UK culture secretary: "Screw the facts, I'm extending copyright anyway"
Glyn sez, "UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham today indicated that he would support an extension of the length of copyright protection granted to sound recordings from 50 years to 70 years.
The announcement directly contradicts previous Government policy on term extension, and could disappoint many UK citizens hoping the UK will reject proposals currently being discussed at EU level to extend the copyright term. Back in 2006, the independent Gowers Review of Intellectual Property recommended against term extension. The review commissioned significant independent research which found that extending term would have a negative effect on consumers, and scant benefits for the majority of performers. Making the announcement today, Burnham indicated that he was prepared to ignore the facts in favour of what he called a 'moral case'."
If it turns out the UK Government are unwilling to reject the Directive, then it will be up to the European Parliament to see sense and vote it out when they come to consider it (likely next February). Which means it’s all the more important to write to your MEP if you object to the proposal to extend copyright term.Screw the evidence, says Burnham, let’s extend copyright term anyway, Write to your MP/MEP (Thanks, Glyn!)
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Always good to see gov't officials 'mickey mousing' policy.
Money talks.
Human beings who create new ideas are unique and scarce. Ideas which have already been created are easily duplicated ad infinitum.
Copyrights and patents are merely legal tools to suppress the value of "renting" knowledge workers by seizing a monopoly on the use of the works they create and calling that "property" (or "capital"). Imagine if companies had to compete for your ability to write new code, or perform new music, or invent new medicines, or perform any other sort of research and development. Instead of merely rent seeking from their monopoly privileges.
c.f. dominant assurance contracts, futures exchange
'Moral cases' are the bane of policy. It's the same kind of reasoning that abstinence-education proponents use to ban condoms in schools: this is tantamount to endorsing sexual activity amongst minors and therefore is wrong.
One might be inclined to cite studies showing that abstinence programs generally are ineffective; that sexual education and contraceptive access lower STD and teen pregnancy rates; that teenagers will have sex anyway. But this misses the entire point. From this 'moral case' perspective, arguing from consequences to morality is not morality at all. When faced with a problem, you begin with moral concepts and then figure out what to do—instead of figuring out what to do to solve the problem and then assuming that this set of actions must be right.
Somehow over the last few decades copyright has ceased being a set of policies enacted because it had good 'consequences' (i.e., the temporary creation of an intellectual monopoly to incentivize innovation) but the legal affirmation of a basic 'human right' to own, perpetually, one's ideas--no matter the actual consequences.
Sure, there are times when we don't want to be utilitarians. I seriously don't think this is one of them, though.
moral == money
Thanks for clarifying that.
It's interesting that Queen Anne and the Founding Fathers were, apparently, moral reprobates.
Ah, the old: "If the Magistrate takes no action, the Magistrate shares the guilt of the accused", first used by Christians, to justify Laws to punish other (so-called 'heterodox', ie non-Orthodox) Christians, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius, about 16 centuries ago. Before the first Popes, but after Theodosius had prescribed Christianity for his subjects (which was another first). A "moral case", indeed.
It has mutated to "What message would the non-punishment of this activity send?", a near cousin to the above.
Both principles, of "if it is not punished, then the State therefore approves", and of "the judge who takes no action is involved in the offense", are specious.
Non-punishment in and of itself does not equate to State or other "Official" approval - any suggestion to the contrary is nonsense.
These principles are the meat of the "moral case", are they not?
On second thoughts, the so-called 'moral case' with regards to the extension of monopoly rights seems to just be ...nothing at all. At least with regards to the case in hand...
moral eh? Is that like a judge that stays bought?
Where the rich and powerful, the corpotrations and the moneyed plead, the Labour government is only too eager to appease. Regardless of the issue in question or the evidence.
At the same time they propose to force disabled people, who have been judged by pysicians to be unable to work, into work (at the hands of profit-making companies paid bounties for getting people off welfare) the government in its wisdom have decided to extend corporate welfare to people who think it's their right (if you listen to Dame Cliff Richard) to continue to profit from a modicum of work done 50 years ago, for additional years to come.
Most members of the two major parties in the UK wouldn't know a moral case if it smacked them upside the head.
Staying bought? I remind you that consistency is the hob-goblin of little minds...
Power corrupts. Labour has been in power for way too long, unchallenged, and now they're too corrupt to listen to their base. I only hope that the (inevitable) defeat at the next general election will mean we get to have a Lab-Lib coalition government -- a Tory win would be a disaster.
i can't see the morality involved here. One way or another, people who had nothing to do with the creation of a work get the money. except in the case of extending copyright, the people who make the money is a very small number as opposed to a very large number.
he needs to be investigated for corruption. it seems clear he must be taking bribes.
How do they decide whose morals to use?
I wrote to my MEPs about this last week (nine of them) and didn't get a reply from any of them. Actually I got a palm-off from one of them, who said it wasn't his affair..
How is it that, after commissioning an independant committee to review something, the politicians can turn around and ignore the committees? The entire point of the review process is to provide an unbiased, informed decision on a subject. Where does this guy get off thinking that he knows better than a committee of experts? It's the equivalent to a judge overruling the unanimous decision of the jury. Any judge who did that wouldn't be a judge much longer and I don't think this politician should be around much longer either.
A lot of money or favors are trading hands. Nothing else could explain such ferocity.
ugly canunck, i'd like to remind you that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
fixed your thing there, please review the applicability of your now accurate mis-quote.
Well I relied upon myself to judiciously edit Mr. Emerson's words, as he did not see fit to define the difference between the foolish and the wise varieties of 'consistency'.
As to "staying bribed", I will admit that not to do so can be very foolish, in that it can be, well, "bad for one's health".
As the good Minister's salary is paid by the public, perhaps he ought to remember that it is also not wise to bite the hand that feeds him.
But I suppose which hand feeds him best is the "moral" question here...I suggest that the Minister consult his belly next time, instead of convening experts at the public expense.
Bah. "Secretary" for "Minister", in the above.
as he did not see fit to define the difference between the foolish and the wise varieties of 'consistency'.
I'm not aware Emerson ever spoke of a "wise consistency". That was probably Ben Franklin.
Emerson spoke of a 'foolish consistency' though, and did define it - just there - as the hobgoblin of little minds.
He was not condemning consistency at all, just fools.
UK politicians listening to experts / scientists / knowledgeable commentators who have spent lives interested in and studying a subject seems a pretty futile use of energy when the politicians have the simple priority of being re-elected in 5 years, or toadying to someone whose aim is being (re-)elected in 5 years. The historical record will be examine after they are just foot notes.
Seriously, listen to any politician interviewed on BBC Radio 4 about the lack of respect / authority accorred(?) to politician in the UK; they bandy about that the MPs are mainly principled and in it to help people, their greater understanding of the complex world misunderstood by the less informed populace. This is just a LIE. They invariably run off to support those activities that explicitly contradict the public statements under the shroud of public support.
So "consistency" would be a virtue, except for fools?
No, Emerson condemned a foolish consistency, and thus by his plain words, he condemns this species of 'consistency'. He did not define 'consistency', either, and in any case, I don't recall his praising consistency, anywhere in his writings, at all.
Your definition is circular: if the attitude that the "little mind" adopts towards consistency constitutes the foolishness, or if the "little mind" Emerson refers to is by definition, a 'foolish mind', why mention consistency at all?
Instead, drop the adjectives..."Consistency is the hob-goblin of minds"...stick to the nouns, not the qualifications. Or, if you like, "a foolish consistency is the hob-goblin of minds". The word "little" does not serve to define "foolish", in Emerson's statement.
IMO Emerson is being playful with this line: the essay is "Self-reliance" and one always has the right to change one's mind. In this context, consistency is not a virtue, for Emerson. Rather, it is an obstacle...
The message that copyright term extension is uncompensated theft from the public (domain) needs to be promoted more.
Anyone who produced something under copyright agreed to the terms when they produced it. The public agreed to those terms. To change those terms now is to break the agreement.
--Phil.
Give Emerson for Xmas!
Link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567922988
Thanx to Ralph Nader for the heads-up:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader12122008.html
Ho ho ho!
Andrew Gower's response in the FT is pretty good.
Copyright extension is out of tune with reality
Ugly Canuck- I can see where you see a circularity in my point. I was not clear. Selectively editing Emerson is what you did there, not judiciously.
I strongly suggest you see the film Next Stop Wonderland. The director of the above film dis a much better job than I ever could at what I meant, and the bar they use for the exterior shots was "my bar" when the movie was made (though the interior was somewhere else).
Bonus: it's a date movie.
Bonus Emerson:
"The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."