Re: What has copyright to do with democracy?

[Heiko Recktenwald-3]

On and to Miles, who is not Linus like Linus Pauling:

Miles Nordin schrieb:

> Your basis for the statement ``your argument that copyright is a
> monopoly is weak'' is ``you could say property is a monopoly
> exclusionary toward thieves.''

Dont attack me for simplifying things by calling P2P users "thieves". It
is beside the point. To call absolute rights like property and copyright
a monopoly is trivial. To think "nobody should have a monopoly" or
"monopolies are bad" is nonsense in this context. It is like "property
is theft", but it is not. Property is fine. Copyright is perfectly ok as
well, but it has limits, well known limits. There is time and there are
private copies and you can use other peoples works to create something
new. Sampling etc.

Your problem is special. First the situation in Sweden is VERY special.
Piratebay has had some sort of monopoly as a directory for P2P, most
Swedish people did use P2P and the closing of Piratebay has had a
massive impact on internet use in Sweden. Internet use had gone down one
third or so! Insofar your argument "democracy is in danger" sounds
better, but I would still call it "common anarchy".

People want culture, fine. They take what they can get. And they get it.
Dont say the death of piratebay is the end of that world.

They cannot get it via Piratebay anymore and P2P is not usable anymore
anyway because of national legislation that went far beyond the EU
Enforcement directive, as usual, not the first time. Central servers
like Piratebay make it extremly easy for copyright holders to sue users
today. There may be problems in certain cases, but P2P is mostly dead.

Second Piratebay is a commercial enterprise. You dont sell the files,
but you sell the P2P users to the industry. They have to watch ads, as
far as I know. That makes your arguments a little bit weaker anyway. Ok,
you have costs, but it is beyond what average users do. No argument, but
you would be covered by the EU Enforcement directive as well. What you
do is a "grave beach of copyright" according to the directive too.

I personaly never used P2P networks because I never liked the central
directory server. I dont give my personal data to such a structure.
Today - in the days of national "implementations" of the EU Enforcement
directive - it means to give your data directly to the industry.

There are other new central servers in another "underground"
environement, mp3 search engines etc, that search in blogs. Those
central servers are a problem in that other environement too. At least
for files that the industry has a special interest in. The great artists
in high quality, Miles Davis in 320, you have to search longer. To
search for mp3s with google does produce data as well, but to use data
from mp3 search engines is easier for the industry.

Most important for users and culture anyway: the "underground" catalogue
is much, much bigger than what the industry is interested in.  The
industry is interested only in a few files. There is a lot of music that
is out of fashion. There is a ring of blogs, for example, that feature
old catalogues of old record labels, like Flying Dutchman, Strata East
etc, that looks very much as if it would be even backed by the industry.
Much like the Greatfull Dead once supported trading of recordings of
concerts. Miles Davis did allow this as well.

Happy hunting,

H.


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[Novica Nakov]

> I personaly never used P2P networks because I never liked the central
> directory server. I dont give my personal data to such a structure.


It seems they started a new service regarding privacy:

The operators of The Pirate Bay launched a long-awaited VPN service
Monday, promising to make file sharers and other internet users more
anonymous online.

from: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/ipredator/


-- Novica


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[Miles Nordin]

>>>>> "hr" == Heiko Recktenwald <heikorecktenwald@...> writes:

    hr> On and to Miles, who is not Linus like Linus Pauling: Miles
    hr> Nordin schrieb:

lovely attitude.

    >> Your basis for the statement ``your argument that copyright is
    >> a monopoly is weak'' is ``you could say property is a monopoly
    >> exclusionary toward thieves.''

    hr> Dont attack me for simplifying things

oh fantastic!  Don't post what I wrote.  Just let Heiko take what I
said in however abbreviated a context he likes and use it as a
springboard for his own rant.  But still attribute it to me anyway so
it appears as though I'm participating in the discussion, just have
really weak and incomplete ideas.  makes me feel so welcome and
appreciated!

I'll think twice before submitting any reply to your list again, and
if I reply privately to someone in the future I'll make it clear my
quotes are not to be used publicly.

I didn't do that this time, so I'm not saying you've been
disreputable.  Instead I'm explaining what effect your conduct can
have on discussion.  It's one thing when someone else thinks I'm less
interesting than I do---I can handle that---but being converted into a
punching bag or a foil by posting only the responses to what I say, is
just not on.



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[Heiko Recktenwald-3]

Miles Nordin schrieb:

>     >> Your basis for the statement ``your argument that copyright is
>     >> a monopoly is weak'' is ``you could say property is a monopoly
>     >> exclusionary toward thieves.''
>
>     hr> Dont attack me for simplifying things
>
> oh fantastic!  Don't post what I wrote.  Just let Heiko take what I
> said in however abbreviated a context he likes and use it as a
> springboard for his own rant.

Cool down, please! I like your battle against copyright, but I dont like
your language (and I dont like P2P). Dont speak of democracy when you
are talking about anarchy. Words have a meaning, thats all. One day you
may need the original meaning or society may need it. Ask somebody about
democracy in some years and he will answer: "Ah, free mp3s".

How is: "Copyright is not accepted by many anymore today, they dont care
about the law and do what they want"?

Best, H.


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[Flick Harrison]

Hey Miles and Heiko,

I wouldn't worry that people are getting quotes out of context.  It's  
an ancient complaint, and reasonable, but those who follow list  
discussions learn that clip-quotes should be taken with a grain of  
salt; we know that any posting reflects the immediate poster's  
viewpoint better than the one being rebutted.

As for posting what someone wrote privately, that's bad manners  
Heiko.  And a violation of copyright.  >:-(

Might I suggest some good stuff about netiquette (Besides Emily  
Postnews, which is getting a bit dated)

It's two zines from Portland about email-list dynamics and how to make  
them work best for all.

One is called "E-Mail is Not Easier" and the other is called "E-Mail  
is meaner."

Sounds fluffy but it comes from the activist world which emphasizes  
less cantankerous debate and more on constructive organizing for change.

The text in the zines is from a doctoral thesis on email dynamics.

Only two bucks each!

http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/title/2591/

http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/2588/

* FLICK's WEBSITE & BLOG: http://www.flickharrison.com
* FACEBOOK http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=860700553
* MYSPACE: http://myspace.com/flickharrison


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[Novica Nakov]

>>What has copyright to do with democracy?
>>
>>Abstract: The debates on whether or not copyright and democracy are
>>compatible concepts are not new. It has been discussed since the
>>1700s and concerns a form of separation of powers. Copyright is a
>>monopoly, but at the same time, when copyright came, it was a strike
>>at another form of monopoly, the printers' rights, with their roots
>>in the guild system. Copyright could not occur until censorship was
>>abolished, and it can actually be seen as a complement to the
>>freedom of expression. Copyright was early associated with privacy
>>issues. However, if proportionality is not followed in the
>>maintenance of law, both integrity and freedom of expression could
>>be threatened.

I read your article and found the parts about the first introduction
of copyright very interesting.

It reminded me of another article I've read, but this one has a
completely opposite view on the Statute of Anne:

The Stationers based their strategy on a crucial realization, one that
has stayed with publishing conglomerates ever since: authors do not
have the means to distribute their own works. Writing a book requires
only pen, paper, and time. But distributing a book requires printing
presses, transportation networks, and an up-front investment in
materials and typesetting. Thus, the Stationers reasoned, people who
write would always need a publisher's cooperation to make their work
generally available. Their strategy used this fact to maximum
advantage. They went before Parliament and offered the then-novel
argument that authors had a natural and inherent right of ownership in
what they wrote, and that furthermore, such ownership could be
transferred to other parties by contract, like any other form of
property.

Their argument succeeded in persuading Parliament. The Stationers had
managed to avoid the odium of censorship, as the new copyrights would
originate with the author, but they knew that authors would have
little choice but to sign those rights back over to a publisher for
distribution. There was some judicial and political wrangling over the
details, but in the end both halves of the Stationers' argument
survived essentially intact, and became part of English statutory law.
The first recognizably modern copyright, the Statute of Anne, was
passed in 1710.

The whole article is available here:
http://questioncopyright.org/promise - but the site seems to be down
at the moment. I guess Google cache has a copy as well.

--
Novica


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[Karl-Erik Tallmo]

Well, Fogel writes several strange things in his article, for example:

"The first copyright law was a censorship law. It had nothing to do
with protecting the rights of authors, or encouraging them to produce
new works. Authors' rights were in no danger in sixteenth-century
England, and the recent arrival of the printing press (the world's
first copying machine) was if anything energizing to writers."

What he refers to is when the Stationers' Company in 1557 was granted
the monopoly of printing and in return let themselves be used as an
instrument for censorship. But this was not a copyright law and
definitely not the first, not even in the old sense, that is, a guild
member's license to print copies of a certain work. Such copyright
had existed since the rise of printing, although the word was not
used. The word copyright was probably not used until 1701, at least
not in writing or in print. And censorship had, of course, also
existed earlier. (Even in France there was a printers' "droit de
copie" long before the "droit d'auteur".) What happened in 1557 was
the "incorporation" of the Stationers' Company into the royal
prerogative.

Fogel's idea is that the statutory copyright of 1710 was a direct
continuation of the ideas that granted the monopoly of the
Stationers' Company. But this is not correct. Censorship ended in
1695 when the Licensing Act was abolished. The Act of 1710 granted
copyright to authors or their assignees. So it is definitely an
authors' right, although it is true that authors (as today) seldom
published their books themselves but were dependent upon
booksellers/printers. It would be wrong, however, to say that the act
was a distributors' law and not an authors' law. The famous "Battle
of the booksellers" that took place approx. 1740-1774 is a well known
series of court cases, but there were also authors who sued
booksellers and others, using their new right, for instance Burnet v.
Chetwood 1720, Gay v. Read 1729, Pope v. Curll 1741 (Pope also went
to court four more times), Webb v. Rose 1732 (the son of an author)
and Forrester v. Waller 1741.

It is true, however, that the Statute of Anne was not the result of a
widespread concern for the wellbeing of authors. After censorship was
abolished the Stationers wanted to save what they could of their old
privileges, so they strongly advocated the right for authors, hoping
that they would assign the rights to the  printers/sellers for ever,
as the old common law rules allowed. In Parliament there were several
members who wanted an antimonopoly law for the book trade, and they
also advocated the Lockean idea to encourage learning. And there were
also some authors who published pamphlets supporting this, Defoe
among others. He said that "'Twould be unaccountably severe, to make
a Man answerable for the Miscarriages of a thing which he shall not
reap the benefit of if well perform'd ..." The booksellers' hopes for
a perpetual copyright practically came to nought as we know. 14 years
at a time was all they got.

/Karl-Erik Tallmo

> >>What has copyright to do with democracy?
>>>
>>>Abstract: The debates on whether or not copyright and democracy are
>>>compatible concepts are not new. It has been discussed since the
>>>1700s and concerns a form of separation of powers. Copyright is a
>>>monopoly, but at the same time, when copyright came, it was a strike
>>>at another form of monopoly, the printers' rights, with their roots
>>>in the guild system. Copyright could not occur until censorship was
>>>abolished, and it can actually be seen as a complement to the
>>>freedom of expression. Copyright was early associated with privacy
>>>issues. However, if proportionality is not followed in the
>>>maintenance of law, both integrity and freedom of expression could
>>>be threatened.
>
>I read your article and found the parts about the first introduction
>of copyright very interesting.
>
>It reminded me of another article I've read, but this one has a
>completely opposite view on the Statute of Anne:

 <...>

--
__________________________________________________________________

  KARL-ERIK TALLMO, Swedish writer, artist and journalist.
  ARTICLES: http://www.nisus.se/archive/artiklar.html       
  BLOG: http://slowfox.wordpress.com
  IN ENGLISH: http://slowfox.wordpress.com/category/in-english/
__________________________________________________________________


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