Copyright legislation is out of control. We demand a moratorium on secret and fast-tracked negotiations while governments consult the people they represent. It's the democratic way.
As the entertainment industry grew, an unholy alliance developed between Hollywood and Congress. Politicians have become corrupted by contributions from the entertainment industry, and now seem to be falling all over each other in their eagerness to serve their Hollywood directors. The Rights Groups with their political allies are now so powerful they have governments the world over jumping to placate their every whim, negotiating secret treaties just for them, even as they conspire to control our computers and cripple the internet to enhance their profits.
Every time a change to copyright law is proposed, it is in response to demands from powerful lobbies. When have you ever seen a grass roots demand for broadened rights, stricter enforcement, or longer copyright duration? Never! Legislation reflects neither the will nor priorities of the majority. People see this happening over and over again, feeling helpless while watching their rights being eroded away. They are not organized, have no lobbyists working for them and no money to buy the politicians with - nor should they need any of that! Their representatives have failed them.
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A tension will always exist in the bargain between consumers and content creators. Though they draw their raw material from what came before and belongs to us all, we grant them an exclusive monopoly for a limited time that they might have incentive to create their transformative works. The tension arises from the fact that once a work is released into the collective experience it lives in this strange quantum state like Schrodinger's cat. It is both a part of our collective consciousness while at the same time the creator's exclusive property.
People become impatient after some time passes to claim that work as their own, since it is now in fact a part of our cultural heritage. Other creators cannot help but scoop up a piece of that work when they reach into the collective consciousness to obtain raw material for their own work, and thus may come into conflict with the original creator.
Granting the monopoly in the first place is not sufficient. Government resources need to be allocated to enforce the rights given the author. Courts need to be provided to adjudicate any disputes that may arise. It is not an easy bargain. We pay dearly for the expectation of the creations we hope to enjoy in return.
Actually, calling it a "bargain" made between the consumer and producer would give the false impression that some kind of direct negotiation needs to take place. The term's use is metaphorical. There is no such thing in actuality, as the content producers have no inherent right to negotiate terms. They only have a take it or leave it proposition. If they like the terms we set, they will likely take advantage of our offer and be fruitful, but only the people can decide how much they are willing to sacrifice for what they hope to receive in return.
In the "bargain" between the copyright holders and us, our politicians should be representing the people. Instead, they are representing the copyright owners and giving away the store! For just one example, in the USA and many other countries, copyright duration has expanded from the original 14 years to life plus 70 years. With an average life expectancy of 78 years and a work created at age 28, that would mean 120 years that work is withheld from the public domain. Do creators of transformative works require this as an incentive before they will create their works? Of course not!
To put the rights groups in control is to have the tail wag the dog. This can only cause people to become upset and act impulsively to the detriment of all. A civil society depends on respect for the law in order to function. The only alternative is a police state. When politicians start representing the special interests groups who fill their campaign coffers people lose respect for the laws they create and civil society begins to break down. Political corruption is a very, very serious issue with far ranging implications.
Copyrights legislation has become an out of control freight train on a downward grade. The power of the corporate lobbies needs to be curbed and their voices muted. The people must be heard.
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Former Senator Chris Dodd, the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, feeling betrayed after the defeat of SOPA and PIPA in spite of having paid millions in "bribes" to congressmen and senators, said to them, "Those who count on 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake," Many feel this is an open admission of bribery. It has staggering implications to say the least. Honest politicians should feel outraged with his attitude and turn their backs to him.
The RIAA and the MPAA have sued over 20,000 people for sharing music files via the Internet. Thousands more, without resources to defend themselves, have been pressured into making several thousand dollar settlements. The RIAA is well known to greatly exaggerate their imagined losses, as if every file shared is the loss of a sale. They throw bogus numbers around to justify harsh laws and even harsher penalties. In an RIAA lawsuit against Joel Tenenbaum in July of 2009, he was ordered to pay $675,000 for sharing 31 songs. In a 2007 trial, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $222,000 for sharing 24 songs. This is insane! It demonstrates the boundless greed of the RIAA.
Stephanie Lenz posted a short video of her toddler son dancing on YouTube to share with her family and friends. The Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" could be heard playing in the background. Universal claimed that the recording infringed their copyright and had it removed. "I was really surprised and angry when I learned my video was removed " said Lenz. "Universal should not be using legal threats to try to prevent people from sharing home videos of their kids with family and friends." A mere allegation of copyright infringement can result in the removal of content from the Internet.
The duration of a copyright has grown all out of proportion. Though Mickey Mouse was created nearly a century ago (1928) by Walt Disney, you can't post your child's drawing of Mickey Mouse on Facebook without risking a DMCA take down notice. With the intense lobbying by Disney, each time its works came close to entering into the public domain under normal conditions, the US Congress has extended copyright length. In 1998 the Disney corporation bought The Copyright Term Extension Act (aka the 'Mickey Mouse Protection Act' in their honour) to ensure the early Mickey Mouse cartoons will remain under copyright until at least 2023. Mickey and his friends have been part of families for four generations, yet he remains locked up in Disney's dungeon. Isn't it about time we set Mickey free?
Excessive copyright duration has created untold millions upon millions of orphaned works. Examples of orphaned works include photographs from scientific expeditions and historical images, old folk music recordings, little known novels and other literature. Because the copyright owner can not be identified and located, historical and cultural records such as period film footage, photographs, and sound recordings cannot be incorporated in contemporary works for fear that a re-appearing copyright owner may sue them for infringement. Google has gone to great lengths and expense to digitize and make available a huge collection of orphaned works. In the end, Google
was blocked in this endeavour. A big chunk of our cultural heritage is caught up in this dispute.
Time to update copyright law!
There is a simple way to prevent orphaned works from happening. The United States used to require copyrights to be renewed after 28 years to stay in force. Whatever happened to this provision? Require that after every so many years the copyright holder must renew his work, just to let us know he is still around and he still cares. If he fails to do this, upon expiry of the term, that work would enter public domain. This is would not be burdensome to the creator, and end the problem of orphaned works. Why haven't our political representatives implemented this? Because they don't care about us, our culture, or anything beyond the money that the copyrights groups pour into their coffers.
The US government, well aware that people have strong concerns about copyright law, innovated an approach called policy laundering to bypass any possibility of public input or protest when they began secret negotiations on ACTA around 2005. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement establishes international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement. An advisory committee of large US-based multinational corporations was consulted on the content of the draft treaty. The MPAA were active in the treaty's development. It is absolutely outrageous that a policy dictated by corporations was negotiated in secret, without input from the stakeholders - we the people of the world.
According to Wikipedia: A representative of the MPAA, one of the largest proponents of the treaty, in a 2010 private ACTA meeting in Mexico, told negotiators to "Bring in a censoring firewall to block piracy and you can use it to shut off sites that embarrass your government, like Wikileaks." It wasn't too long after when congressmen and senators began debate on SOPA and PIPA, laws that would provide this firewall. The ACTA treaty was signed in October 2011 in Tokyo by the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea.
Not satisfied with ACTA, now we have "the Son of ACTA", the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated on a fast track in secret again. The TPP threatens to displace the 1995 Trips agreement negotiated in the open under the World Trade Organization and promises even more draconian measures. Among them, incredibly, is a provision to increase the duration of copyrights by a further 20 years.
The gossamer-thin veil of legality over ongoing secret negotiations fails to hide the naked greed that drives it at its core. At the intersection of politicians, corporations and trade groups we will find a conspiracy of scallywags and rascals who lust after wealth and power at our expense. Herein lies the nexus that the various occupy groups failed to unify against.
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The power of the corporate lobbies needs to be curbed and their voices muted. The people must be heard. At a minimum, copyright duration urgently needs to be pushed back and reformulated to eliminate the cause of orphaned works. Incredibly, our political representatives give the lobbyists the focus of their attention, then rush through legislation such that there is little time for debate. The lobbyists have no need of political advocates, and no business being at the head of the debating table. They are more than capable of presenting their case directly to the people. Legislation crafted to respect the will of the majority will garner their respect and consequently, will be easier to enforce.
Given the opportunity, people are quite capable of working things out among themselves and coming to consensus. Crowd source the question, then leverage the wisdom of the crowd. Politicians are skilled at discerning the will of the people when their attention is properly focused and they are encouraged to do so. We must give them that encouragement and focus, by whatever means we have at our disposal. What we demand is a moratorium on secret and fast-tracked negotiations while governments consult the people they represent. It's the democratic way.
If it was up to you, what reforms would you make to copyright law? Now that was a bit of a trick question, because if you live in a democracy, it is up to you!
We've heard enough from the lobbyists. It is time to ask the people!
Add your thoughts to our forum
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Check out our article: Zen and the Art of Copyright Legislation
This is a work in progress and it has just begun. We need volunteers to get the word out. We need web design and graphics people, public relations people, spokespersons, donated air time, and even a theme song. Who will be the first to compose and sing "Why not ask me!" on YouTube? You will have a place of honour in our hearts. Write to info@WhyNotAskMe.org stating how you may be able to help. In the end, we'd like to see a bumper sticker on every car saying "Why not ask me!" [Order feature coming soon.] By the way - the name of the site was to convey the idea that citizens, outraged the governments do not consult the people, cry out "Why not ask me!", rather than implying that you should ask me, personally. There was once text that played on that and made it clear, but it got lost in the editing.
( Copyright (C) 2012 - WhyNotAskMe.org ;)
[You can't copy this - Nanananha!]
[Go ahead, try it. I'll sue you to oblivion!]
[It's all my own precious, original words and my copyright merits the dedication of the legislature, courts, police, international law and the allocation of vast resources and the highest priority to protect it, even if that conflicts with other priorities or laws like for example, freedom of speech or the utility of the internet. My copyright even trumps your freedom to use your own computer. Furthermore, having granted me this copyright, the world now owes me a living. So there, get over it!]
[Drawing here of Mickey Mouse giving the finger to the MPAA redacted to dodge a DMCA takedown. You'll have to imagine it. Better yet, draw it yourself and post it everywhere.]
[Just kidding about our copyright - this work is available under the following Creative Commons license...]
WhyNotAskMe Manifesto by WhyNotAskMe.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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