-
+
+bookson Internet
Enter the Internet—a distributed, digital network where every use
of a copyrighted work produces a copy.
@@ -7276,10 +7414,8 @@ night before you went to bed. None of those instances of
use—reading— could be regulated by copyright law because
none of those uses produced a copy.
-
- books
- on Internet
-
+bookson Internet
+derivative workstechnological developments and
But the same book as an e-book is effectively governed by a different
set of rules. Now if the copyright owner says you may read the book
@@ -7306,6 +7442,7 @@ evidence at all that policy makers had this idea in mind when they
allowed our policy here to shift. Unregulated uses were an important
part of free culture before the Internet.
+copyright lawon republishing vs. transformation of original work
Second, this shift is especially troubling in the context of
transformative uses of creative content. Again, we can all understand
@@ -7332,6 +7469,11 @@ copyright law and hence the need for a fair use defense. The right to
read was effectively protected before because reading was not
regulated.
+
+
+
+
+
This point about fair use is totally ignored, even by advocates for
free culture. We have been cornered into arguing that our rights
@@ -7342,9 +7484,7 @@ grounded in fair use makes sense when the vast majority of uses are
presumptively regulated, then the protections of fair use are not
enough.
-
- advertising
-
+advertising
The case of Video Pipeline is a good example. Video Pipeline was
in the business of making trailer advertisements for movies available
@@ -7455,12 +7595,8 @@ tradition embraced, who said whether and how the law would restrict
your freedom.
Casablanca
-
- Marx Brothers
-
-
- Warner Brothers
-
+Marx Brothers
+Warner Brothers
There's a famous story about a battle between the Marx Brothers
and Warner Brothers. The Marxes intended to make a parody of
@@ -7479,9 +7615,9 @@ This led the Marx Brothers to respond in kind. They warned
Warner Brothers that the Marx Brothers were brothers long before
you were.
+Vaidhyanathan, Siva
Ibid. See also Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and
Copywrongs, 1–3.
-Vaidhyanathan, Siva
The Marx Brothers therefore owned the word
brothers, and if Warner Brothers insisted on
@@ -7494,10 +7630,7 @@ like the Marx Brothers, knew that no court would ever enforce such a
silly claim. This extremism was irrelevant to the real freedoms anyone
(including Warner Brothers) enjoyed.
-
- books
- on Internet
-
+bookson Internet
On the Internet, however, there is no check on silly rules, because on
the Internet, increasingly, rules are enforced not by a human but by a
@@ -7511,9 +7644,7 @@ consequence of that is not at all funny.
-
- Adobe eBook Reader
-
+Adobe eBook Reader
Consider the life of my Adobe eBook Reader.
@@ -7562,11 +7693,11 @@ print ten pages from the book every ten days. Lastly, I have the
permission to use the Read Aloud button to hear Middlemarch
read aloud through the computer.
+Aristotle
+Politics, (Aristotle)
Here's the e-book for another work in the public domain (including the
translation): Aristotle's Politics.
-Aristotle
-Politics, (Aristotle)E-book of Aristotle;s Politics
@@ -7581,6 +7712,8 @@ the book.
List of the permissions for Aristotle;s Politics.
+Future of Ideas, The (Lessig)
+Lessig, Lawrence
Finally (and most embarrassingly), here are the permissions for the
original e-book version of my last book, The Future of
@@ -7633,13 +7766,14 @@ aloud—it's not that the company will sue you if you do; instead,
if you push the Read Aloud button with my book, the machine simply
won't read aloud.
+Marx Brothers
+Warner Brothers
These are controls, not permissions. Imagine a
world where the Marx Brothers sold word processing software that, when
you tried to type Warner Brothers, erased Brothers from the
sentence.
-Marx Brothers
This is the future of copyright law: not so much copyright
@@ -7661,6 +7795,8 @@ to defeat these protections as well?
We've only scratched the surface of this story. Return to the Adobe
eBook Reader.
+Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
+public domaine-book restrictions on
Early in the life of the Adobe eBook Reader, Adobe suffered a public
relations nightmare. Among the books that you could download for free
@@ -7668,7 +7804,6 @@ on the Adobe site was a copy of Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland. This wonderful book is in the public
domain. Yet when you clicked on Permissions for that book, you got the
following report:
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)List of the permissions for Alice's Adventures in
@@ -7702,6 +7837,8 @@ could use a computer to read the book aloud, would Adobe agree that
such a use of an eBook Reader was fair? Adobe didn't answer because
the answer, however absurd it might seem, is no.
+
+
The point is not to blame Adobe. Indeed, Adobe is among the most
innovative companies developing strategies to balance open access to
@@ -7716,16 +7853,9 @@ often crazy.
To see the point in a particularly absurd context, consider a favorite
story of mine that makes the same point.
-
- Aibo robotic dog
-
-
- robotic dog
-
-
- Sony
- Aibo robotic dog produced by
-
+Aibo robotic dog
+robotic dog
+SonyAibo robotic dog produced by
Consider the robotic dog made by Sony named Aibo. The Aibo
learns tricks, cuddles, and follows you around. It eats only electricity
@@ -7735,7 +7865,7 @@ and that doesn't leave that much of a mess (at least in your house).
The Aibo is expensive and popular. Fans from around the world
have set up clubs to trade stories. One fan in particular set up a Web
site to enable information about the Aibo dog to be shared. This fan set
-
+
up aibopet.com (and aibohack.com, but that resolves to the same site),
and on that site he provided information about how to teach an Aibo
to do tricks in addition to the ones Sony had taught it.
@@ -7796,6 +7926,7 @@ completely legal activity. One imagines that the owner of aibopet.com
thought, What possible problem could there be with teaching
a robot dog to dance?
+Microsoftgovernment case against
Let's put the dog to sleep for a minute, and turn to a pony show—
not literally a pony show, but rather a paper that a Princeton academic
@@ -7866,16 +7997,9 @@ academic essay, unintelligible to most people. But it clearly showed the
weakness in the SDMI system, and why SDMI would not, as presently
constituted, succeed.
-
- Aibo robotic dog
-
-
- robotic dog
-
-
- Sony
- Aibo robotic dog produced by
-
+Aibo robotic dog
+robotic dog
+SonyAibo robotic dog produced by
What links these two, aibopet.com and Felten, is the letters they
then received. Aibopet.com received a letter from Sony about the
@@ -7940,10 +8064,7 @@ have been a copyright violation.
Aibo robotic dogrobotic dog
-
- Sony
- Aibo robotic dog produced by
-
+SonyAibo robotic dog produced by
Aibopet.com and Felten make the point. The Aibo hack circumvented a
copyright protection system for the purpose of enabling the dog to
@@ -7965,10 +8086,7 @@ Thus, even though he was not himself infringing anyone's copyright,
his academic paper was enabling others to infringe others' copyright.
Rogers, Fred
-
- cassette recording
- VCRs
-
+cassette recordingVCRs
The bizarreness of these arguments is captured in a cartoon drawn in
1981 by Paul Conrad. At that time, a court in California had held that
@@ -7997,10 +8115,7 @@ but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active
in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is
important.
-
- cassette recording
- VCRs
-
+cassette recordingVCRsSony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417,
455 fn. 27 (1984). Rogers never changed his view about the VCR. See
James Lardner, Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of
@@ -8031,9 +8146,7 @@ pirating of copyrighted material—a bad end. Or they can be used
to enable the use of particular copyrighted materials in ways that
would be considered fair use—a good end.
-
- handguns
-
+handguns
A handgun can be used to shoot a police officer or a child. Most
@@ -8042,7 +8155,7 @@ practice or to protect against an intruder. At least some would say that
such a use would be good. It, too, is a technology that has both good
and bad uses.
-
+VCR/handgun cartoon.
@@ -8059,10 +8172,7 @@ good, but permits guns, despite the obvious and tragic harm they do.
Aibo robotic dogrobotic dog
-
- Sony
- Aibo robotic dog produced by
-
+SonyAibo robotic dog produced by
The Aibo and RIAA examples demonstrate how copyright owners are
changing the balance that copyright law grants. Using code, copyright
@@ -8178,6 +8288,11 @@ These changes are of two sorts: the scope of concentration, and its
nature.
cable television
+BMG
+EMI
+McCain, John
+Universal Music Group
+Warner Music Group
Changes in scope are the easier ones to describe. As Senator John
McCain summarized the data produced in the FCC's review of media
@@ -8199,11 +8314,6 @@ programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers nationwide.
Molly Ivins, Media Consolidation Must Be Stopped,Charleston Gazette,
31 May 2003.
-BMG
-EMI
-McCain, John
-Universal Music Group
-Warner Music Group
The story with radio is even more dramatic. Before deregulation,
@@ -8259,7 +8369,7 @@ just large companies owning many radio stations, but a few companies
owning as many outlets of media as possible. A picture describes this
pattern better than a thousand words could do:
-
+Pattern of modern media ownership.
@@ -8351,12 +8461,12 @@ find that he had the choice either to make the show less edgy or to be
fired: The content of any show developed for a network is increasingly
owned by the network.
+Diller, Barry
+Moyers, Bill
While the number of channels has increased dramatically, the ownership
of those channels has narrowed to an ever smaller and smaller few. As
Barry Diller said to Bill Moyers,
-Diller, Barry
-Moyers, Bill
@@ -8452,9 +8562,7 @@ is through votes that we are to choose policy. But to do that, we
depend fundamentally upon the press to help inform Americans about
these issues.
-
- advertising
-
+advertising
Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy launched
a media campaign as part of the war on drugs. The campaign produced
@@ -8620,9 +8728,9 @@ now interact to turn this historically benign regulation into the most
significant regulation of culture that our free society has
known.
+Vaidhyanathan, Siva
Siva Vaidhyanathan captures a similar point in his four surrenders of
copyright law in the digital age. See Vaidhyanathan, 159–60.
-Vaidhyanathan, Siva
@@ -8861,15 +8969,9 @@ lawyer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Chimera
-
- chimeras
-
-
- Wells, H. G.
-
-
- Country of the Blind, The (Wells)
-
+chimeras
+Wells, H. G.
+Country of the Blind, The (Wells)In a well-known short story by
@@ -9232,6 +9334,7 @@ on remote topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative
work spread across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this
work is presumptively illegal.
+Worldcom
That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the
examples of extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to
@@ -9271,7 +9374,6 @@ recent months.
Can common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where
the maximum fine for downloading two songs off the Internet is more
than the fine for a doctor's negligently butchering a patient?
-Worldcomart, underground
@@ -9450,10 +9552,7 @@ MP3.com offered creators a venue to distribute their creativity,
without demanding an exclusive engagement from the creators.
Lovett, Lyle
-
- CDs
- preference data on
-
+CDspreference data on
To make this system work, however, MP3.com needed a reliable way to
recommend music to its users. The idea behind this alternative was to
@@ -9495,9 +9594,7 @@ had a copy of the CD they wanted to access. So while this was 50,000
copies, it was 50,000 copies directed at giving customers something
they had already bought.
-
- Vivendi Universal
-
+Vivendi Universal
Nine days after MP3.com launched its service, the five major labels,
headed by the RIAA, brought a lawsuit against MP3.com. MP3.com settled
@@ -9536,6 +9633,8 @@ such a view of the law will cost you and your firm dearly.
Hummer, JohnBarry, HankHummer Winblad
+EMI
+Universal Music Group
This strategy is not just limited to the lawyers. In April 2003,
Universal and EMI brought a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad, the
@@ -9563,8 +9662,6 @@ So extreme has the environment become that even car manufacturers are
afraid of technologies that touch content. In an article in
Business 2.0, Rafe Needleman describes a
discussion with BMW:
-EMI
-Universal Music Group
BMW
@@ -9692,6 +9789,7 @@ and costs on
the technology, but will likely be eclipsed by advances around exactly
those requirements.
+Intel
In March 2002, a broad coalition of technology companies, led by
Intel, tried to get Congress to see the harm that such legislation
@@ -9703,7 +9801,6 @@ February 2002 (Entertainment).
Their argument was obviously not that copyright should not be
protected. Instead, they argued, any protection should not do more
harm than good.
-IntelThere is one more obvious way in
@@ -9716,10 +9813,8 @@ of regulation. It is a regulation that benefits some and harms others.
When done right, it benefits creators and harms leeches. When done
wrong, it is regulation the powerful use to defeat competitors.
-
- cassette recording
- VCRs
-
+cassette recordingVCRs
+VCRs
As I described in chapter , despite this feature of copyright as
@@ -9788,10 +9883,8 @@ available at
But there is one example that captures the flavor of them all. This is
the story of the demise of Internet radio.
-
- artists
- recording industry payments to
-
+artistsrecording industry payments to
+Kennedy, John F.
@@ -9804,7 +9897,6 @@ performance before President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden—
then whenever that recording was played on the radio, the current
copyright owners of Happy Birthday would get some money, whereas
Marilyn Monroe would not.
-Kennedy, John F.
The reasoning behind this balance struck by Congress makes some
@@ -9889,10 +9981,7 @@ those imposed by the law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first
question we should ask is, what copyright rules would govern Internet
radio?
-
- artists
- recording industry payments to
-
+artistsrecording industry payments to
But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a
new industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very
@@ -10039,9 +10128,7 @@ economic consequences from Internet radio that would justify these
differences? Was the motive to protect artists against piracy?
Real Networks
-
- Alben, Alex
-
+Alben, Alex
In a rare bit of candor, one RIAA expert admitted what seemed obvious
to everyone at the time. As Alex Alben, vice president for Public
@@ -10063,10 +10150,7 @@ that should establish the market rate, and if you set the rate so
high, you're going to drive the small webcasters out of
business. …
-
- artists
- recording industry payments to
-
+artistsrecording industry payments to
And the RIAA experts said, Well, we don't really model this as an
industry with thousands of webcasters, we think it should be
@@ -10149,6 +10233,7 @@ is an embarrassment to our tradition. And the consequence of our law
as it is, is that those with the power can use the law to quash any rights
they oppose.
+alcohol prohibition
Wars of prohibition are nothing new in America. This one is just
something more extreme than anything we've seen before. We
@@ -10185,8 +10270,8 @@ compliance literature).
We pride ourselves on our free society, but an endless array of
ordinary behavior is regulated within our society. And as a result, a
huge proportion of Americans regularly violate at least some law.
-alcohol prohibition
+law schools
This state of affairs is not without consequence. It is a particularly
salient issue for teachers like me, whose job it is to teach law
@@ -10203,7 +10288,6 @@ Americans—more significantly in some parts of America than in
others, but still, everywhere in America today—can't live their
lives both normally and legally, since normally entails a certain
degree of illegality.
-law schools
The response to this general illegality is either to enforce the law
@@ -10275,10 +10359,7 @@ right: In a series of commercials, Apple endorsed the Rip, Mix, Burn
Andromeda
-
- CDs
- mix technology and
-
+CDsmix technology and
This use of my records is certainly valuable. I have begun a large
process at home of ripping all of my and my wife's CDs, and storing
@@ -10360,9 +10441,7 @@ Valenti is charming; but not so charming as to justify giving up a
tradition as deep and important as our tradition of free culture.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
-
- ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed by
-
+ISPs (Internet service providers), user identities revealed byThere's one more aspect to this
corruption that is particularly important to civil liberties, and
@@ -10372,10 +10451,10 @@ Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann describes, this is the
a very large percentage of the population into criminals. This
is the collateral damage to civil liberties generally.
+von Lohmann, FredIf you can treat someone as a putative lawbreaker, von Lohmann
explains,
-von Lohmann, Fred
@@ -10472,6 +10551,7 @@ your daughter can lose the right to use the university's computer
network. She can, in some cases, be expelled.
+von Lohmann, Fred
Now, of course, she'll have the right to defend herself. You can hire
a lawyer for her (at $300 per hour, if you're lucky), and she can
@@ -10485,7 +10565,6 @@ college students
have already learned, our presumptions about innocence disappear in
the middle of wars of prohibition. This war is no different.
Says von Lohmann,
-von Lohmann, Fred
@@ -10582,9 +10661,7 @@ success will require.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Eldred
-
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel
-
+Hawthorne, NathanielIn 1995, a father was frustrated
that his daughters didn't seem to like Hawthorne. No doubt there was
@@ -10601,6 +10678,8 @@ gave birth to a hobby, and his hobby begat a cause: Eldred would build
a library of public domain works by scanning these works and making
them available for free.
+Disney, Walt
+Grimm fairy tales
Eldred's library was not simply a copy of certain public domain
works, though even a copy would have been of great value to people
@@ -10624,7 +10703,8 @@ animated cartoons, sometimes successfully (Cinderella), s
(The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Planet). These are all
commercial publications of public domain works.
-
+
+
The Internet created the possibility of noncommercial publications of
public domain works. Eldred's is just one example. There are literally
@@ -10637,6 +10717,7 @@ social causes. But with the Internet, it includes a wide range of
individuals and groups dedicated to spreading culture
generally.
+pornography
There's a parallel here with pornography that is a bit hard to
describe, but it's a strong one. One phenomenon that the Internet
created was a world of noncommercial pornographers—people who
@@ -10725,6 +10806,7 @@ specific—to promote … Progress—through means t
are also specific— by securingexclusive Rights (i.e.,
copyrights) for limited Times.
+Jaszi, Peter
In the past forty years, Congress has gotten into the practice of
extending existing terms of copyright protection. What puzzled me
@@ -10735,7 +10817,6 @@ no practical effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire,
Congress has the power to extend its term, then Congress can achieve
what the Constitution plainly forbids—perpetual terms on the
installment plan, as Professor Peter Jaszi so nicely put it.
-Jaszi, Peter
As an academic, my first response was to hit the books. I remember
@@ -10976,6 +11057,10 @@ its politics struck me as extraordinarily boring. I was not going to
devote my life to teaching constitutional law if these nine Justices
were going to be petty politicians.
+Constitution, U.S.copyright purpose established in
+copyrightconstitutional purpose of
+copyrightduration of
+Disney, WaltNow let's pause for a moment to
make sure we understand what the argument in
@@ -10994,6 +11079,7 @@ get another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop
would be taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a
piracy that affects us all.
+Nashville Songwriters Association
Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief
@@ -11009,7 +11095,6 @@ But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our constitutional
system, our law requires it. Some may not like the Constitution's
requirements, but that doesn't make the Constitution a pirate's
charter.
-Nashville Songwriters Association
As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on
@@ -11138,11 +11223,10 @@ digitized, and hence will simply rot away on shelves. But the
consequence
for other creative works is much more dire.
-
- Agee, Michael
-
+Agee, MichaelHal Roach StudiosLaurel and Hardy Films
+Lucky Dog, The
Consider the story of Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios,
which owns the copyrights for the Laurel and Hardy films. Agee is a
@@ -11160,8 +11244,6 @@ See David G. Savage, High Court Scene of Showdown on Copyright Law, Orlando Sentinel Tribune, 9 October 2002.
-
-Lucky Dog, The
Yet Agee opposed the CTEA. His reasons demonstrate a rare virtue in
@@ -11310,9 +11392,7 @@ would not have interfered with anything.
But this situation has now changed.
-
- archives, digital
-
+archives, digital
One crucially important consequence of the emergence of digital
technologies is to enable the archive that Brewster Kahle dreams of.
@@ -11530,6 +11610,8 @@ the widest range of credible critics—credible not because they
were rich and famous, but because they, in the aggregate, demonstrated
that this law was unconstitutional regardless of one's politics.
+Eagle Forum
+Schlafly, Phyllis
The first step happened all by itself. Phyllis Schlafly's
organization, Eagle Forum, had been an opponent of the CTEA from the
@@ -11543,8 +11625,6 @@ to get bogged down? The answer, as the editorial documented, was the
power of money. Schlafly enumerated Disney's contributions to the key
players on the committees. It was money, not justice, that gave Mickey
Mouse twenty more years in Disney's control, Schlafly argued.
-Eagle Forum
-Schlafly, Phyllis
In the Court of Appeals, Eagle Forum was eager to file a brief
@@ -11554,6 +11634,10 @@ existing copyrights, there is no limit to Congress's power to set
terms. That strong conservative argument persuaded a strong
conservative judge, Judge Sentelle.
+GNU/Linux operating system
+Intel
+Linux operating system
+Eagle Forum
In the Supreme Court, the briefs on our side were about as diverse as
it gets. They included an extraordinary historical brief by the Free
@@ -11566,18 +11650,14 @@ copyright scholars and one by First Amendment scholars. There was an
exhaustive and uncontroverted brief by the world's experts in the
history of the Progress Clause. And of course, there was a new brief
by Eagle Forum, repeating and strengthening its arguments.
-GNU/Linux operating system
-Intel
-Linux operating system
-Eagle Forum
+American Association of Law Libraries
+National Writers Union
Those briefs framed a legal argument. Then to support the legal
argument, there were a number of powerful briefs by libraries and
archives, including the Internet Archive, the American Association of
Law Libraries, and the National Writers Union.
-American Association of Law Libraries
-National Writers UnionHal Roach Studios
@@ -11603,6 +11683,10 @@ anything to increase incentives to create. Such extensions were
nothing more than rent-seeking—the fancy term economists use
to describe special-interest legislation gone wild.
+Fried, Charles
+Morrison, Alan
+Public Citizen
+Reagan, Ronald
The same effort at balance was reflected in the legal team we gathered
to write our briefs in the case. The Jones Day lawyers had been with
@@ -11616,11 +11700,10 @@ Kathleen Sullivan, who had argued many cases in the Court, and
who had advised us early on about a First Amendment strategy; and
finally, former solicitor general Charles Fried.
-Fried, Charles
-Morrison, Alan
-Public Citizen
-Reagan, Ronald
+Fried, Charles
+Congress, U.S.constitutional powers of
+Constitution, U.S.Commerce Clause of
Fried was a special victory for our side. Every other former solicitor
general was hired by the other side to defend Congress's power to give
@@ -11632,7 +11715,6 @@ limited Congress's power in the context of the Commerce Clause. And
while he had argued many positions in the Supreme Court that I
personally disagreed with, his joining the cause was a vote of
confidence in our argument.
-Fried, Charles
The government, in defending the statute, had its collection of
@@ -11650,6 +11732,9 @@ that the copyright holders would defend the idea that they should
continue to have the right to control who did what with content they
wanted to control.
+Gershwin, George
+Porgy and Bess
+pornography
Dr. Seuss's representatives, for example, argued that it was
better for the Dr. Seuss estate to control what happened to
@@ -11673,7 +11758,6 @@ That's
their view of how this part of American culture should be controlled,
and they wanted this law to help them effect that control.
-Gershwin, George
This argument made clear a theme that is rarely noticed in this
@@ -11712,9 +11796,7 @@ of cases that said that an enumerated power had to be interpreted to
assure that Congress's powers had limits.
Breyer, Stephen
-
- Ginsburg, Ruth Bader
-
+Ginsburg, Ruth Bader
The Rest were the four Justices who had strongly opposed limits on
Congress's power. These four—Justice Stevens, Justice Souter,
@@ -11832,12 +11914,12 @@ this central idea.
Ayer, DonReagan, Ronald
+Fried, Charles
One moot was before the lawyers at Jones Day. Don Ayer was the
skeptic. He had served in the Reagan Justice Department with Solicitor
General Charles Fried. He had argued many cases before the Supreme
Court. And in his review of the moot, he let his concern speak:
-Fried, CharlesI'm just afraid that unless they really see the harm, they won't be
@@ -12195,11 +12277,11 @@ passion I had used elsewhere. It was not the basis on which a court
should decide the issue.
Ayer, Don
+Fried, Charles
Would it have been different if I had argued it differently? Would it
have been different if Don Ayer had argued it? Or Charles Fried? Or
Kathleen Sullivan?
-Fried, Charles
My friends huddled around me to insist it would not. The Court
@@ -12214,13 +12296,13 @@ little reason to resist doing right. I can't help but think that if I had
stepped down from this pretty picture of dispassionate justice, I could
have persuaded.
+Jaszi, Peter
And even if I couldn't, then that doesn't excuse what happened in
January. For at the start of this case, one of America's leading
intellectual property professors stated publicly that my bringing this
case was a mistake. The Court is not ready, Peter Jaszi said; this
issue should not be raised until it is.
-Jaszi, Peter
After the argument and after the decision, Peter said to me, and
@@ -12534,6 +12616,7 @@ me pointing to representatives who might be willing to introduce the
Eldred Act. And I had a few who directly suggested that they might be
willing to take the first step.
+Lofgren, Zoe
One representative, Zoe Lofgren of California, went so far as to get
the bill drafted. The draft solved any problem with international
@@ -12542,7 +12625,6 @@ possible. In May 2003, it looked as if the bill would be
introduced. On May 16, I posted on the Eldred Act blog, we are
close. There was a general reaction in the blog community that
something good might happen here.
-Lofgren, Zoe
But at this stage, the lobbyists began to intervene. Jack Valenti and
@@ -12677,15 +12759,9 @@ controlled by this dead (and often unfindable) hand of the past.
CONCLUSION
-
- antiretroviral drugs
-
-
- HIV/AIDS therapies
-
-
- Africa, medications for HIV patients in
-
+antiretroviral drugs
+HIV/AIDS therapies
+Africa, medications for HIV patients inThere are more than 35 million
people with the AIDS virus worldwide. Twenty-five million of them live
@@ -12952,11 +13028,13 @@ hypocrisy reeks. Yet in a city like Washington, hypocrisy is not even
noticed. Powerful lobbies, complex issues, and MTV attention spans
produce the perfect storm for free culture.
-Reagan, Ronald
-
- biomedical research
-
+public domainpublic projects in
+single nucleotied polymorphisms (SNPs)Wellcome Trust
+World Wide Web
+Global Positioning System
+Reagan, Ronald
+biomedical researchIn August 2003, a fight broke out
in the United States about a decision by the World Intellectual
@@ -13012,6 +13090,7 @@ perspectives. And WIPO was an ideal venue for this discussion, since
WIPO is the preeminent international body dealing with intellectual
property issues.
+World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Indeed, I was once publicly scolded for not recognizing this fact
about WIPO. In February 2003, I delivered a keynote address to a
@@ -13042,6 +13121,8 @@ had thought it was taken for granted that WIPO could and should. And
thus the meeting about open and collaborative projects to create
public goods seemed perfectly appropriate within the WIPO agenda.
+
+Apple Corporation
But there is one project within that list that is highly
controversial, at least among lobbyists. That project is open source
@@ -13053,6 +13134,10 @@ Microsoft's software. And internationally, many governments have begun
to explore requirements that they use open source or free software,
rather than proprietary software, for their own internal uses.
+copyleft licenses
+GNU/Linux operating system
+Linux operating system
+IBM
I don't mean to enter that debate here. It is important only to
make clear that the distinction is not between commercial and
@@ -13081,11 +13166,9 @@ Model, discussion at New York University Stern School of Business (3
May 2001), available at
link #63.
-IBM
-copyleft licenses
-GNU/Linux operating system
-Linux operating system
+General Public License (GPL)
+GPL (General Public License)
More important for our purposes, to support open source and free
software is not to oppose copyright. Open source and free software
@@ -13104,6 +13187,8 @@ software. If copyright did not govern software, then free software
could not impose the same kind of requirements on its adopters. It
thus depends upon copyright law just as Microsoft does.
+Krim, Jonathan
+MicrosoftWIPO meeting opposed by
It is therefore understandable that as a proprietary software
developer, Microsoft would oppose this WIPO meeting, and
@@ -13117,7 +13202,6 @@ Krim, The Quiet War over Open-Source, available at link #64.
And without U.S. backing, the meeting was canceled.
-Krim, Jonathan
I don't blame Microsoft for doing what it can to advance its own
@@ -13152,7 +13236,10 @@ in understanding—the sort of mistake that is excusable in a
first-year law student, but an embarrassment from a high government
official dealing with intellectual property issues.
+World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
+drugspharmaceuticalgeneric drugs
+patentson pharmaceuticals
Second, who ever said that WIPO's exclusive aim was to promote
intellectual property maximally? As I had been scolded at the
@@ -13180,9 +13267,7 @@ property system. That is, on the contrary, just what a property system
is supposed to be about: giving individuals the right to decide what
to do with their property.
-
- Boland, Lois
-
+Boland, Lois
When Ms. Boland says that there is something wrong with a meeting
which has as its purpose to disclaim or waive such rights, she's
@@ -13284,12 +13369,12 @@ something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests.
It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has
been part of our tradition for most of our history—free culture.
-CodePink Women in Peace
-Safire, William
-Turner, Ted
If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.
+CodePink Women in Peace
+Safire, William
+Turner, TedThere are moments of hope in this
struggle. And moments that surprise. When the FCC was considering
@@ -13393,10 +13478,11 @@ kids who use a computer to share content.
Causby, Thomas LeeCausby, Tinie
-Creative Commons
-Gil, GilbertoBBCBrazil, free culture in
+Creative Commons
+Gil, Gilberto
+United Kingdompublic creative archive in
Yet on the other side of the Atlantic, the BBC has just announced
that it will build a Creative Archive, from which British citizens can
@@ -13518,9 +13604,7 @@ before.
Rebuilding Freedoms Previously Presumed: Examples
-
- browsing
-
+browsing
If you step back from the battle I've been describing here, you will
recognize this problem from other contexts. Think about
@@ -13552,6 +13636,7 @@ places, not by norms (snooping and gossip are just fun), but instead,
by the costs that friction imposes on anyone who would want to spy.
Amazon
+cookies, Internet
Enter the Internet, where the cost of tracking browsing in particular
has become quite tiny. If you're a customer at Amazon, then as you
@@ -13561,7 +13646,6 @@ at. You know this because at the side of the page, there's a list of
and the function of cookies on the Net, it is easier to collect the
data than not. The friction has disappeared, and hence any privacy
protected by the friction disappears, too.
-cookies, Internet
Amazon, of course, is not the problem. But we might begin to worry
@@ -13679,9 +13763,7 @@ Finally, consider a very recent example that more directly resonates
with the story of this book. This is the shift in the way academic and
scientific journals are produced.
-
- academic journals
-
+academic journals
As digital technologies develop, it is becoming obvious to many that
printing thousands of copies of journals every month and sending them
@@ -13760,9 +13842,7 @@ and science.
Rebuilding Free Culture: One Idea
-
- Creative Commons
-
+Creative Commons
The same strategy could be applied to culture, as a response to the
increasing control effected through law and technology.
@@ -13819,6 +13899,7 @@ upon. Voluntary choice of individuals and creators will make this
content available. And that content will in turn enable us to rebuild
a public domain.
+Garlick, Mia
This is just one project among many within the Creative Commons. And
of course, Creative Commons is not the only organization pursuing such
@@ -13830,8 +13911,8 @@ aim is to build a movement of consumers and producers
of content (content conducers, as attorney Mia Garlick calls them)
who help build the public domain and, by their work, demonstrate the
importance of the public domain to other creativity.
-Garlick, Mia
+Jefferson, Thomas
The aim is not to fight the All Rights Reserved sorts. The aim is to
complement them. The problems that the law creates for us as a culture
@@ -13844,10 +13925,7 @@ freedoms, expressed in ways so that humans without lawyers can use
them—are needed. Creative Commons gives people a way effectively
to begin to build those rules.
-
- books
- free on-line releases of
-
+booksfree on-line releases of
Why would creators participate in giving up total control? Some
participate to better spread their content. Cory Doctorow, for
@@ -14144,10 +14222,7 @@ evolve. The best way to ensure that the system evolves is to limit the
Copyright Office's role to that of approving standards for marking
content that have been crafted elsewhere.
-
- CDs
- copyright marking of
-
+CDscopyright marking of
For example, if a recording industry association devises a method for
marking CDs, it would propose that to the Copyright Office. The
@@ -14236,7 +14311,9 @@ into copyright when the term itself is kept short. A clear and active
idea/expression less necessary to navigate.
-
+
+veterans' pensions
+Keep it alive: Copyright should have to be
renewed. Especially if the maximum term is long, the copyright owner
@@ -14254,7 +14331,6 @@ available at
If we make veterans suffer that burden, I don't see why we couldn't
require authors to spend ten minutes every fifty years to file a
single form.
-veterans' pensions
@@ -14292,10 +14368,7 @@ a more generous copyright law than Richard Nixon presided over?
3. Free Use Vs. Fair Useland ownership, air traffic and
-
- property rights
- air traffic vs.
-
+property rightsair traffic vs.
As I observed at the beginning of this book, property law originally
granted property owners the right to control their property from the
@@ -14313,6 +14386,7 @@ work. Thus, if I write a book, and you base a movie on that book, I
have the power to deny you the right to release that movie, even
though that movie is not my writing.
+Kaplan, Benjamin
Congress granted the beginnings of this right in 1870, when it
expanded the exclusive right of copyright to include a right to
@@ -14324,7 +14398,6 @@ University Press, 1967), 32.
The courts have expanded it slowly through judicial interpretation
ever since. This expansion has been commented upon by one of the law's
greatest judges, Judge Benjamin Kaplan.
-Kaplan, Benjamin
@@ -14466,10 +14539,8 @@ content that is not copyrighted or to get access that the copyright
owner plainly endorses.
-
- cassette recording
- VCRs
-
+cassette recordingVCRs
+VCRs
Any reform of the law needs to keep these different uses in focus. It
must avoid burdening type D even if it aims to eliminate type A. The
@@ -14580,14 +14651,8 @@ unavailable because the work is forgotten. Either way, the aim of the
law should be to facilitate the access to this content, ideally in a
way that returns something to the artist.
-
- books
- out of print
-
-
- books
- resales of
-
+booksout of print
+booksresales of
Again, the model here is the used book store. Once a book goes out of
print, it may still be available in libraries and used book
@@ -14660,15 +14725,13 @@ the Internet, or the p2p technologies that are currently harming
content providers on the Internet, we should find a relatively simple
way to compensate those who are harmed.
+Promises to Keep (Fisher)
The idea would be a modification of a proposal that has been
floated by Harvard law professor William Fisher.
-
- artists
- recording industry payments to
-
+artistsrecording industry payments to
William Fisher, Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities (last
revised: 10 October 2000), available at
link #77; William
@@ -14717,7 +14780,6 @@ distributed. On the basis of those numbers, then (3) artists would be
compensated. The compensation would be paid for by (4) an appropriate
tax.
-Promises to Keep (Fisher)
Fisher's proposal is careful and comprehensive. It raises a million
questions, most of which he answers well in his upcoming book,
@@ -14733,10 +14795,8 @@ system, then it can be continued. If this form of protection is no
longer necessary, then the system could lapse into the old system of
controlling access.
-
- artists
- recording industry payments to
-
+
+artistsrecording industry payments to
Fisher would balk at the idea of allowing the system to lapse. His aim
is not just to ensure that artists are paid, but also to ensure that
@@ -14750,7 +14810,10 @@ uses. A system that simply charges for access would not greatly burden
semiotic democracy if there were few limitations on what one was
allowed to do with the content itself.
+Apple Corporation
+MusicStoreReal Networks
+CDsprices of
No doubt it would be difficult to calculate the proper measure of
harm to an industry. But the difficulty of making that calculation
@@ -14766,8 +14829,11 @@ Real Networks, offering music at just 79 cents a song. And no doubt
there will be a great deal of competition to offer and sell music
on-line.
-Asia, commercial piracy incable television
+televisioncable vs. broadcast
+Asia, commercial piracy in
+piracyin Asia
+film industryluxury theatres vs. video piracy in
This competition has already occurred against the background of free
music from p2p systems. As the sellers of cable television have known
@@ -14869,6 +14935,8 @@ client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view,
the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one
strong view queers the law.
+Nimmer, Melville
+Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) (1998)Supreme Court challenge of
The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a
radical by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am
@@ -14964,7 +15032,7 @@ permission produces. Again, this is the reality of Brezhnev's Russia.
The law should regulate in certain areas of culture—but it should
regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers
-
+
rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this
simple pragmatic question: Will it do good? When challenged about
the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, Why not?
@@ -14994,6 +15062,7 @@ the material.
+