My Position on Copyright is Nothing New

Lord Thomas Macaulay was a 19th Century Whig member of the British Parliament. He was also an accomplished historian and literary figure. While reading Eric Anderson's history of copyright during the 1800s and he points to this wonderful quote by Lord Macaulay:

"Copyright is a monopoly [and...] the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. [...] It is good that authors should be renumerated; and the least exceptionable way of renumerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good."

If you are so inclined, all of Macaulay's speeches on copyright are here.

Open Source Living

There are generally understood to be two types of free/open source software advocates:

1. Ideologues - Those who think software should be free (not in cost, but in the freedoms associated). These include the Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen.
2. Pragmatists - Those who think software can better be produced in social production rather than proprietary hierarchy. Linus Torvalds is in this camp.
   

Both will love Open Source Living which provides a beautiful catalogue of first-class open source (or free!) software. And if you need help with any of these programs, check out these free manuals.

EU Enforces Fashion Copyright

There have been some recent rumblings in America as the major designers try to extend copyright to clothing. According to TechDirt, over in the EU, they have started to enforce copyright on clothing in an Irish court ruling.

This will undoubtedly create a chilling effect in the clothing industry as designers avoid being in vogue in case they conform too closely to the trends which dominate the industry. It is no secret that the incumbents are pushing for more government monopoly - with strict copyright enforcement they will be able to rest on their current styles and avoid innovating.

Egypt to Extend Copyright to... 5000 Years!

Egypt is set to pass a law which would copyright the national antiquities including the sphinx and pyramids. International use of the iconic images would be controlled, though the Egyptians say that inexact reproductions by artists would be permitted.

Obviously this is unprecedented and unwarranted. Copyright has a rightful purpose, and that is to provide incentives for production. The Pharaohs and slaves who constructed those buildings, however, are not going to build more because living Egyptians will receive royalties. If Egypt needs a way to develop revenue for the upkeep of the monuments, perhaps they pursue another business model.

Book Review: The Future of Reputation

In less than 24 hours I have plowed through Daniel Solove's "The Future of Reputation." Solove is a leading expert on privacy law and his erudition is clear as he weaves a comprehensive tale of the Internet's effect on gossip, rumor, privacy and reputation.

Solove's writing is highly readable and anecdotal as he explains why age-old concepts like gossiping and shamming have become permanently etched into digital memory. After establishing the various types of activity which is coming to affect reputation in the 21st Century, Solove argues for a more nuanced understanding of privacy. He notes that public acts may be done without the expectation of permanence, yet in a world of camera-phones, people do not often have a choice. Further, although free speech and privacy may seem to be at odds, he shows that they may act to further the same goals (think anonymous political publications).

In all, I think Solove does a great job raising a warning in an accessible book which presumes no previous knowledge. Though I would have liked a discussion of how government surveillance fits into this, Solove chose to write about reputation and the public norms which underlay that. Perhaps that is just as important in the global village.

WTO Finally Realizes Copyright is at Odds with Free Trade

Something about international trade policy has always struck me as odd: organizations like the WTO and trade representatives from America have insisted that global copyright regimes mirror America's. However, the WTO seeks to lower trade barriers and it seems quite obvious that government created monopoly is not conducive to free trade.

Even more, I find it cultural destructive to force other nations to adopt American legal status quo which is neither in line with our Constitution or their interests. That is why some recent news has left me scratching my head.

First, South Korea has extended their copyright term from 50 years past the death of the creator to 70 years. This now matches America (something the Gower's Report in the UK recommend against). Yet, surprisingly, not even the publishers wanted this to occur - the government did. They are paying the publishers in S. Korea $173 million to appease them.

Today, news came that the WTO is finally acting against incumbent America. The dispute between Antigua and the United States over Internet gambling has been resolved by the WTO by rewarding Antigua $21 million. Instead of treating copyright as a natural right, the WTO is rewarding Antigua by allowing them to ignore American copyrights for the decided value. While it will be hard to determine the value of each flouted copyright, it is at least refreshing to see copyright treated as a privilege, not right.

Book Review: The Big Switch

Next month, Nick Carr’s new book, The Big Switch will be published in which he compares the centralization of electricity production to the current “cloud computing” phenomenon. Carr is one of my favorite voices in the technology field and he was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his book.

In a way which few do well, Carr uses history to understand the ramifications of important trends in today’s world. As more and more information technology is moved from one’s individual PC or firm to large server farms run by companies like Google, Amazon or Salesforce, Carr believes we will see profound changes in media, privacy, and more: even our biology may be affected.

This change to software as a service is, Carr explains, largely analogous to the big switch of one hundred years ago when electricity became a centralized commodity. During much of the Industrial Revolution large factories had to make the energy necessary for running the tools of production. To this end, factories were built near large rivers or other sources of energy.

However, the work of Thomas Edison and his protege Samuel Insull made electricity production an industry unto itself which would come to benefit from economies of scale. Commonwealth Edison and other energy companies made it possible for factories to be located anywhere and new inventions to proliferate in the homes of middle-class America. To Carr, this was a monumental occurrence which is on par with today’s shift toward Internet services.

The trend he analyzes is still developing rapidly with Amazon’s Web Services and Google’s products evolving weekly. Yet, Carr does a good job regarding the ramifications of this trend. He discusses privacy in a Web 2.0 world, media’s unbundling, threats to this progress and even provides a provocative look at where this may take us.

It is rare to come across a book which is as approachable, lucid and important as The Big Switch and I highly recommend ordering it.

This is Real Leadership

Chris Dodd is leading the fight against retroactively immunizing private companies from the lawsuits which allege they were complicit in the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. The video below shows true leadership.



Call your Senator and say something like the following if you want to stop this dangerous legislation.

"Hi my name is ___________________ and I'm a constituent of Senator ______. I'm calling about the upcoming vote on legislation concerning retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who assisted in warrantless wiretaps on Americans. If Senator ________ doesn't vote against the measure, I fear he risks cutting the judiciary branch out of this important task and surrenders his duty to the Constitution he was sworn to uphold."

$154,050

Representative Howard Berman is a Democrat from California's 26th District which covers much of Hollywood. He also sits on the House Judiciary Committee and chairs the intellectual property sub-committee. This week, he co-sponsored the "PRO IP Act of 2007" which would significantly increase the penalties for copyright infringement. It would also create a new bureaucratic position called the "White House Intellectual Property Representative" which would serve the interests of the entertainment lobby which, accordingly, applauded the bill.

Which brings me to that titular figure of $154,050. Mr. Berman, who I've previously covered, received that amount of money from the entertainment lobby in the fiscal year ending in 2006. This extraordinary amount from a such a single-minded group is nothing new for Mr. Berman who has received such financial support annually. And annually he has worked to expand copyright's restrictions.

Thank goodness we have Lessig on the case.

For Representative Berman's financial accounts, see here.

For more on the bill, see here.

Link of the Day

Showing how the DMCA anti-circumvention clauses are not in line with the physical world.

The Economist on Lessig

I owe an incredible debt to Lawrence Lessig whose books alerted me to this issue about which I am so passionate. Code, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture are wonderful works of scholarship which changed the way I think about technology, law and culture.

After litigating to stop copyright's expansion, founding Creative Commons and lecturing to thousands about the dangers of overbearing copyright for the past ten years, this summer Lessig made quite clear his intention to focus on the larger issue of political corruption.

I'm excited at the possibility of Lessig's intellect being applied to the economy of political influence which pervades American policy making. The Economist also found it noteworthy and has an article in this week's issue.

"A Mode of Production is a Way of Life"

Today in my Political and Social Thought lecture on Karl Marx, my professor stated that Marx believed "a mode of production is a way of life." For the purposes of the digital economy, this is a fascinating statement.

Though at first glance this would seem to be a technologically deterministic belief, Marx did not see a "mode of production" as just a technology, but rather the desired product, the process, the organization and the factors of production. So, while it might still be a form of determinism, it is much broader than the sentiments of, say, those who think the Internet is bound to make us more free.

More interestingly, though, are the ramifications for what Yochai Benkler calls "social production." In his book The Wealth of Networks he address how social production transforms society at large. Though I haven't made it through all of the tome, Marx's statement seems to be of a similar vein.

Marx saw the historical process of political economy as an evolution of subjugation: slave masters became feudal serfs who, in time, became the bourgeoisie which dominated the proletariat. The next iteration was supposedly free and equal individuals in a communal society.

Now, if a mode of production defines a society's way of life, the society of free and equal individuals requires a different form of production. Marx thought this anti-capitalist revolution could come about either peacefully or through violent insurrection. What would change is the means of production.

Now, my professor didn't claim to know the answer to this and nor do I, but I wonder: is the open source model of production as characterized by open source software and Wikipedia the revolution in production and therefore society that Marx foresaw?

In what I think of as open source production, and Benkler more aptly calls social production, all individuals can contribute. The means of production are increasingly free (as in speech) as opposed to what Marx saw in capitalism: ownership by the bourgeoisie of the factors of production.

If anyone can contribute to something of great value ($66 million for Firefox, anyone?), I think we may very well be at a more free and equal society. This again falls into the technological determinism of which I am wary, but I do think the design of systems can lend themselves to certain outcomes.

(More to come as I have time to delve into Marxism & Marshall McLuhan who, I think, fits into this puzzle.)