Studios demanding too much in their copyright campaign

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 15:36:04 -0400
From: Dispatch Editor Silicon Valley <dispatch-svc () REALCITIES COM>
Subject: Dan Gillmor (HTML)
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Updated: Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Dan Gillmor
Studios demanding too much in their copyright campaign

By <mailto:dgillmor () mercurynews com>Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist

News and views, culled and edited from my online eJournal 
(<http://www.dangillmor.com/>www.dangillmor.com):

COPYRIGHT PIETY, NOT RESPECT: Sony, Disney, AOL and the other big Hollywood 
movie studios have set up a cleverly named site, 
<http://www.respectcopyrights.org/>www.respectcopyrights.org, as part of a 
campaign (also including TV commercials and in-theater pitches) aimed at 
convincing us all of a single point -- that it's wrong to infringe on 
copyrights.

Well, of course it is, especially when the purpose is to get something of 
value for nothing or deprive someone else of what he or she has 
legitimately earned. But in its typical overstated way, the film branch of 
the entertainment cartel is demanding a whole lot more, too.

The industry insists that its customers bow to copyright holders' absolute 
control over how buyers may use what they've bought. It demands a veto on 
innovation with entirely benign uses, if that innovation also might be used 
to infringe. And it sneers at the bargain that copyright holders once made 
with society -- a deal that would reward creativity while constantly 
refilling the well of public knowledge and art.

The dishonesty on respectcopyrights.org isn't so much in what it says, 
though there are more than a few howlers. It's in what the Motion Picture 
Association of America doesn't say.

The site is, as you'd expect, totally slanted in a single direction. It 
offers no hint that customers or users of copyrighted materials have any 
rights beyond those the copyright holder decides to grant.

The mega-corporations that own the studios, through their MPAA front, 
piously quote Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. 
Congress has the power ``to promote the progress of science and useful 
arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive 
right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .'' But the cartel 
has turned ``limited times'' into something like perpetuity, and the 
exclusivity has always been circumscribed, at least until recently.

The point of copyright is not solely to pay creators. It's equally designed 
to get ideas and inventions -- arts and sciences and scholarship -- first 
into the public sphere, and ultimately into the public domain, where other 
creators build on them to make new art, new science, new scholarship.

Part of the process involves ``fair use,'' the ability to quote in limited 
ways from copyrighted works. Fair use, in the modern world, also has come 
to include our right to make backup copies of what we have purchased; to 
``time shift'' entertainment so we can watch TV programs when we, not the 
networks choose; and (among other things) the right to copy a song we've 
bought into a format that plays on another device (such as a car cassette 
player).

But the cartel believes it has the right to allow or forbid any and all of 
those uses if they involve digital copying. It plans to enforce these 
regimes through ``digital rights'' (read: ``digital restrictions'') 
technology, which has the ugly byproduct of destroying customers' privacy, 
and through harsh, frequently abused laws like the rigid Digital Millennium 
Copyright Act.

The cartel believes -- and basically says -- that fair use is something 
copyright holders may provide or withhold at their whim.

This stance tells customers they have no rights, except to spend or not 
spend. This stance abrogates two centuries of tradition and common sense. 
It steals from our heritage -- and dims our future.

The cartel wants us to respect copyrights. Fine. But when will the cartel 
respect our rights, and the public good, as well?

FENDING OFF THE PUBLIC: The Bush administration's acquaintance with honesty 
has always been somewhat tenuous. But the White House is setting new 
records with its defense of an e-mail system that seems designed to 
discourage the rest of us from offering our opinions.

The New York Times reported that the new message-to-the-president system 
requires users to ``navigate as many as nine Web pages'' and say whether 
they agree with or oppose the president's position on the issue. This, said 
a hapless administration spokesman, was an ``enhancement.''

Baloney. The obvious purposes are to reduce spam and deter letter writers 
-- understandable, given the volume of e-mail the White House receives. But 
calling it an ``effort to be more responsive,'' as the administration told 
the Times, doesn't pass the laugh test.

Another, smaller motive for the redesign may be found in the character of 
this particular administration. Bush and his people have shown their 
disinterest in hearing from people who disagree with what they've already 
decided.

I doubt the Clinton crowd paid any serious attention to e-mail, either. But 
at least that bunch didn't go out of their way to insult the people who 
took the time to express their views.

A REMINDER: As I noted last week, I welcome your views, and you can express 
them in public if you wish. Visit my Weblog and tell me why I'm wrong or 
right, and what I'm missing. Please join the conversation.

Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday. Visit 
Dan's online column, eJournal at 
<http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/>http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/columns/dangillmor/. 
E-mail Dan at <mailto:dgillmor () mercurynews com>dgillmor () mercurynews com  

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