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Written by John Rozewicki
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Thursday, 15 June 2006 |
Edited on: June 25, 2006 at 9:26am
Overview
It's impossible for anything to ever get better unless there is discussion about what should be done. In this article I'm going to write about what should be rather than what is. People get very wrapped up in talking about what is, and they discount what should be as some sort of unobtainable dream. This article is how I see the intellectual property dispute.
Information is Not Free
Everything is owned by someone. It is human instinct to be territorial. Many people's view of their life is dominated by what they own and how much of it. Information is no different than anything else. It has always been owned. It will never not be owned. It seems that the only limit to what can be owned is whether or not a thing is human.
Information was never inherently free. Information used to be much scarcer than it is now. Historically, it was very difficult to have access to any information at all. What information you could have was dominated by geography, class, level of education, and social pressures such as prejudice and classism. If you did have access to information, good luck affording it. Only after the invention of the printing press did books become something that more than just a few people could own.
Information is just like everything else that has historically been scarcer. Less people are dying of starvation worldwide because food is more abundant in modern times. The average person is better educated because information is more abundant in modern times. The internet has made education more accessible than any other invention in the history of humankind. Free and easily copyable information is a very new idea.
Information is Property
Information is property. This is one of my views that I'm having a hard time justifying, but it feels right because the opposing view seems too far off the mark. Something that has so many real costs of production and so much worth would have to be considered property.
The alternative, that information is not property, is too absurd. If information were not property then logically that would mean that information is worthless. A thing cannot have worth if it is not first considered to be property. It has to be property. Services are an obvious exception, but I do not consider information to be a service.
Need for an Expanded Definition of Property
People are very used to the idea of buying and selling objects. Man was buying and selling objects long before man was buying and selling information. As such, most of our ideas about property stem from physical examples. Forays recently in to the world of intellectual property(information) have been less than fruitful.
A common solution to the problem of intellectual property is to consider it equal to real property. I think this is flawed. The answer is not to lower intellectual property to the level of object property but to create a unified definition that includes intellectual property and can account for both. It's not as difficult to do this as one might think.
There are only a few key differences between object property and intellectual property.
I define intellectual property as property that has the following characteristics:
- Has very small distribution and manufacturing costs, but does have very real and often very large costs to prototype.
- Is more often licensed piecemeal than is sold outright.
- Has value, determined by how much people are willing to pay for it.
I define object property as property that has the following characteristics:
- Has costs to prototype, manufacture, and distribute that are more evenly balanced.
- Is licensed such that the license agreement grants all-encompassing rights to the property from seller to buyer.
- Has value, determined by how much people are willing to pay for it.
Artificial Scarcity
Many people don't consider intellectual property as property, because the scarcity is artificial. Their logic would make anything that had very small manufacturing and distribution costs not property. Just because an infinite number of copies can be produced doesn't mean an infinite number will be produced.
Copying any sort of information is never free. Even a text file on a computer has certain costs to reproduce and distribute. One needs a computer with space to store this text file and then an internet connection with which to host this file. I'll admit that it does cost very little to reproduce, and the number of copies that can be produced are almost limitless. However, a very small number is not zero, and almost limitless is not infinite.
Control of Property
Those who own property should be able to dictate the terms of sale any way they like. It is their property. This may lead to unfortunate circumstances where people do not want their work put in libraries. I think that this is their right. People never need freedom to do what is popular. Freedom is the freedom to do things that may be unpopular without repercussion from the government.
Most often the terms of sale would be set in some sort of license agreement. Copyright law, as it stands now, is a very convoluted and difficult to understand license agreement backed by legislation. One of the big fights right now is whether or not copyright law includes noncommercial reproduction rights with every sale.
I think that a lot of this could be cleared up if we dropped copyright law as it stands now and replaced it with more precise private licensing schemes. This is one of the reasons alternative licensing arrangements such as the GPL have been successful. The terms are laid out in a very clear way. It is known by all what the wishes of the content creators are.
While copyright has its heart in the right place, it has become bloated and unneeded. If we were to get rid of it, I have faith that the free market would be able to handle it. Under this system creators would be able to sell their works any they want. They could sell the exclusive rights to another entity, or even sell full rights in a similar way that is done for object property.
Violations of licensing agreements would be easier to sort out than violations of copyright are now. Piracy would be a matter of looking at the actions of a person, and then comparing those actions to a list of terms that person agreed to. It would be a much simpler, and by extension, much stronger and easier to legislate system.
The Public Domain
This idea where something would default to the public domain after a certain number of years is ridiculous. There's not really any other situation where something defaults to being public property after a certain number of years. Why should it be that way with information?
No doubt it would be nice to have a huge stable of information in the public domain, but I don't think anyone has the right to dictate what anyone else does with their property. To take someone's property rights away after a certain number of years is ridiculous. We don't do it with object property, why should we do it with intellectual property?
The only content in the public domain should be works that have been specifically donated to the public domain. There will also be many works such as the Christian bible and the works of Shakespeare where attribution to the original creator is not feasible. Works in the public domain would be works that have fallen through the ownership cracks into the hands of the public.
Summary
Intellectual property and object property need to be thought of as one thing. Object property being property that is typically sold with full rights. The rights to intellectual property would more often be split up and sold separately. Copyright should be abolished in favor of private licensing agreements that have specific terms. Violations of those rights(piracy, etc.) would be civil matters between two entities.
Previous Articles on this Same Topic
Arguments About Piracy; The Truth About Why Piracy is Wrong
Solidified Thoughts on Copyright
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Monday, 12 June 2006 |
Piracy is Ubiquitous
I'm confident in saying that nearly everyone has pirated something. Most people probably haven't gone to the internet specifically to download a new album, but they probably have at least some music that was procured illegally. CD burners are cheap, blank media is dirt cheap, and MP3 players make the process even easier. I'll even go as far as to say that most people don't feel bad about the small amounts of music they've acquired illegally.
I don't think this a new thing. People forget that piracy existed long before the internet. The only thing the internet did was take geography out of the equation. Before the internet, people would tape LP's to cassette. Cassettes were cheap, portable, and they could be played in a car. They could also be given to friends. Songs could be mixed, matched, and rearranged to form personalized tapes.
Most people were sharing with their friends. They were not part of an elaborate piracy ring. They were not seeking to profit. They just wanted to share the things they liked with the people they liked. This is still how most piracy happens now. The people who are actually involved in large-scale theft of intellectual property are few and far between. The people who do large-scale distribution are even scarcer. These numbers have risen because of the internet, but that's to be expected.
Are They Thieves?
The most popular argument against piracy is that it is theft. People state that it is similar to someone going in to a store and jacking it from a display. It is similar but not the same. Internet piracy does not deprive another person of enjoying the CD, and it is not a direct monetary loss. There is some monetary loss but it's unclear how much. It's impossible to say whether all the people who acquired the CD illegally would have bought it.
What's the ruling on buying a used CD? That's another situation where the artists are not compensated. We know it's not wrong. It is completely legal for someone to transfer ownership in exchange for money. How is piracy different from buying a used CD?
The Higher Moral Ground
It's interesting to see the debate between people who engage in casual piracy of the type I described above and the people who shout from their moral high ground. The pirates seek to rationalize their behaviors which are wrong. The moral side shouts at these people and ends up repeating that it's wrong no matter how the pieces are put together. Nobody seems to want to engage in an actual discussion about piracy. Nobody seems to want to nail down interesting specifics, or discuss why piracy is not stealing.
One of the most interesting parts of life is questioning why things are the way they are and why people hold certain beliefs. If what a person is saying is really right, then where is the logic behind it? This is where the piracy argument is right now. There's a gap created between what we know is right and how far our logic can take us.
We know downloading an album is not the same as stealing it from a store, but we also know piracy is wrong. It has to be wrong. Most people just don't know why. They have the answer to this math problem but are unable to show the work. This work is the most important part of the discussion.
Why Piracy is Wrong
Piracy is wrong, but piracy is not stealing. Piracy is wrong because it is a bad thing for the economy when people choose to behave outside its forces for their own personal gain. This is why used CD's are okay. The real danger of intellectual property theft is not a loss in sales but the devaluing of the property due to higher saturation in the market. Piracy short circuits supply and demand. When you pirate intellectual property, the very reason it is wrong is because it does not deprive another person of that product.
Why Everyone Hates the RIAA
I think that pretty much covers it, but good luck finding any person willing to discuss real economics with you. It has taken me years to come to this definition. It is sad that even those with nearly infinite resources can not justify their positions on piracy. The RIAA would have you believe that piracy is exactly the same as stealing something from a store and that every person who pirated something would have bought it in the first place. We know these things are untrue.
This is why organizations such as the RIAA are so hated right now. Like politicians they refuse to reach any sort of consensus or find real data. They stop at these completely bullshit hard lines that have serious flaws and go no further because they have the moral high ground. Anyone attempting any sort of real discussion with them is dismissed as a criminal trying to justify their immoral behavior.
The public knows when they're being jerked around by a lazy, greedy organization. The RIAA doesn't want consensus or discussion because they know it would cut into their approximation of how much piracy hurts them. They're afraid that people are going to find out that piracy is not hurting them nearly as bad as they say it does. This is how most people can know the RIAA is right but still disagree with them.
Edit: A Response to Comments
I've discovered from reading the comments being written about this article that there's an even simpler way to look at why piracy is wrong.
The music the RIAA puts out, whether you like it or not, is property of the RIAA. It is not up to anyone but them to decide what they should do with their property. They can sell their property in any way they like. Downloading music is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is calmly and rationally disobeying unfair laws.
Reproducing another person’s property without their consent will never be considered fair or moral in any way. This is piracy.
Edit 2: Wrong Without Harm
It is not up to anyone else to decide whether or not someone else’s creation should be free. Copyright should be available to protect those who want to use it, just as it is now.
I do not think it is fair to force people to make their creations free. It is their work, they should decide what to do with it.
Also, something can be wrong morally even if it doesn’t harm a person. If I steal a penny from someone else, that is wrong even though taking a single penny from any one person is not really harming them in any real way. However, it is their property. It is not up to me to decide that the penny in their pocket should be given to me. It is up to them to decide, just as it is up to them to decide whether or not a painting they’ve created should be available to all for free, to only one person upon payment, or to no one at all.
Freedom, unfortunately at times, also means the freedom for people to deny access to their property unless payment is rendered.
Edit 3: The Final Edit
Intellectual property(books, movies, music, etc.) is property because it requires resources to create. The cost of manufacturing or distribution is irrelevant in terms of the bottom line. 3+0+0 still equals 3. In this case the zeroes are distribution and manufacturing.
It is wrong to take property that an entity/corporation/indvidual has spent resources creating without agreeing to the terms of that entity/corporation/individual.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Saturday, 03 June 2006 |
Originally Written: 2004-11-13 11:42:00
A Horrible Joke
Saved! is a terrible movie and I've had about an ass full of it. When my friend told me the cast and then said, "We should see this." I thought he was screwing with me. It has quite possibly the most eclectic cast ever conceived with McCaulay Culkin(Dropped off the face of the earth until now), Mandy Moore(w-hat?), Heather Matarazzo(Welcome to the Dollhouse), and, to top it off, exec. producer Michael Stipe. It sounds like someone is screwing with you, does it not?
Wasted Potential
This movie is a classic example of writers paying attention more to where they want the story to go, to prove their point, than where the story wants to go. Saved! has lots of potential in its smaller characters. McCaulay Culkin pulls off an awesome performance. He rocks that wheelchair, and he's the most sincere character in the movie. You know who he is and what he's about at the beginning, and he delivers it throughout.
The story of him hooking up with the "bad girl" in school is entertaining moreso than the overall arc of the movie. This is the main problem with the movie. It has these really good side stories that develop, but for some reason they also force the overall story arc of teen pregnancy and religious satire on top it.
Unrealism
The movie tends to be too unrealistic. The most annoying example of this is the love interest of the main character. He's quite possibly the most perfect man ever created. He's clairvoyant. He goes after her at the beginning of the school year, and then gets forcefully shot down by her twice. He's still extremely nice to her, and somehow he knows she's pregnant when no one else in school does. He still knows, though, that she wants him. Somehow.
Terrible Plotting
He's still in to her at the end of the year and waits until then to be with her. He makes the wise decision of starting the relationship right after she pumps out a kid and it's bad times. His character doesn't make any sense. We could get rid of the overall arc of the movie, and no one would really care. I saw the movie twice, and for some reason I forgot about the main storyline between watchings. I watched the movie once, and then a month went by and I watched it again. It got to the pregnancy part and was confused why I couldn't remember it, and then all the bad parts of the movie came flooding back.
Over The Big-Top
Mandy Moore is annoyingly over-the-top throughout the movie, although I don't think it's her fault. Most of the comedy is the funny-stupid variety rather than funny thoughtful variety. I think there is inherent comedy in the movie, but for some reason they retrofit jokes on to the movie over all of this and it feels over-the-top. Over-the-top is the motto of this movie.
The Problem
Instead of staying with what's entertaining it foists tired religious satire on the audience. This just in, religion and most of the things in the Bible are unreasonable from modern day points of view. I am shocked. Thank you for telling me this. This movie exists more for those doing the making than the watching. People love this movie and want to believe it's good, because they think it has something new to say about organized religion. It doesn't. The content sucks and the ideas are tired. |
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Tuesday, 30 May 2006 |
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Since I'm on summer break this website might take a little turn towards the more creative. I'm a bit of a method writer; which you don't hear much about. The actors tend to get the most press for being method. I think a lot of writers are probably method also.
Many of the more argumentative posts I've written on this site have been products of discussions I've had with close friends. Unfortunately, this means that most of my close friends don't find this site very interesting. Discussion is probably one of the greatest tools for developing writing. Unfortunately, I've never heard any writer talk about this.
No writer is an island. Any writer who wants to take full credit for everything they've written is a liar. Part of establishing context is borrowing things from other places; references and so on. The genius part of writing is taking disparate concepts from many areas and packaging them together in an interesting way to say something new.
I think writers feel insecure about saying that not everything they put down on paper was their idea. These are people who do not understand their role. I think most writers are just very very creative journalists. That is not really meant to be a put-down. That is the truth of what most writers are doing when they write.
I write about what I'm doing at the moment. A month ago I was concentrating very hard on getting a new job. I was writing mostly stuff about how to make yourself more appealing in interviews and in general. Now, I'm on summer break and I have a lot more time on my hands to watch movies and write fiction. Both are things that I really don't have a lot of time for during the school year.
Consequently, there will be a lot more movie reviews and posts exploring the creative process.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Sunday, 28 May 2006 |
I wrote around March about the subject of gay marriage as a states' rights issue. This will be my second and final article on the subject of gay marriage. I am not gay but this is still an issue I feel strongly about. It's an issue that I think everyone should feel strongly about. I don't feel that it is right for any government to explicitly deny rights to a certain group of people. It is a very sad day when governments, instead of empowering citizens, are actively working to shut citizens out.
Sexism #1
The stance the governments(both state & federal) are taking on this issue is sexist in every definition of the word. We are currently discriminating on the basis of both gender and sex.
We are raised to believe in this country that all persons are created equal. It is the official stance of our federal government that women are equal to men. If this is the case, then by extension, shouldn't it not matter what the gender of two people applying for a marriage license is? A woman is equal to a man is equal to a woman. I'll diagram with math
X = 4 < --Declare X
X = Y <--Declare X equal to Y
Y = 4 <--Y must equal X
X + Y = 8 <--Correct
X + X = 8 <--Correct
Y + Y = 8 <--Correct
A Man = Y
A Woman = X
Constitution, "X = Y"
X + Y = Marriage.
X + X = ?
Y + Y = ?
What should be in place of those question marks if women are supposed to be equal to men? I'll give you a hint; marriage. I'm not sure there's any way to disagree with this logic. The point is that if there is supposed to be gender equality in this country then by extension marriage licenses should be granted for any pairing of genders.
Sexism #2
Everyone knows a few bullshit laws. There are laws in states across the country banning oral sex, sodomy, etc. They are unenforceable. It is everyone's opinion that the government has no business to decide what is right and proper for two consenting adults to do for their sexual pleasure.
Denying homosexual citizens the right to gay marriage is discriminating on the basis of sexual behavior. If it's not okay for the government to decide that sodomy is illegal, then why is it okay for the government to endorse sex where it involves a vagina and a penis through state-sponsored pairing(marriage) and tax breaks? Endorsing one thing over another is equal to discriminating against the other thing.
Thought Experiment
In many states a person can get a fully encompassing sexual reassignment right down to the birth certificate. If an individual jumps through all the hoops and has all the surgery to become the opposite gender, should they be able to get married in the traditional way that exists now? If not, why not?
Changes & Democracy
Unfortunately, we live in a democracy-flavored country. We do not have true democracy but democracy is the political philosophy of many people in this country. I say unfortunately because democracy is one of the most frequently abused concepts in this country. It is not right for 51% of a country to handicap the other 49%. It is not right for the majority to make any minority second class citizens; whether it be race, gender, skin color, place of birth, etc.
For things to change for the better for the minorities they have to convince the majority that they deserve rights. This requires the majority to pull their head out of their god damn asses and empathize with the minorities. This is why I am currently ashamed to live in this country. The polls show that at this moment that the majority of this country are behaving like self-centered arrogant selfish pricks.
The Right Thing To Do
Part of living in a free country is supporting causes for things you don't necessarily have need to do, but know it's the right thing to do. During the civil rights movements of the past many people who were not being discriminated against agreed that it was wrong for certain groups of citizens to be denied rights. I guarantee you there were men fighting for women's rights. There were most certainly white men fighting for the rights of minorities.
I am a straight person fighting for the rights of homosexuals because it is the right thing to do.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Thursday, 25 May 2006 |
This is the last post I will write about this novel or movie. I feel disgusting when I play into the trap of the media and the hype machine. Even though the content of this post will be very pointed and poised against this piece of work, it still functions as an incitement to read it despite my best efforts. This is what happens with controversy.
Fiction vs. Nonfiction
I usually hate the distinction between fiction and nonfiction. I think that it does a disservice to the people who have written works that are true to our basic understanding of human emotions to label them as untruths. Also, facts can be massaged to fit any image of something that you want. There are a lot of nonfiction works that border heavily on being entirely untrue.
The distinction between nonfiction and fiction is usually irrelevant, but in this discussion and in this case it is not. The work in discussion is labeled as fiction. Which means that we have to at some points suspend our understanding of reality to achieve a greater overall purpose. The facts might not be right, but the original themes, emotions, and intents are still all real.
The Point
While watching the movie I felt a very strong attachment to both the beginning and ending speeches by Langford. They were the parts that rang true for me. The first speech was about how symbols need to be taken in a more complete historical context so that we might understand history better and, more importantly, not misunderstand legitimate uses of them. The ending speech was a very rational argument for the, "Who cares?," side. It really doesn't matter if Jesus was the messiah or if he even existed. In the canon of the bible he is a very noble figure that has a lot to teach everyone. I wrote a whole article outlining this argument called, An Atheist's Defense of the Bible.
The Breakdown
There are stupid people on all sides of The DaVinci Code controversy.
How dare you commit some sort of blasphemy even though your overall message is one of peace!
Everything in this book must be true. It is only labeled as fiction because the world wouldn't accept it as a nonfiction book, but we know the truth.
We sort of liked this book, but it is fiction. You guys yelling about blasphemy are retarded and you conspiracy theorists are wrong too. I'm going to go compose whole essays as a reaction about why this work of fiction isn't entirely true in order to prove stupid people wrong.
The Point
The DaVinci Code is fiction. We don't need long-winded essays explaining why the book is not a truthful depiction of reality. That information is contained on the spine under the designation of, "Fiction." Any essays written on this subject are reactions to the perceptions of a large number of stupid people.
Stupid people are unable to reason well. So even if you prove them wrong they will probably not accept it. It is similar to trying to prove to zealots that everything in their religious texts couldn't possibly have happened the way it was written. It's shooting fish in a barrel, but good luck getting any of the people you're trying to convince to keep an honest score.
The Reason Controversy Persists
I find that anytime there's a controversy in this country it usually breaks down this way. The media devotes a lot of its attention to surface issues that don't make any sense once we sit down and really look at what is going on. The truth is that there is not much to argue about here.
It is in the best interest of the people who want to sell you things to keep this controversy alive. The second they admit that it is worthless is the second they have to find new content that will probably fare marginally worse because it can not live up to the popularity of the worthless content it took the place of.
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