Précis #5

The Tyranny of Copyright?

The articles begins by telling the story of a few Sawrthmore College students, who obtained roughly 15,000 e-mails/memos from Diebold Election Systems. DES is the largest maker of electronic voting machines in the USA. The messages talked about flaws in the software and warnings that the network could be easily hacked into. The students decided this information shouldn't be kept from the public, especially after the questionable 2000 election, so they decided to post the newly obtained information on their websites. Little did they know they were violating the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act which are laws that protect copyrighted material on the Web. So it is no surprise that shortly after the students posted the information, Diebold sent letters to Sawrthmore accusing their students of copyright infringement, and demanded the information be taken off their sites, which were of course, hosted by the server of the college. Naturally Swarthmore complied, but it is because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that the student's speech could be silenced with out the benefit of lawsuits, hearings, judges, etc. The students stayed persistent and eventually Diebold agreed not to sue, and the students were able to put the information back on their sites. Stories like this are why people like Siva Vaidhyanathan call a "copyright horror story."

The most publicized of these horror stories came from the Recording Industry Association of America when they began suing people for downloading music off the Internet and violating copyright laws. The worst part? Some of the settlements, for thousands of dollars, came from defendants as young as 12!

It was not that long ago that "information wanted to be free." Yet some say due to implications, stricter rules need to be created. "Paracopyright" prohibits duplication of copyrighted material and in some cases prevents people from obtaining the material in the first place.

"Copy Left," a free culture movement is slowly taking shape, composed of lawyers, scholars, and activists devoted to preserving our democratic freedoms. They believe a creation should go into the public domain, or what they call the "Cultural Commons," which is a "stockpile of ideas" where most of the USA's literature and music would reside and be accessible by anyone, with out having to get permission or pay any kind of fee.

While these seem like valid ideas, Copy Left hasn't gotten a lot of recognition and worries that if they cannot get the American public to realize what is happening soon, they will be stuck in the consequences of the laws being passed right now. Even Thomas Jefferson considered copyright a bad thing; he preferred giving just enough information to invoke creation, and then allowing ideas to "flow freely as nature intended."

The opponents of Copy Left fight a war based on a legal doctrine and view the culture operating on ownership of everything and anything of value. But Copy Left is sure that the entertainment industry could operate successfully by evolving with the Internet Age, while still compensating artists properly. William Fisher spent 3 years creating an alternative compensation system. The modified system calls for all information online to be registered and then the creators are paid based on how frequently their information is accessed. Fisher is convinced if his ideas do get used it could be one of the best things to happen to the Cultural Commons; the creators get paid and everybody has access to everything. Unfortunately, the most likely place we will see his ideas put to work anytime soon is in countries like Croatia or Brazil- 2nd world countries that aren't as developed as the USA, and are more open to new ideas and change. Fisher speculates that in the USA his ideas probably won't start to gain mass-interest until our current systems fail. The future of Copy Left remains to be seen.

Although this article was long and a little hard to read, it communicates great ideas. I think the people of Copy Left are right on point when it comes to their ideas of free information- everybody should have the right to gain knowledge. Fisher's new system of compensation is a wonderful idea in my eyes. However, just like global warming and so many other pressing issues, it takes America a long time to open their eyes to reality.