While I do agree that there is scarce evidence that providing intellectual property protections is better than providing no copyright protection, I'm not sure if this is the productive way to look at things. We're stuck with a system that is unwieldy, and for most purposes, broken, but I, and I think a lot of people in the free culture, and software movement, do not believe abandoning any and all copyright is the right response.
The point that Creative Commons should be avoided as it endorses and builds upon a property right that normatively shouldn't and naturally doesn't exist has been floating around for a while. Unfortunately for it's proponents, I'm not sure what, if anything besides total abolishment of copyright, they suggest for action. Some have called for "reform" of the copyright system over creating new licenses and licensed works, but what does that actually mean? The reason why the GPL is successful is because it institutes a minimum number of restrictions on use and distribution of software that are necessary in order to preserve the freedom of others; restrictions whose legal force is grounded in copyright law. More generally, this is how most "free" democracies should work: laws are intended to function as provisions to ensure the freedom and autonomy of the individual through restricting the encroachment of those freedoms by others. But suppose we don't want to take it in that direction -- How can we be effective, or even taken seriously if we're suggesting nothing less than abolishment of copyright? As Eben Moglen put it to me once, "intellectual property is pretty much a joke", but what are our practical options of making people understand this without sounding shrill? Or like spoiled students? To me, suggesting options like CC and the GPL, though essentially based in copyright, appear to be the most strategic and effective. These kind of debates can go on forever; one position arguing that the actions and positions of the other's are "not radical enough" and the other position arguing for pragmatism and in the process getting accused of complacency. In fact, these debates are inherent to most political movements. I'm not sure we can avoid it, but we can certainly try to find common ground...so what does the rest of FC think, should we start advocating for complete abolishment of copyright? How can we find consensus and develop a real position, again? F On 2/27/07, Al <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Karen Rustad wrote: > Crosbie Fitch wrote: >> FC would return to the pre-copyright era where an author only retains >> AUTHORSHIP to their published works - otherwise only enjoying control over >> their unpublished work. > Um, what? Most people involved in the free culture movement aren't > advocating a return to the pre-copyright era. > > The problem isn't the existence of copyright--in a lot of ways, it *can* > "promote the progress of science and the useful arts". The problem is > that nowadays copyright seems to impede progress as much as it promotes > it because it's become unbalanced in favor of rightsholders. If you make > terms shorter, make the scope clearer, make penalties more reasonable, > etc., copyright would return to benefiting society as a whole. > > If an author can only ever control stuff that they *haven't* published > (and presumably made money off), that's not much of an incentive to > write, is it? > > -- Karen > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > Some people believe this > If an author can only ever control stuff that they *haven't* published > (and presumably made money off), that's not much of an incentive to > write, is it? to be FUD. Evidence that supports the assertion that an intellectual monopoly is necessary or even helpful promoting the progress of science and useful arts is scarce. As you yourself agree, evidence that the current system is doing the opposite is abundant. Certainly we both agree that the current system is too much. Certainly we both agree that weaker copyright would be an improvement. It is unclear, however, if weaker copyright would be an improvement over no copyright. In all of history, nobody has succeeded in making a convincing argument for this. Of course I cannot speak for everyone in the Free Culture movement, but the name "Free Culture" suggests that the movement advocates freedom of culture, not freedom of authors. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFF5IgD6THm0ATXcbwRAsWcAJ0ZzofnHS5OnBkm1kaRg59d4VxWRACdEWte Etwr/yVzouzTGFJvdmA5fzk= =Kp7C -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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