Against intellectual property: chapter 3 of ebook

Walt says:

Extremists on the other side
As a strong advocate of balanced copyright (sometimes called “weak copyright”) in the face of extreme (“strong”) copyright, I should point out that balanced copyright is not the same as the counter-extreme in this chapter, “No copyright” (and no patent, and…)

The argument that people should not be able to benefit through licensing the results of their own creativity, and particularly the stuff about all creativity being social (and thus not really attributable to one person), is–in my humble opinion–nonsense. The proposed solution, to have the gummint provide salaries for creative artists (or at least those the gummint decides are sufficiently worthy) is worse.

Posting this only because one claim of extreme-copyright advocates is that anyone who opposes them doesn’t believe that creators should be able to benefit from their creations. That’s not true: I think you’ll find that most of the “A list” of balanced-copyright folk (Lawrence Lessig, etc.) would disagree with the cited chapter.

Walt says:

Re:Extremists on the other side
In general, U.S. copyright law doesn’t mean you can own an idea. It means you have a temporary monopoly over distribution of an expression, but not the facts or ideas contained within that expression.

I, for one, am not ready to say that authors should have no rights over distribution of their works, that musicians should play for sheer pleasure or only for revenues from live concerts, and so on.

This is the fun of believing in balanced copyright: You get to deal with opponents from both sides. At least Lessig makes money and reputation doing it.

Walt says:

Re:A team…
Rick Boucher (Virginia congressman) has been a friend of balanced copyright–or at least correcting some of the excesses of strong copyright–for some time. He introduced DMCRA.

Zoe Lofgren (California congresswoman, from Silicon Valley) introduced PDEA, the Public Domain Enhancement Act, the first “live” legislation in a while that could actually wind up moving materials into the public domain.

There are other cosponsors, and I think groups such as Public Knowledge (and ALA Washington office) are slowly having some effect, but those two come to mind first.