All Information Should be Free

[Acsenray]

Some hard examples: When Alan Moore was denied the right to use the Charlton characters for Watchmen, he came up with new characters. When the Dr. Who episode “Shada” was shelved, Douglas Adams rewrote the story as a Dirk Gently story. In both cases, the artists were restricted from using characters someone else had come up with and had to rewrite their stories using original settings and characters. In both cases, the resulting works were better than they would have been, they expanded the repository of human expression more than they otherwise would have, and the result was better for culture, better for art, better for humanity.

When Rowling was creating the Harry Potter stories, she was living in part on government assistance (so I understand). She had an idea and saw the opportunity to create and improve her financial condition. It was a wild success, creating a new franchise, a new industry, enriching scores of people in the entertainment and publishing industries, as well as herself, and bringing a high grade of entertainment and inspiration to millions of people.

In the absence of copyright law, she would have had to spend her time working on a different career path. Likely, Harry Potter would never have been written because she would have perceived less potential benefit. If she had worked on it anyway, while holding down another job, she would have had less time to develop, affecting its quality. And even then, she would have faced negligible benefit, because large industry players (likely the technology industry, in the absence of a large entertainment industry) would have snapped up all the potential profit.

@DrCube

Right, I’m saying both. A) New artists need access to influences. I remember how much poorer I was as a teenager when I had to spend $20 for a CD, which was about a month’s worth of allowances, or two week’s worth of forgoing lunch and saving my lunch money.

I basically just bought whatever my friends liked and classic rock like Jimi Hendrix because it was “safe”. Paying money for new music that could either blow my mind or be absolutely horrible was literally too big of a gamble. As an adult with more money and more access to music, I am infinitely richer and better able to create something novel and “give back” to society.

The broad and diverse range influences exist as they do today because of copyright protections. In their absence, there would have been (1) fewer musicians (2) with less time to develop their art (3) leading to many many fewer and more expensive recorded works and (4) fewer and more expensive live performances.

If $20 is too dear, then the alternative would have stifled the young musician’s access to influences even more. As others have made the point, mass entertainment, mass culture, mass art depends on the copyright system. It allows a creator the freedom to dedicate time and energy to creation and to spread its cost over many consumers.

[fluiddruid]

@DrCube

Right, I’m saying both. A) New artists need access to influences. I remember how much poorer I was as a teenager when I had to spend $20 for a CD, which was about a month’s worth of allowances, or two week’s worth of forgoing lunch and saving my lunch money.

You believe children need access to more artistic influences, so your solution is to scrap copyright, which would strangle professional artistry as we know it?

Technology and the market have already solved the problem you mentioned. Children today can access all kinds of music services for free through nothing but an Internet connection. I regularly discover new music through things like Pandora and turntable.fm at zero cost to me. I’m free to listen to so much music, and for that matter, enjoy so much content, at the cost of nothing but the service to deliver the data. There is so much more music out there available free than a kid could hope to listen to in his whole life. All of this exists with, and in my opinion because of, copyright protections. Even information provided for free can be copyrighted, so you know if you put up a free informative article with no ads, that it can’t be stolen by some guy who ladens down the page with paid links and ads, because it’s yours. What’s not to like?

If you want access to free content, free information, free art… those things are in ready supply. There is no shortage of free books to read, free music to listen to, free art to view in today’s world. The only argument that you have is that you want to have access to absolutely everything for free, despite the wishes of the developer of that content. It’s not enough for you that there are thousands upon thousands of free books available, you want Harry Potter for free; it’s not enough that there are countless free movies that you can stream, you want Disney movies. Well, guess what. Those things that are heavily commercialized now? Those things that fans demand? The things that cost the most? Without copyright, you will not get those things made for you for free. Got it? Removing copyright will not make you able to get the same kind of commercial, high-production-value content for free. It will not happen because it can’t. The costs are too high to produce a Disney animated movie to be able to provide it for practically no profit.

If you want free art, free content, free information… it is there for the taking, right now. Many, many artists and content producers make their works available to enjoy at little to no cost. There is no shortage of content to be enjoyed for nothing. There are no little children who can’t listen to anything but the same CD over and over again in today’s world unless they just don’t have access to technology and connectivity – and removing copyright isn’t going to fix that. You’re talking about completely dismantling major industries, putting millions out of work, moving art and culture back into the hands of a privileged few who can afford to patronize artists directly… all to resolve a problem that does not exist.

[BlinkingDuck]

@Thudlow_Boink

Over against the “All Information Should Be Free” ideal, we have the “People Who Expend Lots Of Time, Effort, and Talent Deserve To Be Paid For Their Work By The People Who Benefit From It.” In an ideal world it would be nice to have both, but I’m not willing to give up the second to have the first—partly because of fairness, partly because the result would be a lot less high-quality “information” being produced.

I’ve posted this before so some may remember it.

When I was a teacher, I spent a large amount of time creating an Algebra trainer for the PC. It was, humbly, damned good. I spent about 6 months on it and about 1000 hours ish making it.

It was a huge success. People loved it. I saw it everywhere. It was actually used all over the state and actually received phone calls from schools in 2 other states.

I sold 50 copies.

The administration approached me about doing more of it. I respondend that it was a failure. It only sold 50 copies. I made 50 cents an hour doing it.

They were flabergasted - it was a huge success! I said I refused to do it again for 50 cents an hour. I could make 10 times that flipping burgers at the local McDonalds.

They kept pushing me on it saying I should do it for the good of the kids etc etc. I responded that if they wanted to lighten my load to half time and the other half work in this I would. Of course they didn’t want to do that! They really tried to make me feel like shit because I refused to do it.

So 2 issues here. One dealing with how teachers are treated. Second, dealing with the OP - here was something I worked hard on making and people loved and found useful but a second wasn’t made because those same people didn’t feel I deserved to be paid for what I did. Well, screw em. If it’s worth making it’s worth being paid for. If not…someone else can make it.

[BlinkingDuck]

Actually, I looked back at notes…I sold 10 copies, not 50.

[Acsenray]

Definitions of “originality” relevant to copyright law:

@J. Thomas McCarthy

“Originality” simply means that to be copyrightable, the work must owe its origin to the person claiming to be the author; that the work is independently created, not mindlessly copied from another work. …

“Originality” does not imply that a work must be new, startling, novel, or unusual. …

@Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service

Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was independently created by the author (as opposed to copied from other works), and that it possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity … .

@Alfred Bell & Co. v. Catalda Fine Arts

[N]othing in the Constitution commands that copyrighted matter be strikingly unique or novel. … “[A] copy of something in the public domain” will support a copyright if it is a “distinguishable variation” … . All that is needed to satisfy both the Constitution and the statute is that the “author” contributed something more than a “merely trivial” variation, something recognizably “his own.” Originality in this context “means little more than a prohibition of actual copying.” No matter how poor artistically the “author’s addition, it is enough if it be his own.”

@Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co.

In holding that an illustrated poster advertising a circus was copyrightable, Justice Holmes issued his classic warning against lawyers and judges making artistic judgments in copyright cases: "The least pretentious picture has more originality in it than directories and the like … .

[Spiny_Norman]

@phaemon

That’s a bad example.

It is actually an excellent example.

If a movie is a success at the box-office, then why not release a good copy on DVD?

Because as long there’s only a theater release, the studio/production company at least stands a chance to recoup the investment.

Not only do you have the advantage of being first to market (timed for Christmas or something)…

DVDs are digital media. You can make a perfect replication available on the net for practically nothing 20 minutes after you purchased it. Or be old-fashioned and use physical media - that would probably take a full hour.

Of course, good quality copies would shortly follow, so you’d need to keep your price low. Win for consumers!

There will be two sorts of distributors in the market you’re envisioning: Those who invested $100 million to make a movie, and those who invested $25 to purchase a DVD. Explain to me again how the first group will be able to compete.

Those who make content are simply doomed to lose. (Except for those who can finance their productions by everybody’s favorite advertising model: Product placement. That’s piracy-proof. It’s also, rightfully, universally detested.)

[DrCube]

@Spiny_Norman

(Except for those who can finance their productions by everybody’s favorite advertising model: Product placement. That’s piracy-proof. It’s also, rightfully, universally detested.)

It’s not universally detested. I hate advertizing with the fire of a thousand quasars, and even I don’t mind a little realistic product placement. It’s better than a bunch of jarring white labels.

[Acsenray]

Here’s one of the examples of how “all information is free” will ultimately result in less information for the mass audience.

Musician Sufjan Stevens wrote a new song and awarded rights in the song to the winner of a contest. The winner, Alec Duffy, decided that the best way to preserve the value of the song was to allow it to be performed only at private concerts by Sufjan Stevens and those attending can hear it only over headphones, so they can’t record it secretly. They have not allowed it to be recorded in any way.

Studio 360 article.

Village Voice article

Alec Duffy has a website:

@Alec Duffy

In an effort to counter the cheapening effects of internet all-availability, and to recapture an era when to get one’s hands on a particular album or song was a real experience, we at Hoi Polloi would like to share this song with Sufjan fans in a special way.

We would like to invite you to our Brooklyn home for an exclusive listening session of this gorgeous song, with hot beverages and cookies provided for your enjoyment. We’ll share some conversation, slip some headphones on you, and press play.

Listening sessions will be made by appointment, generally for four people at a time. For those of you who are not able to make it to New York, both Dave and I travel quite a bit, and would be happy to take requests in the hope that we’ll be in your neighborhood at some point in the future and can share the song with you.