Copyright – Destroying Moral Family Values

27 January, 2007 at 7:19 pm | In Incompetence Exposed | 9 Comments

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Copyright laws… What are they for? Who needs them? And why are giant corporations suing teenage girls because of them?

This issue is something I’ve been meaning to talk about since the start of this blog, and just as with the Censorship articles I’m here to take cheap shots at everyone and everything related to Copyright laws.

I must admit, the issue is complex.

While some parts of the issue are easy to argue against, there are parts, even foundations of the concept of intellectual property, which do in fact have some validity. To argue against them, it would be necessary to challenge the popular viewpoint. It will require finding an accurate definition of what “information”, or
indeed “intellect” refers to, and whether it can in fact be “owned”. It will also be necessary to question the notion of “entertainment”, and the value and meaning of it to society.

It is a philosophical issue. But, alas, as is usually the case, the word “is” is replaced by “should be” as large corporations, and inevitable human greed overpower us.

But enough of the waffle.

For now let’s look at the following hypothetical situation:

There is a race of highly-evolved, somewhat civilised beings known as “humans” on an average sized planet we shall call “Earth”. Now imagine one such being, named Al Gore, inventing a limitless global communications network, which would allow for the infinite sharing of information, knowledge, entertainment, pornography, etc. on a globally accessible source. Let’s call this the “Internets”.

Basically the issue here is about the progress of humanity. If not for ridiculous regulations and laws protecting the “rights” and “property” of the creator: of music, software etc., everyone could have legal access to just about every intellectual piece ever created.
It is already on the internet. Legalising it will just open up the huge tank of these resources to the world’s population.

Imagine a poorly funded public school, not having to pay for a Windows OS, giving children the opportunity to learn with technology, but spending money on things like facilities and teachers.

But how can Microsoft make money if nobody buys their products?
The point is getting people to use your product. If you have an enormous user-base, almost a monopoly on a giant market, the profits will flow quickly.
I, for example, have never bought a product from Google…

And will this decrease incentives, innovation, ingenuity and creativity or slow down advances in technology?
People will not get paid for creating their product, perhaps, they will not even get credit for inventing

Despite this popular notion, open source software has had great advances in the last few years, with many people working on projects which have perhaps overtaken the closed source alternatives in some regards.

While, looking at rights protected material: pop music has not taken leaps and bounds in originality in the last ten years.

In fact, pop producers now make a profit simply by producing what they choose to produce. People will automatically fleet to buy the latest album if it was simply played on the radio. No creativity involved.
The artists get paid, the producers get paid and the work is disproportionate to that level of pay.
Of course some people choose to pirate the single, or the album. But this only serves to increase the popularity of the artist, spread the word about their music, and this in turn would lead to somebody buying the CD.

Of course the RIAA or the MPAA will run scare campaigns to turn people away from pirating. Make up figures in their billions, about how much money was lost due to Copyright infringement, only serving to continue raising prices on their products, because they feel victimised.

Was any money actually lost because of piracy?
How many people had actually bought the product after downloading it? How many would otherwise have no access to this material were it not for piracy?
And could the quality of the content or price hike have anything to do with lost profits and less people willing to pay for their products?

The current penalties for pirating music or movies off the internet in many countries are so absurd that it now eclipses penalties for actually going to a store and stealing a record. A slap on the wrist for the latter, compared to thousands upon thousands of dollars for the other.
Harsh when you consider the preposterous claim of theft in the procedure. No one loses anything tangible, and all that is “stolen” is a duplicated strand of ones and zeros.
Other preposterous laws now include not being able to perform protected songs in public and regulations about where and with whom you can watch videos.

And while this is over-regulation, without any possibility of enforcement, is in fact absurd, will the elimination of IP laws altogether solve the problem?

Will the world just devolve into everyone taking credit for each others work?
It is not as if they do not try now. Fake works of art can be found all the time, yet it does not impede upon the industry.

Artists survive by selling tangible products of their work, not by selling rights to view the works. And with musicians, profts can be made by performing live concerts, from ticket sales, and selling merchandise.

Yet the heart of this issue, I believe, rests in the little guy – the “Lucy” of the… uhh, intellectual property stand. It is not the multinational pharmaceutical companies, nor the large budget film studios, for which Intellectual Property Laws were made.

What about the beginning artist, or musician who does not want his work to be stolen, discredited or used for commercial purposes:

Yet, is protecting the rights of someone’s piece of work justified?

An artist, regardless of the field, is someone who does what he does because he loves doing it. It is true that some choose to make a living being an artist, and yes, entertainment does have some value to our society. And regradless of how significant that value is, compared to other industries, when all is said and done, the purpose of entertainment, as well as education is, in fact, just that. To entertain and to educate. Not to make money, fuel unoriginality, limit the distribution of content and not to protect and regulate that content.

One’s intellectual works cannot be “owned”. And progess will be hindered until that is recognised.

Technorati Tags: Copyright, Intellectual Property, entertainment, piracy, music, movies, software

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This is a very complex issue as you say. While the amounts of money being paid to big-name “artists” is totally disproportionate and at times outrageous copyright has become a driver of the economy? Why should single actors earn $20M+ for a movie? Why are movie tickets and new DVDs so expensive?

But we still need to protect the young and new artists so them and their work doesn’t get exploited by the conglomerates.

Very complicated.

Comment by paralleldivergence — 28 January, 2007 #
It is much simpler to change peoples views on copyright with the right chain of arguments.

First clarify that – in the information age – one can make no difference between the ‘information’ of an engine design, a pharmaceutical, chemical formula and a popsong – all of them are just a chain of ones and zeros.
Second clarify that patents protect the engine design and the new medizine for about 20 years.
That information whose research costs between 100 million to 1 billion dollar, information that leads to a medizine that saves the lives of millions is valued to be protected for 20 years.
Now compare that to information recorded somewhere for 10.000 to 100.000 dollar is valued so much higher that it needs protection for over 50 years, 100 years or even indefinite!

Of course some will argue the entertainment industry needs a longer time to get their money back and get some profit for their products.
Easily countered – first a movie or game usually, always pay & profit in the first three month – or next to never. Simple truth.
Basically a failed product should be a failed product – an automobile factory that tries to sell defunct cars should not get any profit, a movie company that tries to sell a shitty movie should not be given indefinite time to somehow still regain their investment.
That is called risk of buisiness – and in the entertainment industry through copyright they try to put that whole risk on the consumer.

Comment by murx — 28 January, 2007 #
Very interesting look at the issue.

Comment by eric — 29 January, 2007 #
well the laws are always going to go with who ever has more money to pay for the lawyer ‘little guy looses. personally i had to go to school with old green screen comps and the newer ones we had only had windows 95 and xp was out when i was in school. i am anti riaa and mpaa laws stealing a cd from a store earns you a fine of like 200$ where downloading a song may earn you a year in jail and a 20K fine. thats just wrong. the courts should be more worried about murders and more dangerous criminals stop siding with money. it puts a strain on a already over crowded jail and prison system and makes a a decent normal person a more dangerous when they get out.

Comment by gir — 29 January, 2007 #
If there is no such thing as intellectual property, then I believe progress would be stifled.
Although in the short term people will still buy CD’s, go to the cinema and will still raise about as much money for the producer and “owner” of the product as before, in the long term, a culture of piracy has the potential to evolve and consume the majority of society – rather than just a bunch of guys downloading pirated films. Once this culture of intellectual rape has taken hold (and it wouldnt take that long), production will be stifled as more and more companies fall bankrupt or decrease in size. This will cause less money to be invested into new technology – why bother investing precious capital for an idea/product that will be taken up by 50 other companies and sold for a pittance?
Now it would be nice to assume that the end result of destroying intellectual property would be an utopic society based around the freedom of knowledge etc etc, but i don’t think that can happen. Given the possibility of either chipping in and earning less money for ideas/products for the benefit of fellow man or simply hoarding your wealth and being a selfish opportunist, most people would take the path to personal profit. Take a look at what has happened to communism and the rise of free market driven economy.
To much copyright is crazy and people do get screwed over by it, but to abolish intellectual property would be just as bad. Find a balance I say.

Comment by porcelainmonkey — 29 January, 2007 #
I agree with Monkey, find a reasonable balance. One thing for sure, if there were no protections, studios would stop paying actors $20 mil for a movie in the first place. I don’t care if the movie wins every category at the Oscars, $20 mil is absurd. If the entertainment industry didn’t pay these outrageuos sums to the actors, they could greatly reduce the cost to consumers, thereby diminishing the profit for the ‘pirates’. If the illegal profit is lowered dramatically, it would not be so enticing to pirate.

Comment by madmouser — 29 January, 2007 #
It’s all about balance, as at least two people before me have commented.

As a journalist, photographer and film maker, I find it rather harsh that my works should not be protected at all. On the other hand, it is rather absurd that a song, movie, article or photograph should be protected by stricter rules than for example an engine design, and punishing digital piracy harder than actual physical theft is just plain wrong.

While I do not opt for complete anarchy and total abolition of copyrights, I think it is time that we look at the way we think about copyrights, patents and intellectual property. In my view, piracy is still wrong, but it might be instrumental in bringing about this change.

Comment by sungame — 29 January, 2007 #
Going back to the part about pop producers and “music” “artists”, there are the likes of gwen stefani and human nature who perform and sell whole albums of work that was entirely copied from past artists. This i can not make any sense at all in where these people and their record labels are making money off someone else’s work without using even any creative modifications. yet, a teenager/child below the age of 18 is criminally charged and fined purely for listening to songs for free – no financial gain involved in this.
Maybe the reason why these major record labels are losing money is because no-one wants to listen to their crappy “artists” and more people now days prefer to listen to much more real creative music produced by independent artists.
When i am a big fan of an artist and i enjoy his/her latest album – i will buy it. but i will never try to support an artist whose music i cannot stand. The record labels are forcing people to pay and support artists which they hate – that in my opinion is a violation of at least a few human rights involving freedom of choice.
Now, in the case of protecting intellectual property or music – the creator of that property should take their own responsibilities in protecting that property. For example, a producer displaying an unfinished piece of work and who doesn’t want unauthorised artists from using his/her beats should display a poorer quality version of that work or attach a recorded message to it like what is done by most producers for press releases. This is like leaving uncovered meat outside, where a cat may be able to steal it. You wouldn’t punish the cat for his/her crime, or would you?

Comment by Contradiction — 3 February, 2007 #
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