When We Copy, We Justify It; When Others Copy, We Vilify Them

from the everything-is-a-remix dept

Fri, Feb 17th 2012 9:00am — Mike Masnick

We've written multiple times about Kirby Ferguson's excellent Everything is a Remix project that has produced three videos highlighting the problems and history of intellectual property and how copying and derivative works are a core element of culture and invention. He's now released the fourth and final installment in the series, and it's a great summary look at the general problems with intellectual property law today. The key theme is that the theory (treating ideas, inventions, content, etc. as a form of "property" -- in the minds of many copyright and patent system supporters) simply doesn't match up with reality (where almost everything is a derivative work of some sort). What the video does nicely is highlight the hypocrisy of it all. As he notes brilliantly, when we copy (and everyone does copy), we justify it. When others copy, however, suddenly we attack them and vilify them. A perfect recent example of this, by the way, was former NYT executive editor Bill Keller's bizarre defense of the NYT copying and posting a work covered by someone else's copyright, just days after his own column came out in support of greater legal enforcement of copyrights.

As he notes, this is psychologically understandable. It's all about "loss aversion." People feel a sense that they "own" something which they really do not -- and that's often boosted by the concepts of intellectual property that really spread the idea that you can, in fact, own an idea (and, yes, technically neither copyright nor patents apply directly to "ideas," but that's a nuance that most people fail to grasp when they see how content and inventions are considered "owned" under the laws of today).

The video then talks about the continued expansion of copyright laws, and the more nefarious effort to continue to ratchet things up through trade agreements like ACTA and TPP. But he also points out that this is somewhat ironic, since in its early years, the US refused to sign similar trade agreements, and was a "pirate nation" that ignored copyrights from around the globe.

The video doesn't just cover copyrights, but digs into patents as well -- with specific attention paid to broad software patents that do little to contribute any knowledge to the world, but instead take broad concepts and seek to lock them up for the purpose of suing and trying to extract settlements from those actually creating and innovating.

From there he breaks out the original purpose of both copyrights and patents under the US system. In both cases, they were about benefiting the public: to encourage learning or to promote the progress of "useful" arts (inventions). But when the laws fail to do that, then we should see the system as broken and seek to remedy it.

All in all, Ferguson's series is a great introduction to many of the issues we cover around here. I don't fully agree with everything in all of the videos -- and the latest one has a slight undertone suggesting that capitalism and markets in and of themselves are bad (which I think is conflating a few different issues). But overall the videos are fantastic -- and in terms of production quality, it seems like each one in the series is better than the previous one. He keeps maturing as a video maker, which is cool to see. Ferguson is now moving on to a new project, called This is Not a Conspiracy Theory, for which he's raising funds on Kickstarter, so check it out.

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Filed Under: copying, copyright, everything is a remix, intellectual property, kirby ferguson, loss avoidance, patents, property, remix

54 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:07am

Same bullshit as always.

A remix of concepts (say space aliens, space ship, ruler of the universe) is different from taking a copy of the star wars film and putting different voices on it.

Everything is a remix is a nice propaganda slogan for "it's okay to pirate". Just fess up to it and get it over with.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:10am

Re:
Star Wars is old, it should be free anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:13am

Re:
Says the moron who hasn't created anything in his entire life. God, you are such a loser.
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Tim K (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:17am

Apple: When We Copy, We Justify It; When Others Copy, We Sue Them
Android sing slide to unlock (What a novel and completely unheard of idea)? That's a suing.
Android Adding in slide to open camera? We'll take it
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silverscarcat (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:25am

Re:
Did you watch the video?

Of course not, you just assume it's Pro-Piracy.

Guess what?

Copyright infringement is NOT stealing.
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Josef Anvil (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:25am

WOW
That $500,000,000,000 cost to the market due to litigation in the smartphone market kinda dwarfs the cost of piracy.
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el_segfaulto (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:28am

Re:
Culture does not exist in a vacuum. How about those dirty pirate rock 'n rollers who are still pirating power chords without paying up licensing fees? Or those damned poets who pirate the rhyming schemes? And don't even get me started on those software engineers who blatantly pirate the core concepts of computing like the UI or rounded icons without paying Xerox and Apple, respectively.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:30am

Re: WOW
Yep, that's the REAL theft.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:31am

Re:
Same bullshit as always.

Yes, I've been wondering why you post the same bullshit all the time as well.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:31am

Re:
A remix of concepts (say space aliens, space ship, ruler of the universe) is different from taking a copy of the star wars film and putting different voices on it.

Yes, and that's a nice bright-line distinction with absolutely no grey area at all. Thank you for solving a problem the courts have grappled with for years in a single sentence - very impressive.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:32am

Re: Re:
Yeah that . was supposed to be a :
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Colin, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:39am

Congress needs to have a movie night with this series.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:39am

'in its early years, the US refused to sign similar trade agreements, and was a "pirate nation" that ignored copyrights from around the globe'

about par for the course, really. dont do what i do, do what i tell you!

wonder if Kirby Ferguson has remembered to copyright his works, before someone from the MPAA or similar tries to.

(sarc intended)
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Suja (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:57am

Re:
Same bullshit as always.
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Suja (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:58am

Re: Re:
when will you learn to come up with some original pro-copyright propaganda, i'm dying for new material here
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 10:06am

Re: Re: Re: pfft
What, and copy those lame freetards who keep coming up with new stuff? Never!

;-P
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 10:06am

Re:
Everything is a remix is a nice propaganda slogan for "it's okay to pirate". Just fess up to it and get it over with. - Anonymous Coward

"All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda." - Upton Sinclair
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ltlw0lf (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 10:08am

Re:
A remix of concepts (say space aliens, space ship, ruler of the universe) is different from taking a copy of the star wars film and putting different voices on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezeYJUz-84

Tell me again that this is not creative? Sure, it is highly derivative, but there was an awful lot of creativity into making it (for free, I might add) and I for one found it to be an awesome addition to the universe.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 10:08am

Is it weird that i almost teared up after watching that vid?

Either way a big thankyou to all who made the vid, thankyou for putting so eloquantly, the feeling that i and i hope a few others, feel about this whole situation
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nasch (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:03am

Kellar
Did you see this gem from Kellar's piece?

"There was, in the comment thread, a lot of passionate and thoughtful discussion � much of it hostile to the idea of protecting the right of content-makers to be paid for their work"

I read about 50 of the 117 comments, and saw nothing "hostile to the idea of protecting the right of content-makers to be paid for their work". How can he expect to have a real conversation when he refuses to hear what others are saying?
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The eejit (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:07am

Re:
So Disney are allowed to do it, but others aren't?

Wonderful.
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David Canton, 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:23am

copying disconnect
Copying (like privacy) seems to be an asynchronous concept. Any given person or entity changes their views of acceptable conduct from moment to moment depending on whether they are cpying, or being copied.
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Overcast (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:29am

This just further proves it has little to do with 'copying data' and much more to do with the perception that it will somehow protect their old business model from 1920.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:33am

Re:
It bears repeating, even though it is largely lost on those who villify anything to do with patents and copyrights. No matter which of these bodies of law apply to any given situation, "ideas" are not and never have been protectable under federal law. Any statement to the contrary is plainly wrong and without any merit whatsoever.

Saying that our country was founded as a "pirate nation" is wrong at so many levels I have to wonder if the basic concept of the sovereignty of nations and their laws is even understood.

I will admit it is a very well done video. I cannot, however, say the same for most of its content regarding patent and copyright law.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:40am

Re:
Actually they've done a remix of the Star Wars film by putting different voices, visuals, and actors to it put keeping all the dialogue the same:

http://StarWarsUncut.com

In 2009, Casey Pugh asked thousands of Internet users to remake "Star Wars: A New Hope" into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. Within just a few months SWU grew into a wild success. The creativity that poured into the project was unimaginable.

I think it's clear that we'd all be worse off as a culture if asinine absolutes like 'taking a copy of the star wars film and putting different voices on it' were the limit of the subtleties of our copyright system.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:44am

Re: Re:
Except the modern usage of the moniker 'pirate nation' IS a nation that thinks their sovereignty supersedes the copyrights and patents established in nations with more global political clout. Using the modern definition the early US would absolutely have qualified.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:50am

we all need to watch more tv
my son was watching tv, a show called Franklin. The episode covered copycats. The main character, Franklin, dazzles his friends with his ability to draw some clouds. Franklin gets upset when one of his friends copies his method of drawing clouds. At then end of the episode it is revealed that Franklin learned his method of drawing clouds from a comic book.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 11:57am

Re: Re:
No matter which of these bodies of law apply to any given situation, "ideas" are not and never have been protectable under federal law. Any statement to the contrary is plainly wrong and without any merit whatsoever.

The problem is that the idea/expression dichotomy is not and has never been clear. It is highly subjective and comes down to the whims of the judge. There is no simple definition to separate an idea from an expression - like the Star Wars example used above: space emperors and starships? That's an idea. Exact characters and storyline? That's an expression. But what about all the stuff in between? What about a brand new story set in the same universe? Or one that had very close analogues to all the characters, but with different names set elsewhere? What about a new version of the same story written from an entirely different perspective with all new details? What about an unauthorized sequel that only references the original?

It's not easy to say where the line between idea and expression falls. Moreover, as Mike pointed out, this nuance is lost on a lot of people: the common wisdom seems to be that you can own ideas, as evidenced by the all-too-common refrain "They stole my idea!"
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 12:20pm

Re: Re:
That shit is hilarious too.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 12:25pm

Re: Re:
You are right. Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum. But it doesn't grant you the rights to use other people's work product directly without consideration.

The issue I have is that those who seek to pirate by remixing are trying to ride on the coat tales of the more innocuous "inspired by" concept. I can be inspired by Star Wars to write a book about space, but it doesn't give me a right to just copy their product outright, doing cut and paste from their scripts. That is the difference.

There is a huge difference, but these guys are trying hard to disguise it.
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ltlw0lf (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: Re:
That shit is hilarious too.

Four hours and 6 minutes of creamy goodness. (Movie is actually 2 hours and 3 minutes -- but you'll find yourself watching it twice just to catch what you missed the first time.)
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Bengie, 17 Feb 2012 @ 12:36pm

Re: Re:
"Star Wars is old, it should be free anyway."

I can see allowing companies to touch-up and re-release an old film, but only the touched-up version should be covered by copyright, not the original/prior-versions.

The touched-up version would effectively be a derived film with added "value", which fits with our current rules.
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nasch (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re: Re:
What about an unauthorized sequel that only references the original?

Indeed, the unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye was found to be an infringing derivative work. In fact, it seems to me the whole doctrine of derivative works (not contained anywhere in statute IIRC) pretty much destroys the idea/expression dichotomy.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 1:00pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Indeed, the unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye was found to be an infringing derivative work

Precisely what I had in mind :) That and The Wind Done Gone.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 1:34pm

Re: Re: Re:
So collage doesn't exist? What a funny idea of art and culture you have there.
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HumbleForeigner (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 1:38pm

This seems appropriate
"Picasso had a saying: 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas...I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world."

- Steve Jobs (1955 � 2011)
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 1:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you're an artist, you must absolutely know the intricacies of copyright law; if, however, you're an intellectual property lawyer, you don't have to know shit about art. Funny that.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 1:46pm

Re: Re: Re:
Are you really not prepared to acknowledge that the idea/expression dichotomy is muddy at best? It's a complex and difficult line to draw, with several different competing tests and standards for the courts to consider. That's not exactly a fringe opinion - it's acknowledged by people from both sides of the debate.

Some good reading: http://www.edwardsamuels.com/copyright/beyond/articles/ideapt1-20.htm
http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/I dea-expression_dichotomy

International perspective: http://www.jiclt.com/index.php/jiclt/article/download/50/49 [pdf]
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Michael Long (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 2:23pm

Re: Re:
And "copying" a character or theme or idea in order to create a new work is different than "copying" an entire movie just so you can watch it Friday night.

Mike is conflating the issues.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Feb 2012 @ 2:33pm

Re: Re: Re:
In the vast majority of situations associated with copyright law the idea/expression dichotomy is not at all difficult to conceptualize and apply. However, there will always be, as is the case with any law, areas where the line between OK and Not-OK is blurry.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 3:26pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
In the vast majority of situations associated with copyright law the idea/expression dichotomy is not at all difficult to conceptualize and apply

Maybe (though I'm not so sure about that) - but in every situation involving a question of derivative/transformative works and fair use, the idea/expression dichotomy is unclear, subjective and difficult to apply. Considering fair use is supposed to be a vital release valve on copyright to prevent it from being unconstitutional, I'd say that's a pretty big problem that needs to be addressed.
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Prashanth (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 3:34pm

The real problem
The problem isn't that we rationalize our own copying and vilify others. After all, Mr. Masnick himself has said that such vilification, as long as it doesn't go too far, constitutes a societal pressure (see: the recent news about Zynga copying others who copied yet others), and that's OK. The problem is when the vilification is extended to old grandmothers and young children to the tune of ridiculously costly lawsuits and threats of a lot of time in jail.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 4:06pm

Re: The real problem
I agree that societal pressure is an excellent solution for a lot of problems - but I don't think you're quite addressing the issue. What we don't want is societal pressure directed at the simple act of copying. For example, with Zynga: I have no problem with them copying games, and the reason that response from the next developer was good was that it was slightly snarky as a way of acting for some credit, but overall not particular vicious. Even still, it wasn't great - the smaller developer than them with their followup comment were the ones who had it right: they basically said quit worrying about copying, because we all copy each other. That's the attitude everyone should have - and I think that the social pressure on Zynga should be focused on their hypocrisy, because they flagrantly copy then go after people who copy them (same as Disney, though not as extreme, since DIsney loves to burglarize the public domain). But the goal is not to have everyone stop copying - it's to have everyone stop complaining when they get copied.
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Prashanth (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 5:17pm

Re: Re: The real problem
Ah, yes. You are certainly correct that the real issue is when someone who makes a big deal about attribution (and, later, copyright) conveniently forgets to attribute and then attempts to rationalize that. I was certainly in error by leaving that out.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 8:51pm

Re:
Star Wars was hardly original with any of that content, overall story line and plot. So outside of special effects George Lucas must have pirated the entire story by your illogical thinking.

He remixed some of the best and worst of 1950s Sci-Fi movies (including gooofy robots), some of the best and worst of 1920s and 30s Sci-Fi short stories and novels and, most notably, for the emperor, borrowed freely from Issac Asimov's character The Mule from the Foundation Trilogy.

So Lucas MUST be a pirate, right?
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TtfnJohn (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 8:54pm

Re: Re: Re:
sadly, not according to the IP maximalists he isn't.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 17 Feb 2012 @ 9:08pm

Re: Re: Re:
By using the term remix no one is suggesting copying the Star Wars story outright or cutting and pasting, As I note elsewhere Lucas borrowed from and remixed from a number of sources to come up with Star Wars. Far more than I noted there.

And, again, cut and paste isn't being suggested here. Which is why you have to look so hard to find it.
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Gary, 18 Feb 2012 @ 5:17pm

Re:
Same old shit nice try shill
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hopponit, 18 Feb 2012 @ 8:48pm

patents
See if Henry Ford and the Seldon patents would have any relevance to these cases.This was decades ago but I see some things that interest me.
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Zephyr, 19 Feb 2012 @ 10:34am

The Slave Traders of Our Ideas
Intellectual property owners are the slave traders and slave owners of our civilization. Those slave traders also fulfilled a valuable service to our economies. They supplied us cheap and abundant workforce for our fields, our farms, and to build our railway lines. They certainly deserved to earn a good living for their invaluable service. Who else would have costed their ride to all those African and Chinese people offering them the chance to help create a new world?
Thanks to them, the production costs of raw matter dropped, what in turn fueled the manufacturing and trade of derivative goods. The benefits of their trade allowed the capital required to create new ventures and to pay for the productive means required to boost our industrial revolution.
Didn't they deserve the right to own their slaves and get a profit for their work in exchange for their immense service to humankind?
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Zephyr (profile), 19 Feb 2012 @ 2:59pm

I'm also in favor of humane slavery.
Kirby Ferguson is just another humane slaver,

##Thanks, I'll check him out. Indeed, the truth usually is that free market champions just want the most favorable rules. "Free" is not the point.##

##Hi Marc.
I think you're referring to piracy, not remixing. I'm in favor of streamlined copyright, along the lines of its inception. I feel the video communicates this view.
Thanks for the kind words!
_k##

Ref.: www.vimeo.com/36881035
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Michael (profile), 19 Feb 2012 @ 6:30pm

Re: Re:
Star Wars is highly derivative.
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Don't Copy That Floppy, 21 Feb 2012 @ 11:47am

high school material
Excellent watch. Balanced, concise, good use of artwork and relevant footage. Thanks for that.

And: isn't being copied an honor? Oh well, that kind of thinking will get me nowhere in life :)
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Mar 2012 @ 2:30pm

"I'm going to destroy android, because it's a stolen product"

Heh, not anymore you aren't.
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