Page 15 | Cultural Liberty

Throwing the Book Against Intellectual Monopoly · Monday July 14, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine have now engaged Cambridge University Press to publish their book Against Intellectual Monopoly, which is, hypocritically, subject to the artificial reproduction monopoly of copyright. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this indicts the authors for their selection of publisher, or the reputedly academic publisher for failing to educate themselves with the words they lay claim to and neutralise their monopoly – or both.

Check out what Casey Bowman has to say apropos the publication of this book:
freepirate.blogspot.com/boldrin-and-levine-have-published-book.

It’s very disappointing, but not too surprising to the cynics among us, to deduce that even the ‘Pirate party’ is being infested by hand wringing moderates/reformists, so in fear of being identified as a den of IP thieves that they are antipathetic toward abolition or those who propose it.

Contrast this with Bill Stepp’s comparison of those privileged by copyright to suspend the public’s liberty, with those once privileged to own slaves:

Any book published in the United States is automatically copyrighted under the copyright law. Copyright is a form of slavery, under which certain actions of non-copyright holders are proscribed (e.g. making copies of books).

Just as under chattel slavery, a baby born of a slave was automatically a slave under the law of slavery, so too a non-copyright holder is a slave to an author and copyright holder who begats a book, under the law of copyright, to the extent he can’t perform certain actions with his own property.

Anyone opposed to slavery should be against copyright. He who says copyright also says slavery in the same breath.

In accord with Bill, those who advocate appeasement and so dare nothing more radical than the aspiration of a kinder copyright and a less frivolous patent system, may be compared to those who’d bless the god given right for men to keep slaves, but who’d compassionately call for some regulation of working and living conditions. See A Balanced Approach to Copyright?

I was amused only recently to discover that abolishcopyright.com not only admits defeat in its first post (that abolition is impossible), but then compounds this surrender with a Stockholm syndrome endorsement of copyright albeit with a shorter term.

That a world without the privilege of copyright/patent is so difficult to countenance, let alone grok, has led me on past occasions to conclude that the only way of achieving its abolition is to portray this as reform, as a set of apparently more constraining intellectual property rights – possibly having to retain the misnomer of ‘copyright’ to name it (when the term will at least then truly represent a restoration of the ‘right to copy’ and cease being a misnomer).

Nevertheless, latter day pirates do need to be identified correctly, the good from the bad. The good pirates should be recognised as those in pursuit of natural rights, necessarily including liberty unconstrained by mercantile privilege, not as apologetic reformists who simply desire greater kindness from their privileged masters. The bad pirates, at the other extreme, are those nihilistic libertines who would privilege themselves above all others. See The Freedom of Pirates or the Liberty of Civilised Men.

Anyway, do give the book a read.

Publisher: cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521879286
Buy: amazon.co.uk/dp/0521879280
Download: dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

Comment

Stephan Kinsella said 6005 days ago :

But their book is free online; as is my own just-published book, “Against Intellectual Property” (Amazon link).

Comment #000216 at 2008-08-19 20:20 by Stephan Kinsella

Policing Intellectual Property · Wednesday July 09, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Good to see our high street merchants are keeping up with the times and working hard to protect their customers’ inclination to shop and their intellectual property against theft – especially the published and publicly accessible IP – clearly that most at risk.

We can’t have digital pirates wandering around town centres such as Worthing with their digital cameras just so they can capture and upload what are inevitably copyrighted works on flickr and other notorious file sharing sites.

Hat tip to Ian Betteridge.

If the government won’t protect the mercantile privileges and reproduction monopolies they’ve granted, well, the merchants will have to damn well protect them themselves until the state sees sense and provides the necessary police force.

Comment

Plagiarism is NOT Analogous to Infringement · Tuesday July 08, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

How many times do we have to make it clear that ‘copying’ as in reproduction of a published work without permission from its copyright holder is categorically distinct from ‘copying’ as in plagiarism?¹

Plagiarism is always reprehensible, whether copyright is infringed or not, as in the wilful misrepresentation of another’s work as one’s own, such as ‘copying’ a neighbour’s exam answers.

Otherwise, if no misrepresentation is intended, reproduction of an artwork is essentially quite natural, ethical and honourable.

Unfortunately, ever since good queen Anne saw fit to suspend the public’s natural right to produce copies or derivatives of published works in order to grant a commercially lucrative reproduction monopoly to printers (aka publishers), most people have accepted/tolerated the monopoly (not generally having had the means or inclination to infringe it) on the basis it provides a viable revenue mechanism, and have been inclined to deplore the actions of those few pirates who’ve attempted to profit from infringement.

So, infringement of a state granted reproduction monopoly (of questionable merit in this age of digital diffusion) is not analogous to the deceit or misrepresentation committed through plagiarism.

One might forgive a few for slipping up in confusing the two (given ‘copying’ tends to be involved in both cases), but not a technology critic who writes a regular column on these issues on the BBC’s website.

Therefore, through my copying of Bill Thompson’s words below please forgive my infringement of the BBC’s copyright, but note that I do not also commit plagiarism by presenting another’s words as my own, though I do embolden the critically inappropriate analogy:

From Making punishment fit the crime:

As author and blogger Cory Doctorow put it in The Guardian: “The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It’s only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people”.

Yet EMI, Warner, V2, Sony BMG and the other four hundred or so members of the BPI want to cut people off from that network for copyright infringement. Imagine if you had a child who was excluded from school for cheating in an exam, and you were told that they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to music, read books, talk to their friends or go into any shop during the exclusion.

Oh, and you and your entire family were subject to the same restrictions.

That’s what the music industry wants at the moment – if you dare to damage their economic viability then you have to be excluded from everything the internet has to offer.

I’d say a better analogy would be this:

“Imagine if you had a child who was excluded from school for making a Photoshop collage from scanned magazines without first having obtained clearance from the publisher for such use, and you were told that they weren’t allowed to watch TV, listen to music, read books, talk to their friends or go into any shop during the exclusion.”

________________

¹ See A Classroom Teacher on Copying vs Plagiarism and New York University Confuses Filesharing with Plagiarism.

Comment

Rob Myers said 6047 days ago :

Thompson is a gossip trafficker. Or possibly a fact stealer. It’s just a matter of semantics.

Comment #000199 at 2008-07-08 16:30 by Rob Myers

Bill Thompson said 6046 days ago :

I’d just like to clarify – I wasn’t trying to say that unlicensed copying is the same as cheating in an exam (there are many ways to cheat that don’t involve plagiarism, for one thing) but more to point out that the punishment being proposed for sharing unlicensed content is completely excessive given the nature of the alleged offense, and that we should not allow the record industry to have people hanged for stealing their sheep… I can see how you could have read it as implying a connection, but I assure you that it wasn’t intended. Then again, an author can’t control the readings of his/her work…

BTW Rob I don’t think you can steal facts – they aren’t copyrightable either…

Comment #000200 at 2008-07-09 09:55 by Bill Thompson

Crosbie Fitch said 6046 days ago :

Thanks for your clarification Bill (I hope you also append it to your original article). It would have been best if your article hadn’t needed a clarification of the disctinction. I suspected you would know the difference (at least once it was pointed out), but felt that you should still be criticised for negligently risking your non-specialist readers’ inference of copying from another’s work as being a form of copyright infringement – or a comparable misdemeanour.

Cheating in exams usually involves the examinee misrepresenting their work as entirely their own (rather than augmented by the work of neighbours or Elbonian ghost writers, or assisted by artificial aids such as crib notes, calculators, or web tablets). Plagiarism is one form of such misrepresentation – and a recognisably distinct infraction from copyright that I felt my audience may be more familiar with, than ‘misrepresentation’ per se. I don’t believe copyright infringement would be classed as cheating or would disqualify anyone’s exam, e.g. if an artist had submitted an infringing collage in an art exam without having first obtained clearance.

As for the rest of your article, yup, jolly good stuff – almost perfect, but for this critical albeit subtle flaw. ;-)

Comment #000201 at 2008-07-09 10:24 by Crosbie Fitch

Copyright Doublethink · Tuesday June 24, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

In all the ongoing copyright debates, what I continually find so astonishing is how easily people hold two contradictory ideas at the same time:

Copyright’s suspension of cultural liberty is a good thing because it fosters cultural adventure.
Cultural liberty is a good thing because it fosters cultural adventure.

People manage this incredible doublethink though context:

Publishers should have monopolies to make publishing original work economic enough that they can just about afford to reward the artists who produce it.

We are all artists and should all be free to share and build upon the published works forming our culture in order to be inspired to produce and enjoy new works.

Publishers, logically if dispassionately, say “No. You have no liberty to share or build upon our published works. Tell your agent to get in touch with us and we’ll talk about a license”.

And the public, mere human beings, are left scratching their heads wondering how to reconcile “I know stealing copies is wrong,” with “but why do I see no wrong in sharing or building upon other artists’ work without their permission?”.

To find the fundamental contradiction you have to go back three hundred years:

Suspension of cultural liberty was recognised as unethical by some, but because it was so politically and commercially expeditious, the unnatural privilege of copyright was enacted (with patents similarly retained).

Liberty, whether cultural or otherwise, was recognised as a human right, not to be suspended for political or commercial exploitation.

What’s therefore clear to me is that copyright (and patent), being in fundamental opposition to human nature and human rights, should be abolished.

What’s clear to others, who elevate state and corporation as superior to human beings, is that copyright legislation is in dire need of reinforcement and that citizens are in dire need of re-education.

What’s not at all clear is what will actually happen.

Even so, if you want some clarity in your own mind, I suggest you first ditch the doublethink. Then we can at least argue a little more clearly as to which of citizen, state or corporation should be ascendant.

Comment

Darren said 6061 days ago :

I strongly believe in the need for copyright, but that doesn’t mean that I elevate state and corporation as superior to human beings. In fact, I think copyright is essential for human beings. Namely, the artists, inventors, and other individuals who create the intellectual property through their own work.

Copyright is based on the idea that individuals must be able to own the products of their work. The rights of the individual are held to be superior to all, and the state’s role is to protect that right.

Comment #000195 at 2008-06-24 16:44 by Darren

Crosbie Fitch said 6061 days ago :

If you feel that copyright and patent are essential for human beings, then do you not think it strange that such privileges are invariably prosecuted by corporations? Stranger still in recent times, by corporations against human beings.

If copyright and patent were rights of the common man they’d not be transferred to corporations and would instead be prosecuted by the state on behalf of its criminally infringed citizens.

I agree with you that individuals naturally own the fruits of their labour, whether physical or mental, for as some have wisely observed, as early as 1783: “nothing is more strictly a man’s own than the fruit of his study” and “there isn’t property more peculiarly a man’s own than that which is produced by the labor of his mind.”

Consequently, a man keeps his property to himself or he sells it to another. If he sells it, its purchasers enjoy their property as equally as the one who had possessed it before them.

Equality is the factor you’re missing when you state that ‘the rights of the individual are held to be superior to all’. Au contraire, the rights of the individual are held to be equal to those of all other individuals – not superior. Moreover, each right cedes to a greater right, as for example the right to liberty cedes to the right to truth, truth to privacy, and privacy to life.

Of course the state’s role is to protect human rights.

Unfortunately, it has overreached itself in proposing that the granting of the mercantile privileges of copyright and patent can provide greater benefit to the public than the protection of the public’s human right to liberty (aka freedom of speech) and the unencumbered enjoyment of one’s property whether created or purchased.

It is strange that you feel copyright is essential for human beings. We lived without it for millennia until 300 years ago, and we’re going to live without it being effective for millennia from this day forth. Controlling the reproduction and diffusion of digital artworks in the digital domain is plainly inappropriate if not impossible, so all that copyright can achieve is persecution.

Is corporate persecution against the citizen essential for human beings?

Perhaps you believe that self-publishing authors should have the state persecute those who infringe their copyrights?

I think you’ll find very few self-publishing authors who would actually persecute their readers, or have the state do it on their behalf – contrary to the pretensions of misguided authors who vilify infringers at the instruction of their cult leader (aka their corporate publisher).

Comment #000196 at 2008-06-24 18:21 by Crosbie Fitch

Darren said 6061 days ago :

Don’t get me wrong, when I say that “the rights of the individual are held to be superior to all,” I didn’t mean the rights of one particular individual over another individual. I mean that all individuals have the same fundamental right, the right to his or her own life, and that right is held above any claim against it. The world’s largest corporation or the world’s biggest mob shouldn’t be allowed to make one individual do something against his or her own will. Otherwise, the concept of “individual rights” would not mean anything.

I don’t think it’s strange that corporations use the state to protect their copyrights and patents, because that’s what the governments are for. Corporations are, when you get down to it, nothing but a group of individuals, each with the same rights as anybody else. It’s not “corporations against humans beings,” it’s human beings versus human beings, and the purpose of government is to work those problems out — when those problems constitute a violation of somebody’s individual rights.

So instead of “persecute,” I think a more appropriate word is “prosecute.” If somebody steals something from another individual, the victim should go to the government for help — that’s what its for.

I don’t think you should use the history of mankind as proof that copyright isn’t necessary. If you look at our history, I think you’ll that the majority of the time it hasn’t been very pretty. It wasn’t until a relatively short time ago that our standard of living jumped to where it is today. I think that many of the advances that we’ve made have been due not just to the fact that many smart people had a lot of great ideas, but that they were free to exercise the reap the rewards from their work.

Comment #000197 at 2008-06-25 02:04 by Darren

Crosbie Fitch said 6060 days ago :

Corporations do not have human rights because they are not human. Corporations have however been allowed to hold commercial privileges. And those commercial privileges, such as copyright and patent, are unethical if superceding the rights of human beings (even if those privileges are granted to individuals).

I’m suggesting that it is a big clue that copyright is not a natural right when you consider that it is invariably prosecuted by corporations as opposed to individuals, and that if it was a natural right we’d probably find it mentioned as one of the Ten Commandments, e.g. “Do not make an image or any likeness of your possessions without their creator’s leave”. That it was contrived only a few centuries ago to represent the coincident interests of state and publishing corporations in controlling the press is another big clue that it is by no means a natural right of an individual.

So, just as it is wrong to steal someone’s property, it is also wrong to use a commercial privilege that constrains someone in their use of their property, e.g. prevents them performing it, or making copies or derivatives of it.

This is the strife we are seeing today. People don’t care about publishing or reproduction monopolies if they only affect those corporations that engage in them, but they do care that they can use their property without constraint, interference or litigation – and such use frequently infringes copyright.

I suggest that rather than unethical privileges, you should strongly believe in intellectual property rights, i.e. that artist, inventors, and other individuals who create or purchase intellectual works must be able to completely own those works as their own intellectual property, to use, copy, modify, publish, perform, or exchange, without interference from the state or those privileged by the state.

At least we agree that the state’s role is to protect everyone’s rights, intellectual or otherwise.

The thing is, that includes protecting those rights against privilege.

Comment #000198 at 2008-06-25 08:30 by Crosbie Fitch

C-61 - Smells like... Canadian Coffee · Sunday June 22, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

The Canadian version of the DMCA, arriving late to a wiser party, finds its reception muted.

Those Canadians receving it, who recognise something is rotten in the state of Denmark, figure the C-61 medicine is harsher than it needs to be.

Unfortunately, such canny citizens are still outnumbered 10 to 1 by those who’ve been properly educated with the “If it ain’t hurting it ain’t working” principle who are happy to be convinced that the more efficacious copyright’s enforcement measures are, the better it is for all lovers of creative works.

On the other hand, those who now recognise that copyright is actually a cultural constraint causing damage in proportion to its fortification, and to be abolished rather than fortified, realise such heliocentric heresy holds little appeal to any audience.

So the only Canadian voices we hear in anything resembling dissent of copyright and its reinforcement by C-61 are those asking for less harshness, and greater balance. In other words those demanding “What the heck are you doing in my home?”

Copyright has only just started affecting the public’s liberty, since the public has only recently had tools that so promiscuously infringe copyright (aka ‘share and build upon published culture’). Predictably, the public have little problem with commercial privileges as long as they don’t affect them as individuals, so they say “Look, keep your publishing monopolies if that’s your bag, but don’t start telling me what I can or can’t do with the cultural works I purchase”.

With C-61 there are a minority of more technologically adept Canadians who aren’t too happy about its implications for the domestic liberties they are familiar with, e.g. transferring CDs to iPods and DVDs to portable movie players.

C-61 says “Sure, you can copy that which you are permitted to copy, but not that which you are not.” Denigrating C-61’s harsh penalties (against those who do attempt to copy that which is not copyable) as applying only to a tiny criminal underclass, its proponents also fatuously argue that if enough citizens prefer copyable media then that’s what the market will provide.

So what hope is there for citizens seeking balance?

None.

Ultimately, you either have copyright law that prohibits copying of published works in order to create a commercial privilege for publishers, or you don’t have such a law, and anyone can copy published works to their heart’s content.

You can’t have it both ways, and the industry knows this. There is no balance available. It is not possible to legitimise domestic copying if copyright is to remain even remotely viable.

Just as with the US DMCA and the European EUCD, C-61 is about reinforcing copyright, not balancing, compromising, or reforming it.

And this is the way it will go. Copyright legislation will keep on being added to with ever more draconian enforcement measures.

Well, it’ll go like that until you get to the point at which the worm turns, i.e. the culturally repressed populace decides that enough is enough.

The moment you allow domestic copying is the moment copyright is essentially completely emasculated and impotent. It is already ineffective at preventing copying, but it still at least has enough teeth to prosecute unwitting families in CRIA’s educational campaigns (C-61 adds another row of sharper teeth).

So, at least understand why C-61 is the way it is, and that asking for the legalisation of domestic copying is like asking for copyright’s abolition. You can then understand why those seeking ‘balance’ will not get it, unless they unwittingly obtain copyright’s abolition in the process (which is pretty unlikely).

We will instead see the granting of facile pseudo-concessions, such as permission to make temporary, private copies of those things the copyright holder has not secured against such copying.

Things will get worse before they get better.

Far too few Canadians have yet caught the whiff of coffee in their cultural slumber.

Comment

It's Cool to be a Copyright Abolitionist · Wednesday June 11, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

A new website AbolishCopyright.com gives another sign that this imperative is beginning to have popular appeal.

Though it is amusing for the site’s proponent to then reveal that he doesn’t mean ‘abolish copyright’ literally:

“It is not practical to abolish copyright altogether in the U.S. since doing so would require a constitutional amendment. It is our intended purpose here to counter these foes of progress by refining the term “limited times” to a more reasonable value, for example 30 days.”

How in its first article can a site called ‘Abolish Copyright’ both give up hope of achieving its raison d’être and state that a 30 day copyright term is reasonable?

Either you’re a reformist or you’re an abolitionist.

Don’t wear the wrong mantle, even if it looks like it might get you more chicks. If you find it uncomfortable, it’s a clue that it doesn’t fit.

I would have posted a comment to the effect that no constitutional amendment is required (see Constitutional Sanction), but the site has informed me I’m not even authorised to view comments – let alone post them. Site configuration issues I guess.

Let’s see how it goes…

Comment

Chris Ovenden said 6074 days ago :

Hi Crosbie! I agree with you on this; half-hearted measures just aren’t going to cut it. Try logging into their site again; it worked for me. We abolitionists have to stick together :-)

Comment #000191 at 2008-06-11 12:49 by Chris Ovenden

Crosbie Fitch said 6074 days ago :

Glad to have you on board Chris, but I reckon we should spread out. ;-)

I fancy the ‘Restoration of Intellectual Property Rights’ angle myself.

Anyway, there’s nothing so persuasive as money to convince people they don’t need copyright.

Argument for its abolition is a way of helping people understand that copyright is an unethical, unnatural anachronism, and why, when confronted by the nature of information, it is now so clearly ineffective, even with misanthropically punitive enforcement measures.

Let’s try and put it a little more simply:

Copyright is dead.

Petitioning for its abolition is simply a plea that file-sharing families can sleep soundly without being terrorised by IP stormtroopers before sunrise.

Which reminds me, another word for copy is ‘parrot’.

_{Legislation Vendor:}

No no! Copyright's fine!
It just needs more 'education'.

_{Media Lobbyist:}

Copyright's not fine! Copyright's passed on!
This privilege is no more! It has ceased to be!
Copyright's expired and gone to meet Queen Anne!

Copyright's a stiff! Bereft of life, Copyright rests in peace!
If you hadn't enacted the EUCD and put violators to 
the birch Copyright'd be pushing up the daisies!

Its monopolistic processes are now 'istory!
Copyright's off the twig!

Copyright's kicked the bucket,
It's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the
curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!!

THIS IS AN EX-PRIVILEGE!!

_(pause)

_{Legislation Vendor:}

Well, I'd better replace it, them.

_{(he takes a quick peek in a dusty book)}

Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back
of the legislature, and uh, we're right out of privileges.

_{Media Lobbyist:}

I see. I see, I get the picture.

_{Legislation Vendor:}

I got a tax.

_(pause)

_{Media Lobbyist: (sweet as sugar)}

Pray, does it control IP?

_{Legislation Vendor:}

Nnnnot really.

_{Media Lobbyist:}

WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!??

Comment #000192 at 2008-06-11 14:40 by Crosbie Fitch

Publish Freely and Forever Hold Your Peace · Wednesday June 11, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

If you don’t want the public to have the benefit of your words such that they may add value, say, in the form of more convenient reading mediums, or by otherwise exchanging or building upon them, then don’t publish them.

There is no dishonesty in sharing the wisdom of great men.

“Let a sage hold your tongue and you both pass for fools.”

Comment

I’ve just noticed the following essay by Marieke van Schijndel & Joost Smiers.

IMAGINING A WORLD WITHOUT COPYRIGHT

It was introduced by Gerd Leonhard on the 18th of February, 2005.

It is extremely difficult to imagine a world without copyright, so any help in this respect is most useful.

This leads me to discover that Gerd Leonhard has a series of essays concerning the ‘end of control’.

Also see his downloadable book Music 2.0.

Comment

Controlling the Flow of Information · Thursday May 29, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Dan Lockton links to Juan Freire – From the Analogue Commons to the New Hybrid Public Spaces – we make money not art quoting an interesting excerpt:

“Many people are horrified by the fact that knowledge flows continuously. They wouldn’t have any qualms about electricity flowing around us freely but they find the idea of a never stopping flow of information highly disturbing.”

Well, what can I say?

A lot of the angst about losing control over the flow of information arises from the fact that such control (copyright), in enabling an exchange mechanism, is consequently regarded as critical for artists who it is thought have to sell their information (digital art) to their audience using this control.

But it was always an unnatural control. The crown’s interest in controlling the press was subsequently delegated to the press. Today, the press (or corporate publishers), no longer given the simple task of just controlling themselves (and the odd pirate), are now tasked with controlling the entire populace and understandably are saying “Sorry Gov. You can have the job back. They’re your people. You control the information superhighways you built for them. You prosecute them.”

We will see how successful the state is in regulating and exerting control over the Internet, ensuring that no citizen dares exchange information without permission from its rightful owner (without extreme risk of prosecution). This control also coincides with a misplaced belief by government that constraint over the public communications by terrorists and other organised criminals helps dissuade people from supporting their cause or joining their anti-social activity. I’d say it was better to engage in conversation and moderate it, than to stamp it out in preference for warfare.

However, despite the inability of the state and its press to control the public domain, an artist still has natural control – over their private domain. They can still engage with their audience and make bargains to exchange art for money. How? Via the very same uncontrolled communications infrastructure. One that enables them to communicate with their audience and make bargains with them: art for money, money for art.

Do not weep for the state nor their publishers who both believe they must still control the flow of information in the public domain.

All each artist and member of their audience needs is to control their own private domain and to have a free market in which exchanges can be made without interference, whether by the state (monopolies or license fees) or those they’ve unethically privileged (copyright and patent holders).

Unfortunately, there’s going to be a lot of grief as everyone makes the transition, while state and incumbents inevitably fail to prevent it.

Comment

Jason said 6086 days ago :

My position is that it is a matter of ethics (not law) that people should acknowledge through attribution the creator of a work. Surely, ideas are free and can only be free, but the fixed expression of an idea is the work of an individual or group.

Can we agree on that principle?

If so, then the only additional concern I have is that there be a real opportunity that creators/artists can earn a decent living from their creations, provided the quality of those creations are deemed good by those who enjoy them. In other words, a writer who writes well, and writes content that appeals to many, should be able to earn enough to pursue that writing full time. Perhaps its better to say: the market should be such that earning enough to write full time is a real possibility.

Do you agree with this second idea as well?

Again … not trying to pick away at you, just trying to clearly understand your position.

Thanks

Comment #000177 at 2008-05-30 15:52 by Jason

Crosbie Fitch said 6086 days ago :

Acknowledgement, credit, prominence of attribution, is a matter of respect.

Compulsory acknowledgement denies respect and also creates a burden in many situations (potentially preventing respectful and beneficial use of the art).

What I believe is ethical is a requirement that attribution be accurate and truthful (not necessarily exhaustive). This I believe comes from the natural right to truth, i.e. a right against misattribution, plagiarism, misrepresentation, fraud, deceit, etc.

This also covers misattribution by implication whether through omission or misleading context. So, if when incorporating another author’s work without identifying it as another’s, this lack of attribution or clarification implies the work as that of the incorporating author’s or the author of adjacent works, then this would be unethical.

I wholly agree with your second idea and this forms the basis of the projects that have been occupying me on and off over the last few years (and many others working on non-copyright based business models).

Comment #000179 at 2008-05-30 17:34 by Crosbie Fitch

Jason said 6086 days ago :

OK … I’m with you on almost everything you say here.

Still, I don’t see how compulsory acknowledgment is unethical. I think the current punishments and enforcement are unethical, but certainly if a person can ascertain the author(s) of a work, it should be an ethical imperative that attribution be given. No?

I’m glad we agree on the second point. I still have no clear idea how this would work without copyright, but I’m willing to be convinced. (I just reserve the right to be critical!) I think the burden is on those who would seek reform to clearly and convincingly demonstrate that other models will work as effectively, if not more so.

I’ll be following your writings here … best of luck!

Comment #000180 at 2008-05-30 17:56 by Jason

Crosbie Fitch said 6086 days ago :

The misattribution through omission that warrants prosecution is that which is significant enough for the public to detect, and where it can be demonstrated that omission constitutes misattribution (for if it doesn’t there’s no harm, at worse only a lack of respect), and where it was either deliberate with intent to deceive or notice of rectification is ignored without good reason.

In all other cases, where omitted attribution goes unnoticed, there’s no complaint arising. Any attribution would thus be a matter of respect by the incorporating artist anyway.

As to convincing people that equitable business models are viable without copyright, yes, this is an urgent matter and must soon be demonstrated – before something just as bad as copyright is instituted such as taxation.

Comment #000181 at 2008-05-30 18:37 by Crosbie Fitch

How is Copyright Fundamentally Unethical? · Wednesday May 28, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

It may well be unwise to point out how unethical the keeping of slaves is to a slave owner, and similarly unwise to insinuate to a copyright holder that in suspending the liberty of people to copy his published works he may be compared to a slave owner.

I am doing neither, but slavery remains the best comparator to copyright and patent in terms of understanding why such commercial privileges are unethical.

If you understand why slavery is unethical (despite being commercially advantageous to slave owners and potentially in the best interests of the slaves in providing for their welfare and maximising their contribution to the community), then you understand why people have a natural right to liberty, and the state especially is to be prevented from diluting that right, no matter that its commercial exploitation may be argued as ultimately benefiting those whose liberty has been suspended to this end.

Bear in mind that copyright and patents are hangovers from the age of slavery, and there wasn’t quite so much rigour or enthusiasm to ensure that legislation restricted itself to protecting the people’s natural rights. An apparently insignificant suspension of the public’s liberty, to create copyright, will have then had little impact upon the liberty of the public at large in their daily lives, and legislators evidently did not foresee the information age, nor how copying, software development, and self-publishing would become the increasingly popular activities they are today.

Don’t get me wrong though, intellectual property per se is quite natural and ethical, and authors’/owners’ natural intellectual property rights should certainly be protected by the state, i.e. protection against theft and plagiarism. It’s just the privileges that are unethical, i.e. protection of exclusive reproduction/performance of published works.

The ethical deficit of copyright has long been recognised. I’m contributing nothing new, but simply answering the question as to how copyright is fundamentally unethical.

The ethics of copyright haven’t changed, but the effectiveness of it has. So all that’s happening today is that we’re gradually realising how impossible it is to prevent the public copying published works. And some of us are therefore wondering if it’s ethical to prosecute copyright infringers, no matter how naive, unwitting, or ignorant they are. That then leads to questioning whether copyright itself is ethical – for if it is, then sanction for draconian enforcement may be forgiven, and then argued to be more lenient given remedial education.

If in your questioning you discover that copyright is unethical, you then question whether you can ever use it yourself. Some of us decide we cannot.

“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my art”

And if the state insists upon such a reward despite this principled rejection? Well, either one can declare a conscientious objection to the reward and an avowal to prevent its use, or better still, one can neutralise it, restoring the liberties so suspended, e.g. using a copyleft license such as the GPL or CC-SA, applying to all who rightfully possess one’s art or derivatives thereof.

Comment

Encouraging Learning, Promoting Progress

Throwing the Book Against Intellectual Monopoly · Monday July 14, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Stephan Kinsella said 6005 days ago :

Policing Intellectual Property · Wednesday July 09, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Plagiarism is NOT Analogous to Infringement · Tuesday July 08, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Rob Myers said 6047 days ago :

Bill Thompson said 6046 days ago :

Copyright Doublethink · Tuesday June 24, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

C-61 - Smells like... Canadian Coffee · Sunday June 22, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

It's Cool to be a Copyright Abolitionist · Wednesday June 11, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Publish Freely and Forever Hold Your Peace · Wednesday June 11, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Imagine a World Without Copyright · Tuesday June 03, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Controlling the Flow of Information · Thursday May 29, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

Jason said 6086 days ago :

Jason said 6086 days ago :

How is Copyright Fundamentally Unethical? · Wednesday May 28, 2008 by Crosbie Fitch

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