the right to read

[Victor Odhner]

Trent Shipley wrote:
> As a Republican (capital 'R') I axiomatically prefer
> growth to equity.  The impoverished deserve to be
> destitute because they are poor.

Nobody deserves anything.  What matters is what you do
with what you've got.  Having a creative idea does not
confer the right to control other people's thoughts
or expressions.  Not having something not confer the
right to have it.  But efforts will continue, in both
of these directions, based on both of these fallacies.

As a lifelong Republican (capital 'R') I support the
U.S. Constitution's language regarding copyrights.
The current state of Federal law in this area has
no resemblance to what the Constitution prescribes.

As a Jeffersonian, I believe that you have full control
over your ideas until you utter them, and then you
still have the right to continue having that idea,
but have no control over where else they go.  Thus
"intellectual property" is an oxymoron.  I think it
was a good idea to give authors and inventors a limited
right over commercial distribution of their (own) works
for a limited time.  Why a limited time?  He who rests
on his laurels is wearing them in the wrong place.

As a citizen, I think it's fine for the publishers to
identify sites that are distributing their copyrighted
works to all comers, because that is blatantly illegal
even under constitutional copyright laws.  I don't
believe they should be permitted to send their robotic
thugs into such sites to trash the place, any more
than Jack Valenti can walk in and trash a store.
Requiring them to take legal action can help force
them to pick their battles.

> Is it possible to reach a point of absuridity (or
> worse, declining returns) in defining intellectual
> property?

Sure.  Viewing "fair use" as an absolute right that
applies to everything at all times is pure communism,
and guarantees universal mediocrity.  Viewing "IP" as
an absolute right that attaches to all expressions
forever is a prohibition of the creative process,
which consists of re-mixing old stuff with new stuff.
Either way, returns will decline.  Simple fairness
seems to be a happy medium, wouldn't you say?

The Constitution states the reason for copyrights:
to provide incentive.  Submerging all art and expression
in a legal quagmire does not promote creativity, it
suppresses it.  So the bottom line is, I think most
people can understand copyright limitations for
"a limited time", but don't understand at all why
they can't sing Happy Birthday on TV without paying
royalties a whole LIFETIME after that ditty was written.

On one side, there is fairness to the author, who should
not be doomed to poverty.  On the other, fairness to the
consumer, who should not have to pay over and over and
over for content bought one time, nor for content that
has been around for a long time and has become part of
the cultural mix.  Once your stuff has been around for
the customary 26 years, isn't it about time to think of
something new to get paid for?  Sheesh!

Law has a concept called "perpetuity".  There are formulas
for defining this; it doesn't mean forever, but is
defined relative to the lifetimes of living people.
The current copyright act extends copyright far beyond
these conventions, thus clearly violating the prescribed
"limited time".  Again, the publishers are wearing
those laurels in the wrong place.

> IP is *GOOD*!

It's a good myth, only useful in moderation.

> Respect for property is virtuous.

For things that ARE property.  Yes.   ;-)

> Common ownership of durable intellectual products is
> pernicious.

Um, what do you mean "durable"?  What by common ownership?
Ideas can't be owned by individuals NOR by the community.
They are immune from ownership.  Ownership applies to
non-reproducible resources, and from the fact that "taking"
by one person deprives the other of the object.  But
by singing my song, you're not depriving me of the ability
to sing it.  I'll just have to sing it better.
That's incentive! 

Now, to the article:
> Microsoft will extend the concept over the next few years
> to embrace not just audio and video, but all content,
> including computer software and the text used in electronic books.

There's no way that content OTHER than Hollywood's and
Microsoft's can be delivered reliably and freely through
these systems.  So the real question is, will there be a
system for alternative, free-flowing content?

Unless the open-content community is made illegal by Congress,
there will be alternatives.  Anyone who doesn't want to do
business with Hollywod won't have to.  But Hollywood's content
may require taking it on their terms.  Frankly, I think
DVDs are a fantastic value for the one-time price, and I
would never think of ripping a movie off the net.  But if
they try to meter my use of my DVDs, on a pay-per-use
basis, then I will go elsewhere for my entertainment.
We just have to make sure there IS an elsewhere.

> But ... all but abolishing consumer rights such as timeshifted
> video recording and "fair use" for the purposes of education
> and criticism.

Right.  That's what I'm talking about.  The standard process
in development of laws, a lawyer recently told me, is that they
become progressively more of a pain until the pain becomes
unbearable; then they are overturned, moderated or bypassed.
The same will be true with these media systems:  when it is
no longer fun to use them, people won't.  The mainstream will
run into a gutter, and a new mainstream will emerge somehow.
I'm not worried, long term.

> "We can block out rogue applications or compromised
> applications or broken applications," ...

See, this has nothing to do with protecting "property", but
stomping the competition.  It may work, but not forever.

> ... swaths of cultural history could disappear forever
> if the content owner decides it doesn't want its
> intellectual property viewed by the public.

Note that Snow White was never released for the first
half century.  It was shown only in theaters, at times
selected by The Company, and was not released as a video.
In other words, Disney reserved it as a "performance"
which it would deliver on its own terms.  Some movies
have disappeared altogether because the only copies were
lost.  Our culture in the future will be enriched by the
wide distribution of works of art, but the publishers have
the right to look for a way to make money from the works
they funded.  There's a balance to be struck here.

> Verses:

Rhymes?

I presume they meant "Versus", right?

Stallman's little story makes a point by exaggerating.
Like I said, things can get only so bad before people
become intractable, because we are sheep when we're
comfortable but damn difficult when we decide to be.
And some frogs will jump out of that water when the
time comes.

Vic