The Criminalization of Admirable Values
By Susan Aker
As I was growing up on a small farm in Eastern Washington State, I remember a lot of days wishing I was an only child. “Susan,” my mother might say, “why don’t you share that with your sister?”
“But Mom, it’s mine,” I might have answered.
Intimidating stare. “Susan….”
Heavy sigh. “All right.” With great reluctance, I would take whatever it was and split it with my younger sister, or we might use it together if it were a toy.
At any rate, my parents considered this an important lesson, that their children know how to share, that we learned the value of generosity.
A saying, still fairly popular – “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And Christmas is the season of giving – give to the poor. Charity donations are so well looked upon that they are tax deductible, even the government aware and sympathetic to the idea of sharing with our fellow man.
There are probably very few people who would disagree that giving and sharing are values that should be admired, important values to instill in our children. Until, that is, the same values of generosity are applied to the internet. At that point, it seems, the idea of sharing suddenly becomes theft, copyright infringement, piracy.
I was poor growing up and sometimes I went to the movies second hand, having a friend who’d gone to tell me all about it, blow by blow. Copyright infringement. Why, if that friend hadn’t told me about it, well, I would have had to find the money and buy a ticket. Since I didn’t do that, the movie didn’t make as much money as it might have.
Books were shared, if we both wanted a particular title, only one of us put out the money. Records, tapes and CDs were the same, saving money through sharing. File Sharing software users are doing nothing different, sharing what they have purchased with others. The term for this kind of exchange – file sharing. Not theft, not piracy, sharing.
Theft means taking something from someone so that they don’t have it anymore. Piracy is taking something in order to sell it at a profit. Sharing is taking the bounty that you have and offering it to others at no expense.
Up until 1998 the accusation of copyright infringement required that the infringing party make a profit from the copyrighted works, which, of course, made sharing a perfectly legal thing to do since there is no money involved. But now it has been criminalized and the value of the shared item is estimated. If you share more than $1000 of their estimate of the value, you’re infringing on copyright even though you have not taken in a single penny in recompense. Generosity, where IP is concerned, is now a crime. If you loan your CD or DVD out to 50 friends, you’re liable for legal action, even if none of those friends made a copy, but only watched/listened to your purchase. And the burden of proof is on you, not your accusers.
When copyright was being discussed back in the 1700’s, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had distinctly different viewpoints of the subject. Madison was absolutely certain that people would not create without the impetus of the limited copyright while Jefferson felt the benefit of these monopolies was so doubtful that he couldn’t oppose their suppression.
In arguing his side of the debate, Madison wrote to Jefferson, listing reasons why the limited monopoly was a necessity and added as an assurance, “Is there not also infinitely less danger in this abuse in our governments than in most others? …. Where the power, as with us, is in the many not in the few, the danger cannot be very great that the few will be thus favored.” He believed in the honesty and integrity of an elected government, that any such government would always hold the greater good of the general public as their first concern.
Only 210 years have passed since the Constitution was ratified; the copyright term was 14 years and limited in scope to creation of copies (not control of what was done with the copy after the sale, a privilege given to copyright owners far later.) With the creation of libraries open to the public the sharing of these works was encouraged, and not even limited to those who could read. Most libraries had sessions where popular books were read aloud by one of the staff, the stories and knowledge extended to the illiterate without charge.
Compare that view to what we have today. A lawsuit against Girl Scouts for singing copyrighted songs around the fire. The Gershwin trust who will not sell the rights for a performance to any but African descended groups. A law that limits your access to the DVD you purchased. A copyright term that can exceed 150 years. A movie studio willing to spend millions in order to maintain the full rights to a rodent. A government sacrificing the rights of an entire population as it extends the rights of copyright owners and passes laws to criminalize Sharing.
The internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time, revolutionizing the way people think. It’s a vast marketplace, a library, a school, a radio station, and a thousand other uses. From its inception it has been open and free, a place intended for sharing ideas. Have a problem? Post it in a newsgroup and someone will probably post an answer for you or maybe email you directly with a fix. Online magazines, online news, articles and opinions, offered for free to your desktop, many with an option for emailing to a friend, easy to share.
But then comes the idea of sharing music files. Napster is born, originated to enable the sharing of MP3 files across the face of the world with ease. The Napster program could be downloaded for free, and there was no cost with using the service which facilitated finding MP3s that people were willing to share.
These files were not offered for sale, not even as an exchange, but were openly shared with the other users of the service, without further discrimination, without promise of any reward or recompense. This, to me, seems an admirable thing to do.
In a world where prices are fixed by supply and demand, where low prices follow a flooding of the marketplace as a general rule, why, when the internet is an unstoppable downpour of IP, have the prices remained unchanged? Instead of lowering prices to combat the competition, IP owners have sought legislative changes to protect their overcharging of customers.
A nicely packaged CD with lyrics and photos included is far more desirable than MP3 files of questionable quality. If not, with the advent of the Napster phenomenon, CD sales would have plummetted and never recovered. They haven’t. And if the recording industry lowered prices to something reflective of the cost in making a CD, sales would probably double. Instead, these companies scream about lost revenue – even though their bottom line is relatively UNCHANGED. Which says to me that those people downloading MP3s are either still buying CDs or they wouldn’t have purchased the music anyway.
In a Free Market, without the constrictions of copyright, creative endeavors would become, as they once were, a labor of love. Those who love to be creative wouldn’t be bound by the need to be paid. Indeed, there are already a great many sites on the internet already where creative endeavors are offered for no charge at all. Though some are of questionable quality, I have seen more than a few with exceptional writing talents.
Inundated with submissions, publishers today are looking for works they consider ‘marketable,’ without much regard for the quality of the writing. Well-written works are often rejected with that marketability excuse (I’ve seen it a number of times myself.) And, when reading popular fiction, I have found myself groaning at a badly written story with little plot and uninteresting characters. At that point, I start to wonder what they are looking for to call ‘marketable.’
It is the same in the music industry. More important than an artist’s voice and music is their appearance. If the Recording Studios don’t see it as ‘marketable’ they won’t sign the artist, no matter how good they are. Britney Spears has a lot more to catch the eye than the ear.
Perhaps another part of the problem is expectations. Rock Stars expect to get rich, ride around in limousines and be mobbed by fans everywhere they go. This is not the appropriate attitude of someone wishing to make a living from their creativity. Especially not in a market already filled to overflowing with others trying to do exactly the same thing. The promise of riches lures some of marginal talent that would not make the attempt otherwise. The world of music would be far better off if only those touched by muses participated.
Those who are touched by muses do it for the doing of it and it is very nice if they also get paid, but they’d be doing it anyway. And, they wouldn’t mind at all if you posted their songs to Napster, because, then, one more person might hear it that wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s what music is supposed to be about, sharing the songs with any who would hear them.
Sharing.