An Experiment In Deconstructing Copyright – Part 1 – Intro
During one of my more reflective moments, I realized that I have allowed myself to try to untangle copyright issues by tugging randomly at strings rather than approaching it methodically. This is the first of a series of posts where I’ll be attempting to boil down the issues of copyright more systematically.
Note that this is a starting-point, and the list below will likely change/expand after I dissect and discuss the individual points.
Copyright – at its most basic, is simply the right to copy.
The practice and enforcement of copyright consists of:
- The concept of the right to copy.
- The intent to protect a creator’s ability to receive financial remuneration from their work. (is this really its own point, or is it a sub-point of the right to copy and copyright law?)
- Copyright law – rights granted to creators legislatively.
- The administration of copyright.
- The impact of copyright on users.
What copyright isn’t about (but has been used to address):
- Censorship
- Marketing
Grey areas:
- Business models
- Creative reuse (also part of “impact of copyright on users”)
- Financial stability/security of creators and the creative community [added 26-Dec-2007]
Julianna,
You are too much part of the techie generation.
Rather than thinking of the technological meaning of the word ‘copy’, we need to be thinking of it as a synonym for ‘manuscript’. This is rights in respect to manuscripts, and then this expanded to non-literary forms of creativity.
Focusing too much on ‘copies’ has gotten us into a lot of trouble. Activities which need to be considered (public exhibition, performances where no recording is being made, communication by telecommunications) are increasingly being ignored, and activities which should not be covered by copyright at all (time/space/device/format shifting, private mashups, etc) are increasingly being presumed to be regulated by copyright.
This misdirection of our attention is helpful to the increasingly redundant industries like the recording industry, but is very bad for actual creators like composers, performers, etc. The recording industry is taking this as far as they can, and are suggesting that unauthorized P2P sharing of music should be considered an unauthorized distribution of a “copy”, rather than the more technologically correct communications to the public via telecommunications.
I think a key to getting past the current crisis of legitimacy that copyright is currently in will be to move away from thinking in terms of ‘copies’, and return to thinking in terms of the rights associated with human creativity that should be granted to its creator(s).
*smile*
You’re getting a little ahead of me. I’ll get to that (actually, take a look at Part 3, which I was working on last night.)