Copyright, Corporations and Culture
Why is it that copyright now lasts for life plus 70 years? The initial reasons to have copyright were twofold: allow the author to make a reasonable living, and to incite others to create works because that enriches our society and culture. At some point works then enter the public domain and we’re all allowed to build on them, just like Disney did by using public domain music instead of paying musicians in their early animations. That’s a reasonably fair world to live in. Only, nowdays, Disney doesn’t exactly agree.
In a recent podcast on Who Owns Ideas it was suggested that a 30 year old who writes a song now and who then lives an expected lifespan will result in that song entering the public domain in about 150 years! That’s a little ridiculous if you ever want to have a culture other than greedy corporate culture. Other than a Disney owns Mickey Mouse forever culture. Remember, content authors aren’t pushing this barrow, it’s corporations and the media industry looking to keep as much income rolling in for as long as possible. Of course when billions of dollars are at stake they’re going to walk into court and lobby Senators to keep that income ad infinitum.
We’re humans and a part of our nature is to share things. Mashups are a part of our historic existence. And yet we’re currently going through an ever-increasing copyright grab bonanza where everything needs to be owned for ever increasing lengths of time. Yes songs, and books and genome sequences and what-the-fuck business methodologies. If it’s not against the spirit of the original concept of copyright, it’s definately against the spirit of a healthy society.
Now, we’re being confronted with the Orphan Works Act which means in the United States (and eventually anywhere that emulates them like Australia) you’ll have to explicitly pay money to register copyright on absolutely anything you sketch, draw, conceptualise in your notebook to prove you have a vested commercial interest in it. Otherwise anyone, Disney included, can rip your stuff and claim it as theirs. My theory is this plug-hole is where they’re trying to address the depleting public domain. While Disney aren’t willing to let you public domain Mickey Mouse, they’re more than willing to public domain your work simply because you’re not in their financial position to pay registration fees on everything you author and create.
The most frustrating part of this conversation is that court cases are won by big money. Most authors and creators are not big money. So copyright was hijacked some time in the last few decades by big money. Big entertainment money like Disney and record labels and Microsoft.
I agree with Harlan Ellison that we need to be paid for our work and I’m definately against spec work in all it’s forms. But that ownership needs to have it’s limits, somewhere short of life plus 70 years in my humble opinion. At some point, say 30 years after something is written, there needs to be a return to the public domain where we can share and remix and mashup as a normal societal act. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in free as in beer. Information should not be free, it should however be fairly balanced between the person who creates a work and the society which should eventually benefit from it.
And nobody should own genome sequences, business processes, the double click or any of a zillion stupid greedy asshole money grubbing science inhibiting ideas. When you read about PhD researchers getting cease and desist orders to stop their cancer research because someone owns the genome sequence they’re working on – that is anti-societal, and I’d suggest the court should have society’s benefit in mind when making such rulings.
But most of all we have to figure out how to activate this issue on a general societal level. How do we make people care enough to hit Disney in the bottom line by not attending a movie, for example? We aren’t stealing off Disney – it’s Disney who is stealing off us. By Disney I mean every representative entertainment organisation pushing incessently for longer ownership and greater rights. [end of rant, and this is just my opinion about the Sonny Bono Act, the Orphan Works Act, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and anything I've overlooked in the interim]
Interesting read is Dr James Boyle’s latest book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind.
Update: 17 January, 2008
You might also find this short video from Europe on How Copyright Term Extension Really Works worth watching. Especially when you follow the money trail.
