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cc-nz - [Cc-nz] Protecting copyright at any cost?

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Subject: Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

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  • From: Danyl Strype <strypey AT disintermedia.net.nz>
  • To: Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion <cc-nz AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Cc-nz] Protecting copyright at any cost?
  • Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 20:30:48 +1300

Kia ora koutou

I will address the archiving issues separately, thanks Leigh for your
thoughts, and Mark for a professional perspective, professionally
delivered :)

Speaking of archives though, I spent most of Friday extracting the
contents from a copy of the CC.org.nz web forums sent to me by Matt
(thanks Matt), and loading them into my wiki:
http://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/ccanz-forums-archive

Conveniently, that archive contains a link to an economic commentary
which neatly skewers the defence of CAAC (Copyright At Any Cost) which
underpins Paul's comments in this paragraph:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/napster.htm

On 29 November 2012 21:17, Sutherland, Paul <Paul.Sutherland AT ccc.govt.nz>
wrote:
>> Regardless of what you think of any aspect of the Kim Dotcom saga you must
>> remeber copyright is a legal instrument to protect the owners of
>> intellectual property who have chosen to use this tool for whatever
>> reason. MegaUpload facilitated the illegal duplication and sharing of
>> copyright material. <<

Let's address these issues one by one:
1) Kim Dotcom, and uncountable numbers of legitimate users from around
the world, had innumerable rights of personal freedom and privacy (eg
right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure) violated by the
NZ state, through the actions of a number of its enforcement arms -
many of the action themselves illegal. This would be wrong even if
Dotcom was a mass murderer. As is stands, the violations of basic
civil rights and the letter of various laws by police/ spooks are much
more serious threats to society than anything Dotcom has been accused
of. I find it disturbing to see these critically important issues
dismissed as a "saga".


2) In enforcing the rights of certain rights-holders in such a
scorched earth fashion, the authorities trampled the rights of
MegaUpload to operate what is now a standard "cloud" backup service
for users, and the rights of all the legitimate users who lost
personal or business data, not the mention all the basic civil rights
mentioned in point 1. The corporate shareholders who gain financially
from this violation of rights attempt to justify this, by telling the
public that copyright violation involves "stealing property", rather
than violating a government-granted set of rights. What's actually
happening is that governments are violating fundamental rights in
defence of temporary, government-granted rights.

3) I agree that copyright is a legal instrument, but what kind of
"property" is spontaneously created by legal decree, can be reproduced
without limit, and vanishes by the same legal decree after a fixed
number of years? Copyright is not "property", by any meaningful
definition. It exists to serve the public good, by offering the carrot
of a temporary monopoly on commercialisation, to encouraging
publication of material which will eventually enrich the public
domain. The violation is these granted rights of commercial advantage
are appropriately dealt with by civil action, not by criminalisation,
and violation of real property (eg private homes and servers).

4) MegaUpload, like Napster and the Pirate Bay before them, was
accused of profiting from *potentially* displacing the profits of
certain multinational corporations, because some people were allegedly
using the free service it offered to give away free copies of things
those corporations sell. Note that these users are not making a
*commercial* use, so copyright is not actually violated. Therefore, an
argument must be convincingly made that the ad-revenue of MegaUpload
was received specifically in exchange for "facilitating" exchange of
copyright material, which would be copyright violation (but is allowed
in CC Non-Commercial licenses).

5) We must assume MegaUpload *did* respect privacy, unless somebody
has evidence that they didn't, so we must also assume that any users
sharing material under ARR copyright were doing so without Dotcom's
knowledge or consent. Without this evidence, even if the
rights-holders had used the appropriate civil law mechanisms, rather
than involving the FBI, GCSB, NZ Police (SIS?) etc in a dawn raid on a
private home, they would have had no legitimate case against Dotcom or
his company.

Defending the dubious use of criminal law and international treaties
to shore up corporate profits is a strange thing to do in a forum
which exists to promote a creative commons.

Ma te wā
Strypey

--
Danyl Strype
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

"Geeks are those who partake in our culture."
- .ISOcrates

"Uncomfortable alliances are not just necessary; they reflect and
speak to the tremendous possibility of our political moment."
- Harmony Goldberg and Joshua Kahn Russell
http://www.nationofchange.org/new-radical-alliances-new-era-1337004193

"Both Marxists and Chicago-school libertarian economists can agree
that free software is the best model."
- Keith C Curtis
http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?page_id=407




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