In a release today from the Institute for Public Accuracy (1/17/13) on the legacy of Aaron Swartz, I came across a link to a great essay by Richard Stallman that appears to have been written about a decade ago. Called “Misinterpreting Copyright: A Series of Errors,” it’s one of the best explanations I’ve seen for what’s wrong with the way we think about copyright.
How did this become the image of people who want to make copies? (Photo: practicalowl)
The main idea is that the when the U.S. Constitution authorized copyright laws, it did so on the basis that it is “not a natural right of authors, but an artificial concession made to them for the sake of progress.” Stallman spells out the implications of this:
The copyright system works by providing privileges and thus benefits to publishers and authors; but it does not do this for their sake. Rather, it does this to modify their behavior: to provide an incentive for authors to write more and publish more. In effect, the government spends the public’s natural rights, on the public’s behalf, as part of a deal to bring the public more published works. Legal scholars call this concept the “copyright bargain.”…
The copyright bargain places the public first: benefit for the reading public is an end in itself; benefits (if any) for publishers are just a means toward that end. Readers’ interests and publishers’ interests are thus qualitatively unequal in priority. The first step in misinterpreting the purpose of copyright is the elevation of the publishers to the same level of importance as the readers.
It is often said that U.S. copyright law is meant to “strike a balance” between the interests of publishers and readers. Those who cite this interpretation present it as a restatement of the basic position stated in the Constitution; in other words, it is supposed to be equivalent to the copyright bargain.
But the two interpretations are far from equivalent; they are different conceptually, and different in their implications. The balance concept assumes that the readers’ and publishers’ interests differ in importance only quantitatively, in how much weight we should give them, and in what actions they apply to.
Stallman stresses that the question of copyright ought to be: How much freedom does the public want to give up in the interest of increasing the production of creative work? Note that the goal is increasing such work, not maximizing its production; as Stallman points out:
The first freedoms we should trade away are those we miss the least, and whose sacrifice gives the largest encouragement to publication. As we trade additional freedoms that cut closer to home, we find that each trade is a bigger sacrifice than the last, while bringing a smaller increment in literary activity. Well before the increment becomes zero, we may well say it is not worth its incremental price; we would then settle on a bargain whose overall result is to increase the amount of publication, but not to the utmost possible extent.
Accepting the goal of maximizing publication rejects all these wiser, more advantageous bargains in advance–it dictates that the public must cede nearly all of its freedom to use published works, for just a little more publication.
This reversal of the purpose of copyright, from ensuring that readers have enough to read to providing publishers with every incentive to publish, is reflected in the rhetoric of “piracy”:
The “pirate” rhetoric is typically accepted because it so pervades the media that few people realize how radical it is. It is effective because if copying by the public is fundamentally illegitimate, we can never object to the publishers’ demand that we surrender our freedom to do so. In other words, when the public is challenged to show why publishers should not receive some additional power, the most important reason of all–“We want to copy”–is disqualified in advance.
Stallman suggests a scaling back of copyright to 10 years–a length more consistent with its constitutional purpose of getting the best deal for the public. He makes a persuasive case.
One need only look to “greed” to see the reasons for the abuse of copyright. We the public think it was for increasing the works of some, who would otherwise not want to participate.
But we forget, the goal of the media owners has nothing to do with publications, media or otherwise. “The Purpose of U.S. Steel, is not to make steel.”
That is the only purpose to make another dollar. Those whose love of money would have them sell their own grandparents to the glue factor, would rather destroy the world then forgo one more dollar what ever the cost to everyone else.
There will be no getting through to them, there is only taking away their ability to steal your freedoms so they can be “more richer”.
Wait a minute. So everything on the net shouldn’t be free?
The proposed ten year expiration might be justified as long as the ten years begins with the first exploitation of the creation rather than with date of the actual creation. Otherwise it could punish those creators who’s work takes time to find recognition and to reach its full commercial potential. But really, why is such a big step necessary? Presumably a more moderate step of say 20 years could provide the same benefits to society while preserving the rights of authors to earn a living.
Where is the evidence that the motivation of those who wrote the constitution was as Spellman states. That the motivation of legal copyright was for the purpose of producing more material for public consumption and not protecting authors’ rights?
“Cutting back” copyright to 10 years would be acceptable for who?
If the stipulations of Copyright as presently applied are followed; they are perfectly suited to their purpose. I am a published author and one who has been plagiarized as well—I speak with experience.
When those who lack the creative abilities are allowed to “palgiarize” or publish or otherwise use without “due process/proper credit etc”—the works of those who DO NOT LACK THOSE ABILITIES—the purposes of those protections are/is lost and defeated.
This is simply another form of the current situation where the “president” of the USA is exempt from international law—-and NOW both the former and the present US Presidents are blatant war/international criminals—-neither with any true redeeming values—-and both of them absolute negative examples.
Only those who lack the ability to perform a task are so willing to limit the protections for those who are—in this case it is obvious that those who lack the abilities would insist on making the “field level” (yea right, on their end of the field that is—–).
The current copyright laws serve the public quite well now, they do not serve the members of that public who do not have the abilities to compete on a level playing field and so they wish to make the changes that need to be made—–in order to make easier for them.
The electronic age has made the way for those who lack the abilities to circumvent those who do not and this is one more case.
But then, “If the USA were any other criminal nation the ‘Americans’ would invade the USA to keep the world safe; and they would be justified.”
How much longer the world is willing to tolerate the USA is seriously in doubt; and they never would need to “invade the USA” they would simply need to cut off their credit lines and the Americans would turn on themselves.
The argument contained in this article is yet one more example of the collpase that the USA has been exhibiting since at least WWII.
But then as a Native American, I was born a prisoner of war just over 60 years ago—the Americans were loosing ground even then—-their speed down hill is accelerating.
Good Luck America, you really need it
Well-stated summary of how we might otherwise think about copyright