As usual with karaoke, most of the results won’t be worth listening to outside the small circle of friends; but other uses of the same sort will definitely be culturally valuable, and even with the karaoke the top one or two will be good.

For that matter, putting a clip of your children singing “Happy Birthday” on the net is technically illegal – p2p counts as public performance, and the song is owned by AOL-Time-Warner (yes, I did check snopes). Now, AOL-Time-Warner probably won’t sue you – but they have every right, and they might well sue you if they decide they don’t like you for some reason.

It’s not so much the obvious cases where someone is just trying to get something for nothing that worry people; those can be as illegal as you want. It’s the wider consequences and collateral damage that are a problem. Artists need to be compensated, but perhaps we can think of some way of doing that that doesn’t interfere with healthy �playing around cultural signs�.

*

I’ve no idea why you brought up terrorism or environmental pollution into the discussion, they seem totally unrelated. Unless you are suggesting people should get songs from p2p rather CDs so as to reduce pollution?

Probably, many people have written essays and doctoral theses on Gone with the Wind focusing on the novel’s depiction of Reconstruction-era race relations, and how the author’s own era shaped that depiction. That’s great. Such analyses certainly should be written. That’s how our culture evolves with respect to important and significant matters.

The audience for most of those papers and journal articles, if there were any, has probably been pretty limited. I can say honestly that, although I have pretty diverse interests, I would never go looking for such an article, and if I found it I’m not sure that I would have the interest or patience to read it.

Alice Randall expressed that analysis in a different manner: she made the same points, but she made them in the framework of “retelling” GWTW. Same characters, same incidents, wildly different perspectives. Randall’s genius wasn’t in merely observing that Mitchell’s work embodied a questionable and controversial view of history: it was in presenting that observation in an immediate, accessible manner, from which a reader could make those observations on her own. Now, the discussion has braodened to include those who aren’t full-time academics with subscriptions to The Journal of Historical and Cultural Socio-Economic Perceptivity (or something). The Wind Done Gone is the “picture” that’s worth a thousand essays.

To your second question, on why fair use isn’t sufficient: I would point to the second part of the story, in which Randall’s publisher was bestowed with a generous lawsuit from Mitchell’s estate’s trustee. Lessig really nailed it in Free Culture: fair use only is the right to hire a lawyer. I would add that fair use is also the requirement that you only hire lawyers who will advise you not to criticize, if you don’t have permission — or can’t afford litigation — for your criticism.

But you know, I’m kind of jaded about these things. If fair use case law a bit more consistent, then many of my problems with it might evaporate.
–matt

I would disagree. Culture is built up out of individual contributions. Rarely does culture pay or even acknowledge the invididuals who provide the source material. We build upon other people’s ‘creations’ all the time, every day. Look at creations like mashup music and bobble headed dolls.

I would love to be able to prevent Aristotle from selling my personal information for commercial gain based on copyrights. After all, I am not a public figure, so I should have greater protections than a governor. But it doesn’t work that way. Copyrights cut against the individual and society.

Casey writes:”Why is the fair use doctrine as it currently stands insufficient….”

Because the copyright maximalists are trying to restrict or remove fair use. This is one of the many problems with most DRM systems. This is one of the many problems with the DMCA, which blocks attempts to retain fair use.

Because the copyright maximalists claim that fair use doctrine is not a positive right but is instead only an affirmative defense.

Thanks for writing this book. I’m looking forward to reading it. I’ve been advocating against copyright for most of the last twenty years. For most of this time people looked at me like I was from Mars. But with recent developments like file-sharing and the DCMA the wool has been pulled away from the public’s eyes. The copyright supporters, or “maximalists” as you call them, must be quaking in their boots as they contemplate the prospect of an entire generation that is hostile to the idea of intellectual property.

The maximalists are going to find that there are many strong arguments against IP. I hope that your book outlines many of these for the general reader.

Anti-copyright since 1985,

Chuck Munson
Infoshop.org
Co-founder, anarchist librarians

…I think copyright should be worked out in the civil courts. I think that when you sue somebody, you’re at least giving that defendant a chance to due process, a chance to defend herself.

…assuming she has enough money to defend her suit. I think you’re on shaky ground expecting a corrupted legal system to produce genuinely equitable decisions. Instead, in the majority of these cases you are seeing defendants caving in and accepting settlements that only further entrench the media companies’ monopoly on distribution; meanwhile the definition of what constitutes distribution gets extended to merely having a copy of a music file on a shared storage device, regardless of whether any actual distribution takes place. We are guilty until proven innocent and even then we pay court costs. No, I think far from “eas[ing] up on techno-fundamentalism” the media companies are going farther and farther down the road to total control. Now I hear about HDTV sets that will turn off their auxiliary outputs when “broadcast flag” media are played through them, ostensibly to prevent you recording through analog outputs. Next I’m sure will be stereo equipment being forced to comply in the same way. It’s not going to stop.

I am curious to get your thoughts on one issue that has puzzled me. I agree with your conceptual thoughts regarding the growth of “cultural democracy” but I don’t always see the connection to those who are “unlocking” information. For instance, take your statement:

I think we really have to explicitly invest in a celebration of cultural democracy. What I mean by that is we have to recognize that people who are not powerful should have the right to play with the cultural signs around them. We shouldn’t lock up expressions, symbols and information and assign it to corporations and governments without a full and fair examination and justification. We have been fencing in our information for more than a decade now. If we would break down a few fences, we could relieve the pressure and release some profound creativity that can help us see new ways to deal with these frightening new problems in the world.

Retorically this sounds fine, but I am not yet ready to buy the idea that hacking DVDs or the unrestricted sharing of music via p2p or otherwise “playing around cultural signs” is not largely about getting something without paying for it rather than looking for ways to solve problems like terrorism or environmental pollution. I can understand that positing this contrast seems a bit unfair, but my observation is that a lot of the most vocal “copyfight” thinkers use similar arguments about democracy to justify limiting commercial protection of IP. I guess I am grappling with finding where the “rubber meets the road.” Why is the fair use doctrine as it currently stands insufficient to allow critical, commentary or other expressive uses that enhance the debate re social and political issues. Also, what do you see as constituting a “full and fair examination and justification” to allow information to be given IP protection?