Internet, tech-determinists and copyright.

Also I think it’s important to remove web 2.0 from this discussion. Or at least I want to. To me it seems like a catch-phrase which may die in a few years and is more of a marketing concept than a valid term which can be used in academic discourse. Of course now I need to find something to replace it.

Furthermore I think it’s good to separate that term from the issues at stake. As shown in my e-book post, these are issues which are having an effect. Those problems are more vexing when considering libraries are buying more e-books in place of physical objects in their collection. Sure it’s cool if it works and more students will get access to knowledge but in situations like this one, it’s a horrible idea.

One shouldn’t bunch up advocates like Lessig, Litman and others in the tech determinist bundle. If anything it’s more tech determinist to use technology to lock down your work and not trusting people. I’d argue the copy-left crowd are way more pro-culture and pro-people than beady eyed, knowledge hoarding bastards who try and time your reading habits to the second and then ask if you’d like to continue reading.

It’s ridiculous I can write on my blog but not my thesis. ARGH.

Why copyright must be fixed. E-Book troubles.

I can’t actually write. I’ve discovered this after starting my first chapter four times. I have nothing else to do today but write and I can’t actually do that and it’s kind of depressing. I have a concept and have fleshed out a chapter but when you can’t put ideas down on paper your past few years of education feel like an extravagant waste. I’ve read so much on this topic I’ve reached breaking point and need to put something down on paper but I can’t so I’m at this massive impasse. Adding to that I’ve just been on an awesome trip to brisbane so there’s no reason why I can’t just get started. Shit.

So to make myself feel kind of productive I checked the Library catalogue. My hold was cancelled. Shit. So I checked if the book was in. It was out. Shit. So I access the electronic book which has been so lovingly paid for by Swinburne Library for poor chumps like me who have their hold cancelled and their book taken out by someone else and attempt to print out a chapter.

Me: *Tries to print out a chapter*

E-book: SOOZZZZ!!! U CAN ONLY PRINTZ OUT 6 PAGES ROFLOLZORZ!!!111!

Me: Uhhh…but I haven’t accessed this book before.

E-Book: SOOOZZZZ SIX PAGES ONLY PRINT LOLLLL!!!!!111!

Me: Fuck. I haven’t accessed this book before and I just want to learn. I mean I’ve technically already paid for this book with my university fees and in any case all I want to do is read it on a couch like if I borrowed a book from a library. It’s not like I’m going to be making counterfeit copies of Adorno’s The Culture Industry.

So I call up the Library and the response? You should just read it online.

It’s not the freakin’ point. This is what it’s all about when people talk about architectures of control. I love authors and creators and I think they are all rad and should get lots of money and high fives and maybe a few backslaps. I don’t want to rip them off. I went to a movie two weeks ago. I paid full price. But shit, I’m a student who’s paid for a book I should be able to access it in any format I choose. And in any case I should be treated like a student and not like a potential pirate or thief.

The e-book is a ugly piece of technology which locks down the most free of all technologies - the book. I love books. I have a bookcase covering one wall in my room filled with books. Some are bought new, some bought second hand, some borrowed *cough* stolen from friends and some handed down. But the point is these were transactions we were free to make, because copyright law doesn’t treat these transactions as theft or a loss of income for the copyright owner but as first-sale rights which are due to any normal human person. On the e-book however you aren’t even allowed the privilege of transferring the format in which you view a work. And that’s transferring a format not blindy counterfieting.

And don’t talk to me about photocopy rights of only allowing 10% of a work copied. That rule is enforced in society without photocopies digitally scanning every book and shutting down after 10% has been copied or photocopy police standing next to every university photocopier. Why? Because a) that would hinder the flow of information b) it’s not reasonable. Instead we rely on human respect. In fact I’ve never copied more than a chapter of a book and that’s all i wanted to do. But the e-book wouldn’t let me.

Open Access

So I’ve been avoiding the copyright like some sort of medieval plague in the past week. My eyes just glazed over every time I read the phrases ‘fair use’, ‘commons’ or ‘incentive’ and instead of wallowing in my thesis-avoidance I managed to tear out a three thousand word essay on the ethics of open access. Bitchin’.

I originally got turned on to this phenomenon through danah boyd. Her essay/article/rant/post on open access is here. It sounded awesome and all anti-establishment and I was well and truly angry. However having done no actual study on the topic I couldn’t be pissed off. I had no real concept of who I was supposed to be angry at or why. An essay later though, and now I’m down with this movement. I am righteously angry. 

Free scholarly research for the world is the plan allowing for greater intellectual sharing between disciplines and universities, a greater wealth of information for the interested public and an ability for more informed research personally. It also will help libraries to no end considering that currently their budgets are being gutted by a few large and sufficiently hardass commercial publishers. I think this has got way more scope than a lot of copyright related issues.

Scholarly research is the backbone of society and is publicly funded - by the people. It’s also really interesting stuff which people either don’t know about or don’t have the resources to access because journals cost money to subscribe to. So you have people being unable to afford to pay more to access something they’ve already paid for in taxes. Add on to a situation where academics usually work for free to edit and peer review these papers, the only winners are commercial publishing houses whose quality of citation rates (important for any self - respecting academic) are no better than cheaper non-profit or university published journals, despite their prices being drastically higher.      

Here are some sites to check out for open access 

First Monday - Open Access Journal. I love this thing like it’s a brother. Except our fraternal bonding is limited by the face that it’s an online open access journal. 

Peter Suber’s Open Access Overview - The title sounds like it’s some sort of bad Public Television Show. “The Open Access Overview bought to you by Peter Suber!” But it’s actually all you need to know about open access. 

Directory of Open Access Journals: What it says.

 

Non-Rivalrous Goods

This article has a great take-down of the concept of non-rivalrous goods not requiring copyright protection in the comments section, an idea which I was struggling to get around. The entire site is actually very copy-right [LOLZ (I've just picked this up, I don't understand the US's need to split the world into left and right)] and a real kick in the balls to some of my arguments which is good.

The actual post is on an internet music tax though and despite the author’s exposé of the numerous copyright activists who’ve supported this idea, I still think it’s horrendous. I can’t imagine why an industry, who currently have a lot of capital but are struggling to maintain a decent business model should be subsidised by the government. I’m not arguing that the content industries should simply grin and bear the digital age but what is needed is an actual reform of copyright law and greater education. This idea to simply tax everybody just seems like the biggest quick fix ever.   

 

The Financial Incentive to Create

It’s time to get philosophical on garage networks so sit down, grow a beard, put on a black turtleneck and try and maintain some world weariness ferchrissakes.   

The blog’s title The Financial Incentive to Create is one of the central underpinnings of copyright (the concept that is, not my actual post title - that would be weird). This concept is best put forward by the U.S constitution.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

from wikipedia

Or in other words, allowing for significant financial gain for the creator of the work to encourage further creation.

This is a favoured area of study for particularly sadistic economists I imagine they become terrible dinner party conversation as a result.   

I’m being mean.

It’s a fine notion to try and find out the exact incentive needed for creators to continue to create effectively, especially when discussing things like copyright extensions and the like (Milton Friedman thought so when he weighed into the Eldred v Ashcroft case and he’s no-one’s bitch). But I feel it’s just weird. And this whole copyright thing is kind of weird. Because it’s left in the hands of people like Milton Friedman and Lawrence Lessig and Jack Valenti and Metallica (try as you might, after seeing Some Kind of Monster you can’t convince me they’re artists).

• What the protectionist wave of copyright (RIAA, Valenti etc.) likes to argue is that unless there’s a big fat paycheck at the end of road, people aren’t going to create.
• What economists do is make complex graphs of how people create and how long they need to be creating for under certain socio-economic conditions before they can’t create any longer or something like that.
• What Copyright activists put forward is a Helen Lovejoy ‘Won’t somebody think of the children!’ approach to creativity which sends people off into imagining an Orwellian future where the RIAA will tear into your house and drag you away for sampling Ben Lee’s latest album (I have no idea why you’d be doing this by the way. Maybe that does give them cause to drag you away). Making creativity therefore dead.         

I feel that’s what being lost in this web of laws, legislation, cases and graphs is that people just create. For no incentive, often with no idea that their little song or movie will make money and usually only for the benefit of a few friends. No-one expects a pay check, when one comes it’s nice and when a record executive knocks on your door, you generally freak the hell out and then wake up twenty years later in drug induced haze. At least that’s what movies have taught me.

Copyright is a system of laws to regulate how people distribute their ideas. But, normal people (as opposed to the entertainment industry) don’t give a shit. Most people when they write a song don’t immediately call up a lawyer, or demand a statutory license if someone wants to cover their song or even consider these issues when they create.

Creativity and its incentive is the issue here. I’m not denying that there’s an economy for creative works, far from it. But it’s wrong to naturally tag on an economic incentive to people making things and then argue that unless their argument gets through creativity will just stop dead in its tracks. I call bullshit.

 

EDIT: I didn’t get really philosophical but more ranty - I’ve read to much.        

the concept here

Hi.

I’m doing a thesis as part of my Communications honours year at Swinburne University and I’ve set up this blog to discuss my ideas online and things to do with media and the music industry more generally. I still haven’t worked out exactly what my topic is but I’ve already cornered off areas of interest.

celebrity culture | rockstars | hyperreality | death of the real

web 2.0 | mass reporting | flashpoint news

adorno | DIY ethos | andy warhol | baudrillard | networks | glocalisation

music industry | piracy | copyright | old media | politics

Even if only a few of these ideas make it to my thesis, I’ll be commenting on all of these throughout the year.