[free-sklyarov] reasons for restriction of competition

[Chris Savage]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: DeBug [mailto:debug at centras.lt]
>Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 9:44 AM
>To: free-sklyarov at zork.net
>Subject: [free-sklyarov] reasons for restriction of competition
>
>
>>Funny, I've learned more things about copyright from this list
>>than any of my high school teachers. Isn't a rich nation like
>>the us supposed to be teaching these basic concepts?
>
>Curiously copyrights, licenses, certificates have one thing in common
>They restrict competition Can anybody give me reasons why competition
>should be restricted ?

The basic theory is this:

(1) Most of the work involved in creating something copyrightable is the
creativity/mental effort etc.  Once it is embodied in a copyrightable form
(on paper, on a diskette, whatever), making additional copies is really
cheap.  (This is not just true of writings, music & programs, BTW: consider
what Intel has to do to get the first new chip out the door, versus the
100,000,000th one.)

(2) If anybody could take a cheap copy of a work and, totally without
restriction or payment to the creator, make as many additional cheap copies
as the market will absorb, the people who actually did the creative work
will be screwed.  They will sell a few at some middling price, then others
will copy and distribute the work for cheap.  The return on the creative
effort will be miniscule or even (likely, some would say) negative.

(3) Therefore, unless we restrict copying, etc., there will be insufficient
incentive for creative people to actually create and distribute their stuff.
Hence the reference in the constitution to advancing "science and the useful
arts."  The restrictions on competition in copying/distribution are done
with the conscious purpose of rewarding inventors (patents) and creators
(copyright) with money, to keep them inventing/creating.

This means that the point of copyright is to strike a balance: give the
inventors/creators enough money to keep producing, but not so much that the
law of diminishing returns kicks in, and they max out on production and just
take more and more of our money.

Note that the basic theory outlined above is not, fundamentally, the theory
that copyright-centric companies have been promoting.  Their meme is that an
author/creator has some sort of natural right to control all uses and sales
of his/her "creation," i.e., the abstract "intellectual property" that has
been created.  Under this meme, the true, right and natural state of affairs
is that an author (or distributor) should be able to control fully (and, if
so inclined, separately meter and charge for) all uses to which a work is
put.  It may be that technical limitations in the past have made that
control squishy around the edges (this meme's "explanation" for fair use),
but the great thing about digital technology is that DRM will allow
authors/distributors to finally exert the control that they should have been
able to assert all along.

IMHO the conflict between "copyright as a deal between society and creators"
and "copyright as a legal means to enforce creators'/distributors'
'inherent' rights to control" is at the bottom of the DMCA/DRM/etc.
imbroglio in which we are currently engaged.

Chris S.


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