[cc-community] Benjamin Mako Hill on Creative Commons
Greg London
email at greglondon.com
Mon Aug 1 14:57:57 EDT 2005
> On Monday 01 August 2005 12:07 pm, Greg London wrote:
>> >> creative works follow the hostage scenario to a tee.
>> >
>> > No, I humbly submit that they will not. One reason is that
>> > unlike risking ones life to overcome the gunman (perhaps) creative
>> > expression contains its own reward for many. These will go on
>> > creating even if all works go automatically into the public domain.
>> > If all works went into the public domain, I would be happy for mine
>> > to as well. I am a copyleft fan these days because that is not
>> > how things work today.
>>
>> drew, don't get wrapped up in the specifics of the analogy.
>> A prisoner's dilemma applies to more situations than
>> two people being held prisoner. A hostage scenario applies
>> to more situations than hostages being held at gunpoint.
>
> I am not getting hung up, although, if you wanrt to refer to game theory
> so
> often, it might be helpful if you could point to some gentle introductions
> to
> those unfamiliar with it can learn more.
>>
>> without copyright law, if I create a work, it enters the
>> public domain immediately. I then have no way of recouping
>> my time and energy it took me to create that work.
>
> The is simply not so. You could keep it as a unfinished work.
> You could pass it out under contract with non-disclosure clauses
> and heavy fines for disclosure which could even be insured. You
> could find sponsors. I have gone down this road before so I know
> it is possible.
Uhm, wow.
So, imagine the government, congress, courts, and police, all
decide to toss copyright completely out the window, and instead
give creators complete contract control over their works.
You sign a non-disclosure agreement with every work you read.
Every website is a click-through contract.
Every radio station needs to be encrypted and you can only
listen if you agree to the contract and get a decryption key.
The entire concept of "fair use" is completely destroyed.
You can't even say the word "mickey mouse" in an email
without getting arrested for breech of contract, because
the power of the contract is left completely to the creators.
You think Copyright law gets in the way of art?
Wait till you see what contract law would do.
If you want a glimpse of what this would look like,
take a look at TRADE SECRETS. copyright and patents
expire. Trade secrets can literally last forever.
You can take knowledge learned from patents and
copyrights and have fair use to learn from them
and create something new. trade secrets have no
exceptions. This is not an improvement to the current
situation.
>> That "creative expression creates its own reward for many"
>> is ignoring the fact that any individual hostage would
>> really, really, really, like to NOT be a hostage.
>> But the circustances are that even though rising up alone
>> and fighting the gunman alone has it's own reward, it also has
>> risk.
>
> The risks for making a song are not as great as those for facing a gunman
> single handed and unarmed and many more will take those risks.
So what? Unless you say that an army of volunteer musicians
will rise up and donate their time to the point where paid
musicians are pointless, this is irrelevant.
While it is possible for an entire community to come together
and build a barn for a member of the community, that doesn't
mean that everyone in the community can get a new barn at
the same time, or a new barn every year.
You are granting a gift economy with more capability than it has.
there is no historical examples to support the idea that a gift
economy can outpace market economies. historically, gift
economies trail market economies, and make up for their slowness
in price and quality.
>> You keep citing altruistic reasoning as the solution
>> to the hostage scenario.
>
> I don't see it as altruistic reasoning, but more as self preservation. The
> current copyright is getting dangerous for individuals. Jail time is not
> something to look forward to. Especially not in my country. I want to ahve
> less and less to do with non-copylefted works.
breech of contract will be just as dangerous as breech of copyright,
probably worse. Actually, the current state of Trade Secrets proves
this to be teh case. Contract based enforcement of IP rights is
far more draconian than copyright.
>> someone will rise up and
>> fight the gunman because it is wrong or whatever,
>> and the reward they will get is they will be free again.
>> But that completely avoids the reality.
>
> I think you are avoiding reality and I will give an example below.
>>
>> The reaction for hostages in a hostage scenario is
>> to comply with the gunman.
>>
>> without copyright or any other compensation system,
>> creators would have no way to recoup their time/energy
>> to create a work, and so no one would create anything.
>
> Since people have been creating things for thousands of years before
> copyright
> laws, those other compensation systems must work. Some of us want to play
> in
> those fields again. You are avoiding reality if you posit that without
> copyright laws
your "reality" isn't supported historically.
I mention this in my bounty hunters book, but basically,
copyright and patent laws came into existence about the
same time that teh renassaince occurred.
i.e. about the same time that intellectual ideas were
being recognized as valuable in and of themselves.
So, for "thousands of years" before the Statute of Anne, the
extent of intellectual advances had gotten civilization to
the point of agricultural societies where slavery was
the rule rather than the exception, literacy was
essentially nonexistant, wars were fought in hand to hand combat,
and kings ruled by divine right.
That isn't much of a track record.
--
Bounty Hunters: Metaphors for Fair IP laws
http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/
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