Napster, Copyright and Morality

 

By Susan Aker

 

 

The moral rights of creators, protected by law in the European Union, is much touted in the United States.  That our Constitution makes no provision for moral rights was probably generated by fear of monopolies, of any kind, more than lack of respect for creative minds.  And the fact that our current copyright law (including recent changes) also shows no basis in moral rights can be more attributed to the entities currently owning the most valuable copyrights than to an apathy toward the creators in American society.

 

The argument surrounding Napster, especially, shows that a lot of Americans do, indeed, care about creators of the copyrighted material available on such services.  Regular people are raising the outcry of ‘Thief’ and ‘Pirate,’ right alongside the executives of the Recording Industry.  It is supposed to be stealing from the creators of these works when any potential sale is removed from benefitting the copyright owners.

 

When songwriters and musicians sign on with a recording studio, they generally sign away all copyrights they would normally retain as creators.  Any income generated by copy sales that they might receive is covered by contract law – they now have a contract with the recording studio which gives them a certain amount from the sale of each copy.  Contract, not copyright.  When they signed the papers they, basically, signed away every MORAL right any copyright law in the entire world would have given them.

 

Moral rights such as having one’s name on the work cost the publisher nothing, and, in fact, increase the chance of a sale.  For instance, “A&M Records brings you ‘Brand New Day’” doesn’t have the same impact on Sting fans that “Sting ‘Brand New Day’” does.  The Sting fan doesn’t care who put out the recording, most probably don’t even know that A&M Records owns the copyright on the album.  They just want to hear Sting.  Therefore, such moral rights as identification of the artist are profitable.

 

Corporations have no morality and do not deserve to be treated as though they do.  As soon as a copyright moves into corporate ownership, every moral right connected with that ‘copyright’ should end.  The only rights a corporation should have are legal rights.  

 

Say that Napster is (or should be) ‘illegal.’  Do not say that Napster is ‘wrong.’  Wrong is a word connected with morality, not legality.  It may be ‘wrong’ to disobey the law in a general statement, but is it ‘wrong’ to drive faster than the speed limit when you’re trying to get someone to the hospital before they die?  It is still illegal, but hardly morally ‘wrong.’ 

 

Napster is the same thing.  The courts have decided that file trading of mp3 music files on a list of copyrighted materials provided by the major recording labels is illegal.  Since these copyrighted materials are owned almost exclusively by those major recording labels (corporations) it is no more ‘wrong’ to download then it is to record off of the radio.

 

Someone is saying right now ‘But the artists are compensated for music on the radio; they aren’t for downloads.’  Go back a few paragraphs – artists and songwriters get these perks through their contract, not copyright.  The recording labels are making this a copyright issue – not a contract issue.  Copyrighted music is to be filtered, not the music of artists under contract with them.  Copyright owned by amoral corporations who care only about profit.  That artists might also be hurt by downloads is a sad thing, but they gave up their moral rights to the copies when they signed the contract.

 

‘Works for Hire’ copyrights in the United States were introduced in 1976, just 25 years ago.  There is no historical basis in the United States for this kind of copyright, indeed, the Constitution specifies this exclusive right that Congress MAY protect (they aren’t required to do so) should go only to the authors.

 

In order to bring morality back into copyright law it would be necessary to eliminate all ownership of copyrights by corporations.  If only individuals, or groups of individuals, could become copyright owners, perhaps copying their works would have a moral aspect.  Until then, no, not with anything owned by a corporation.

 

When the executives of the Recording Industry bring morality into their propaganda, they do so in order to attempt to control opinions.  Much of America responds to cries of immorality and the keywords like ‘theft’ and ‘piracy.’  The Executives of these corporations are quick to employ these tactics, seeking to get the ‘right-minded’ people on their side.  They are quite aware of their own thievery, stealing the copyrights from those who should, under the Constitution, rightfully own them.  But they worked long and hard, spending a great deal of money on political contributions to make their thefts legal.  Legal, not right – and it is still opposed to the plain words written in the Constitution.  They don’t want those ‘right-minded’ people looking any deeper just in case they might come to understand and rise up en masse against the thievery they’ve been doing.  It becomes a very sticky question whether stealing from thieves is wrong.

 

Study copyright law, it’s history, where it began, it’s evolution.  See the footprints of corporations come in to walk over the rights once limited to creators.  See how it changed from being an incentive for creations to a perpetual monopoly that will probably never end.  Make your own decisions about right and wrong – don’t use theirs.  And never, ever, believe that any big business has morals.