Back before the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I used to enjoy arguing with Tolkien fans.
They are (or were), I discovered, among the most argumentative people on the Internet, back in the day. Far more so than the real nerds who exchanged lists of reasons why one Star Trek captain was better than another. Until you've seen a bunch of Tolkien geeks arguing, and I swear to all that's holy I'm not exaggerating this even slightly, for weeks on end about whether Balrogs had wings or whether the Rohirrim used stirrups... you don't know what vitriol is.
At one stage I tried to play peacemaker. "It's not as if anyone was going to dig up a fossilised Balrog and prove the answer either way", I said. "Why can't we each have our own image?" Which, of course, made me no friends at all, and pretty soon I learned to stay out of those threads. It was, it seemed, the most important thing in the world to be able to correctly divine the precise image that was in Tolkien's mind when he wrote the scene. To compromise in pursuit of that ultimate truth - that would be sheer apostacy.
These were the people who had gobbled up each of the interminable volumes of Trash Reconstructed From Tolkien's Litterbox & Blotter, known in the trade as the History of Middle-earth, as well as collections of the great man's letters, reminiscences by other people who knew him, and Vague Hints His Son's Housekeeper's Daughter's Boyfriend Told This Guy Who Wrote To My Local Paper.
Occasionally in these robust discussions, someone would mention Tolkien's dream of creating "a mythology for England". I think, now, that phrase is key to understanding his work.
Tolkien was a scholar of mythology. He didn't use the word lightly or randomly. He knew that it is in the nature of mythology that there is no such thing as a definitive version. The whole point of myths is to be retold.
That's why the Tolkien and his estate, for years, made no attempt to "control" his intellectual property. Everyone and his dog copied Tolkien's basic prototypes for "dwarves", "orcs", "elves" and "hobbits" from his work, and Tolkien lifted not a finger to stop them: not, as Hollywood imagines, because he was a senile old quack who didn't recognise a gold mine when he was sitting on one, but because that was what he wanted to happen.
By the time his estate fell into the hands of "competent" (read: "evil") managers, those stereotypes had made their way into thousands of imitative books, paintings, films and cartoons, games, posters, and, of course, Dungeons & Dragons.
Where there are contradictions and inconsistencies, or incompleteness, in his books - that's not just a mistake. I'm not saying it's intentional, but it is an intrinsic part of the whole. The books themselves aren't "authoritative": they are meant to be a vehicle for debate, not its subject.
This mindset is, of course, the antithesis of modern Hollywood. To Hollywood, all stories - and to the (steadily increasing) maximum extent permitted by law, all separable literary or visual elements of those stories - are by nature private property, to be exploited and monetised ruthlessly. To Hollywood, someone "giving away" his intellectual property is not a hero or a philosopher, but merely a mug to be exploited.
And that is why no film of these books made by the present-day studio system is ever going to do them justice. Movies are produced by a process based on ideals and morality that by its very nature cannot begin to understand Tolkien. In carrying Tolkien's legacy, D&D was more faithful and more effective than any movies will ever be - because D&D is based on creating new stories, not merely the messy regurgitation of old ones. To be faithful to Tolkien, you would have to donate all your scenery, sets, designs, props, models, scripts, scores and publicity to the public domain, the moment the movies were finished. And, of course, allow anyone else to sample, recut, redub, rebuild, reimage etc. as much as they liked.
Even if Peter Jackson had no problem with that (and to do the man justice, I think he might not), the studios would never allow it. It's anathema to their business model.
Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Soul music
(Note: this post talks a lot about popular music. I'm not including links to each song; you can search YouTube as well as I can.)
While my mother was, on the whole, charmed beyond reason with our fair country, there was one aspect of our colonial lifestyle that drove her completely up the wall. This was the inescapability of background music.
Just to be clear what we're talking about here: in New Zealand, practically every shop, mall, cafe, restaurant, food hall, arcade, bar and supermarket you can walk into has its own canned music playing - usually low, but very audible. It's everywhere. Even on the street you can often hear it. It is so ubiquitous that, when I find a rare case of a shop that doesn't have it, I will pause and wonder for a few moments before I figure out what's missing - then I'll enjoy the peace.
Contrast: in 1992 I visited Budapest - my first trip behind what used to be called the Iron Curtain - and there, too, I found music everywhere; but that was live music, played by real musicians. Good musicians. It seemed that dozens of concert-quality violinists, cellists, clarinetists, trios, quartets, and even (on at least one occasion) an entire symphony orchestra, were trying to supplement their livings by busking in the streets and public spaces. The result was noisy, but not unpleasant.
The music here is not like that. It's recorded, trawled from chart hits and popular oldies (occasionally dating back to the primordial days of the 70s or 80s), and played endlessly at a background level. In short, it's music at its worst. Some places have a more upmarket selection - mellow jazz, piano arrangements, whatever - but these are rare.
In my workplace, music is played over speakers all day long. This irks me on several levels. First, there's the choice of music - in an office of 20-plus people, most of them young, you can imagine how hard it is to reach a consensus on what should be included in the playlist. Then there's the volume; some people want it loud, some want it soft, I want it switched off entirely. There's the chorus of jeers and outbreaks of banter and lively discussion when certain music or artists pop up in the rotation, which varies - depending on what, if anything, I'm trying to concentrate on - from mildly entertaining to knuckle-chompingly distracting.
"Why don't we just each listen to our own music on our own headphones?", I've asked more than once. It's not as if everyone in the office didn't have an MP3 player of some description, to say nothing of their own computers. That's what we used to do back in good ol' Bristol, and the result was a happy and hardworking office with background noise kept sternly under control.
But that was in England, where personal space is a serious matter. More importantly, I think, it was among mature professionals, not the 20-somethings that dominate this workplace. Rejecting the music here is seen as rejecting your colleagues' tastes and values.
And somehow, I think, there's more to it than 'tastes and values'. Music is no longer just a matter of preferences. Increasingly, with the ubiquity of pop music, it's become a part of our very souls.
When I hear a song I've heard before, there's a part of my mind that is irresistibly drawn back to the previous times I've heard it. In most cases that's a weak or meaningless memory, but with a few songs, it's deeply embedded in my mind. If I hear Spiller's 'Groovejet', for instance, I am instantly dragged back to the late summer of 2000 - the time I quit my job and spent eight months eking out a freelancer's pittance. It was uncomfortable, but very liberating. Anything by the Cardigans recalls the mid 90s, which to me means security, boredom, loneliness and opportunity. Tears for Fears - my sixth form - a combination of naïve optimism, creative romanticism and teenage desperation. And I can't hear Shakira's 'Whenever, wherever' without being taken back to a chalet at Center Parcs, with a bunch of my oldest friends from university. ("Is that Britney?", asked Penny. "No way," I thought. "That woman has more talent in her hair clippings than Britney will ever muster." But I didn't say it out loud, just in case I was wrong.)
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these songs are a part of my soul. Because of the way pop songs are promoted - played widely and frequently for a short time, then discarded - they will always be associated with particular phases and periods of my life. They will always evoke some kind of feelings in me - feelings that are nothing to do with the singer or the song, but are mine, arising from my life and my personal history.
And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in feeling this way. That's why there are so many 'oldies' radio stations out there, each aiming at its own particular demographic.
This realisation comes with some uncomfortable corrollaries. First is that my emotions can be readily, though clumsily, manipulated by someone who knows what songs to play. Really I'm not worried about that, because these associations are far too personal for any stranger to guess precisely what effect any given song will have on me in any given situation.
Then there's the thought that a part of me is made up of the horribly commercialised products of an industry that is justly renowned for destroying human beings, in pursuit of fame and wealth. And that the music industry itself, increasingly, tries to manipulate my associations with their 'product' by placing it in TV shows, movies, games and elsewhere; these people are trying to write directly to my soul.
And this may be a clue to why my current colleagues can't imagine their world without constant music. It has been written to their souls. They hear the soundtrack to a movie, and their memory is of whatever excitement and pleasure they felt in watching the movie. They hear a song that was used in a TV ad when they were ten, and they remember life as a ten-year-old. It's not quite that simple, of course; but it's a lot easier to predict their responses than those of us who've reached middle age, with our wider variety of background and experience.
Finally, in the uncomfortable-reflections column: this is the music that, the industry insists, doesn't belong to me. If I want to play it, to evoke those memories - my memories, remember - I have to pay them to do it.
This, I think, is another important clue to my colleagues' attitudes. Because not one of them would dream of paying for any of this music - they simply rip it from somewhere online. The music played in our office is not paid for. And even though I don't generally condone piracy or commit it on my own behalf, and even though I hate the music, I find myself wholeheartedly approving of this attitude. The notion that you can implant something into someone else, and then claim to own it - that is just Evil. So, I think - good on my colleagues, for their subtle but ongoing 'Screw you' to the industry.
While my mother was, on the whole, charmed beyond reason with our fair country, there was one aspect of our colonial lifestyle that drove her completely up the wall. This was the inescapability of background music.
Just to be clear what we're talking about here: in New Zealand, practically every shop, mall, cafe, restaurant, food hall, arcade, bar and supermarket you can walk into has its own canned music playing - usually low, but very audible. It's everywhere. Even on the street you can often hear it. It is so ubiquitous that, when I find a rare case of a shop that doesn't have it, I will pause and wonder for a few moments before I figure out what's missing - then I'll enjoy the peace.
Contrast: in 1992 I visited Budapest - my first trip behind what used to be called the Iron Curtain - and there, too, I found music everywhere; but that was live music, played by real musicians. Good musicians. It seemed that dozens of concert-quality violinists, cellists, clarinetists, trios, quartets, and even (on at least one occasion) an entire symphony orchestra, were trying to supplement their livings by busking in the streets and public spaces. The result was noisy, but not unpleasant.
The music here is not like that. It's recorded, trawled from chart hits and popular oldies (occasionally dating back to the primordial days of the 70s or 80s), and played endlessly at a background level. In short, it's music at its worst. Some places have a more upmarket selection - mellow jazz, piano arrangements, whatever - but these are rare.
In my workplace, music is played over speakers all day long. This irks me on several levels. First, there's the choice of music - in an office of 20-plus people, most of them young, you can imagine how hard it is to reach a consensus on what should be included in the playlist. Then there's the volume; some people want it loud, some want it soft, I want it switched off entirely. There's the chorus of jeers and outbreaks of banter and lively discussion when certain music or artists pop up in the rotation, which varies - depending on what, if anything, I'm trying to concentrate on - from mildly entertaining to knuckle-chompingly distracting.
"Why don't we just each listen to our own music on our own headphones?", I've asked more than once. It's not as if everyone in the office didn't have an MP3 player of some description, to say nothing of their own computers. That's what we used to do back in good ol' Bristol, and the result was a happy and hardworking office with background noise kept sternly under control.
But that was in England, where personal space is a serious matter. More importantly, I think, it was among mature professionals, not the 20-somethings that dominate this workplace. Rejecting the music here is seen as rejecting your colleagues' tastes and values.
And somehow, I think, there's more to it than 'tastes and values'. Music is no longer just a matter of preferences. Increasingly, with the ubiquity of pop music, it's become a part of our very souls.
When I hear a song I've heard before, there's a part of my mind that is irresistibly drawn back to the previous times I've heard it. In most cases that's a weak or meaningless memory, but with a few songs, it's deeply embedded in my mind. If I hear Spiller's 'Groovejet', for instance, I am instantly dragged back to the late summer of 2000 - the time I quit my job and spent eight months eking out a freelancer's pittance. It was uncomfortable, but very liberating. Anything by the Cardigans recalls the mid 90s, which to me means security, boredom, loneliness and opportunity. Tears for Fears - my sixth form - a combination of naïve optimism, creative romanticism and teenage desperation. And I can't hear Shakira's 'Whenever, wherever' without being taken back to a chalet at Center Parcs, with a bunch of my oldest friends from university. ("Is that Britney?", asked Penny. "No way," I thought. "That woman has more talent in her hair clippings than Britney will ever muster." But I didn't say it out loud, just in case I was wrong.)
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these songs are a part of my soul. Because of the way pop songs are promoted - played widely and frequently for a short time, then discarded - they will always be associated with particular phases and periods of my life. They will always evoke some kind of feelings in me - feelings that are nothing to do with the singer or the song, but are mine, arising from my life and my personal history.
And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in feeling this way. That's why there are so many 'oldies' radio stations out there, each aiming at its own particular demographic.
This realisation comes with some uncomfortable corrollaries. First is that my emotions can be readily, though clumsily, manipulated by someone who knows what songs to play. Really I'm not worried about that, because these associations are far too personal for any stranger to guess precisely what effect any given song will have on me in any given situation.
Then there's the thought that a part of me is made up of the horribly commercialised products of an industry that is justly renowned for destroying human beings, in pursuit of fame and wealth. And that the music industry itself, increasingly, tries to manipulate my associations with their 'product' by placing it in TV shows, movies, games and elsewhere; these people are trying to write directly to my soul.
And this may be a clue to why my current colleagues can't imagine their world without constant music. It has been written to their souls. They hear the soundtrack to a movie, and their memory is of whatever excitement and pleasure they felt in watching the movie. They hear a song that was used in a TV ad when they were ten, and they remember life as a ten-year-old. It's not quite that simple, of course; but it's a lot easier to predict their responses than those of us who've reached middle age, with our wider variety of background and experience.
Finally, in the uncomfortable-reflections column: this is the music that, the industry insists, doesn't belong to me. If I want to play it, to evoke those memories - my memories, remember - I have to pay them to do it.
This, I think, is another important clue to my colleagues' attitudes. Because not one of them would dream of paying for any of this music - they simply rip it from somewhere online. The music played in our office is not paid for. And even though I don't generally condone piracy or commit it on my own behalf, and even though I hate the music, I find myself wholeheartedly approving of this attitude. The notion that you can implant something into someone else, and then claim to own it - that is just Evil. So, I think - good on my colleagues, for their subtle but ongoing 'Screw you' to the industry.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
ACTA - the fair, the bad, and the just plain silly
The full negotiating text of the long-secret 'Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement' has finally been released.
As everyone and her dog has long known, the agreement has little to do with "counterfeiting" as we English-speakers know it ("trying to pass something off as something else"), but is rather about protecting the revenue streams of the US congress by "harmonising" international copyright law. Apparently, the six existing international treaties on the subject just aren't cutting it. True counterfeiting (trademark infringement) does get a mention, but it is very much an afterthought. The real meat is all in 'copyright'.
In the Kafka-esque process of negotiating this secret treaty, there have been several rounds of "consultation" in which we, the public, have been invited - albeit very quietly - to comment on various aspects of the text that we've never been permitted to see. In the last such round, I sent in a short submission to the NZ delegation on the aspect that most bothers me, which is an area known in NZ law as "technological protection measures".
TPMs sound complicated and obscure, but in fact they're not nearly obscure enough. They are what prevents you from playing your Region 1 DVD in a Region 2 DVD player, from using your backup copy of your software CD, from copying the text from your legally-purchased e-book, from saving a streaming media file to your desktop to listen offline.
All of these actions are, at least in NZ and the UK, explicitly permitted by law - that is to say, a copyright holder has no right to prevent us from doing them, without asking permission, even if they want to. Yet TPMs are used to nullify those laws and stop us anyway. And - and here's the kick in the teeth - the publishing industry wants it to be illegal to "circumvent" a TPM, regardless of the circumventor's motives or their use of the product. That is what I'm fighting to keep out of NZ law.
In the event, the text is so convoluted that it's hard to see who's winning. Omitting footnotes, and condensing without loss of meaning (note: ellipses mark excisions for brevity; square brackets are in the original):
A TPM may be something that "controls access to a protected work... protects any copyright or any rights related to copyright [name three - Ed]". Or alternatively, it may be something that "is controlled by the right holders through application of an access control or protection process". It doesn't take a Hallam or a Holmes to see that these are two very different definitions - one based on what it does, the other on who does it. Then comes a third definition, much better than either of these: measures "that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of [protected] works".
It would be tremendous vanity to see my own fingerprints here, but that last version is exactly what I'm aiming for: tying TPMs to the limited set of rights that they are allowed to protect. An act that is explicitly protected by law cannot be "unauthorized" - therefore, something that restricts it is not a TPM within the meaning of this text.
All is not lost. There is plenty of text here that, if allowed to stand, would make a decent, liberal, liveable treaty. There is also some extremely bad text that, if allowed to stand, would enforce a new world order in which you could no longer lay claim even to the contents of your own memory. Which way will it go?
As everyone and her dog has long known, the agreement has little to do with "counterfeiting" as we English-speakers know it ("trying to pass something off as something else"), but is rather about protecting the revenue streams of the US congress by "harmonising" international copyright law. Apparently, the six existing international treaties on the subject just aren't cutting it. True counterfeiting (trademark infringement) does get a mention, but it is very much an afterthought. The real meat is all in 'copyright'.
In the Kafka-esque process of negotiating this secret treaty, there have been several rounds of "consultation" in which we, the public, have been invited - albeit very quietly - to comment on various aspects of the text that we've never been permitted to see. In the last such round, I sent in a short submission to the NZ delegation on the aspect that most bothers me, which is an area known in NZ law as "technological protection measures".
TPMs sound complicated and obscure, but in fact they're not nearly obscure enough. They are what prevents you from playing your Region 1 DVD in a Region 2 DVD player, from using your backup copy of your software CD, from copying the text from your legally-purchased e-book, from saving a streaming media file to your desktop to listen offline.
All of these actions are, at least in NZ and the UK, explicitly permitted by law - that is to say, a copyright holder has no right to prevent us from doing them, without asking permission, even if they want to. Yet TPMs are used to nullify those laws and stop us anyway. And - and here's the kick in the teeth - the publishing industry wants it to be illegal to "circumvent" a TPM, regardless of the circumventor's motives or their use of the product. That is what I'm fighting to keep out of NZ law.
In the event, the text is so convoluted that it's hard to see who's winning. Omitting footnotes, and condensing without loss of meaning (note: ellipses mark excisions for brevity; square brackets are in the original):
Effective technological measure means any technology ... that, in the normal course of its operation, [controls access to a protected work, performance, phonogram, or protects any copyright or any rights related to copyrights.][is controlled by the right holders through application of an access control or protection process such as encryption, scrambling, or other transformation of their works, performances or phonograms, or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective.]I think I begin to see why the Americans finally agreed to let this be published. The various options and alternate clauses are so divergent, I could be headed for a famous victory or a disastrous defeat; it's literally impossible to tell.
[4. In order to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors, [performers or producers of phonograms] [the right holder of any copyright or related rights or owner of an exclusive license] in connection with the exercise of their rights and that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of their works... each Party shall provide for civil remedies, [or] [as well as] criminal penalties in appropriate cases of willful conduct, that apply to:
[Each Party shall provide for adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies... against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors, performers or producers or phonograms in connection with the exercise of their rights and that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of their works, performances, and phonogram. These shall apply to:]
(a) the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure [that controls access to a protected work, performance, or phonogram]; and
(b) the manufacture, importation, or circulation of a [technology] ... that is: [marketed] or primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or that has only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than...
A TPM may be something that "controls access to a protected work... protects any copyright or any rights related to copyright [name three - Ed]". Or alternatively, it may be something that "is controlled by the right holders through application of an access control or protection process". It doesn't take a Hallam or a Holmes to see that these are two very different definitions - one based on what it does, the other on who does it. Then comes a third definition, much better than either of these: measures "that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of [protected] works".
It would be tremendous vanity to see my own fingerprints here, but that last version is exactly what I'm aiming for: tying TPMs to the limited set of rights that they are allowed to protect. An act that is explicitly protected by law cannot be "unauthorized" - therefore, something that restricts it is not a TPM within the meaning of this text.
All is not lost. There is plenty of text here that, if allowed to stand, would make a decent, liberal, liveable treaty. There is also some extremely bad text that, if allowed to stand, would enforce a new world order in which you could no longer lay claim even to the contents of your own memory. Which way will it go?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
How not to pass a law
Lord Can't-Mind-His-Own-Business-For-Just-Five-Bleeding-Minutes Mandelson is back in the headlines, now proposing a "Digital Economy Bill" that, apparently, must be passed right now, not in five months' time after the election, or else Britain will fall apart. Wales will collapse into the Irish Sea, Scotland will declare independence and form a union with Somalia - or worse, France - while London degenerates into a barren wasteland stalked by gangs of feral children preying on the flesh of tourists. I paraphrase slightly, but it's certainly urgent that Mandy gets his way.
And what he wants from Santa is legislation to, among other things, cut off internet users who download stuff they don't have the right to.
Now, as an aim, I have a deal of sympathy with that. Illegal downloaders are a pain in the itinerant. Not only do they score for free all that content that the rest of us are paying good money for, thus upping the price for we poor saps who pay it; they also clog up the Internet while doing it, thus making my (legal) downloads run like a three-legged donkey. Climbing a stairwell.
And Mandy's proposal - ISPs to write warning letters to alleged offenders - is not unreasonable. Crucially, the letters are to be sent at the complainants' expense. That's a positive step, putting the burden of Being Serious in the right place. It gives "rights holders" (gods, how I hate that phrase) a much-needed incentive to think twice before simply spamming everyone whose IP number shows up in a server log.
Now, naturally enough, the ISPs are kicking up a fuss. It's all very well Big Content paying for the letters (they say), but what you're talking about is putting in place technical measures and procedures that are far from simple, and that's going to cost us real money. Being reasonably savvy in the ways of PR, they don't phrase it quite like that; they say it will cost the consumer money. Specifically, about £25 per broadband connection.
Obviously, the ISPs want money. They don't care who it comes from, and they think they see a chance to grab it from the "content providers" rather than directly from their own customers. (Of course the consumer ends up paying it either way. Just through different channels.)
What bothers me here is the lack of honest debate. The "Digital Britain" report was published six months ago, Mandy's legislative proposals one month ago, and he wants them passed into law in less than six months.
That's just silly. The questions involved here are not questions of dark sorcery or byzantine banking practices; they're simple moral questions, which any reasonable person can understand. Given time, you could come to a consensus that people would accept. You don't have to impose it by fiat from above. Democracy could actually work here, if only you gave it the chance.
I've already outlined my reasons for disliking digital freeloaders. Mandy's proposals for dealing with them answer some of the standard civil-liberties complaints. What's left is, to a large extent, whipped up by the two industries - ISPs and content owners - both of whom stake out ridiculous positions in the hope that the inevitable "compromise" is enough to ensure diamond-encrusted pensions to their great-grandchildren. Given time, we could hear some worthwhile points put to them:
And time is what Mandy won't allow.
And what he wants from Santa is legislation to, among other things, cut off internet users who download stuff they don't have the right to.
Now, as an aim, I have a deal of sympathy with that. Illegal downloaders are a pain in the itinerant. Not only do they score for free all that content that the rest of us are paying good money for, thus upping the price for we poor saps who pay it; they also clog up the Internet while doing it, thus making my (legal) downloads run like a three-legged donkey. Climbing a stairwell.
And Mandy's proposal - ISPs to write warning letters to alleged offenders - is not unreasonable. Crucially, the letters are to be sent at the complainants' expense. That's a positive step, putting the burden of Being Serious in the right place. It gives "rights holders" (gods, how I hate that phrase) a much-needed incentive to think twice before simply spamming everyone whose IP number shows up in a server log.
Now, naturally enough, the ISPs are kicking up a fuss. It's all very well Big Content paying for the letters (they say), but what you're talking about is putting in place technical measures and procedures that are far from simple, and that's going to cost us real money. Being reasonably savvy in the ways of PR, they don't phrase it quite like that; they say it will cost the consumer money. Specifically, about £25 per broadband connection.
Obviously, the ISPs want money. They don't care who it comes from, and they think they see a chance to grab it from the "content providers" rather than directly from their own customers. (Of course the consumer ends up paying it either way. Just through different channels.)
What bothers me here is the lack of honest debate. The "Digital Britain" report was published six months ago, Mandy's legislative proposals one month ago, and he wants them passed into law in less than six months.
That's just silly. The questions involved here are not questions of dark sorcery or byzantine banking practices; they're simple moral questions, which any reasonable person can understand. Given time, you could come to a consensus that people would accept. You don't have to impose it by fiat from above. Democracy could actually work here, if only you gave it the chance.
I've already outlined my reasons for disliking digital freeloaders. Mandy's proposals for dealing with them answer some of the standard civil-liberties complaints. What's left is, to a large extent, whipped up by the two industries - ISPs and content owners - both of whom stake out ridiculous positions in the hope that the inevitable "compromise" is enough to ensure diamond-encrusted pensions to their great-grandchildren. Given time, we could hear some worthwhile points put to them:
ISP: "Why should we spend money to support someone else's business?"But these things take time. Not to come up with the questions - geeks like me have this set just waiting - but to debate them, make the public aware of them, put together some sort of consensus about what is and isn't "fair".
Me: "Because your business benefits directly from theirs. How many fewer broadband subscriptions would you sell, if people couldn't download copyrighted content?"
Copyright Holders: "Too right! These pirates are costing us billions!"
Me: "And you, just stop it. Stop stealing my culture and trying to sell it back to me. Stop trying to resell the same thing over and over. Stop punishing me for buying your product. Stop lying about piracy. Just sell a decent product at a fair price."
And time is what Mandy won't allow.
Monday, July 6, 2009
A wizard wheeze
I don't know how I came to miss this story when it broke last month...
Apparently, J K Rowling is being sued for copying some elements of Harry Potter from an earlier childrens' work, Adventures of Willy the Wizard. Rowling's publisher, Bloomsbury, vigorously defends the claim.
Interesting that the media instinctively turns to the publisher for a response. Nobody mentions whether Rowling herself has said anything. (Has anyone even asked her? I wonder.)
The author of Willy is dead and in his grave. But his family, who apparently took until 2004 to notice the existence of Harry Potter, are now suing Rowling. They claim she stole key plot elements, including: a wizard schoolboy competing in a magic contest, a wizard train, a wizard prison, a wizard school, and a wizard rescuing hostages from half-human creatures in a bathroom.
Wow, that must be a pretty action-packed 36 pages.
And on this basis, they're asking for £500 million from Rowling. Which, according to the Sunday Times rich list, is about five-sixths of all the money she's made from her 3,500 pages of writing.
Is there anyone who is still willing to say, with a straight face, that copyright is not being abused here?
In unrelated news, secondhand copies of Adventures of Willy the Wizard are now commanding prices into three figures.
Maybe - just maybe - this case will weigh ever so slightly in the scales when Bloomsbury next considers its policy, as regards copyright protection of minor plot elements.
Apparently, J K Rowling is being sued for copying some elements of Harry Potter from an earlier childrens' work, Adventures of Willy the Wizard. Rowling's publisher, Bloomsbury, vigorously defends the claim.
Interesting that the media instinctively turns to the publisher for a response. Nobody mentions whether Rowling herself has said anything. (Has anyone even asked her? I wonder.)
The author of Willy is dead and in his grave. But his family, who apparently took until 2004 to notice the existence of Harry Potter, are now suing Rowling. They claim she stole key plot elements, including: a wizard schoolboy competing in a magic contest, a wizard train, a wizard prison, a wizard school, and a wizard rescuing hostages from half-human creatures in a bathroom.
Wow, that must be a pretty action-packed 36 pages.
And on this basis, they're asking for £500 million from Rowling. Which, according to the Sunday Times rich list, is about five-sixths of all the money she's made from her 3,500 pages of writing.
Is there anyone who is still willing to say, with a straight face, that copyright is not being abused here?
In unrelated news, secondhand copies of Adventures of Willy the Wizard are now commanding prices into three figures.
Maybe - just maybe - this case will weigh ever so slightly in the scales when Bloomsbury next considers its policy, as regards copyright protection of minor plot elements.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
When politicians agree
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Last week, the blogosphere tells me, the US Congress voted overwhelmingly for a new policy to oppose any global climate change treaty that "weakens the IP rights of American companies".
Actually it's worse than that. The Secretary of State is mandated to ensure that "the protection in foreign countries of the intellectual property rights of United States persons in other countries is a significant component of United States foreign policy". And "in consultation with the Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service and other agencies as appropriate, ... ensure that adequate resources are available at diplomatic missions in any country that is identified" as failing to do enough to enforce US IP rights against its own citizens.
What prompted this piece of turf-staking was the suggestion that green technologies should be shared as much as possible. No sooner had the US Energy Secretary, the painfully naïve Steven Chu, suggested that this might be a desirable aim, than bloggers, analysts and other headline-grabbers were talking excitedly of compulsory licensing, seizure or outright abolition of patents on low-carbon technology. Couldn't have that.
What's going on here, I think, is an illustration of the US political class's determination to extend as long and as far as possible the delusion that "intellectual property" is a real thing, as genuine and palpable as actual land. Anything that threatens that perception, anything that hints at the truth of just how fragile and indefensible IP really is, needs to be met, or better yet pre-empted, with prompt and decisive action.
Why? Why is Congress, so conflicted and lukewarm about everything from the budget to immigration, so red-hot and united on this single issue?
I think there are two reasons. The first is obvious: money. Industries that are heavily invested in IP pay fortunes in direct bribes and lobbying to Congress, and that's just the visible totals.
The second reason is more sinister. "Intellectual property" is the new frontier, the realm in which the young and the dispossessed are now encouraged to make their fortunes. Otherwise, they might start asking questions on the lines of "shouldn't we have some real land?" It's a way for the rich to "offer" the poor the prospect of "owning property", without the threat that this "property" might be subtracted from their own possessions. The cost of "intellectual property" is a regressive tax: it's shared more or less equally by all of us, rich and poor alike.
And so far, we're all falling for it.
Last week, the blogosphere tells me, the US Congress voted overwhelmingly for a new policy to oppose any global climate change treaty that "weakens the IP rights of American companies".
Actually it's worse than that. The Secretary of State is mandated to ensure that "the protection in foreign countries of the intellectual property rights of United States persons in other countries is a significant component of United States foreign policy". And "in consultation with the Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service and other agencies as appropriate, ... ensure that adequate resources are available at diplomatic missions in any country that is identified" as failing to do enough to enforce US IP rights against its own citizens.
What prompted this piece of turf-staking was the suggestion that green technologies should be shared as much as possible. No sooner had the US Energy Secretary, the painfully naïve Steven Chu, suggested that this might be a desirable aim, than bloggers, analysts and other headline-grabbers were talking excitedly of compulsory licensing, seizure or outright abolition of patents on low-carbon technology. Couldn't have that.
What's going on here, I think, is an illustration of the US political class's determination to extend as long and as far as possible the delusion that "intellectual property" is a real thing, as genuine and palpable as actual land. Anything that threatens that perception, anything that hints at the truth of just how fragile and indefensible IP really is, needs to be met, or better yet pre-empted, with prompt and decisive action.
Why? Why is Congress, so conflicted and lukewarm about everything from the budget to immigration, so red-hot and united on this single issue?
I think there are two reasons. The first is obvious: money. Industries that are heavily invested in IP pay fortunes in direct bribes and lobbying to Congress, and that's just the visible totals.
The second reason is more sinister. "Intellectual property" is the new frontier, the realm in which the young and the dispossessed are now encouraged to make their fortunes. Otherwise, they might start asking questions on the lines of "shouldn't we have some real land?" It's a way for the rich to "offer" the poor the prospect of "owning property", without the threat that this "property" might be subtracted from their own possessions. The cost of "intellectual property" is a regressive tax: it's shared more or less equally by all of us, rich and poor alike.
And so far, we're all falling for it.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The spinning of greed
This can't be good. The Musicians' Union is taking issue with the British National Party raising money by selling albums on its website.
For the benefit of my non-British readers: the BNP is a nasty organisation, unabashedly xenophobic and racist. British musicians are mostly, to a greater or lesser degree, bleeding-heart lefties. It's hardly surprising that the musicians take exception to their music being used to finance their enemies.
But apparently they can't stop it. Some idiot sold the publication rights to their songs, and now the BNP's merchandising arm, Excalibur, is putting them on compilation albums.
I'm reminded of Krusty the Klown: "They drove a dump truck of money up to my house! What was I supposed to do? I'm not made of stone!"
You sold the rights, losers. You could've negotiated contracts that left you in control of how your music could be sold and by whom - but that wouldn't have paid so well, would it?
So look at it this way. You made money by selling rights that the BNP is now exploiting. There's nothing to stop you now spending that money to campaign against the BNP. Unless, of course, you've already spent it keeping your teenagers in Ferraris, in which case that was your decision and I hope it went well for you.
You've also got two things the BNP doesn't have: talent, and a fan base. If you can't convert that into more solid votes than the less-than-5% the BNP routinely scoops, you're not trying.
But that's not what the Musicians' Union wants. What it wants is yet another extension to copyright law that would give musicians control over their own music, even if they've already sold it.
That's "moral rights", and in fact they already exist in British copyright law. Musicians have the right to object to "derogatory treatment" of their work, and if they really cared, they could try to make an argument that selling songs under a BNP-affiliated brand name amounted to "derogatory treatment". The courts may or may not support that interpretation, but we won't know until someone tries.
What the Musicians' Union seems to have in mind, however, is more. More rights to be given retroactively to artists who seem to be suffering from "seller's remorse". The Musicians' Union has a long track record of asking for contracts to be unilaterally rewritten in their favour. Last year it was extended copyright terms for sound recordings -- an argument for which there is no coherent case either economically or morally. This year, apparently, it's back to "control".
Let's not allow the BNP case to become a wedge whereby yet more rights get taken away from us, the consumers. Let the musicians use the rights they have, before complaining about those they haven't.
Bankers of the world could learn from the musicians. Here are wealthy people who have actually won public support for campaigns that amount to no more than "we deserve more money!" See, it can be done...
For the benefit of my non-British readers: the BNP is a nasty organisation, unabashedly xenophobic and racist. British musicians are mostly, to a greater or lesser degree, bleeding-heart lefties. It's hardly surprising that the musicians take exception to their music being used to finance their enemies.
But apparently they can't stop it. Some idiot sold the publication rights to their songs, and now the BNP's merchandising arm, Excalibur, is putting them on compilation albums.
I'm reminded of Krusty the Klown: "They drove a dump truck of money up to my house! What was I supposed to do? I'm not made of stone!"
You sold the rights, losers. You could've negotiated contracts that left you in control of how your music could be sold and by whom - but that wouldn't have paid so well, would it?
So look at it this way. You made money by selling rights that the BNP is now exploiting. There's nothing to stop you now spending that money to campaign against the BNP. Unless, of course, you've already spent it keeping your teenagers in Ferraris, in which case that was your decision and I hope it went well for you.
You've also got two things the BNP doesn't have: talent, and a fan base. If you can't convert that into more solid votes than the less-than-5% the BNP routinely scoops, you're not trying.
But that's not what the Musicians' Union wants. What it wants is yet another extension to copyright law that would give musicians control over their own music, even if they've already sold it.
That's "moral rights", and in fact they already exist in British copyright law. Musicians have the right to object to "derogatory treatment" of their work, and if they really cared, they could try to make an argument that selling songs under a BNP-affiliated brand name amounted to "derogatory treatment". The courts may or may not support that interpretation, but we won't know until someone tries.
What the Musicians' Union seems to have in mind, however, is more. More rights to be given retroactively to artists who seem to be suffering from "seller's remorse". The Musicians' Union has a long track record of asking for contracts to be unilaterally rewritten in their favour. Last year it was extended copyright terms for sound recordings -- an argument for which there is no coherent case either economically or morally. This year, apparently, it's back to "control".
Let's not allow the BNP case to become a wedge whereby yet more rights get taken away from us, the consumers. Let the musicians use the rights they have, before complaining about those they haven't.
Bankers of the world could learn from the musicians. Here are wealthy people who have actually won public support for campaigns that amount to no more than "we deserve more money!" See, it can be done...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Inconvenient statistics
In the exciting world of copyright politics, the buzz last week was the Business Software Alliance's annual survey of software piracy rates worldwide. It makes for fascinating reading, if you're into that kind of thing.
But I know most of you aren't, so I'll spare you the detailed study. Summarised:
What, you want a statistical analysis? Okeydokey. What follows is my own research, from combining the BSA's stats with the WIPO's record of countries applying its treaty. Counting only countries for whom the BSA gives data for all years from 2004 to 2008:
You can try other analyses if you like - the data's all public. I haven't yet come up with any approach that suggests the WCT has any effect at all.
But I know most of you aren't, so I'll spare you the detailed study. Summarised:
- The methodology is only vaguely described. How does the BSA arrive at these figures? It doesn't say.
- The BSA claims that since 2004, piracy rates worldwide are up by a disturbing margin, from 35% to 41%. However, when you look at the figures for individual countries, you see that rates are down in almost every major country, and up in only 11 countries. In fact, only one country - Venezuela - shows a rise that is higher than the 6% "worldwide" figure.
- (So, according to the BSA, the Venezuelan economy is important enough to single-handedly outweigh the entire G20. Go Chavez!)
- The most law-abiding countries in the world are: the USA, Japan, New Zealand, Luxembourg. The most lawless are Bangladesh, Armenia, Zimbabwe and Georgia.
- The BSA argues that the WIPO Copyright Treaty will cure what ails it. This is mystifying, since its own data shows no correlation whatever between a country's enforcement of the treaty and its piracy trends (see below).
What, you want a statistical analysis? Okeydokey. What follows is my own research, from combining the BSA's stats with the WIPO's record of countries applying its treaty. Counting only countries for whom the BSA gives data for all years from 2004 to 2008:
| Number of countries that have... | Total | Piracy down | Piracy up | No change |
| Enforced the treaty since 2004 or earlier | 35 | 28 | 5 | 2 |
| Begun enforcement between 2005 and 2008 | 13 | 10 | 1 | 2 |
| Signed the treaty but not yet enforced it as of 01/01/2009 | 23 | 19 | 3 | 1 |
| Not signed the treaty | 26 | 21 | 3 | 2 |
You can try other analyses if you like - the data's all public. I haven't yet come up with any approach that suggests the WCT has any effect at all.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Identity theft
I hear with sorrow that Peter Jackson is remaking The Dam Busters.
Well, actually, I'm quite glad that the project has escaped the venomous grip of Mel "England is Satan" Gibson. In fact, if Jackson wants to win me over, he only needs to make one major change: the title.
The Dam Busters (1955) follows in a long line of classic movies whose memory Hollywood has defacated on by making a modern version with the same title as the original. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951/2008), The Pink Panther (1963/2006), War of the Worlds (1953/2005), The Italian Job (1969/2003), Psycho (1960/1998), The Ladykillers (1955/2004), School for Scoundrels (1960/2006), Bedazzled (1967/2000)... Jackson himself perpetrated the similar desecration of King Kong. All of these are movies that really, seriously didn't need to be remade. In every single case, the popular vote recorded at IMDB supports my own prejudiced judgment - that the older version was better.
(I'm not counting TV movies. All of the above remakes were budgeted for, and received, major theatre releases.)
It's always gone on, of course. I'm not forgetting Ben Hur (1907/1959) and King Kong (1933/1976, before the recent silliness). But it's accelerated sharply, in recent years. There's been a whole bunch of remakes of movies from the 50s and 60s that were not blockbusters, but were generally accepted as classics of their genres.
It's easy to put this down to the risk-averse, creativity-starved nature of modern Hollywood, and I'm sure that does play its part. Similarly, there's a lot of British movies in the list, and obviously Americans are too chauvinist to appreciate them, so they have to be remade with American casts and settings. If that were all that was going on here, I'd just sneer quietly and keep my opinions to those who ask for them.
But it's not. There's something bigger, something far more sinister at work. A kind of naked greed that does not hesitate to rob our culture to enrich itself.
See: when someone takes the title of a movie, and then pours a lot of money into promoting it, they attract name recognition to their new version. Result: the old version gets hidden. Walk into any video store today and ask for The Italian Job, and what you'll be offered first is that pointless drivel with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron. You'll have to ask again, and quite possibly root around the remainder bins, to find the Michael Caine/Noel Coward classic. (It's well worth it, if you haven't seen it.)
And I think the reason for this identity theft lies in one of my most harped-on words: copyright.
Movies aren't like books, or songs, or poems, or even pictures. Copyright on movies doesn't date from the death of the author: it dates from when the movie was first shown to the public.
Hollywood's first attempt to extend this duration was "remastering". By touching up old films, it claimed, the clock gets restarted for the "new version". But that interpretation wasn't universally smiled upon by the courts. So instead they set about rewriting the law, so that now copyright on movies in the USA lasts an eye-watering 95 years from first publication. However, in backwards countries such as New Zealand, the studio has a paltry 50 years from the date of first showing to recover its investment on a movie, before it becomes free for anyone.
(Barbaric. How can anyone be expected to make a return in just 50 years?)
That means those older movies belong to all of us, and no-one can stop anyone else from doing as they please with them. That's a lot of fine movies. What Hollywood is working on, now, is a systematic effort to erase those older movies from our collective consciousness.
You can help. Whenever you hear of a movie that's been remade, nip down to your video store and ask for the old version. Borrow it from your library. Buy it, if you like it, and lend it to your friends and force it on your family. Make sure the stores keep those movies on their shelves.
Well, actually, I'm quite glad that the project has escaped the venomous grip of Mel "England is Satan" Gibson. In fact, if Jackson wants to win me over, he only needs to make one major change: the title.
The Dam Busters (1955) follows in a long line of classic movies whose memory Hollywood has defacated on by making a modern version with the same title as the original. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951/2008), The Pink Panther (1963/2006), War of the Worlds (1953/2005), The Italian Job (1969/2003), Psycho (1960/1998), The Ladykillers (1955/2004), School for Scoundrels (1960/2006), Bedazzled (1967/2000)... Jackson himself perpetrated the similar desecration of King Kong. All of these are movies that really, seriously didn't need to be remade. In every single case, the popular vote recorded at IMDB supports my own prejudiced judgment - that the older version was better.
(I'm not counting TV movies. All of the above remakes were budgeted for, and received, major theatre releases.)
It's always gone on, of course. I'm not forgetting Ben Hur (1907/1959) and King Kong (1933/1976, before the recent silliness). But it's accelerated sharply, in recent years. There's been a whole bunch of remakes of movies from the 50s and 60s that were not blockbusters, but were generally accepted as classics of their genres.
It's easy to put this down to the risk-averse, creativity-starved nature of modern Hollywood, and I'm sure that does play its part. Similarly, there's a lot of British movies in the list, and obviously Americans are too chauvinist to appreciate them, so they have to be remade with American casts and settings. If that were all that was going on here, I'd just sneer quietly and keep my opinions to those who ask for them.
But it's not. There's something bigger, something far more sinister at work. A kind of naked greed that does not hesitate to rob our culture to enrich itself.
See: when someone takes the title of a movie, and then pours a lot of money into promoting it, they attract name recognition to their new version. Result: the old version gets hidden. Walk into any video store today and ask for The Italian Job, and what you'll be offered first is that pointless drivel with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron. You'll have to ask again, and quite possibly root around the remainder bins, to find the Michael Caine/Noel Coward classic. (It's well worth it, if you haven't seen it.)
And I think the reason for this identity theft lies in one of my most harped-on words: copyright.
Movies aren't like books, or songs, or poems, or even pictures. Copyright on movies doesn't date from the death of the author: it dates from when the movie was first shown to the public.
Hollywood's first attempt to extend this duration was "remastering". By touching up old films, it claimed, the clock gets restarted for the "new version". But that interpretation wasn't universally smiled upon by the courts. So instead they set about rewriting the law, so that now copyright on movies in the USA lasts an eye-watering 95 years from first publication. However, in backwards countries such as New Zealand, the studio has a paltry 50 years from the date of first showing to recover its investment on a movie, before it becomes free for anyone.
(Barbaric. How can anyone be expected to make a return in just 50 years?)
That means those older movies belong to all of us, and no-one can stop anyone else from doing as they please with them. That's a lot of fine movies. What Hollywood is working on, now, is a systematic effort to erase those older movies from our collective consciousness.
You can help. Whenever you hear of a movie that's been remade, nip down to your video store and ask for the old version. Borrow it from your library. Buy it, if you like it, and lend it to your friends and force it on your family. Make sure the stores keep those movies on their shelves.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Darth Google
A few of weeks ago now, I installed a new widget on this page that records where (it thinks) my readers are located, where they come from, and what links they click when they're here.
It's fascinating reading, although slightly dispiriting that I don't get visited nearly as often as I should. But among other things, it lets me see what people were searching Google for when my blog popped up.
An uncommon lot of people - well, half a dozen at least - seem to have been drawn here by the picture included in my unflattering review of Watchmen. I wonder if they were disappointed when they didn't find a full online version of the comic. (If so, tough. I don't support digital piracy.)
Recently there was some poor sap from Miami searching for "the science of karma", and they were apparently so disappointed that they must've complained to Google, because my post of that name currently doesn't show up at all in a search for that phrase.
Then last week there was someone searching for "Mr Darcy is all politeness" (without quotes). I wonder what they were looking for.
I know what they found, though. Apparently, if you Google for a random text from Pride & Prejudice, the number one result you get is the "Google Books" edition of the text.
I don't know if you're familiar with Google Books. It's a stupid idea, the misbegotten offspring of an idiot's compromise between Google and the major publishers whereby Google gets to "publish books" online. By way of throwing a bone to the copyright Gestapo, Google agreed to leave out some pages in these works, the theory being that people should be allowed to search the text online but not able to read it. The choice of pages omitted depends on what you searched for. (It also, I've discovered in the course of researching this, varies from one day to the next. Last week I could page all the way through the book, with some random omissions such as p.145; this week, it's skipping directly from p.60 to the back cover.)
The irony being, of course, that Pride & Prejudice is not a copyright work. Not unless Jane Austen lived to be 200 years old, anyway. Anyone can reproduce this text as many times as they like; rewrite, repackage, adapt, perform, distribute, sell, loan or hire it, or any original work they may derive from it, completely at will. That's how Wordsworth Classics (Google's edition) were entitled to publish it in the first place; for them now to assert copyright over the text is indefensible, and should be illegal if it's not already.
But I digress. My real point here is that no human being in their senses would search for the Google Books edition of this work, because it's fecking useless. Instead, they could look for the Gutenberg version, which is easier to read, easier to search, and complete. And one hundred per cent legal to distribute in every country I know of, unless of course it meets someone's idea of obscenity...
And yet that page doesn't show up at all in the first page of Google results when searching for the text.
Ten years ago, Google became famous for its motto: "Don't be evil". "Evil" was always somewhat nebulously defined, but it was commonly understood as contrasting with Microsoft's standard operating practice of abusing every part of its business to give various (arguably) unfair advantages to every other part, generally at the expense of its own users. But it's hard to see the above Google result in any other light. The top result for the search is the one that's least useful for the user, and most profitable for Google.
It's fascinating reading, although slightly dispiriting that I don't get visited nearly as often as I should. But among other things, it lets me see what people were searching Google for when my blog popped up.
An uncommon lot of people - well, half a dozen at least - seem to have been drawn here by the picture included in my unflattering review of Watchmen. I wonder if they were disappointed when they didn't find a full online version of the comic. (If so, tough. I don't support digital piracy.)
Recently there was some poor sap from Miami searching for "the science of karma", and they were apparently so disappointed that they must've complained to Google, because my post of that name currently doesn't show up at all in a search for that phrase.
Then last week there was someone searching for "Mr Darcy is all politeness" (without quotes). I wonder what they were looking for.
I know what they found, though. Apparently, if you Google for a random text from Pride & Prejudice, the number one result you get is the "Google Books" edition of the text.
I don't know if you're familiar with Google Books. It's a stupid idea, the misbegotten offspring of an idiot's compromise between Google and the major publishers whereby Google gets to "publish books" online. By way of throwing a bone to the copyright Gestapo, Google agreed to leave out some pages in these works, the theory being that people should be allowed to search the text online but not able to read it. The choice of pages omitted depends on what you searched for. (It also, I've discovered in the course of researching this, varies from one day to the next. Last week I could page all the way through the book, with some random omissions such as p.145; this week, it's skipping directly from p.60 to the back cover.)
The irony being, of course, that Pride & Prejudice is not a copyright work. Not unless Jane Austen lived to be 200 years old, anyway. Anyone can reproduce this text as many times as they like; rewrite, repackage, adapt, perform, distribute, sell, loan or hire it, or any original work they may derive from it, completely at will. That's how Wordsworth Classics (Google's edition) were entitled to publish it in the first place; for them now to assert copyright over the text is indefensible, and should be illegal if it's not already.
But I digress. My real point here is that no human being in their senses would search for the Google Books edition of this work, because it's fecking useless. Instead, they could look for the Gutenberg version, which is easier to read, easier to search, and complete. And one hundred per cent legal to distribute in every country I know of, unless of course it meets someone's idea of obscenity...
And yet that page doesn't show up at all in the first page of Google results when searching for the text.
Ten years ago, Google became famous for its motto: "Don't be evil". "Evil" was always somewhat nebulously defined, but it was commonly understood as contrasting with Microsoft's standard operating practice of abusing every part of its business to give various (arguably) unfair advantages to every other part, generally at the expense of its own users. But it's hard to see the above Google result in any other light. The top result for the search is the one that's least useful for the user, and most profitable for Google.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I wish Stephen Fry would mind his own business
Those of you who've been following for a while, who know my interests, and have invested a couple of points in observation skills, may have noticed that I didn't take part in the web-wide brouhaha over Section 92A of our shiny new copyright law. Those who did take part, however, will be celebrating now, as yesterday the government announced it was scrapping the ballyhooed provision.
As an activist, you might think I'd be pleased with the victory. But as a rational observer, I think it's the wrong victory. This was a battle that should never have been fought; indeed, it wasn't really a battle at all, since the government itself was practically sponsoring the opposition to the measure. Now that it's been "won", I don't know what the political fallout will be.
For those who haven't been following: according to its opponents, the provision in question "calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny". "Three strikes", it was called. "Guilt on accusation", it was called. The campaign against it went viral. It's been all around the 'net, attracting support and celebrity endorsements from random publicity whores such as Stephen Fry.
In fact, the law didn't say any of this. What the law said, for those of us who took the time to read it, was:
And now the government - which had no investment in the law anyway, since it was its predecessor that passed it - has decided to "give in". (Big surprise there, since the prime minister had already gone on record as calling the law "draconian".) A popular move, which has earned it some good publicity.
But what will it cost us?
Now we, the unwashed, copyright-infringing, freetarded masses have won a victory against Big Business. We've thumbed our little Kiwi nose at Hollywood and shown them that we're not just another state to be pushed around at whim. And now the content industry is going to be back with its counter-proposal. Its compromise. To be embedded, perhaps, in the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement", which is being drawn up in secret (from us, the public), but with full input from the Big Content industry.
What price now, our chance to negotiate proper restrictions for "digital rights management" measures? To say nothing of more far-reaching reforms, such as removing "copying" from the list of restricted acts entirely. We've shot our bolt, we've won our "victory", and never has it felt more hollow.
As an activist, you might think I'd be pleased with the victory. But as a rational observer, I think it's the wrong victory. This was a battle that should never have been fought; indeed, it wasn't really a battle at all, since the government itself was practically sponsoring the opposition to the measure. Now that it's been "won", I don't know what the political fallout will be.
For those who haven't been following: according to its opponents, the provision in question "calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny". "Three strikes", it was called. "Guilt on accusation", it was called. The campaign against it went viral. It's been all around the 'net, attracting support and celebrity endorsements from random publicity whores such as Stephen Fry.
In fact, the law didn't say any of this. What the law said, for those of us who took the time to read it, was:
- An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
- In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
And now the government - which had no investment in the law anyway, since it was its predecessor that passed it - has decided to "give in". (Big surprise there, since the prime minister had already gone on record as calling the law "draconian".) A popular move, which has earned it some good publicity.
But what will it cost us?
Now we, the unwashed, copyright-infringing, freetarded masses have won a victory against Big Business. We've thumbed our little Kiwi nose at Hollywood and shown them that we're not just another state to be pushed around at whim. And now the content industry is going to be back with its counter-proposal. Its compromise. To be embedded, perhaps, in the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement", which is being drawn up in secret (from us, the public), but with full input from the Big Content industry.
What price now, our chance to negotiate proper restrictions for "digital rights management" measures? To say nothing of more far-reaching reforms, such as removing "copying" from the list of restricted acts entirely. We've shot our bolt, we've won our "victory", and never has it felt more hollow.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Kindling controversy
The Authors Guild is alerting its members about the new version of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, because "Kindle 2" has - get this - the ability to read a book aloud. Apparently it's not yet as good as a human reader, but (says the AG) it's a great step forward from text-to-speech mechanisms of only a few years ago.
I came to this story all ready to lambast the Authors Guild (shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) for trying to cripple technology in the name of soaking more money for its members. But having read its release, I'm almost sympathetic.
Almost.
The guild believes, or professes to believe, that reading a book aloud, privately, is not and should not be covered by copyright. At the same time, it doesn't want anything to damage the sale of audio books. Its present - "concern", I guess is the nice neutral word - is that Amazon will undermine the market for audio books by marketing e-books as a form that makes the audio book obsolete.
And much as I'd like to say "Suck it up! Products do become obsolete, live with it!" - I'm disarmed by the fact that the Guild is focusing its fears not on consumers, but on Amazon. If the new-generation e-book is going to double as an audio book, it suggests, perhaps authors should be asking for a better cut.
I think I can follow the logic here. How many people buy both a print and an audio version of the same book? I don't know, but my guess would be that most customers buy one or the other, not both. Now, if a single product can do duty for both sets of customers, then we've substantially lowered the costs of production and distribution, with no more than a slight, if any, decrease in the total market.
Of course that means more profit for publishers, and of course the Authors Guild wants its members to get their fair cut of that action.
I can sympathise with the wish to keep a tight rein on Amazon. I applaud the Authors Guild for keeping sight of the fact that the publisher, not the consumer, is the author's natural enemy. I can see why it'd be loth to pass up any opportunity to try to bump up its members' earnings.
But I think its present stance is more likely to have the opposite effect.
If authors stick up for their rights to a better cut if books are to be released on "Kindle 2", that can only lead to one thing: a proprietary, locked-out format that's carefully engineered to be incompatible with Kindle 2, so that publishers can justify not paying the higher rates to any but the best-selling authors. That restriction will fragment the market and frustrate consumers, even further than we already are. And it'll increase the incentives to pirate the work.
It can't be said too often: "the more sense that copyright makes to the consumers of copyright material - or, to put it in economic terms, the greater its economic value or utility to consumers - the more users value copyright material and respect the rights of copyright owners." Not my words - those of Apple, which knows a thing or two about digital publishing.
Authors have never tried to stop people from reading books aloud to one another. Even publishers have not, yet, tried to describe that as "theft". They would be very unwise to start now, merely because the reader may be a machine rather than a person.
I came to this story all ready to lambast the Authors Guild (shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) for trying to cripple technology in the name of soaking more money for its members. But having read its release, I'm almost sympathetic.
Almost.
The guild believes, or professes to believe, that reading a book aloud, privately, is not and should not be covered by copyright. At the same time, it doesn't want anything to damage the sale of audio books. Its present - "concern", I guess is the nice neutral word - is that Amazon will undermine the market for audio books by marketing e-books as a form that makes the audio book obsolete.
And much as I'd like to say "Suck it up! Products do become obsolete, live with it!" - I'm disarmed by the fact that the Guild is focusing its fears not on consumers, but on Amazon. If the new-generation e-book is going to double as an audio book, it suggests, perhaps authors should be asking for a better cut.
I think I can follow the logic here. How many people buy both a print and an audio version of the same book? I don't know, but my guess would be that most customers buy one or the other, not both. Now, if a single product can do duty for both sets of customers, then we've substantially lowered the costs of production and distribution, with no more than a slight, if any, decrease in the total market.
Of course that means more profit for publishers, and of course the Authors Guild wants its members to get their fair cut of that action.
I can sympathise with the wish to keep a tight rein on Amazon. I applaud the Authors Guild for keeping sight of the fact that the publisher, not the consumer, is the author's natural enemy. I can see why it'd be loth to pass up any opportunity to try to bump up its members' earnings.
But I think its present stance is more likely to have the opposite effect.
If authors stick up for their rights to a better cut if books are to be released on "Kindle 2", that can only lead to one thing: a proprietary, locked-out format that's carefully engineered to be incompatible with Kindle 2, so that publishers can justify not paying the higher rates to any but the best-selling authors. That restriction will fragment the market and frustrate consumers, even further than we already are. And it'll increase the incentives to pirate the work.
It can't be said too often: "the more sense that copyright makes to the consumers of copyright material - or, to put it in economic terms, the greater its economic value or utility to consumers - the more users value copyright material and respect the rights of copyright owners." Not my words - those of Apple, which knows a thing or two about digital publishing.
Authors have never tried to stop people from reading books aloud to one another. Even publishers have not, yet, tried to describe that as "theft". They would be very unwise to start now, merely because the reader may be a machine rather than a person.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Intellectual vandalism
As a student, I read some book -- I think Michael Scott Rohan's original Winter of the World trilogy -- in which the hero, a blacksmith, had his legs deliberately broken to keep him from leaving town.
I thought then that this was the essence of barbarism. To deliberately maim someone -- to intentionally make an able body less able -- and to do it, for no better reason than that you didn't want the burden of having to treat them decently. Surely, I thought, this is what the Law is really for: to protect us from such arbitrary and selfish uses of power.
In 1989, the 80486 computer chip came onto the market -- the fourth in the series that began with the 8086, and direct ancestor of the various types of Pentiums that probably power the computer you're reading this on. It was shockingly expensive. But among its advances over its predecessor, the 80386, it had a floating-point co-processor built into the chip itself.
I'd always wanted one of those. It meant you could play games that involved drawing detailed graphics on the screen in real time. Things like flight simulators. I waited, eagerly, for the price to come down to the point where I could afford one.
In 1991, the chip manufacturer, Intel, produced the cheap version: the 80486SX. As everyone knew in those days, the "-SX" suffix meant "cut-down"; in this case, it meant "without the co-processor". To me that seemed the epitome of pointlessness. But by then I was a technical journalist, and it was my business to read lots of reports and writings about developments just like this. And I learned something that shocked me deeply:
The 486SX did have the co-processor built onto the chip -- it was exactly the same chip, built on the same lines in the same factory as the full version -- but the co-processor was artificially disabled. Like Rohan's blacksmith hero, the chip had been deliberately crippled to make it less useful.
In my economics lessons, I'd learned that the purpose of work is to add value to something. Everyone who adds value makes the world a slightly better, or at least richer, place; somebody, somewhere, gains some utility that they would not otherwise have had.
So what should I think of people who work, on purpose, to make a product less useful?
To me that seemed, and still seems, no better than vandalism, or at best theft. I can understand the motivations -- but then I can understand the motives of vandals and thieves, too, and it doesn't mean I accept them as legitimate.
And today the same argument is going on with a much higher profile, although no-one seems to recognise it.
It's called "digital rights management". What it means, in a nutshell, is that publishers add bits of code to their products that prevent them from being used in ways they otherwise could.
Now, the amount of virtual ink that's been spilt in debating the rights and wrongs of DRM in general is, approximately, enough to fill the Atlantic. You don't have to look far to find rants or measured opinions on either side of the subject, including some by yours truly. (I have mostly taken the position that publishers have no moral or legal right to do most of the things they do. The vast majority of their measures are used to enforce "rights" that the law was never meant to grant them in the first place.)
But that's not my real objection. That's just the legalistic formulation of the underlying problem, which is a moral one. It is intrinsically wrong, I believe, to devote time and effort to make your product less useful than it would be if you didn't. That means you're working to make the world a poorer place. And that means you're a vandal, and you belong in jail.
But our economic system is so perverse that it rewards such behaviour. Even worse: our laws are being perverted to not merely protect, but actively support, it. To my mind, that's enough to discredit the entire consumerist economic system; what we are fighting over now is whether the legal and political systems that go with it can be redeemed. They're meant to protect us, the consumers, from this kind of abuse. If they won't do that, what are they good for?
I thought then that this was the essence of barbarism. To deliberately maim someone -- to intentionally make an able body less able -- and to do it, for no better reason than that you didn't want the burden of having to treat them decently. Surely, I thought, this is what the Law is really for: to protect us from such arbitrary and selfish uses of power.
In 1989, the 80486 computer chip came onto the market -- the fourth in the series that began with the 8086, and direct ancestor of the various types of Pentiums that probably power the computer you're reading this on. It was shockingly expensive. But among its advances over its predecessor, the 80386, it had a floating-point co-processor built into the chip itself.
I'd always wanted one of those. It meant you could play games that involved drawing detailed graphics on the screen in real time. Things like flight simulators. I waited, eagerly, for the price to come down to the point where I could afford one.
In 1991, the chip manufacturer, Intel, produced the cheap version: the 80486SX. As everyone knew in those days, the "-SX" suffix meant "cut-down"; in this case, it meant "without the co-processor". To me that seemed the epitome of pointlessness. But by then I was a technical journalist, and it was my business to read lots of reports and writings about developments just like this. And I learned something that shocked me deeply:
The 486SX did have the co-processor built onto the chip -- it was exactly the same chip, built on the same lines in the same factory as the full version -- but the co-processor was artificially disabled. Like Rohan's blacksmith hero, the chip had been deliberately crippled to make it less useful.
In my economics lessons, I'd learned that the purpose of work is to add value to something. Everyone who adds value makes the world a slightly better, or at least richer, place; somebody, somewhere, gains some utility that they would not otherwise have had.
So what should I think of people who work, on purpose, to make a product less useful?
To me that seemed, and still seems, no better than vandalism, or at best theft. I can understand the motivations -- but then I can understand the motives of vandals and thieves, too, and it doesn't mean I accept them as legitimate.
And today the same argument is going on with a much higher profile, although no-one seems to recognise it.
It's called "digital rights management". What it means, in a nutshell, is that publishers add bits of code to their products that prevent them from being used in ways they otherwise could.
Now, the amount of virtual ink that's been spilt in debating the rights and wrongs of DRM in general is, approximately, enough to fill the Atlantic. You don't have to look far to find rants or measured opinions on either side of the subject, including some by yours truly. (I have mostly taken the position that publishers have no moral or legal right to do most of the things they do. The vast majority of their measures are used to enforce "rights" that the law was never meant to grant them in the first place.)
But that's not my real objection. That's just the legalistic formulation of the underlying problem, which is a moral one. It is intrinsically wrong, I believe, to devote time and effort to make your product less useful than it would be if you didn't. That means you're working to make the world a poorer place. And that means you're a vandal, and you belong in jail.
But our economic system is so perverse that it rewards such behaviour. Even worse: our laws are being perverted to not merely protect, but actively support, it. To my mind, that's enough to discredit the entire consumerist economic system; what we are fighting over now is whether the legal and political systems that go with it can be redeemed. They're meant to protect us, the consumers, from this kind of abuse. If they won't do that, what are they good for?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Sanity test
If you've been awake during the past month, you may possibly have heard that the band Coldplay is being sued for infringing the copyright of guitarist Joe Satriani. Seems that Coldplay's hugely popular hit "Viva la Vida" uses the same melody and chord progression as Satriani's (hitherto) little-known "If I Could Fly".
Coldplay denies it. Not strenuously, not hotly, but quietly and firmly and with surprising dignity for a rock band. (Probably time to declare my interest here: I personally like the Coldplay song.)
YouTube is crawling with commentaries, combinations and comparisons of the two songs. To me, the best of these is this offering, which digs up no less than five previous versions of the same melody, the earliest dating right back to the 1960s. It's been said that there are only seven basic notes in music, and moreover there are fairly strong rules about how you can combine them in any given genre. So who, exactly, is going to say whose contribution deserves to be considered most important?
To me, this case is ever so slightly terrifying.
In Coldplay's favour: their song is substantially original, it's been a colossal popular (and critical) hit, they've got plenty of money to fight the case, and there is no evidence that Coldplay had ever heard Satriani's recording. In Satriani's favour: the melodies, rhythms and chord progressions are more than averagely similar. And -- and this is the point that I think has been largely overlooked -- he's American. There are lots of people commenting on those YouTube videos who think that the case is a slam-dunk for Satriani.
If Satriani wins, that will imply a reversal of the burden of proof in copyright infringement cases: the onus will be on songwriters to prove that they haven't "copied" another's work. I would see such an outcome as vindication of my "imaginary frontier" theory: that the American legal establishment is engaged in the biggest land grab in history, claiming absolute sovereignty over the entire realm of "intellectual property".
So what should happen here?
Well, for starters, copyright needs to loosen up. A lot.
Until very recently, if someone copied a basic theme, made their own changes and sold the work as their own, no-one turned a hair. So long as the changes were sufficient to count as an "original" contribution, the attitude was: "good on them, for enriching all our lives". The movie Clueless fails to credit Jane Austen for the original story, but nobody accused it of plagiarism. And that attitude has, so far, failed to lead to the death of artistic creativity. On the contrary, it encourages it: there's nothing more stifling to creativity than constantly policing your own thoughts against the possiblity of "stealing" someone else's idea.
But the bar for plagiarism is slowly creeping downward. And that, it seems to me, really will lead to the end of creativity.
Make the most of art while we have it. If Van Gogh were working in today's legal climate, he'd have been sued by Cezanne for copying his style.
Coldplay denies it. Not strenuously, not hotly, but quietly and firmly and with surprising dignity for a rock band. (Probably time to declare my interest here: I personally like the Coldplay song.)
YouTube is crawling with commentaries, combinations and comparisons of the two songs. To me, the best of these is this offering, which digs up no less than five previous versions of the same melody, the earliest dating right back to the 1960s. It's been said that there are only seven basic notes in music, and moreover there are fairly strong rules about how you can combine them in any given genre. So who, exactly, is going to say whose contribution deserves to be considered most important?
To me, this case is ever so slightly terrifying.
In Coldplay's favour: their song is substantially original, it's been a colossal popular (and critical) hit, they've got plenty of money to fight the case, and there is no evidence that Coldplay had ever heard Satriani's recording. In Satriani's favour: the melodies, rhythms and chord progressions are more than averagely similar. And -- and this is the point that I think has been largely overlooked -- he's American. There are lots of people commenting on those YouTube videos who think that the case is a slam-dunk for Satriani.
If Satriani wins, that will imply a reversal of the burden of proof in copyright infringement cases: the onus will be on songwriters to prove that they haven't "copied" another's work. I would see such an outcome as vindication of my "imaginary frontier" theory: that the American legal establishment is engaged in the biggest land grab in history, claiming absolute sovereignty over the entire realm of "intellectual property".
So what should happen here?
Well, for starters, copyright needs to loosen up. A lot.
Until very recently, if someone copied a basic theme, made their own changes and sold the work as their own, no-one turned a hair. So long as the changes were sufficient to count as an "original" contribution, the attitude was: "good on them, for enriching all our lives". The movie Clueless fails to credit Jane Austen for the original story, but nobody accused it of plagiarism. And that attitude has, so far, failed to lead to the death of artistic creativity. On the contrary, it encourages it: there's nothing more stifling to creativity than constantly policing your own thoughts against the possiblity of "stealing" someone else's idea.
But the bar for plagiarism is slowly creeping downward. And that, it seems to me, really will lead to the end of creativity.
Make the most of art while we have it. If Van Gogh were working in today's legal climate, he'd have been sued by Cezanne for copying his style.
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