SOPA poked an angry bear and set it loose on the net

Thanks for the interview

Pearls like "People really don't want to live in the future Google offers them. Economically, Google World offers people nothing." and "For example the Kahn Academy [a free online educational resource] gave a lesson on SOPA that was quite inaccurate. That got money from Google. Maybe somebody ought to mention it somewhere?" were very nice in painting this and the author's book as another anti-google rant, this time apparently one paid by the *AAS.

I just wonder were is the IT angle in such a propaganda piece.

Actually, no, the world doesn't need both.

The kind of evil copyright holders we need are those which protect the interests of the artist.

The kind of evil copyright holders we've got are those which steal from the artist.

There really is a simple single answer...

It's not complicated. You just need to do one thing.

Make copyright a right that can ONLY be owned by the original creator.

ALL the things that are wrong at the moment are wrong because copyright is able to be bought by a company and then applied for as many years as the company can manage to make a big fat profit. The actual original creator gets very little out of this.

If the original artist, musician or writer was the only person who could benefit, there would be no pressure to maintain these vast profits by tying down use, and companies would have to compete on value-added services.

Copyright was originally a 'bargain' between creative types and society. Society would give the creative types a limited monopoly on the results of their ideas, in return for being able to use the ideas freely after a set period of time. The fundamental concept here is that ideas should be widely and freely available, and that to gain this creative types should be looked after, so they don't have to hide their ideas.

What we have now are corporations who build lots of wealth on one idea, and don't want to relinquish it. That must stop, one way or another. There should be good provision made for the people who create the ideas, so that they are better off creating than hiding, but there should be NO ability for corporations to 'own' ideas. Let them compete on production efficiency, quality, service, and all the other things a corporation is good at. But don't let them own and suppress ideas...

"If you look at countries where the economy's in bad shape they're sick of being pushed around by the French and the Germans."

Ok, End of Story. Bailing out. Adios. Ciao.

Getting cheap loans for ten years and finagling a economic bubble which then inevitably pops and exposes the malinvestments if not outright corruption is "being pushed around"? I don't think so.

Just go around and politely ask EUR 1000 from each german family to refinance the endangered loans [which go towards financing their pensions, right?] I'm sure you will get a straigth answer.

Personally

I'm all for Creatives getting paid for their work, and I have an inherent dislike of those who download free stuff because "they can", or because they think "they deserve it".

That said, big media have displayed an appalling contempt for consumers, and have done themselves no favours by treating people as criminals by default.

I find alternate funding models, like kickstarter.com, and distribution models like bandcamp.com to be interesting, I'd like to see more of this, so that creatives can get more, and consumers don't have to pay an inflated price to the bloated dinosaurs.

There's so much in this article it's difficult to be specific.

As I read this article, I wanted to argue for or against over almost every one of Rob Levine's quotes but clearly the article's large expanse prevents this. Nevertheless, there are a few points/observations I'd make, some relate to what he doesn't say in the article (although perhaps he covers them in the book).

Levine covers many copyright/IP issues and his take on them makes sense whether I'm for or against them. He's too pro commerce for my liking. I'm not against commerce benefiting from copyright by a long shot but it's what he doesn't say that pushes him over the line well into the copywriters' camp.

First, Levine implies the anger over copyright is recent and perhaps most of it is. What he doesn't mention is that the anger, which underlies the current rage, goes back at least 126 years to the Berne Convention of 1886. This is when overly loose copyright laws did a complete flip, moved in the opposite direction and morphed into draconian rights we've known for over a century. The then copyright lobby wiped the floor with users' rights, fairness etc., then flushed them away and there's been a simmering resentment ever since.

Second, this resentment had little opportunity to express itself until the Internet. Before the Internet, book piracy, pressing records etc. were very difficult activities, especially on a large scale. Large scale meant that only a large organisation was behind the piracy and thus it was easily dealt with at law.

Third, Levine doesn't deal with the travesty that constitutes orphaned works under copyright law. It's conservatively estimated that somewhere between 75-95% of all copyrighted works over the entire 20th Century are orphaned. This means (a) they've no current viable owner, (b) they're out of print or otherwise unavailable and (c) copies which still exist in libraries or with private owners etc., nevertheless, still can't be copied because they CONTINUE TO REMAIN IN COPYRIGHT. The orphaned works fiasco doesn't financially benefit publishers directly but it does so by removing vast quantities of still-viable material from the marketplace, thus it's no wonder authors and publishers love this section of the Berne Convention. In essence, this is anti-competitive and it ought to be challenged under anti competition laws--or the conflict between copyright and anti-competition laws resolved.

In the meantime, consumers of copyrighted material are ripped off even further.

Forth, stuff that's already in the public domain is far too easily put into copyright. Information that's already in the public domain should always remain there, only genuinely new stuff should be copyrightable. Moreover, the definition of what constitutes the public domain is in desperate need of a precise 21st Century definition. A centuries-old folk song shouldn't be copyrighted just because someone has changed a couple of notes or changed its key; it should be only copyrightable after extensive modification which renders it intrinsically different to the original. The extent of that change being such that although the tune might be recognisable, it is clearly not the original tune to the extent that it may even irritate those already familiar with the tune in its original form.

Another such example (of many and various others) is where an out-of-copyright photograph/artwork is owned say by a museum which rephotographs it and claims copyright, which essentially then takes it out of the public domain because the organisation has ownership and possession of the only original.

Fifth, 'fair use' provisions of copyright law are vague to such an extent that most law-abiding users become so timid that they don't use the law to the extent which they could for fear of prosecution. You see this all too often in Wikipedia photographs where copyrighted images have been rendered so small and so low in resolution as to be nigh on useless.

Sixth, attacks on Wikipedia are very understandable and not unexpected. Any public library that gives such ready/easy access to vast amounts of ever-growing, encyclopaedic knowledge is clearly a threat to copyright holders. Consider Wiki 30-50 years hence, its vast collection of public-domain knowledge with all its nuances, insights and references will be so huge as to be almost unrecognisable by today's standards, clearly poses a serious threat to potential copyright holders who don't have truly original ideas and who only want to regurgitate ideas in a slightly different form. Wiki, if not already, will eventually expose such obfuscation by any would be copyrighter who wishes to steal from the public domain, especially when cleaver AI monitoring will be able to detect even the slightest deception.

I could go on but Rob Levine's comments only convince me more than ever that there MUST be a radical rethink of copyright/IP law to the extent where the 126-year old Berne Convention will probably have to be dismantled and then rebuilt with 21st Century values at its core. ACTA, SOPA and the IPO are all built on Berne's foundations and thus would have to follow suit.

Sounds dramatic, but a decade or two ago no one would ever have conceived that anything like the shutdown demos over SOPA would have been possible. Once change starts it's difficult to stop. Anyone who remembers the worldwide anti-Vietnam war demos will tell you that initially there was either acceptance or acquiescence amongst the populace and then how quickly that changed into violent opposition which essentially ended the war. So too it will happen here with copyright, although expect the entrenched Copyright Industry to fight like the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge: viciously and ferociously to the bitter end with every weapon they can muster but nevertheless still in retreat.

One thing is just about certain, in another 126 years the Berne Convention or its replacement won't vaguely resemble the form it takes today.

Where to start...?!

So much wrong with the interview answers it was difficult to savor the more salient points Levine was trying to make.

The first trap he fell into was buying Chris Dodd's line that it was Google (with a little bit of help from Wikipedia) who stopped SOPA and PIPA from going through. The article mentions Google 11 times, and with the exception of one reference to Wikipedia no other tech company, expert, blogger, reporter or grassroots campaign is mentioned. Anyone who had done half their research would know with in 5 minutes binging that this was not led by Google or Wikipedia - http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/25/who-really-stopped-sopa-and-why/

Then we have this gem:

<blockquote>"For example, if you read ACTA, it's not that big a deal."</blockquote>

I guess if it's not that big of a deal then there would be no need for Europe to introduce it at all. Levine then goes on to refute any argument against ACTA by stating, I paraphrase, <i>"Well, it's a treaty."</i> Care to qualify that? Isn't that a bit like complaining to the hotel about the cleanliness of the room you received and they turn around and say "Well, it's a room". That's not how you explain or justify your support for something.

<blockquote>"And recipes, obviously, aren't covered by copyright. It's a lot of overstatement."</blockquote>

But what's to stop, for example, a famous chef from having a website instantly taken down for posting a recipe? That was the whole point of the protests which you both seem to have completely (conveniently) missed.

<blockquote>"That's a certain kind of democracy - but it's also fear of the mob"</blockquote>

No, it's being called understanding who your customers are - and to some extent realising that it affects your own business too. A bit like a brewery saying to it's pub customers that they are going to support a law that allows the police to shut down the pub if just one person is found to commit a crime after having a drink there.

<blockquote>"People are being asked to give up rights they've won over hundreds of years, based on the success of ... an online encyclopaedia."</blockquote>

Well, that makes sense if Levine thinks corporations like Disney are people. Actually I don't think they've won these rights at all; they've won the right to extend their copyrights hundreds of years - but that's not the same thing is it?

Ever heard of the public domain? It's where artistic and scientific works were before the introduction of this notion of intellectual property. You could say, in fact, that the people have lost rights they've had to public domain works, over the course of hundreds of years, as corporations have lobbied for ever more extended copyright, retroactively copyrighting public domain works and attacking libraries.

Though I did like his point about the three dimensions of copyright; I don't think I'll read this book, since the author clearly hasn't done enough research based on these answers. It's clearly NOT <i>"one group of people with rights versus another group of people with rights"</i> but one small group of people with rights, steadily dismantling the rights of a larger group of other people.

Law changes aim at the wrong target

The article touches on this point, but doesn't follow up:

Publishers and content creators are *natural enemies*. They're doomed to fight each other over the limited pot of money that people are willing to spend on their products.

A good copyright law needs to regulate the relationship between those two parties. A copyright law that focuses on what the *consumer* can or should do - is missing the point. Yet that's exactly the kind of laws that our lawmakers - prompted by the publishing industry - have been industriously pressing, these past 25 years. Allowing themselves total freedom to screw content creators to their hearts' content. (Remember Peter Jackson's trouble with New Line Cinema, for example?)

I have a major interest in this:

I will just say that I am now going to boycott ALL content produced by the majors. This really is bordering on Fascism with the merger of the state and government with corporations. (Cheers for that Il Duce)

Economic warfare. I have NO money left. I go without to buy my software I use. It's only because I am a little bit autistic that I can achieve it - a normal, 'sane' person wouldn't be able to 'hack' my lifestyle. I talk to the developers, I beta test for them, I do free content packs that get thousands of downloads - equivalent to and better than some 'paid' content. I pirated everything at one time, when I was young and was checking things out. Now, there is no way I would have the brass balls to walk into a studio or have someone walk into mine and be seen to be using cracked software.

That is on the one hand. On the other, I am a writer and producer. I don't get paid for what I do, but all it will take is a dip in the social fashion continuum and, like my long lost cousin in Nigeria that contacted my via email the other day (hi ;-)) - I will be VERY RICH MAAN!

You must read this seminal essay by Adam of The Sisters Of Mercy:

Why you've got no chance of making a living out of music -

http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/gen/rrr4.htm

Short, sweet, to the point and enlightening.

The artists very rarely see the benefits of their sales. It generally takes multi-million figures, before it really substantively trickles down to the average bass player or drummer. Then again - they probably did not write the songs - the singer or lead guitarist probably did. When there is a hit and the singer (whose ego is already out of control) moves into that mansion on the hill and the bass player is still left scraping for the next cigarette, animosity can and usually does ensue.

That is why, most of the most successful bands like, say for example: R.E.M. and U2, have a policy of 'ALL ROYALTIES TO BE EQUALLY DIVIDED BETWEEN ALL BAND MEMBERS REGARDLESS OF WHO WROTE THE SONGS'. This also has a rather pleasing creative knock-on effect of taking the pressure off the main songwriter (thus easing potential 'writers block') and encouraging the aforementioned drum and bass players to get stuck in and 'write a good 'un'.

Yes, I'm looking at YOU - Mr. Roger Taylor - who is in love with his car, and you Mr. Deacon who might have been 'Under Pressure', until the royalties rolled in. Actually, my point was: that I believe ALL members of Queen were payed equally, regardless of who wrote what. It pays creative dividends as well as keeping the band together.

How many bands split after their first 'hit' album?

That is why, when I work with an artist, I tell them, Ok, I wrote this song, I produced it. But you know what? If it is a hit, I will split my share with you equally. There are some exceptions to this, but you get the picture. I am still waiting for my chickens to come home to roost and I honestly doubt they ever will, but that is my ethos, nonetheless.

As for the majors: they are going down and they are going away. There are far bigger issues here - like the police becoming the henchman of the money men. The police have now officially become the 'Thug Caste' of this once great country.

Serious Organised Crime - Go Fuck yourself! You are a shame on this country and a shame on the Police 'Force' in general. (I am thinking about the recent act of terrorism via the RnB website debacle). You have frightened and terrorised people so much that they are in a state of -Pre-War, ready to do battle with all the adrenaline pumping through their veins, that an Archer might have felt at Agincourt.

So, no, I don't need no stinking royalties, eating is nice, and living in a peaceful country not run by proto-Fascists, would be even 'nicer'.

To quote the great Black Uhuru:

Push push, ahaa

Mind you push that over man.

Incompletelyretilehensible

Quote - but I wouldn't favor a tax rate that's incomprehensible." ?

Welcome to America we have had one of those for years

Most Consumers are Happy to Pay

Levine commits an amateur error when he confuses activists with the vast majority of consumers. Admittedly there are many activists who believe passionately that "all information must be free" but they are a vocal fringe. The vast majority of consumers are willing to pay a reasonable price to consume copyrighted content (as is evidenced by iTunes and Netflix's sales numbers).

The controversy occurs because content owners get greedy and try to bilk consumers. You buy a DVD of a movie but you can't use it when you travel overseas (region coding). You have to pay again to buy a new DVD when it's released on BluRay. Want to watch it on your iPad? Pay again! Want to stream it to your phone? Pay again! You're a Netflix subscriber? Don't try to watch those movies when you're traveling overseas! Until content owners offer a blanket, perpetual license to consumers, it will never be a balanced market.