Congress Must Make Clear Copyright Laws 179
WSJdpatton writes "WSJ's Walt Mossberg takes a look at what's wrong with the DMCA and DRM given the recent lawsuit brought against Google's YouTube by media giant Viacom — 'Under fair use, as most nonlawyers have understood it, you could quote this sentence in another publication without permission, though you'd need the permission of the newspaper to reprint the entire column or a large part of it. A two-minute portion of a 30-minute TV show seems like the same thing to me. But why should I have to guess about that? What consumers need is real clarity on the whole issue of what is or isn't permissible use of the digital content they have legally obtained. And that can come only from Congress. Congress is the real villain here, for having failed to pass a modern copyright law that protects average consumers, not just big content companies.'"
But will they? (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I naive to believe that someday, some day, the US will have a congress that's for the people?
Re:But will they? (Score:3, Insightful)
Squeaky wheel gets greased (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Squeaky wheel gets greased (Score:4, Insightful)
What about "entire works" or entire "mini-works"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I guilty of infringement?
If so, you've just found an "out" for anyone who wants to copy anything - just surround it with enough original, informative commentary that using the entire original is necessary.
If not, then you've used copyright laws effectively stifled my freedom to comment on your work in any meaningful. So much for the 1st amendment.
Suppose using the entire 30 second commercial IS a violation. Then I can work around it by writing multiple commentaries, each using 10-15 seconds but collectively covering the entire commercial.
Now the question is, just how much commentary do I need to add to "fair use" copy Bill Gates's interview with Jon Stewart? I hope nobody minds listening to 5 hours of commentary
Already been done; where was he 10yrs ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Constitution is pretty clear about fair use; it's the bribed congress that has allowed intellectual property to become seemingly permanent for the benefit of IP aggregating organizations.
Does it matter that a self-aggregandizing WSJ columnist has now finally also asked for clarity that this is newsworthy? St Walt is going to get all of those lobbyists out of the pockets of Congress? I hardly think so.
Mark me up as flamebait, but he does clarity no great favor by asking for it, especially so late in the game. It's like asking Bush to remove troops from Iraq. The come-lately's have no guts.
Feel free to ignore this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What about "entire works" or entire "mini-works (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, perhaps your fundamental goal is the copying, and not the commentary. However, you still do have to produce the commentary, or you don't get to copy. So, in the end, it works out the same as if your fundamental goal were the commentary.
Re:What about "entire works" or entire "mini-works (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can you point be to an example? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
They sure as hell were gonna make sure that's clear as crystal.
Re:But will they? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your content, your rules?? Within limits (Score:5, Insightful)
I can parody it.
I can use it in satire.
I can use it, with limits, for educational purposes.
In some cases I can make backups.
If I've purchased it on a media and never broken the seal, I can usually resell it under the doctrine of first sale. In some cases, such as a book, this applies even after I've read the book.
I can wait for the copyright to expire and do pretty much whatever I want with it.
I've left a few things off the list, researching copyright law is left as an exercise to the reader.
You Forgot a couple (Score:3, Insightful)
5) Circumvent them by only buying music from independent labels who distribute without DRM or with a creative commons license and watch as the bastards flail helplessly trying to sue you for not breaking any copyrights.
6) Write and perform your own music.
Re:Come on, Walt (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there is one more, which I have been engaging in for the better part of ten years now, since I was thirteen:
Do not buy it, do not watch it, do not listen to it. I decided long ago that they could go shovel their shit to someone else. They effectively do not exist to me. I support independent, local, and DIY bands. I only go to local punk or indie shows, and will never pay more than thirty dollars for one. I support my local independent record shop, which (surprise) still sells vinyl 7" splits, and merchandise that is often actually created by the band themselves! What a thought, huh? The punk and indie scenes really have no need for major label exploitation money. They have gotten by just fine for longer than I have been alive, and will still be making real music long after I am dead and gone.
More people need to be following this path. It is one of the best ways to join the effort to kill off the prehistoric music industry, and as a bonus, you can listen to music that actually has meaning.
Anyway, I just thought I would correct your list a bit.
Re:My content, my rules (Score:2, Insightful)
Where to start?
Your model of "content", as something some people produce and other people consume, is nonsense. Art and science build on previous art and science, and feed on the store of public domain knowledge and "content". Lock all "content" away indefinitely, and the producers suffer.
It isn't based on Constitutional law, either. The Constitution permits Congress to set up temporary monopolies for the purpose of encouraging people to do things. A copyright law explicitly on the basis of "my content, my rules" would be unconstitutional.
Your argument is also far too sweeping. You make arguments that, if valid, would support the idea that there should be some sort of copyright law. I don't think you'll find many people disagreeing with that. (You'll find people violating the existing laws, which isn't the same thing. Somebody driving 70 miles per hour in a 55 zone is not necessarily against traffic laws in general.) Where you get the idea to malign "people upset about current copyright laws" in general, I don't know. Where you get the idea that changes would "take power away from the producers", I don't know; rolling back the copyright law to before the Sonny Bono extension, for example, would affect "content" where the producers are dead. The dead, themselves, have no power, and rolling back the copyright laws can't possibly take away what isn't there.
So, would you care to explain why the current copyright laws are ideal, and why, say, clarifying fair use provisions is offensive to you?
Re:My content, my rules (Score:3, Insightful)
In the USA, copyright is a social contract which is intended to promote content creation -- by providing a profit motive -- so that the rest of us can then beneficially consume it. In short, in the USA, copyright exists at the pleasure of the people. If at any time the costs associated with copyright outweigh the benefits derived from it, it is the people's right to abolish it altogether.
In the USA, anyway, copyright is a privilege, its poor choice of name notwithstanding.
Re:My content, my rules (Score:2, Insightful)
If you choose to share that idea with somebody else, then you are either explicitly or implicitly assigning rights to that person. Perhaps you have an explicit contract with that person specifying what they can do with your idea. If so, then that contract is binding. Copyright law can be thought of as the default license agreement for content if you do not have an explicit contract with the consumer. You can unilaterally choose to waive some of your rights, and this is what the GPL does. You can't unilaterally take away the rights of the person receiving the content.
So by all means, make your own rules for your content. Just make sure that other people have agreed to those rules before you give them the content. If you choose to give your content out freely to the world, then you are implicitly agreeing to license it under the terms of copyright law, and that includes fair use.
The rules for what constitutes a contract have been significantly weakened in this day of clickthrough licenses, but even there in theory there was an interaction with the user; they chose to accept the contract by clicking "OK". I'm not aware of any court case validating a contract that exists merely by passively viewing a document.
Re:My content, my rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, once your "content" is displayed/performed/exposed, you can't take it back. Therein lies the biggest motivation for the whole of copyright legislation. Without it, we as a society would end up being a bunch of information hoarders. There would be no open exchange of ideas. There would be no derivative works. Information would be exchanged under contract and NDA between interested parties. There would become a horrible social rift between the information-haves and the information-have-nots.
Copyright is a contract between you, the content producer, and "we the people." In exchange for a short-term monopoly, complete with "force of law" coverage, you agree to contribute said production to the "we the people" at the end of the term. During the short-term monopoly, it's up to you to make a buck (or not.) There's no guarantee of profits. You aren't entitled to anything other than fair treatment under the law.
Unfortunately, the **AA and their ilk are in material breach of this contract. Many works should have entered the public domain by now, but through lobbying and outright bribery, the content distribution cartels have stolen that content from the people. And yes, "stolen" is the correct word to use here, because I am deprived of access to the content. I've also paid taxes supporting the copyright enforcement during the term of the original agreement, so I'm out financially as well.
Finally, you're not obligated to participate in the copyright program. You're welcome to hoard information in your vault. You're also welcome to produce a work that is contributed directly into the public domain without restriction. You shouldn't expect compensation in either case. The current crop of content dstributors seem to think that they're entitled to something. They're not.
Re:A non-lawyer indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
To Congress, It Is About Money, Not Culture (Score:3, Insightful)
The replies have all been to the effect of "we hear your concerns, but media companies are a huge percentage of our (USA) GDP and we won't do anything to hurt that." Which obviously implies "media companies" give us a lot of money and their lobbyists have more ready access to our offices and restaurants and golf courses on Capital Hill than you.
So until it can be shown to our Congress-people that bad copyright laws (from the POV of the citizen) and legally unbreakable DRM costs more money than the alternative we're stuck with it.
Re:My content, my rules (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Because society as a whole benefits from the wide distribution of ideas,
2) Because your work relies, in its turn, on concepts and ideas created by others. Every creative act relies on other people's works and ideas to one degree or another.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (Article I, Section 8) The only reason you get a monopoly on your content "for limited Times," according to the U.S. Constitution, is to motivate you to create it in the first place.
Only in the modern U.S. Judicial system is 100+ years even conceivably what "limited Times" means.
How are copyright laws currently unfair to consumers?
Because not even their grandchildren will see works that are already 50 years old pass into the public domain, and become a part of our cultural inheritance, where the Constitution says they should already be.
The only people upset about current copyright laws are the people that want to take power away from the producers (without which there will be by definition no content) and give it to the leaches, who consume but do not produce.
Wrong. I'm upset about current copyright laws, for example, because it is impossible to obtain many out-of-print books I wish I could own at affordable cost, if at all. If the work was published after 1921, it's off-limits. Copyright owners neither reprint such books nor give permission for others to do so. So ... if I want to add such material to my library, how do I do so? If Congress would bother with the Constitution, those books would no longer be under copyright, and could be added to Project Gutenberg. Much the same applies to all kinds of other content, which is effectively locked in a vault where no one can get at it, to no one's benefit and to the detriment of anyone who doesn't live near a University-class library.
If you create one thing, then sit back and milk it for decades instead of continuing to innovate, write, and create, who's the leech?
The consumer already has all the power they need, the power of the purse.
Actually, the content producers have the power of the purse, because they have a monopoly on the content and can charge whatever they like. Yes, if BigGreedyRecordLabel Inc charges too much for the music recorded by Dead60'sRockStar, they won't sell much of it. However, the fact remains that BGRL Inc. is holding part of our culture hostage, because neither Congress nor the Courts can read and understand the plain, simple meaning of words in the U.S. Constitution.
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Re:My content, my rules (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about "entire works" or entire "mini-works (Score:3, Insightful)