This is a really interesting story about a legal battle Disney had in the 70s with some cartoonists who wanted to poke fun at Disney by drawing Mickey in their underground comics. I thought I had read it all about Disney and Copyright fights, but I'd never heard of this. (Link from SCOTUSBlog.)
So, I've been thinking about the plausibility of the idea described in the two posts below of making copyrights unassignable. That is, copyrights would stick to the author for their duration. But, if we allow all this contracting out of the actual copying on behalf of the author then it seems inevitable that all the rights normally contained in a copyright would simply be contracted out (especially by those this was intended to help, like the struggling musician trying to strike a deal with a record label) and we'd have assignment in practice if not in name. I think that's probably a fatal flaw here and any attempt to limit the copyright holder's contracting rights is just going to be ad hoc futility. Bummer. I suppose one could arbitrarily set a statutory time-limit on these contracts, maybe a year or five or something. This mitigates the impact of assignment under another name but still could put an artist/creator with a weak bargaining position in a tough spot. It might just be a heck of a lot simpler to make copyrights last just 14 years. Hey, didn't someone else already think of that?
While we ponder on this, let's read these suggestions for copyright reform.
Another implication, some might call it an objection, to this Sticky Copyright idea is that it either complicates or forbids works for hire. I am not so sure that this troubles me. It is in large part the whole point to begin with. When I'm not typing on my Zaurus, I'll explore this more...
The always impressive bIPlog has some details on Fred von Lohman's talks yesterday at Berkeley. I attended both events and find Mary Hodder's summary an excellent recap if you missed it.
Fred did spark a thought in me, and I wrote it down during the afternoon talk:
"Copyright is a system fundamentally designed to deprive artists of the rights to their creations." (That's got some intentional shock value, since most assume its purpose is just the opposite. But I continued...)
"From copyright's inception in the Statute of Anne, copyrights have been assignable to others. They are freely assignable so that distributors and publishers can take them."
It's just a history lesson and a wake-up call. Publishers pushed for the Statute of Anne and the establishment of assignable copyrights so that they could demand that authors sign away their rights to them! Their hope was to thereby create a monopoly in the publishing industry.
Fast forward to today. It's still going on! Just about every record contract that a musician is suckered into takes away all her/his rights to their own creations. The record company owns all the rights to the artist's art. They are just following in the long tradition of their monopolistic forebears.
But now think about it. If the more noble ideal of copyright's purpose were truly pursued, we would be hoping to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." Now who are the artists in the following list: Vivendi Universal or Andrea Bocelli? Universal Music Group or B.B. King? This is easy. So then, if we want to help promote the artist's work, then who do we want the benefit of copyright to flow to? C'mon now think hard... You can do it... That's right! The artist! Well then, why do we have a system where the moment the artist's pen leaves the page and the moment the artist takes a step back from the microphone, their copyrights have all been assigned over to some suits who are not artists, don't create anything we hoped to promote in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, and who are sucking the lifeblood right out of the artists we hoped to promote? Doesn't make much sense. Does it?
So here's a solution to consider: Copyrights should not be assignable to others. (I call this a Sticky Copyright, because it sticks to the original creator and stays there for its duration.) A copyright owner could certainly still contract with someone else to physically make the copies for him, and could certainly contract with someone to distribute those copies, but the copyright would always remain with the copyright owner. Once we have a system where the copyrights stick to creators in this way, we might also think twice about a Sticky Copyright persisting after that creator's death. That wouldn't make much sense either, would it? [Footnote 1]
The biggest problem I see with the solution above is that folks like the Free Software Foundation thrive on having others assign their copyrights to them. For big collaborative projects like they run it might make a huge impact on them if they can't round up the rights in one place.
I think this too could be handled with contracts. I can be a copyright holder and still sign a contract with the FSF that says I give you the right to make copies of my code for me, to distribute those copies, and even to make modifications to my code on my behalf. But I still retain the copyright on it. The nice thing about this would be that only the artist could bring a lawsuit for infringement, not the RIAA or some other proxy copyright holder. But it cuts both ways. The other big point the FSF has in getting these assignments is to make it easier for a single entity, the FSF, to sue someone who violates the GPL. The FSF can do it directly and doesn't need permission from 200 people.
I'm not sure that's decisive though. If my copyrighted code contribution is 300 lines of a 10,000 line GPL'd program, and someone is violating the GPL, then among the things they are doing is violating my copyright. I don't know why if there are 30 contributors to a piece of software that all 30 of them can't bring distinct suits against an infringer to seek damages for infringing the part of the program that they hold the copyright on. It might clog the court if we really ran 30 cases, but in practice these suits are all going to get joined together and we just let the courts and the lawyers do later what the FSF is trying to do now in advance. I don't know why that wouldn't work.
But then there's the more general objection to Sticky Copyrights that goes: "If it's my right, then I ought to be able to do whatever I want with it, including sell it, give it away, or forever disavow it." My response would be: that's not always true of rights. For instance, I have the right to vote, but I'm not allowed to sell that right to someone else who'd be willing to pay for it. So not every right is transferable. And in this case, I just might be convincing myself that the true intent of the Constitution's framers and the truly best thing for creators is Sticky Copyright. Indeed, it might even be the case, without anyone realizing it, that anything other than a Sticky Copyright is downright unconstitutional. Interesting.
[Footnote 1]: I realize this is a fine distinction. A reasonable question would be: If I can contract out my right to copy to someone else, how is that supposed to be different from assignment of my copyright?
Answer 1) The contract I'm thinking of is typically going to be limited in time and for a specific number of copies. (Think of a book author here. She wants 1000 copies by October. You make any more after that and you're infringing.) But an assignment would be permanent and for unlimited copies.
Answer 2) The contracted right to copy would not normally flow downstream. That is, if I assign my copyright to someone else, and assignment is allowed, then they in turn could assign it to someone else, and so on. It's a hot potato. But if I contract with you to make me 1000 copies of my latest book, I can include a clause that says: "you cannot subcontract this work or purport to give others the right to make copies of my book." But then the objection shifts to: Doesn't this break the GPL? Nothing could get past the first distribution. Answer: No. I can contract out my copying work in lots of ways. One such way is to allow sub-contracting rather than forbidding it. And when I distribute a program to you under the GPL, I can say, I'm contracting with you to make at least one copy of this on my behalf. You too can sub-contract this work out to others by having them make at least one of the copies I asked you to make. And so on forever. In a strict technical sense then, even the nth person in a chain of distribution would be just subcontracting out some copying work that I asked the first member of the chain to do. (Wacky, eh?) More likely though, given that many programs are distributed from a single website run by the authors, the GPL in such a case is comparable to a book author who asks 1000 publishers to make her 1 copy of her book. She still ends up with 1000 copies in the wild, but she just contracted out the copying to lots of individuals. Now, I also happen to know that the FSF doesn't believe the GPL is a contract and is quite adamant about this, but that's a whole other ball of wax not worth getting into when I'm just thinking out loud here. The last dangling problems here could be a legal complaint about lack of consideration for such a contract and a question of just how many copies I asked the original person to make. First the consideration is like so: I'd like you to make at least one copy of this program. In return I ask only this. If you subcontract out this copying work I'm asking you to do, then you must allow your subcontractor to also subcontract (and the terms of that subcontract must be identical to the terms I offered you.) If you agree to that restriction, then that should be consideration. Second, I'm fairly sure I do not have to specify how many copies I want just to get a binding contract. People often contract for "as much as I need" or "as much as you produce" and so on. So, in this case I'm contracting for you to make "at least one copy and as many more as you produce (either yourself or through subcontractors)." You'd probably add in such a GPL'd software case: "Please don't deliver the verbatim copies to me. I'm just glad to know you're out there making them." (Someone who wanted to learn of modifications could change this to require delivery of modified copies, but now we're not talking about the GPL.)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Senior Staff Attorney, Fred von Lohman, is scheduled to discuss File-Sharing lawsuits by the RIAA on UC-Berkeley's campus today in two events. The first talk, File-Sharing 411, is aimed at undergraduates and will feature free pizza! It will be at 166 Barrows at 12:30 p.m. The second talk, File-Sharing: Legal Issues and Alternatives, is at the law school at 4:45p.m. (115 Boalt Hall.) If you're in the Bay area both events are open to the public and sponsored by the Boalt Hall law student organizations boalt.org and the Creative Law Society.
For posterity: If you want to install Debian Woody on a machine using a Matrox G550 graphics card, then realize that the version of XFree86 that comes standard with Woody won't work. After the basic install you will be stuck at a command line and must do this:
1. brush off your vi editing skills and edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include only the unstable sources.
2.. apt-get update
3. apt-get install xserver-xfree86
4. edit /etc/apt/sources.list back to stable sources only.
5. apt-get update
6. edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to delete the line setting UseFBDev to true.
Now it will work.
Alabama, my birth-place, voted no yesterday to a tax-plan pushed by their Republican governor. Now, if this were a G.W. Bush-styled tax plan that increases the tax burden on the poor while decreasing it on wealthy corporations, I'd cheer this defeat.
But this plan was different.
I probably disagree with Gov. Riley on almost everything except the wisdom of his defeated tax plan. He made a moral argument to Alabamians. He pointed out what most Republicans refuse to acknowledge. He said Alabama's past tax policies have favored big lumber companies at the expense of the poorest Alabamians. He made arguments based on the Biblical view that we have a duty to the poor. Now, that's a Republican who makes some sense for a change.
The money was to be used primarily for education, and would have improved Alabama's dismal placement in those nation-wide rankings. But Alabamians succumbed to the lies of traditional Republicans and believed that any tax increase was a bad tax increase. They failed to see that re-organizing the tax burden was the right thing to do, and in that failure they voted no to their future. It's very sad.
BarnesandNoble.com affiliates received the following e-mail today:
Dear Barnes & Noble.com Affiliate,As of September 9, 2003, Barnes & Noble.com will no longer sell
eBooks. Please remove all links to the eBooks Page or any individual
eBooks from your site. Any links from your site to our eBooks area
that are not taken down will be redirected to the Barnes & Noble.com
home page.If you have any questions please email
affiliatehelp@barnesandnoble.comSincerely,
The Barnes & Noble.com Affiliate Team
Is this the end of an era or will someone realize that crippled e-books with DRM restrictions on copying and usage are not what consumers want?
I leaned something about myself today. I really, really, really, hate software patents. I suppose I knew this already, because there are so many good reasons to hate software patents. But when I read this article detailing how Microsoft has been ordered to pay $521 million dollars for infringing someone else's software patent I thought, "That sucks." Let's be clear: I am no fan of the folks in Redmond, WA. I believe they were let off the anti-trust hook far too lightly, and that new but similar anti-competitive practices are at work every day. It's not an accident up there, it is their whole strategy. And over 50 million of those dollars would go to the Univeristy of California system, of which I am now a student and alumnus. So, if this ruling were upheld, it would mean more money for education in a state where the budget is a mess and where MY tuition was just raised 30%! This should be great news!
But it makes my heart sink. Even Microsoft having to pay for infringing a software patent is a bad thing. These ridiculous patents are impeding progress, not promoting it. They should be completely abolished yesterday, and if we can't get that, then they should only last three years or less. The industry moves too fast to bottle up new ideas for decades.
The enemy of the freedom-loving software community is not Microsoft. In this instance we share a common enemy: lousy technology public policy decisions. We have to educate the public and our representatives on these issues. Otherwise, we lose something unquantifiable: a better future.