'The architecture of the copyright law that is now being forced upon the Internet was crafted for a different age and different technology. A strategy for rewarding artists that regulates ‘copies’ makes as much sense in the digital age as a strategy for controlling greenhouse gases that regulates breathing. The modern law of copyright is a failure, not because copyright is a failure, but because in the current technological environment, the machine that we are using to protect the values of copyright is a failure.'
I agree with just about everything Lawrence Lessig says, especially on this topic.
'Downloaders are making a moral calculation and coming to the conclusion that the content industry immorally perpetuates an artificial scarcity to maximize their profits at the expense of users and artists. They understand that content is a non-rival good, that unlike an apple, they can consume it without diminishing anyone else’s ability to consume the same thing. They know that the content owner paid nothing to reproduce or distribute the content on the Internet. They also know that the artists who created the original content get a tiny fraction of the revenue. So they are making a moral judgement that the content owners are pricing their product to extract unjustifiable profits and they feel morally justified taking the content they find out there on the web.'
Brad Burnham’s astute take on digital media was originally intended as an entry into the SOPA debate but is now even more relevant in the wake of the Megaupload shutdown.
I’ve never been shy about extolling the widespread benefits [for everyone but a narrow group of rights holders] associated with the internet-era erosion of monetary value for recorded media. Not only does this process naturally encourage greater focus on live performance – something all musicians should actively seek – but it is also a boon for artists and audiences in general, who benefit from freer contact and conversation with art of our time.
The saddest part of this situation is how willfully the major media companies continue to resist the prevalent new financial and aesthetic calculus surrounding the value of recorded media, all out of a desperate – and doomed – attempt to perpetuate a previous century’s exploitative business model.
I fear Marco Arment may be right about SOPA and its ilk. I know he’s right about the big studios and the MPAA.
Odds are Prokofiev’s picaresque Peter and the Wolf was one of your memorable early experiences of live ensemble music. Shockingly, your kids may not enjoy that same opportunity after yesterday’s disastrous ruling in a case involving international orchestral music and other foreign works removed from the public domain:
In 1994 Congress changed U.S. copyright law to conform with an international copyright agreement. The new law reapplied copyright to millions of works that had long been free for anyone to use without permission.
Mr. Golan had argued that taking works back out of the public domain would hinder creativity by making artists more cautious about remixing or otherwise using works, fearing their status could change in the future in a way that required payment to copyright holders. More broadly, academics have expressed concern that upholding the 1994 law would make it much more difficult to write books or assemble course readings without having to deal with a host of legal hurdles – or just prohibitively expensive fees – to avoid violating copyrights.
The decision – in which intellectual property rights holders won big over orchestras, performing arts organizations, creatives and scholars – likely means that a generation’s worth of cultural treasures will become less accessible to the broader public.
And we pay taxes for this? First Congress through legislation and now the Supreme Court in this ruling: Keeping us safe, apparently, from the likes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
I hope so – it’s certainly about time.
[via claytoncubitt]
