[free-sklyarov] Copyright Contradictions

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, jok707s at smsu.edu wrote:
> This planet has two huge industries that are essentially incompatible
> with each other.  The older one, built around traditional copyright
> assumptions, is based on restricting what people can do with
> information; the newer one, tied to many advancing technologies
> (primarily electronic), rests on selling people tools that give them
> more and more power over information.

You've got this backwards.

The "industry" of sharing information and providing people with tools to
use and manipulate that information is as old as civilization itself.

The newer idea is that information can be artificially restricted in order
to increase scarcity and commodify a thing which is not material.

The problem isn't that new technologies "destroy copyright".  The problem
is that, as with so many other ideas and ideals in our culture, the
purpose has been lost and the means have become an end unto themselves.  
The goal was confused with the means by which we might attain the goal.  
The means was a restriction of the rights of all people but authors to
meet the goal of reliable copies of works for posterity.  Instead, the
means has been re-rationalized as some kind of right in and of itself.  
This is very similar to the way the profit (the means by which
Enlightenment values, such as increasing the efficiency and productivity
of labor to provide more time for personal growth and education, might be
realized, according to Adam Smith) was re-rationalized by the Capitalists
as a goal in and of itself and democracy (another means by which
Enlightenment values, such as self-determination, might be realized,
according to folks like Thomas Jefferson) was re-rationalized by the
Majority to be an goal in and of itself.  The pattern repeats itself
throughout our civilization since the 1790s.

Copyright was extended again and again to include more and more types of
information and an industry grew around these state sanctioned monopolies.  
Being monopolistic, the industries were extremely lucrative and hence grew
in power and influence.

Authors were put by the wayside in favor of "copyright holders".  The
industry lobbied to extend the restriction of rights beyond scientific
works of authorship to the fine arts, thus crippling our culture, for it
is the nature of fine art to feed off itself and the culture in which it
develops.  The rich and accurate domain of public information that was to
be created by this means of copyright has been completely written out of
the system by the industry's interests (much in the same way that the
increase in leisure time was written out of the system by the interests of
the profitmakers).

Industry has an inherently democratizing aspect to it in that the demand
of people to have power and control over their lives creates a drive in
industry to meet that demand and provide tools that enhance that power and
control.  This is essentially why technology gets cheaper and easier to
provide for a larger number of people.  Power and control over information
is no different.  People have always had this and want more.  Hence, we,
as a civilization, develop technologies that enhance that power and
control and work to bring those technologies to the masses.

The fundamental conflict isn't between those who want to control
information and those who want to spread it freely.  That conflict is a
side-effect of the true struggle.  The true struggle is between those who
would control the means of production of information and those who want to
preserve their right to produce and share the products of their own
creativity, insight, and investigation.  The copyright industry recognizes
that every tool that can be used to share and copy its restricted
information can also be used to share AND PRODUCE unrestricted, public
information.  The use of public, unrestricted information decreases demand
for private, restricted information.

Using terms from the toolbox given to us by Marx, this is essentially a
struggle by the masses to wrest the means of production from the clutches
of the elite.

> In reality, of course, no system of technology or law enforcement or
> both is going to be able to preserve the kind of environment that
> Michael Eisner, Jack Valenti, &c would like to see; it would require
> the kind of bizarre global totalitarian state that Franz Kafka and
> George Orwell might dream up if they dropped LSD together and tried to
> collaborate on a novel.

The hegemony of the United States is very like a global totalitarian state
and the newly created Office of Homeland Security is very like something
Kafka and Orwell might dream up if they dropped LSD together and tried to
collaborate on realizing one of their nightmare imaginations.

> However, a lot of bought-and-paid-for legislators are going to keep
> working for a long time on laws that will supposedly make it happen.  
> The tragicomic mess will probably continue for quite a while before we
> see a total collapse of copyright.

This "total collapse of copyright" will not be an event that happens at
some point in time.  It is simply true that modern technology is making
the industry that grew up around copyright exploitation irrelevant.

Personally, I think the best solution to the copyright problem is the more
widespread use of digital signatures and checksums.  This means would also
increase the reliability of the historical record as applied to news and
information on the internet (consider that cnn.com will alter an article
several times in one day and provides no method for assuring that a
particular clipping ever appeared on their site).

> As so often happens, the biggest short-term beneficiaries will be the
> lawyers.

I think this is more an expression of a personal bias and grudge than any
kind of relevant observation.

J.
-- 
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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