Dear Hollywood: The 'Stakeholders' For Copyright Policy Don't Fit In A Room
from the that's-one-big-room dept
Last week, we wrote about Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel first demanding a magic stop piracy button from Google, followed by his request to sit down and meet with "the government" and representatives of "Silicon Valley" in a room. As we responded, that meeting is going on already, and it's happening online with the public -- the more important stakeholder, whom Emanuel has totally left out of the equation.Ali Sternburg points us to a tweet from Nate Otto, in which he basically makes the same point, but much more concisely:
I'm tired of Hollywooders thinking IP policy "stakeholders" fit in a room & don't include the public.It's such a simple and important point that I wanted to repost it here. It needs to be repeated over and over again.
Ever since Hollywood lost the SOPA/PIPA fight, they keep claiming, over and over again, that Silicon Valley needs to get in a room with them. Chris Dodd has done it a bunch of times -- and each time we've asked why he doesn't actually go online and talk to the public. Now Ari Emanuel has done it too, and we need to repeat a paraphrase on Nate's tweet above.
Copyright's stakeholders don't fit in a room and must include the public, by definitionAny time we hear a demand for a company to do some sort of backroom deal on copyright, we need to remember and remind people:
Copyright's stakeholders don't fit in a room and must include the public, by definitionI doubt it will sink it, but perhaps if we remind them enough, they'll finally start to realize it.
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Filed Under: ari emanuel, chris dodd, hollywood, nate otto, pipa, silicon valley, sopa
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Old timey internet
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Re:
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Re: Re: How to phrase it:
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Expect us.
...perhaps?
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Unfortunately...
Mike, be honest. You know that will never happen because their jobs absolutely depend on them NOT realizing it.
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Re: Re: Re: How to phrase it:
... But I like it!
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Ok...
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Their problem
40 years ago they would have talked to IBM
20 years ago it would have been Microsoft
15 years ago Yahoo
10 years ago Google
6 years ago Myspace
Now Facebook
in 5 years time?
Plus: doing a backroom deal with Hollywood would be a quick suicide method for an innovative Tech company.
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Re: Old timey internet
Alternatively, since digital goods = physical goods and infringement = theft in their worldview, the answer is also: a very small room, since a real (physical) room can only fit so many people.
Either way, the internet is evil, piracy is the #1 and only economic problem facing the entire world which could be stopped instantly if only google (and ONLY google) would just build their damn "stop piracy" button already and make it available to copyright holders (not artists or the average person mind you, only for the big guys. We'll just sweep under the rug that part of the 1976 copyright act that gives automatic copyright to anything created [that, by the by, the big media companies all pushed for] because that was never meant to protect the general public's creations, and certainly not when they are put on something as evil as Teh Internets.)
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Not only the public...
And despite the myth, the copyright cartels aren't artists nor creators of anything.
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Re: Ok...
The whole point about these people/entities is that they take input from everyone (like Mike is doing right now!). If you lock them in a room then they can't take that input - which sort of defeats the point.
You could put Mike, Nina, Rick, RMS, Lawrence etc in a room with Hollywood reps - but it wouldn't be long before one of them felt the need to break out and discuss the issues raise with a wider group.
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FTFY
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Sorry Hollywood
but the stakeholders are in another castle!
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Re: Not only the public...
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Re:
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Re: "Issues such as these have to be decided by representative negotiators."
digital, man. digital.
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Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
The public, however, has many, many cases where copyright serves its interests quite well. Despite the horse manure around here, copyright is really a grass roots legal structure because it blesses everyone when their work is rendered into fixed form.
Let's say you're a big multinational and you see a cute picture of some family using your product. Without copyright, you can just take it, plop it in your ads and make a fortune without sharing anything. Copyright forces you to cut a deal with the artist who took the picture-- often a family member.
The same goes for movies of that ballet performance, the piano recital, or the soccer game. The IP anarchists around here want people to be able to grab photos wherever they see them.
The IP anarchists will no doubt claim that the public will gain because they'll be able to post their mash up videos with official sound tracks by big name bands without worrying about DMCA take down notices. But is that a good trade for the people? Are they willing to be the official spokesphoto for any old company even a tobacco producer?
The fact is that almost 100% of the world creates art work protected by copyright and I'm sure that almost all of these creators are happy they keep control. Only a few percent are rabid filesharing cheapskates.
That's why you might not be so happy if the public does show up at your little party being engineering by the astroturfing consultants paid by Big Search. The public needs, wants and deserves the protection of copyright for their hard work. Only you want to strip it from them-- all so Big Search can protect its billions.
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Re:
"Nice studio you have there; be a shame if something happened to it..."
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Re: Re: Not only the public...
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Re: Ok...
and that's exactly why the copyright maximalists wont be talking to them! i mean, talk to someone that can put valid points across and the truth in favour of less copyright if not none at all! get real! they either wouldn't turn up, as they haven't done to date, or would just shout down any and all arguments against them! let's face it, they still haven't understood/ignored why 100,000s demonstrated against ACTA yet!
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Ha Ha Ha
The public isn't supposed to participate in copyright, they're just supposed to buy things protected by copyright.
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Their problem
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/04/lowery_on_the_music_business/
It is written by a copyright defender, about a musician claiming that the modern methods of music distribution are more horrible for musicians than the record industry, which he has sued a couple of times.
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Re: Re: Re: Not only the public...
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
I have recently recorded a dance recital that my daughter was in. I want to upload it to Youtube but don't really feel like dealing with the fact that it will be targeted by either a takedown notice or ads placed over it. Why will one of these two events happen? Because there is some RIAA represented label's music in it.
I just want to share my daughter's recital with family members, but the RIAA thinks I am a dirty rotten pirate for using their music without authorization.
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
No takedowns, no privacy intrusions, no cloud control, no data mining, no social mining.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://gallery.menalto.com/
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
WHY DO YOU NEED MORE LAWS TO PROTECT IP?
Obviously, by your OWN statement, you agree that infringement is a SMALL thing, why should you be allowed to trample MY rights??
Get back to me on this Bob, or are you a true fool and/or a shill?
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Stakeholders
Best laugh I've had all day. Thanks.
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Re: Ok...
It's less than one percent. The govt keeps on harping about how all the stakeholders are present, and by stakeholders they mean those that benefit from IP laws and so the people present are a very small handful.
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Re: Re: Ok...
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Basic balance sheet
Now let's put this in terms of art and copyright. There are two entities: the public, and copyright-dependent artists (because more forward-thinking artists know what they're doing). The public has equity in the form of copyright, as it has given up its right for a limited time (please, no laughing) to works which should otherwise fall into the public domain. In return, the public consumes art, which is its asset. It does not have any debts in terms of arts. Artists have to have something to show (again, no laughing please) for greater copyright protection, so the copyright protection is its asset while the art itself is the liability. It must give said art to the public, so the art is debt rather than equity for the artist.
The public has infinite leverage over the artist, because the artist has no equity to show for greater copyright protection. This means that anytime the artists use copyright to stifle rather than create new art, they have defaulted on their obligations and the art should be seized and put into the public domain.
How does that sound to everyone?
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Re: Re:
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Is the (money/hassle) I spend on content provided by others greater than the financial or control benefits I get from being able to license my own output?
For most people, the licensing value of their output is within a rounding error of zero. This is not an insult, but rather a market perspective. Unless you're famous, the letters you wrote to Aunt Matilda are not going to be widely published. The anime fanart you slapped on DeviantArt? 50 cents, tops.
The "oh, someone could use your family or cat photo without paying you" is largely a strawman. If you beefed, there are probably a thousand other people with similar photos out there thrilled to be able to say "My dog was the Liver Smacks dog from 2012 to 2014!" It's like when politicians use music where the composer hates their platform-- even if you can legally get away with it by paying the appropriate license fees, the poor press is not worth it.
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I hate to break it to them, but I will be the one who determines the terms under which I give someone my money.
Sure, there are always going to be people who take your stuff without paying you for them, just as there are always going to be people who shoplift from Walmart (the main difference, is that, unlike Walmart, you haven't really lost anything tangible).
The rest of us just aren't going to give you our money. period. Nor do we find you material even worth "pirating", torrenting, or consuming it for free if it requires jumping through too many hoops.
And the main reason your content is "pirated" most often isn't because it is better (although in a lot of cases that may be true), but because it is the content that people are most aware of. And while you can keep that awareness high for a while by buying into the likes of a MySpace or eMusic and burying their alternate content under your own, or keeping your competition tied up in court until the go broke even they they are continually found to be legal, or bribe (excuse me, I mean "make contributions") to the government to shut down those you can't buy into or sue into the ground, you can slow the process, but you cannot stop it.
Those of us who are tired of your crap will always find out about the likes of an Amanda Palmer or a Dan Bull, or a Joe Konrath, or a Wil Wheaton, or a Kevin Smith or a Nice Peter, and we will contribute to them to produce the content we like, and we will promote them to others, in the hopes many of those others will stop "pirating" your content (and by pirating we mean consuming), and spend their time effort and money or people who really matter.
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Re: Re: Their problem
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120220/00310917802/if-youre-going-to-compare-old-musi c-biz-model-with-new-music-biz-model-least-make-some-sense.shtml
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Re:
My money is never going to the MAFIAA again.
I am done with any of your Corporate Crud just like I have been done with RIAA/Big Label stuff since the 70's.
The World will be a much better place when it can put you MAFIAA in your place !!!
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Especially a Smoke Filled Back Room
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Re: Re: Old timey internet
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Re: Ha Ha Ha
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The tech community should stay away from the entertainment industry as much as possible, nobody is going to save that Titanic from the bottom.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Not only the public...
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Nope. They do not. In music, artists as well as the public are not served by copyright takedowns on music services that actually add music to either transaction.
In games, people are not served by DRM or imposed restrictions on people's access to their legally bought games.
In movies, artificial restrictions through windowing, regionalization and other DRM techniques are not in the public's interest. So the horse manure comes from those that feel that copyright, a 16th century phenomenon as a compromise in mercantilism will have much leeway in the 21st century.
But is that a good trade for the people? Are they willing to be the official spokesphoto for any old company even a tobacco producer?
False equivalency. People have found a good trade by not negotiating but using content as convenient. Please come back when your argument makes sense.
The fact is that almost 100% of the world creates art work protected by copyright and I'm sure that almost all of these creators are happy they keep control. Only a few percent are rabid filesharing cheapskates.
If that were true, then why do so many artists rebel against copyright and so few support it?
Try again bob.
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
I'll gladly give the 86 bucks back if the MPAA will agree to disband and stop trying to influence Congress
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Now your point is that you (1) want to control the video of your daughter's recital but (2) you don't want the composer to have any control. Sorry. It's a two edged sword. But there's an easy solution: play classical music. It's been a long time since I've been to a recital where the work was still in copyright. Beethoven, Bach and Mozart are great choices.
Face it. This web site is all about tricking the public into giving up the power to control their own work. It's about taking their photos and poems and postings so the big companies can make millions without ever sharing. The little people get a pat on the head and told what they're doing is "cool."
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Alas, the sword cuts both ways. The composer also gets control -- and the composer often licenses this. Many school plays, for instance, come with a license that allows DVDs for parents and friends.
As it is, most piano students I know play the classics. Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart. They're all long out of copyright. The pianist is the only one left with control. If you want to play the latest Top 40 hit, you've got to share.
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
And while it may only be a few percent, it's an important few percent. If some folks are getting the work for free, that means others are paying more than their fair share. I'm sure you're all for fairness, right?
Or are you one of those techno-1%ers who thinks that your technical superiority allows you to use software not available to the average consumer?
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Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Where's your list of artists rebelling against copyright? It's a very, very short list. Most of the ones who've complained haven't advocated getting rid of copyright. They love the control it gives them over their works and I would bet money that most of the world would agree with this statement:
Should there be a law that allows a photographer to control who can reproduce the pictures they take of their children.
And that law is copyright.
As for your other stuff about DRM, I think it's off topic. We're just talking about copyright. But since you brought it up, I think many members of the public are in favor of statements like this:
Should there be a law the allows the publishers to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of development costs?
ANd that is copyright my friend. People like fairness. People hate the idea that some nerd is getting the movies for free when they have to pay. People like that support technical measures like DRM.
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Re: Basic balance sheet
but a valid point.
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Re: Basic balance sheet
The public grants an artist a loan of a monopoly right in return for eventual full payment of the Progress of the Useful Arts and Sciences.
That's an interesting metaphor. "Intellectual property" "rights" are merely the proceeds of a loan and must be returned. It brings in the logic of banks setting agreeable terms (from the bank's perspective) into how IP law is structured.
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Thanks for quoting me!
Thanks for quoting my tweet. This is an important point to emphasize every chance you get.
However, like Mike C posted above, we'll have an uphill battle getting big business IP maximalists to listen to this point because they think their business depends on not recognizing it.
I pay a lot of attention to language, and I think the metaphors we choose to talk about legal concepts have a lot of power. People have long seen copyrights as "property", and I think the exclusion of the public from the "stakeholders" comes from the property metaphor, because the public is not seen as a stakeholder in your decision to put pink flamingos on your lawn. The next step in pushing the fact that the public is the most important stakeholder in copyright law is substituting better metaphors whenever we can.
I like Prashanth's post above introducing a "balance sheet" metaphor. That's moving in the right direction. We should use language that makes it clear the public has a stake here, and if we could get Prasanth's metaphor right, it could be a strong one that highlights the public's role as a partner and investor in the success of their work.
I like the metaphor "Ideas are Children" I started developing it in my thesis (sec 4.10), and I hope to continue at this year's Open Education Conference.
-Nate Otto
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Some Game of Thrones spoilers...
Last night after watching the Game of Thrones finale my partner asked me if King Joffrey knew that he wasn't the son of the previous king. It's hard to tell whether he KNOWS or not. He's heard the rumors that he's a bastard, certainly, and flies into a rage when he hears them, but does he believe them even a little, when his power depends on the rumors not being true? If he ever does believe it, he isn't allowed to let it show.
[/spoiler]
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Re: Re: Old timey internet
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/how-copyright-encourages-creativity-in-hollywood/
signed, curious...
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
I guess you're a 'creator' too, Bob. I like the technique...just take a real world effect you don't like and explain it by a shadowy, corrupt corporate "Big Strawman".
Project much?
Also, I'm sure Big IP is perfectly happy to let 'the people' control their own creations as long as they (and their paid shills *ahem*) get to control the money-making ones.
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Copyright's stakeholders don't fit in a room and must include the public, by definition
Just doing my part.
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Further, I as a consumer, do *not* care about a company's development costs. I care about value gained from a company understanding how I want content. No matter if it's a game with no drm, or music mp3 for sampling, I decide how to support an artist, not copyright. They want control? Fine, don't release it. I have plenty of other artists to look into.
So take your ad homs, your false equivalencies, and figure out how the world works. You have no idea of what artists like nor what copyright prevents. Quite frankly, copyright is not needed in the digital era so long as it induces censorship for content and takes away the value if a platform, it is not needed.
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The are represented at the take by the officials they have elected.
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Re: Not only the public...
They might listen if you knew how to spell.
It should be "...BREAK it to you...", not "...BRAKE it to you..."
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Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
So why all the fuss and why do you need new laws?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
This. A million times, this. When I hear an "artist" repeatedly whinging about nobody being allowed to do anything with their work without "permission," I simply lose interest, and stop listening to their music, watching their movie or show, or stop looking at their artwork.
They can hardly complain, either. After all, I'm fundamentally abiding by their wishes...
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
No it doesn't. The fact that I paid for one out of a potentially infinite pool of digital copies has nothing to do with someone else who got one out of the pool without paying. It's not as if a Taiwanese sweatshop laborer had to print another copy to replace the one that wasn't paid for.
And so what if your rights are infringed by some tiny minority that gets $1 tracks for free? What is it worth to chase each of them down? $1000? $10,000? $1,000,000? If you're willing to burn Benjamins to save Lincolns, purely out of principal, you clearly don't have much sense.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Oh wait, you won't do that, will you? Thought so. Enforcment's only supposed to be -against- the accused, after all! The entertainment industry is totally innocent.
/s
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Old timey internet
Would you care to name some, care to state a type of basic classification either. Though please entreat us with what jurisdiction these so called illegal enterprises come under too.
As for copyright encouraging creativity in Hollywood. Please explain what hollywood productions (movies or otherwise) in the last 100 years were NOT inspired by historical plays, pre-written novels, folktales, or other historical factoids of humanities history.
The only thing that encourages hollywood is the ability to use pre-existing works and transform them slightly into passable crap that the masses now consume whilst complaining that no-one will give them more money. Oh that and the creativity of accounting methodologies.
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Re: Re: Re: How to phrase it:
we are the humans
we are the ones that are sick of all this bullshit
In a perfect world..
we'd own our cultural works
we'd share and then we'd build upon them
But it seems to us
that you just want the cash
and treat us with contempt and disrespect
We are the world,
we are the humans
we are the ones that are sick of all this bullshit
So it's time to take
back what we all really own
to give the world, and future children their heritage
Now if that involves
destroying what you are
then really, we don't give a flying fuck
There.... and I transformed an old song by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie no less ;)
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
"Bob, I have to say that I agree with this statement, but, Bob My question to you is, if it's such a small percent;
WHY DO YOU NEED MORE LAWS TO PROTECT IP?
Obviously, by your OWN statement, you agree that infringement is a SMALL thing, why should you be allowed to trample MY rights??"
Bob replies - "Why? I'm not sure we do. We just need to enforce the ones we have."
There we have it folks. Straight from the horse's mouth. Not only is he completely clueless about why he's arguing for more enforcement, he ALSO argues for LESS AT THE SAME TIME (don't ask me how he does it) by saying "We just need to enforce the ones we have" i.e. we don't need to create new laws and ratchet up enforcement of those laws, we just need to enforce.
Also note, the last few words of Digitari's question go right by him, as in, bob doesn't deny the "trampling of my rights". By not denying it, he has certainly strongly implied that he IS trampling on rights.
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
Bull. Half the arguments you shills have these days are either about how the definition of copyright hasn't changed, or how fair use has overstepped boundaries (DESPITE the claims by chefs that copyright allows them to ban photography of their food, and CEOs claiming that they needed SOPA as a legal means to shut down criticism and parody). You talking about fair use is like a cannibal talking about vegetarianism.
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
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Re: Re: Ha Ha Ha
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Re: Some Game of Thrones spoilers...
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Re: Re: Not only the public...
Besides, that's just petty.
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Re: Re: Basic balance sheet
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Re:
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Re: Re: Not only the public...
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Re: Not only the public...
Sorry for my bad English.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Not only the public...
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Re: Basic balance sheet
Yeah, I suppose it's a bit of a stretch. TLDR: just as banks are stakeholders while homeowners and beneficiaries of houses, the public is the real stakeholder while artists are beneficiaries of copyright protection.
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Re: Re: Re: Don't be surprised if the public doesn't agree with your anything goes attitude!
By extension, people hate the idea that someone else is getting something for a lower price than what they paid for, so we should all support higher, unreasonably jacked-up prices?
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