"Sousa was making the argument at the heart of copyright: that it promotes innovation, and that without any protection for works, many will never be created."
What I would love to see is a study to see if this core argument for the copyright industry /has any merit at all/. Music, and masterpieces, existed long, long before copyright became a social reality - the idea that we, as a culture, /must/ have copyright to defend our poor artists and creators is disingenuous at best.
In his defense, long ago there wasn't the technology to trivialize copying. So human performances were like mechanical/digital reproductions and mass distribution through copying was less of an issue.
But was copyright law developed out of /fear/ of theft, or out of actual, documented loss of creativity post-innovation? What quantitative basis does the copyright industry have to assert so much control over our artistic culture, in the name of protecting it?
(my bias appears to be peeking through at this point, I'll admit)
I think copyright law was developed with the intention of promoting innovation. And in theory, it should do this. But this assumes that everyone is motivated by monetary gain. So copy right law might have applied more when it was first developed because more people were creating things to sustain living back in the days when lower level needs like food was more of an issue. Nowadays we might have more people innovating for the sake of doing something great, so copyright law might be applying less and less everyday to our current society.
Copyright evolved shortly after the mass adoption of the printing press in the UK, in fact the control of copyright was handed to a monopolised printing company. This enabled the printing company to control the sale of their authors books and prevent other publishers stealing their work (not individuals, but companies).
Before that, the unapproved printing of someone's work fell under either theft or fraud (selling a forgery with full knowledge of its fakery) and without copyright it would default back to this. If anything copyright legislation is light going compared to dealing with the actual court system.
I don't know about you, but downloading a torrent is better punished by a $10,000 fine than a 3 year prison sentence (IIRC that's the minimum sentence for theft >$1000 in many countries where copyright infringement is highly present, and still is in many parts of Europe).
The simple fact is that under the law, copyright legislation (even though it's got particularly overbearing on individuals) is intended to prevent the unauthorised republication of works (not the redistribution) for money by companies. It's never been intended to stop an individual from getting a copy of a book without paying, in fact the front page (or one of them) usually describes the rules and exceptions to copyright, namely that people can freely trade, sell or give a book so long as it is in its original binding and is in a similar quality to how you received it(no missing pages). There's little sense in preventing someone from photocopying a book, as the person can just read it and hand it on. Any other use of copyright law is a misuse under the original laws intention and should be thrown out in court, sadly this isn't the case.
Copyright was originally good, and did originally increase innovation and largely I like to believe it still does. It's just as humans we rarely see the good for the bad, and for the RIAA and MPAA's current actions it's hard to see any good in copyright because they've perverted the intention of the law from companies to individuals.
And an economic argument against that is that if many of those works are never created, then that would make those that are created more valuable. Copyright thus limits the income potential of the _really_ good creators.
Not necessarily. Consider music, where artists have more potential to make money from live performances than they do from album sales, the musicians would still create music but the sale-able service continues to be access see the musician live. I guess "the kinds of things people produce" would change in that they no longer "produce CDs", but really the musicians never really produced CDs anyway -- CD production was a side effect of the delivery of the content. What it would end up weeding out is the no-talent hacks and middlemen who are only in the industry to exploit the fact that things can not be easily copied by flooding the market with access and physical goods containing sub-par quality content. Because there are fewer creators, the supply goes down, and thus value, of the product in general (not a specific instance of the product), goes up. People still produce music, but since there are no arbitrageurs, the market is more efficient.
In some sense, copyright leads to a less efficient market as actors arise to exploit and abuse the rules of copyright, which creates a derivative market. The derivative, which is often times simply arbitrage, has no more, and often less, right to exist than the thing it is based on. No one complains that easy copying is going to put CD manufacturers out of business (well, the MPAA tried, with their "Who Makes Movies?" campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Makes_Movies%3F ). A lot of of the talk about how copyright is valuable has to do with keeping the derivative market that copyright enables running, and ignores the true originators: the creators.
And then there's the tired position of why does the creation of art need to be tied to a market or associated with capitalism? Really, it's the existence of copyright that does the tying/associating, which explicitly outlines who has legal rights to economically exploit a work. One could argue that in a system where artificial limits like copyright don't exist, if any one person wants to make a living doing something but can not, then they shouldn't. Additionally, art that doesn't get made (for whatever reason) most likely shouldn't get made: if no one wants to have it made, not even the artist has a drive to create it, then it has zero value; however, this is a position that is just about as (un)testable as the opposite position that all art does have some value.
artists have made more money via licensing than anything else. even indie bands nowadays can make bank if they license a song to a commercial or movie or what have you. In that respect copyright is a winner. I firmly believe that if someone wants to use your art to support their product in some way then the artist should be compensated. whether or not the artist gets to say yes or no to the licensing of his or her work is a whole other debate.
That's true, but licensing in that sense has nothing to do with something being easy to copy, nor would keep artists who want to create from creating. Licensing for derivitive works should be legally seperate from the artifical restrictions placed on copying/access to an infinitely replicable resource. One has to do with getting credit for your work, the other doesn't; oddly, one of the reasons people share music or obtain it without paying for it is because it is authentic, there is no drive to get knockoff Beatles songs covered by someone else who claims to be the Beatles.
" CD production was a side effect of the delivery of the content."
The rise of recording technology means that more people can make more kinds of music without having to have a particular set of instrument skills. There are various types of music that are either impossible or just impractical to create live. There's music meant to be listened under non-stage, non-live circumstances (the various flavors of ambient, for example).
So, while records and CDs may have started off as a way to capture a sort-of live event, that's long gone. It may still be true for some, but for many it's an end in itself.
If people are dissuaded from producing CDs or other digital artifacts, they will also be dissuaded from creating art that is best rendered via CD, etc.
"And then there's the tired position of why does the creation of art need to be tied to a market or associated with capitalism? "
Markets are a fact of life. The question is, what sort of (economic) system best deals with that? No matter what you do, people will be trading, and that will include art.
Art is just another human activity, like screwing and hunting. It will find its way into commerce no matter what.
If people are dissuaded from producing CDs or other digital artifacts, they will also be dissuaded from creating art that is best rendered via CD, etc.
While on the surface this is sad, I'm not so sure this is much different than if CDs had never been invented. No one laments the lack of music generated with an instrument that doesn't exist.
Markets are a fact of life. The question is, what sort of (economic) system best deals with that? No matter what you do, people will be trading, and that will include art.
Just to be clear, this was my point (I was trying to head off claims that art shouldn't be subjected to capitalism because it's art). I definitely agree it's a good thing that it's part of the human condition, and that's the basis for my point that art will be created anyway, even without the protections of copyright.
Additionally, I think it can also be said that a market of some kind will spring up around anything people value and can possess. "Success" will bring competition and/or copy-cats which will help alleviate shortage of supply, etc.
Music and masterpieces did exist long before copyright came into existence, however it also existed long before technology to reproduce them existed. Arguing that it didn't exist in the past and it worked fine isn't applicable to current events.
Since 1557 the Stationers' Company enforced the copyright of all published works in the UK until 1709, which then transferred copyright from the manufacturer to the author. Essentially put, all of modern English literature has been covered by copyright in one form or another.
Literature before copyright was fortunate to be read by more than a thousand people. Most of our literary heritage is dependent solely on the work of Monasteries that preserved the works through reproduction for hundreds of years and passed on tomes that would never have survived. The mere fact is, is that copyright followed shortly after the printing press' mass adoption to protect writers from the illegal reproduction of their works on a mass scale.
It's ignorant to argue the world would be better without copyright when copyright has existed throughout the whole of modern western civilization. We wouldn't have many of our greatest works, with original copies still available if it wasn't for the mass production and publication enabled by copyright. Mary Shelley had more copies made of Frankenstein in its first print run (~10,000) than entire authors just a few hundred years before her would manage in their entire careers as an author.
So please, please point to an era of civilization where copyright didn't exist and where mass production of literature, music or art was available and the industry thrived. Because in 1400's a single book was worth equivalent to a farm or vineyard. Universities rarely had more than a few hundred books.
The destruction of the Library of Alexandria would be equivalent to the destruction of a federal reserve. I still fail to see how the argument against copyright always descends into an absurdest world without its existence, where book prices will literally end up costing houses because authors will be forced to make all their profit off of the sale of a single book for a years work. Quite literally it'll be ~$30,000 per book, or copyright will be required in some form to ensure the author is paid his dues.
Culture has never been free, it's just that in recent times it has become free to steal and people have absurdly come to believe that that's how our ancestors lived.
I don't think we should ever stifle technological innovation in order to satisfy the interests of some industry. Just as we accept the fact that if someone leaves money out in the open, it may be stolen, the copyright industry should accept the fact that certain technological advancements will force them to do things differently.
As a content creator, I feel copyright as we know it is flawed, and hinders the virility of content to gain exposure. The world is filled with wholesomely good people,and artist will always be compensated one way or another. Artists convey feelings and emotions that offer each individual a unique interpretation. The movies I love, you may hate. Some people would pay thousands for a specific painting, that may be worthless to me. The variable pricing model that Nine Inch Nails made popular seems more in tune with the 21st century.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 52.1 ms ] threadWhat I would love to see is a study to see if this core argument for the copyright industry /has any merit at all/. Music, and masterpieces, existed long, long before copyright became a social reality - the idea that we, as a culture, /must/ have copyright to defend our poor artists and creators is disingenuous at best.
(my bias appears to be peeking through at this point, I'll admit)
Before that, the unapproved printing of someone's work fell under either theft or fraud (selling a forgery with full knowledge of its fakery) and without copyright it would default back to this. If anything copyright legislation is light going compared to dealing with the actual court system.
I don't know about you, but downloading a torrent is better punished by a $10,000 fine than a 3 year prison sentence (IIRC that's the minimum sentence for theft >$1000 in many countries where copyright infringement is highly present, and still is in many parts of Europe).
The simple fact is that under the law, copyright legislation (even though it's got particularly overbearing on individuals) is intended to prevent the unauthorised republication of works (not the redistribution) for money by companies. It's never been intended to stop an individual from getting a copy of a book without paying, in fact the front page (or one of them) usually describes the rules and exceptions to copyright, namely that people can freely trade, sell or give a book so long as it is in its original binding and is in a similar quality to how you received it(no missing pages). There's little sense in preventing someone from photocopying a book, as the person can just read it and hand it on. Any other use of copyright law is a misuse under the original laws intention and should be thrown out in court, sadly this isn't the case.
Copyright was originally good, and did originally increase innovation and largely I like to believe it still does. It's just as humans we rarely see the good for the bad, and for the RIAA and MPAA's current actions it's hard to see any good in copyright because they've perverted the intention of the law from companies to individuals.
Only if they are hard to copy.
Lack of copyright would alter the kinds of things people produce.
In some sense, copyright leads to a less efficient market as actors arise to exploit and abuse the rules of copyright, which creates a derivative market. The derivative, which is often times simply arbitrage, has no more, and often less, right to exist than the thing it is based on. No one complains that easy copying is going to put CD manufacturers out of business (well, the MPAA tried, with their "Who Makes Movies?" campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Makes_Movies%3F ). A lot of of the talk about how copyright is valuable has to do with keeping the derivative market that copyright enables running, and ignores the true originators: the creators.
And then there's the tired position of why does the creation of art need to be tied to a market or associated with capitalism? Really, it's the existence of copyright that does the tying/associating, which explicitly outlines who has legal rights to economically exploit a work. One could argue that in a system where artificial limits like copyright don't exist, if any one person wants to make a living doing something but can not, then they shouldn't. Additionally, art that doesn't get made (for whatever reason) most likely shouldn't get made: if no one wants to have it made, not even the artist has a drive to create it, then it has zero value; however, this is a position that is just about as (un)testable as the opposite position that all art does have some value.
The rise of recording technology means that more people can make more kinds of music without having to have a particular set of instrument skills. There are various types of music that are either impossible or just impractical to create live. There's music meant to be listened under non-stage, non-live circumstances (the various flavors of ambient, for example).
So, while records and CDs may have started off as a way to capture a sort-of live event, that's long gone. It may still be true for some, but for many it's an end in itself.
If people are dissuaded from producing CDs or other digital artifacts, they will also be dissuaded from creating art that is best rendered via CD, etc.
"And then there's the tired position of why does the creation of art need to be tied to a market or associated with capitalism? "
Markets are a fact of life. The question is, what sort of (economic) system best deals with that? No matter what you do, people will be trading, and that will include art.
Art is just another human activity, like screwing and hunting. It will find its way into commerce no matter what.
That's a good thing.
While on the surface this is sad, I'm not so sure this is much different than if CDs had never been invented. No one laments the lack of music generated with an instrument that doesn't exist.
Markets are a fact of life. The question is, what sort of (economic) system best deals with that? No matter what you do, people will be trading, and that will include art.
Just to be clear, this was my point (I was trying to head off claims that art shouldn't be subjected to capitalism because it's art). I definitely agree it's a good thing that it's part of the human condition, and that's the basis for my point that art will be created anyway, even without the protections of copyright.
Since 1557 the Stationers' Company enforced the copyright of all published works in the UK until 1709, which then transferred copyright from the manufacturer to the author. Essentially put, all of modern English literature has been covered by copyright in one form or another.
Literature before copyright was fortunate to be read by more than a thousand people. Most of our literary heritage is dependent solely on the work of Monasteries that preserved the works through reproduction for hundreds of years and passed on tomes that would never have survived. The mere fact is, is that copyright followed shortly after the printing press' mass adoption to protect writers from the illegal reproduction of their works on a mass scale.
It's ignorant to argue the world would be better without copyright when copyright has existed throughout the whole of modern western civilization. We wouldn't have many of our greatest works, with original copies still available if it wasn't for the mass production and publication enabled by copyright. Mary Shelley had more copies made of Frankenstein in its first print run (~10,000) than entire authors just a few hundred years before her would manage in their entire careers as an author.
So please, please point to an era of civilization where copyright didn't exist and where mass production of literature, music or art was available and the industry thrived. Because in 1400's a single book was worth equivalent to a farm or vineyard. Universities rarely had more than a few hundred books.
The destruction of the Library of Alexandria would be equivalent to the destruction of a federal reserve. I still fail to see how the argument against copyright always descends into an absurdest world without its existence, where book prices will literally end up costing houses because authors will be forced to make all their profit off of the sale of a single book for a years work. Quite literally it'll be ~$30,000 per book, or copyright will be required in some form to ensure the author is paid his dues.
Culture has never been free, it's just that in recent times it has become free to steal and people have absurdly come to believe that that's how our ancestors lived.