Another month, another rumour of Peter Vardy starting up Christian academies. Whoop-de-fucking-woo. "And then, kids, God piled all the animals inside the ark. He even sent magic helpers who cleared all the shit out so Noah could relax up on the executive deck drinking rum'n'coke and enjoying 'flood life'." Yes, that is what is being taught as science... 
What follows are republications of some notes I made at Ravensbourne College's "Copyright v. Community". Also speaking was a guy called Fravia who runs Web Searchlores - but who I missed due to (what a guess) our unreliable railway network. This was really the first real geeky event that I attended - afterwards was NOTCON '04.
Richard Stallman talk at Ravensbourne College 
Richard Stallman is the founder of the GNU Project, launched in 1984 to develop the free operating system GNU (an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"), and thereby give computer users the freedom that most of them have lost. Created the GNU General Public Licence and runs the Free Software Foundation.
"Copyright was developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it. The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright - to promote progress, for the benefit of the public - then we must make changes in the other direction." - Richard Stallman (quote used in publicity).
What does free software mean? Software that respects the users freedom. (Free as in the sense of freedom)
Four freedoms:
| 0. Can run it whenever you like. |
| 1. Freedom to study the source code. (The freedom to help yourself) |
| 2. Freedom to make copies. (Freedom to help your neighbour) |
| 3. Freedom to publish modified version (Freedom to build a community) |
cf. with non-free software. Designed to keep users helpless and divided: you can't get the source code. A "prisoner of your software".
Non free software does what the developer wants.
Free software puts the user in control.
Gets the benefit of the work of the community.
Not the same as freeware which appeared in the 80's (freedom 0 and 2).
The one thing Stallman claims to be good at is making operating systems. Create a way for people to escape from non-free software by writing an operating system. 1983 - announced GNU, programmers humour (recursive acronym).
By 1991, several parts released. Still did not have system kernel.
1990 - started developing a kernel ("Hurd").
1992 - Linux released under GPL.
People forgetting that GNU/Linux wasn't started in 1992.
Condemns anybody who uses mixed FS and non-FS software.
Objective: not just to have fun and learn.
He wouldn't mind if somebody 'copied' his car. The use of GPL (etc.) in hardware is not then relevant.
History of copyright law and the history of copying:
The ethical decisions of an act depend on the technological context.
Pen and ink: anyone who could read and write could copy about as well as anybody else. Books could be disseminated by anyone who could read and write. No economy of scale - it takes ten times to make ten copies as it does to make one. Compendiums and commentaries were encouraged in the ancient world. Anyone who had a text could make copies - no copyright.
Improvement in copying technology...
Printing press: takes a lot of work to set the type, but once this was done you could make as many copies as you like. Introduced an economy of scale. Specialised and expensive equipment - need to have skills to use.
Copyright in England was set up so that publishers could have monopolies. Later reformed to make them temporary, and to transfer to author. An industrial regulation on publishing - never used to enforce one-by-one copying.
US Constitution rejected a constitutional copyright: not an entitlement to authors, an optional system for protecting progress - the 'Useful Arts and Sciences' clause. Same general philosophical ideal upheld in UK and former colonies.
1900: printing became more efficient. Poor people could afford to get printed books. Copying by hand became rare - people forgot that you could do it. Copyright remained - fairly painless (only restricted businesses), easy to enforce (anybody selling books needs to advertise them) and arguably beneficial. Copyright bargain was beneficial in 1900.
The age of the printing press gave way to the age of the computer network. Changes the context.
Printing press made mass reproduction efficient but the computer made it efficient in the same way as single reproduction.
We are now losing something through the copyright bargain.
No longer 'fairly painless' (restricting everybody), no longer 'easy to enforce' (one has to intrude to find people who are breaking law) and no longer beneficial.
Copyright law is extended in all dimensions:
| Time: extending it over and over. The movie companies (record companies etc.) want perpetual copyright. US Constitution doesn't allow perpetual copyright. Every twenty years you extend copyright by another twenty years. There is a nominal public domain date - never really get there because of term extensions. |
| Breadth: never intended to cover all uses. Publishers want total control over individual's usage of copyright. Two stage plan: (1) take away freedom to do this in e-books (no e-books, no complaints), (2) get everyone to switch from books to e-books (reasoning? Probably practical...). |
Digital Millenium Copyright Act: EUCD. Launching a vicious war on sharing.
Publishers buying laws that take away more of our freedom, even though we need more freedom. No longer democratic. Democracy in danger all around the world.
Good copyright policy?
| Renegotiate deal that was advantageous in the printing press era - perhaps reduced sized. |
| Non-uniformity - why does the price we pay in freedom has to be the same in different types of work? |
The way that work is used is the way we need to differentiate between works. Three different categories of work:
Functional/useful - use them to get practical functions done (computer programmes, recipes, reference works etc.) If you can't control it, it gets in the way of your life. Must be free. Would these works get written if they were no revenue stream? Functional replacements can be made for them if they aren't free (eg. Wikipedia).
Works that represent what somebody thinks. Scientific reports, memoirs, essays, opinions and offers to buy/sell. Modified versions are not of social benefit. Compromised copyright system: mainly a restriction for businesses.
Art/entertainment - social usefulness in the sensation one gets in viewing or using the work. Raises problems of modified versions - artistic work can have artistic integrity. There is value to society in modificiation process - the folk process. Shakespeare used stories from other plays in his own works. Today that would be a ripoff, they are masterpieces.
| 1. No need for copyright law for as long as it is. >150 years is too long, RMS suggests 10 yrs. Publication cycles - most books are remaindered (USA) in two years, most out of print by four. Ten years from the date of publication. |
| 2. Less urgency on the restrictions of artistic works compared to functional works. |
| 3. Automatic licencing for modifications. |
Compromised copyright system for the use of artistic work which would work at a fraction of the way that it currently does.
Author: Ten years? Anything longer than five is an outrage.
Many authors are in disputes with publishers over contracts and copyright payments.
Musicians: not supporting musicians. Stealing the money from the musicians from record companies? No, the record companies did it first. Only the superstars get money. Most people don't. Very few records sell enough to actually give any money to the musicians. Multiple platinum before any musicians get money. Artists who have complained about: Courtney Love (the music pirates), Janis Ian, Joe Walsh (from The Eagles), Prince (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince - his record company forbid him to release music under his pseudonym).
Record companies getting rich is no reason to restrict freedom. For the sake of the musicians is the reason that record companies give. 4% of their income goes to musicians overall (the superstars are getting 4%+, others aren't). Records publicise artists. Internet music sharing is a much healthier system.
Musicians wouldn't lose any money - they'd get healthier out of it. Superstars wouldn't be as rich, but they wouldn't be poor:
1. Tax that could go to artists.
2. Legalising copying.
3. Distribution of money goes in non-linear popularity - square root curve.
"Click here to send $1.00 to the band" - electronic donations etc.
Any donations that are given is more than musicians get already. Nice promotions!
Doesn't carry a mobile phone - tracking device.
Book publications - Stephen King experiment.
Convenient, anonymous 'pay a small amount' systems would do the job.
Put pressure on the candidates for European Parliament to go against software idea patenting. Developing a substantial powerful programme will be like crossing a minefield if software patenting becomes legal.
Software idea patents are an elimination for free trade - which is why they are being included in free trade agreements. United States government: instead of making problems better in the US, they spread the problems to the rest of the world.
EU Parliament voted against software patenting. Ministers reversed it. Support from a wide range of parties - match party candidates up with existing party members who voted against it.
Cory Doctorow talk at Ravensbourne College
Cory Doctorow is the Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet civil liberties nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. He is also a weblogger on boingboing.net and a science fiction author - his novel "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" which he released under a Creative Commons licence.
Privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, cryptography and copyright law.
Copyright law is irrational. Copyfights have exited since Gutenberg.
Mathematicians threatened with prison time. Sklyraov - Russian equivalent of the State department - if you go to American shores, you might find it difficult.
New technology democratises distribution - usually at the 'object' quality than it's previously produced. Gutenberg Bible - the simple principle is that there are more of it. Beautiful vs. prolific - prolific usually wins.
New media bootstraps itself in to popularity with the old. The player piano ripped off the original piano music. VCR put Hollywood and porno movies on to tape - no special VCR movies. The incumbents of traditional ('old') media, drip in to hysterics and predict the end of the world.
Player piano was the earliest form of digital piracy. Wouldn't compensate the original.
"These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development... Today you'll hear these infernal machines... The vocal cord will develop away" - John Philip Susan(?)
A thousand times more music hit a thousand more people and benefitted a thousand more artists and made thousands more dollars. If you pay them to keep on producing, they'll keep on producing. Give them 2¢ per piano roll.
100% control to 0% control overnight - Vaudeville artists went nuts. We want a blanket licence - any radio station can play the blanket fee.
(Talk) radio was created through copyright fights.
The right to control copying - Betamax/VCR - going to destroy the American film industry. SCOTUS said that you're right in copyright may or may not have existed - these devices are too useful for you to restrict. Substantial non-infringing use - timeshifting fair use. The film industry (Jack Valenti, 1982, the VCR - Boston Strangler) did not get destroyed - they made thousands time more money. Lower barrier of entry in to the movie industry - you can release on VHS. Laudable pirates.
American film was created by pirates of Thomas Edison.
Today is different.
The Internet. Peer-to-peer. General-purpose computers.
Loss of retail experience getting MP3's. Digital has it's own values: slicing and dicing, moving things around.
Incumbents don't want to play. Napster offered millions, billions etc. Music/movie industries don't want to play.
95% of music is available peer-to-peer - just accept that these libraries will burn down. Timeshifting PVR will be end of the world (ebooks will kill writing - SF, Walt Disney World said that TV remote controls would kill TV, music industries).
Digital rights management - an idea that offends reason. Information secuirty comes from Alan Turing et al. Channel security was enciphered. Really good codes - secret - scramble text, key etc. DRM is a magical form of technology - you have all three pieces. Anti-circumvention laws (DMCA etc.) make it against the law to break a code - it doesn't matter if you actually break copyright.
Actual property (a DVD or computer) is yours. DRM lets moviemakers make their own copyright laws. Johanssen - hacked his own computer. Breaking in to your own house. DRM - subpoena powers (DMCA - hiss!) let a copyright holder assert. EUIPED allows a representative of a rights holder go to an ISP and steal them for 31 days. In the US corporations have had no scruples in this kind of actions - inkjet printer code is code, putting new ink in is a circumvention.
These sorts of things have nothing to do with traditional rights holders.
Super-anti-circumvention: trusted circumvention ("treacherous computing" - RMS) allows other people control how you use your computer. Anti-competitive applications. Reverse engineer your own documents (.doc files, for eg.), and if you break the TC work, DRM context. Owner override is a button that you push, push the button (why do you hate DRM so much? But it's not for DRM!).
Retrospective extension of copyright: utilitarian balance of copyright. Maybe Ernest Hemingway would write another book if we gave him more work. But he's dead! And he managed to write the book with the old copyright law!
Works will just disappear - 98% of works will disappear before the copyrights - it's a library burning down.
Artists getting ripped off:
| Moral rights law. |
| Ripping them off. |
| BURNING THEIR BOOKS - they disappear |
The last one dooms them to obscurity.
Vivendi/Universal sued Napster's investors! Risk assesment litigation - Sony fighted for VCR. MP3 is scary. Sony Music Clip - looked cool but astonishing failure.
Big IT companies are no longer proxy - acquired by and partnered with the entertainment industries.
Broadcast flags. Data havens - hard to create. Bizarre dictatorships.
Internet casinos illegal in the United States, Antigua set it all up except bandwidth and electricity. Havens are overrated. When something happens at WIPO, it happens everywhere the Internet is.
WIPO says: The rights of people who transmit information are more important than that of the public. If you GPL'd software: 50-year monopoly of some software. PD work (before 1928) that belong to all of us. Download a PG text, the person who sent you that file will have a copyright interest in that file for 50-years.
How could it be?
| Voluntary licencing |
| Compulsory licencing |
Whatever happens, eventually the US Gov will realise that turning 70 million otherwise law-abiding citizens in to criminals is not a smart move.
Eventually, the companies will just fail to adapt to the changing times.
Doctorow asks whether DRM can ever solve problems? The claim made is that it 'keeps honest users honest'. He illustrates with the Toy Story 2 story, about the woman who bought said DVD and tried to copy it on to VHS so she could put the video in the kids room without the disc being turned in to a coaster in five minutes. She was essentially honest, but the technology prevented her from doing what she wanted with it.
This lead to the point about how DRM affects only honest users. People intent on breaking it will - whether it be technologically advanced geeks who want to be able to listen to a DRM-ed CD on their computer or a professional pirate who is knocking out 5,000 illegal DVD's for the black market. It only affects honest users doing honest things.
DRM and free software have completely different aims. DRM is security through obscurity (and threats) and makes criminals out of honest people. Free software, where you can inspect the source is truly secure - it's really secure because people look at it and know it's secure.
What can you do?
| Join/take part in the FIPR and CDR |
| Use CC licences |
| Use GPL and other copyleft/free software licences |
| Campaign the BBC - push for them to adopt the Creative Archive |
| Campaign MEP's and MP's. |
| For those at university/college: push the faculty to remove packetsniffers, let people be free to take part in academic inquiry etc. |
Oedipal Spam
Just sorting through my spam folder and I found a spam entitled "Your mother would love it". Unsurprisingly there was a Viagra advert inside. Give me an 'F' for 'Freud'!
