NYT on Free Culture
In today's New York Times, Rachel Aviv profiles the Free Culture movement emerging on campuses of students and young people. These activists are fighting the good fight for the copyleft. And they are pissed off. (Article includes special bonus quote from our own Cory Doctorow!) From the New York Times:
Cory Doctorow, co-editor of the popular technology blog Boing Boing, said the recording industry lawsuits were not “scaring students away from file-sharing, but scaring them into political consciousness.” Last year, Mr. Doctorow was an adviser to the Students for Free Culture chapter at the University of Southern California while teaching a course on the history of copyright law.Link
Opposition to the music industry and its efforts to protect copyrights often dominates discussions on campuses. Chapters have organized demonstrations in front of major record stores and held “iPod liberation” parties where students have downloaded software together that makes it possible to swap songs.
Many chapters have held forums to discuss legal decisions and developments in copyright, frequently debating what it means to “steal” something as amorphous as a digital file.
But in recent months, the group has made a point of branching out beyond music copyrights. At its first national conference, held at Harvard in May and attended by more than 130 people, speakers gave presentations on topics like enhancing Internet access in impoverished countries, and loosening patent regulations for pharmaceutical drugs.
“File-sharing may have brought these issues to public consciousness, but it’s not our only inspiration,” said Elizabeth Stark, founder of Harvard’s Free Culture group.
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Free Culture, a national organization sprouting up on college campuses that advocates loosening the restrictions of copyright law so that information — from software to music to research to art — can be freely shared.
Look, no one is restricting anyone from creating "free culture." If you want to give away / share your own songs, writing, art, software, etc., or provide it under copyleft or whatever, that's wonderful and generous. The problem I have is with people who think that they have a "right" to someone else's creations for free, and use terms like "culture" and "digital feudalism" to try to reframe "I want free stuff" as some sort of noble social cause, as if the RIAA is telling Rosa Parks she has to sit in the back of the bus.
@phasor3000: I don't know, "culture" and "digital feudalism" seem like half-way reasonable terms under the circumstances.
Ownership of culture is a curious phenomenon: for centuries, Cinderella was a fairy tale, the province of all. It was re-told from generation to generation. Now, suddenly, Disney "owns" it as one of "their creations". How so? Did they not build upon the work of generations?
I agree that creating free culture and spreading it under share-alike terms is a good idea. However, the arguments are not nearly as clear-cut as you make them out to be.
They seldom are.
Sabik, of course there are cases like Disney / Cinderella that are very questionable. But I'm talking about what I would consider to be "easy" cases, which are the majority of what people are trading. A lot of people think they have a "right" to things like songs that were written in the last 20 years, where it's pretty clear that the work is legally protected by copyright. For example, the fact that Nirvana songs are "part of our culture" doesn't mean that the copyright holders don't own them. For that matter, everything that's on TV, the net, CDs, DVDs, etc. right now is "part of our culture," but that sure doesn't mean (and it would be very arrogant to claim) that "we own them." It's just way too convenient and self-serving to say that if you define something as culture, suddenly you don't have to pay for it.
The dimensions of this movement, the movement of "free" are so large that I don't think anyone has yet fully grasped how profoundly it is going to change everything. The world stands to be greatly improved. The upshot is that a new economic order is being ushered in that will sweep away the verities of the old one. Humans stand on the brink of unparalleled freedom and happiness even if they don't quite know it yet. As this exciting thing unfolds, we just need to hang tight and hope that we do not destroy ourselves in the meantime.
The upshot is that a new economic order is being ushered in that will sweep away the verities of the old one.
I hear vague hints of this in a lot of BB posts. Would someone please be more explicit about what this grand, glorious, totally-different future might be like? And how can it be so totally different if basic things like food, housing, medical care, love, hate, war, and other aspects of human behavior are not likely to be affected by the fact that you can make copies of mp3s and movies without paying for them? I can believe that something like a Kurzweil-style superhuman AI might make the world totally different, but file sharing? I don't think so.
TIMKUO (#8), Actually you're more than welcome to mirror, copy, or distribute BB's content as long as you're not making money off it and you attribute it to us. For more info, please see our Creative Commons license.
If you want to understand the grand, glorious, totally-different future, then you should familiarize yourself with Gutenberg's Press and the way it changed the world in so many ways. Just as the printing press shook the foundation of the church, the internet is shaking the foundation of the media industry. The world will change in so many ways you can't even begin to imagine.
Free culture and copy left is just a movement to make Advertising executives more money by moving the monetization of art further away from artists. People spend next to nothing on art (movies, music, games and the like) as it is, and people want to give the artists even less.
If distributing a persons song who would otherwise want money for it became legal almost no one would buy music, movies, or games, and only those who had popular distribution sites would make money.
If shoplifting where legal, how many people would take the time to stand in line at the checkout counter?
@Claudius Phaedrus #10
The grand, glorious, totally-different future that came from the printing press didn't take money away from anyone but those who spent their days toiling to copy character by character an entire book, this lowered the cost of books so that they where obtainable by the commoner (expanding culture)
The grand, glorious, totally-different future that awaits the destruction of copyright is that people would get art for free and no one could make a living creating the art (shrinking culture)
Claudius, I would say that things like citizen reporting and watchdogging via the net would be far more powerful forces for changing and improving society than the ability to copy mp3s and movies. Let's face it, all this DRM stuff is mainly about entertainment media. The reason why things like the RIAA battles get so much attention is that for many people, having free music, games, movies, etc is much more crucial to them than whether their government is spending itself into bankruptcy, selling the country out to China, etc. If the media conglomerates go out of business due to file sharing or customers deserting them, it's not like it's going to strike fear into the hearts of the oil companies or the entrenched political parties. I think that file sharing and "free culture" is basically fiddling while Rome burns. And it deludes people into thinking that they're being "revolutionary" by stealing stuff that they want with very little effort or risk -- is it any surprise that it's such a popular meme?
What's the "grand and glorious future"?
To quote [slightly out of context] John Rogers from Kung Fu Monkey on 4GM - "Nobody gets Rich, Everybody Gets Paid."
Gets my vote, uncreative soul that I am.
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/01/4gm-nobody-gets-rich-everybody-gets.html
Reducing copyright terms to a reasonable amount of time is hardly comparable to shoplifting. Sam Clements tried to make a similar argument about 100 years ago, it didn't hold water then either.
Copyrights last essentially for perpetuity right now -- past the average person's lifetime, at any rate. This is obviously not optimal for most people, and as such it's entirely to be expected that social movements will crop up and agitate for change. Reasonable limitations so that ideasmiths can feed their families is one thing, unreasonable limitations that allow monolithic institutions to carve out bits of our shared culture for themselves to own is another.
The entirety of art, and civilization, is built on appropriating pieces of the ideas of others. Preventing ourselves from doing this benefits the few at the expense of everyone (including those being benefitted, as they'll lose the ability to crib ideas from anyone but themselves).
The example of Sleeping Beauty is especially telling. What's next, copyrighting individual words for 100 years? "The term 'fun' belongs to the Disney Corporation. Cease and desist this unauthorized usage of our property immediately. You'll have to find some other way to describe your child's birthday party."
@Blackandy
I agree that copyrights extend far beyond what they should, and wish that a rational discussion would follow about the length of copyright. Perchance you have better term limits in mind?
The copyleft movement and majority of pirates however are "frequently debating what it means to “steal” something as amorphous as a digital file." And even our dear Mr Doctorow feels it's appropriate to buy a CD, rip it, and keep the mp3's for use after giving the physical CD to charity (so they can sell it back to the public, which is the same as just downloading a copy off the interwebs and giving some money to charity) they have no care for how long copyrights last, almost all downloads are for media that was made in the last 5 years.
The movement isn't fighting against the RIAA by downloading songs/music/books/movies that where recorded 20 years ago, they are fighting to allow free download of todays music/movies/games/books. When rational people begin congratulating the RIAA on going after digital aged thieves, reprimanding them for the 1 or so out of 500 cases we feel is going a bit too far, and having a reasonable discussion about copyright terms, then progress will be being made.
It would help too if people would stop spending more money on text messaging and soda then they do on movies/music/books/games, which do you enjoy more people? quality media or sugar water and text messages?
This is an endless problem on BB. Cory likes to give his stuff away, and that has helped make sure that he's in demand for speaking gigs that I assume are paid.
If everyone gave their stuff away, would everyone get speaking gigs?
Cory is famous for being different, not for showing how a different model can replace the current one. I am happy he gives his stuff away. I respect that. But it is HIS stuff to give away. Are these "free culture" people all musicians and writers? No. So who cares what they think about other people's work?
NIN and Radiohead can get away with doing releases on their websites now, but that is because they were originally built and supported by labels who ate their loss until they were profitable. And I say that as an ardent fan of the former and a casual fan of the latter. That isn't a dig; it's just a defense of the basic business model of labels. They've just gotten incredibly heavy, slow, and greedy.
There are better ways to do these things, to be sure, but just claiming that any creative output should be free, man, is utter and total bullshit. No one would be able to have a full-time job as a creator anymore. They'd all do it as a hobby. And, like most creations made as hobbies, they'd kind of suck. I mean... Look at YouTube. Which is better? Real TV, made by companies with budgets who can pay professional actors, writers, directors, etc., or 2-minute sketches on YouTube?
BB loves to bash that "failed dot-commer" (Seriously, is there any other kind? Me and all my friends lost our jobs in that crash--does that mean that everything we say is BS too?) "Cult of the Amateur" guy, but seriously. Amateurs suck. That's why they're amateurs. Without monetization of creative output, however, no one will ever get a chance to be a pro and have the time and leeway to grow.
Pay for your stuff, folks. We all agree the RIAA/MPAA are assholes, and a new model may be necessary, but no matter what model it is, you need to compensate people so they can BUILD your culture.
@12 spoon
It sounds like you don't get my point. Or maybe you do and I don't understand your comment, but in my opinion it seems that what is happening is not as simple as "resulting...get art for free and no one could make a living". I'm not going to bother explaining the relation of the Gutenberg press anymore, but let me just say this:
As an artist (painter) myself, I find this whole concept very inspiring and exciting. I'm inspired because I know that I can't simply rely on people buying my prints to make a living--which actually seems to me like a lazy way of making a living. I'm forced to come up with new and different ways of making money, like: performances, installations or sculpture. I'm always trying to think of a new way.
Don't fight the current, improvise, be creative. : )