Amateur Megalomania

One more go at the copyright issue.

I know, many of you will just skip this post, since it would seem I’ve beat the issue to death by now, but I still enjoy the intellectual aspect of crafting a consistent copyright scheme that honors the right of the copyright holder in a way that seems correct and just. Despite objections from some readers, I still don’t believe that current law properly does that in the case of printed media, or even to some extent, DVDs.

After a two hour off and on chat with Mike one night about the specifics of my objection to libraries and copyrights, I noticed a distinct problem in the way I’ve been communicating my objection. Mike summarized it as the Book As Object approach vs my Book As Media Channel approach. Once we bridged that gap in concept, my objections seemed quite sensible. While the Book As Object concept is the widely accepted perspective, it never occurred to me that my perspective wasn’t clear. Blame it on my perpetually poor communication.

To avoid a Really Long Post, I’m going to scrimp on the background, save for a short summary of why I have arrived at the stance that libraries have ethical issues. To whit – a writer (or content creator, but we will stick to the word writer for this post) has no legal say on the presence of his book in a library. The library is free to purchase a copy and loan it, for free, to as many people as humanly possible thus, in my opinion, depriving the writer of potential sales and robbing him of compensation. Some of you have raised specific objections to this perspective, and I’ll address those a little later. In my mind, I am seeing libraries as institutionalized theft, and therefore immoral despite being legal.

In the Book As Object model, a purchaser buys a book and then hold dominion over the disposition of that book, beyond whatever the writer might intend. That is widely held as true. We can loan it or resell it. The argument revolves around the loss of control of the writer over the book.

The Book As Media Channel approach places the true value of a book on the story contained within. A book is a means of accessing a stream of information, and the mechanism of the book itself contains little value beyond the information it presents. The writer owns that data, and the book serves a license to access the data. While that may seem counterintuitive, it is actually in line with the evolving standards of copyrighting in digital content. Yes, I agree that a book is not a digital object, but the standards of data ownership are still valid.

Looking closer at the Book As Object perspective, it fails some tests. If the value of the book is placed in the physical book itself, then the contributed value made by the information becomes diminished. Books, as objects, become interchangeable if one maintains that the book possesses the bulk of the inherent value. What is the difference between two books, each of 700 pages? If you answer – the contents, then I ask, who owns the content? If the writer no longer has a controlling interest over the contents, then why must ‘movie rights’ be purchased? What rights are maintained by the writer? And if the book, as an object, is valued, then why should he maintain any rights? After all, Dodge has no right of control over my minivan.

If the Book As Object model is true, then what about DVD As Object? Does anyone think that the value is equivalent between a DVD of Fight Club and a DVD of Armageddon (and no sarcastic answers please!). What makes them of different value? Yet we have no problem with the idea that DVDs can be rented for hire as a means to compensate the creator. How are books different from DVDs if we accept that the story within is the real value? How about a copy of Windows XP vs a copy of Windows 95? Are they equivalent?

The point is in the content. The intellectual property, owned by the creator, is what we intend to access when we purchase a DVD, CD or book. It just so happens that books are ‘legacy’ media, a tad behind the digital age. And I think we’ve overlooked how they are treated.

I don’t have a software license handy, but I’m pretty sure a license agreement gives you the right to access the program on the provided disk, but reserves the rights of transfer and copying. I believe the license also allows for the owner (Microsoft) to strip you of the right to use the product under certain circumstances. You aren’t buying software, you are buying the right to use the software under the terms of agreement.

This is the heart of the Book As Media Channel perspective. You may buy a book, but you aren’t buying the story. You do not have the right to display or circulate it as widely as you like. If you do so with DVDs or Software, you could go to prison. While book copyright law isn’t currently written like digital content is, I maintain that it SHOULD be, since the only difference between the intellectual property (streams of data read by either a computer, media player or human) are fundamentally the same. With a book, you aren’t purchasing it as a collection of pages bound in a tome with the bonus of content. You are buying access to the content in a specific form.

And that means the act of accessing should be set forth in the agreement of purchase. The intent of the writer is to extract just compensation from each person that enjoys his work. Much as a theater expects each viewer to pay, or a stage actor expects to perform in front of a paying audience, the writer has a legitimate expectation to receive compensation from those that read. It is this act of reading that gives the book value, and therefore the act of reading should carry cost.

Yet in the current law, we strip the writer of this reasonable expectation by stating that institutions such as libraries have the right to hand his work out to any and all that wish to read it. I can’t reconcile that idea with the ethical consideration that each man has the right to expect compensation from his labor. Many of you object by saying several things:

1) Free access could encourage readers to buy more books from the writer. Perhaps, but that decision isn’t the business of the law. If the writer should CHOOSE to waive his rights and allow his books to be displayed, then it is his choice. You can’t steal from someone with the rationale that it will help them in the end. It isn’t your business.

2) Literacy should be encouraged for the Public Good. While I agree that literacy is vitally important, I will always reject the idea that any individual right should be sacrificed for the nebulous concept of the Public Good. Given that argument, why shouldn’t food and drugs be free? While the phrase “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one” made for a very emotional moment in a very good movie, it is lousy social policy. I would even go so far as to say it is the root of evil. Literacy can be promoted, but not at the expense of the rights of the writer. Let the writer CHOOSE to donate books. Don’t take it from him by law.

3) Research material. Again, the need of the many suggests that we all benefit if research material is widely available to everyone. I agree with that, provided adequate compensation is paid to the writer. I will cover that in my Grand Unified Copyright Theory, to be presented soon.

In short, while everyone has a warm and fuzzy feeling about libraries, they violate the natural right of a writer to get paid for his work. If you subscribe to the Book As Object theory and maintain that the writer was paid for his one copy and that is all he can expect, then you must also support the idea of renting DVDs without paying the creator, or doing away with licensing agreements.

So after hashing it out with Mike, we arrived at a system that protects the rights of the writer, while still making widespread access acceptable and just. I should point out that my objections, while initially theoretical, are starting to shape up as more realistic as I dig into this. The solution isn’t presently doable, nor would it be accepted by anyone. However, the failure of the public to accept what I consider a morally just respect of copyright isn’t going to stop me from advocating the solution. The majority opinion isn’t always right, and in this case, I’m pretty sure it’s dead wrong.

The Grand Unified Theory of Copyright (the title comes from melding the ideas of both me and Mike in a way that was acceptable to both).

First, the Book As Media Channel concept has to be codified and recognized through a rewrite of copyright material to match elements of the DMCA. A book must be recognized as a license agreement, permitting access to the contents.

The terms of that access are to be determined by the content creator. While some may elect to specify a ‘per reading’ payment plan, I think it most likely that lifetime access to a particular copy would be stated in the agreement since a per reading approach is not remotely enforceable. In addition, I would think most would also allow family reading, meaning that anyone living in the immediate household would have legal access to the material.

Loaning books to friends and associates would be technically illegal, but common sense would prohibit prosecution. I think this is a very important point, and I am in favor of maintaining it as explicitly illegal. This is a mechanism by which people could elect to loan books, but must acknowledge, at least to themselves, that they are doing something outside of the purchase agreement. As jaywalking is still a crime, it is essential to maintain at least a small stigma on the practice, in order to keep attention on the concept of who really owns the material. No sane writer would be likely to pursue this.

Institutional libraries would be required to pay the writer whatever terms they could negotiate to have his material on hand and open for lending. They would no longer have the right to simply purchase an item at retail and loan it out without dealing with the writer. Producers of research materials would be able to negotiate appropriate fees to cover the number of people likely to access the publication. Data WILL get out. After all, what value is there in setting a price so high that no one will pay?

Used Book Stores would be the hardest hit. They would have to monitor each work to pass through their store and provide some transfer fee to the copyright holder. This would be paid by the new buyer, but since most book stores buy the books as an intermediate owner, they would have to offer some sort of payment or holding fee to the copyright owner. A license transfer should entail a payment, since that transfer could represent a loss sale of a new item. These rates would likely be a bargain in relation to a new item, but it’s still up to the creator to negotiate.

Finally, software must be keyed to two parameters – a physical CPU and a biometric identification. All software must be registered to those two identification schemes. Should one or the other change, the license is void and a new license purchased. If I sell the software to someone, it has to be transferred. If I move it to a new computer, it has to be transferred. I have faith that the market will come up with proper rates, since the aggravation factor would then become a selling point. But again, it places control with the creator, rather than stripping it away. If they wish to waive those provisions, it is their choice.

I think that covers everything. Under this system, the rights of the creator are respected, as they should be. Books are treated in parity with modern content, and we have a morally just system of protecting the act of creation.

Fire away!

Filed under: Copyright