UN Wants Multi-Stakeholder Discussions On 'Rethinking Copyright' -- Ignores That The Only Stakeholder That Matters Is The Public
from the and-they've-already-decided dept
The UN's Internet Governance Forum had a gathering to discuss rethinking copyright, in which WIPO made the case that it should lead "multi-stakeholder" discussions on how to reform copyright. WIPO, of course, has a history of having a rather one-sided view of copyright and who the "stakeholders" are. But now, it insists that it can hear all voices:Trevor Clarke, assistant director general for the Culture and Creative Industries Sector of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), said during a workshop on “Rethinking Copyright” today that the multi-stakeholder environment is “the best and and most appropriate” when it comes to the debate on copyright in the digital age. WIPO is preparing for such multi-stakeholder discussions, Clarke told Intellectual Property Watch.While it's nice to "include the private sector and also civil society," that's really ignoring the larger point. The only real "stakeholder" in copyright is the public. The private sector may be beneficiaries, but the system is supposed to benefit the public. And while "civil society" may represent the public in some areas, which is helpful, it seems that any real discussion on reforming copyright should be very, very open to the public.
Clarke said the WIPO director general and secretariat has added their voices to the call for a reexamination of the copyright system and have not shied away from the fact that some aspects of the law need to be revisited. Not only law, but also culture and infrastructure of the system, have to be considered, he underlined. Member state positions vary considerably on the issues, and it would make sense to include the private sector and also civil society into the talks, he said, adding, “We need that dialogue.”
Yet that never seems to be suggested by anyone.
And, really, when you look at what's happening in reality vs. what's happening in these discussions, you realize that the public has already made its position pretty clear. People are more than willing to pay for a certain amount of content if it's convenient and not hindered/locked down. They're willing to pay for content when they know they're directly supporting artists they love. They're willing to pay. But, if things are annoying and limited, expensive or inconvenient, they certainly might take matters into their own hands. On top of that, certain aspects of copyright law seem quaint or simply so unrealistic that they're consistently ignored (such as with people making mashups and videos and the like). Yet, no one seems to want to address how the public is actually dealing with all of this, preferring to try to make up new rules based on artificial claims about copyright.
There's no need for "multistakeholder" debates when the public has already said "here's the deal: offer us what we want and we'll pay and everyone's happy." The job of any governing organization right now should be to stop ignoring the public and start paying attention.
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Filed Under: copyright, internet governance, public, reality, stakeholders, un, wipo
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That will never happen. The public do not matter because the vast majority do not have the wealth to make them matter. Governing organisations will always act on behalf of those with wealth because they are too scared to do otherwise.
Call me cynical but that is how I see it.
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Honestly, if you allowed me to tell you whatever I wanted you to hear, then turn around and do whatever the hell I wanted even when it was severely detrimental to your well being, and you left me completely unaccountable for my actions and let me keep my job election after election after election? Yeah, I'd probably ignore your opinions and desires too.
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I saw a stat that the US presidential election race cost 1 billion per candidate of there abouts. I would guess that's the top for the world of elections, but either way it takes serious money to get anywhere near political "power". In a situation like that:
A/ It's hardly any suprise that politicians will listen to money over people because otherwise they wouldn't be there.
B/ It means that the public end up getting a very limited choice of "leaders out of the ones that can get the money. This amounts to a choice between a sock puppet, the worst kind of used car salesman and if very lucky an empty shirt with good hair a smile.
With choices like that nothing the public could possibly do short of demanding wholesale change of the political system (something impossible to achieve through the political system) ould make much of a difference. Their "choice" amounts to nothing. Modern democracy is an illusion, nothing more.
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Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
If the creators don't make enough money to put a roof over their heads, pay for food and some health care, they're going elsewhere. They'll get jobs doing other things and the most of the copyrighted material will be cat videos. Oh sure, there will be occasional things funded by other sources, but the area will dry up.
The fact is that the public has an interest in making sure that the businesses can survive. If they can't, the public is stuck trying to do it themselves.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Re: Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
"The looters were just like the file "sharing""
Wow they went in to all those stores and copied the inventory then left without taking anything. Must have been a sight.
I love reading your comments, they are so funny. Funny funny little person.
"most of the copyrighted material will be cat videos."
You leave my cat videos alone, we all love them dearly.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Funny how it's the fat cats making the big money (corporations, melloncamp etc) who want to 'save the artist'
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Not really. When it comes to copyrighted content the public only really cares if the creator can survive.
Take music for example - plenty of people still purchasing music even though the local brick & mortar record stores no longer exist.
Look a movies - tons of people subscribing to Netflix, but the local Blockbusters are dying faster than cigarette smokers.
It's not about supporting the middleman, it's about supporting the creators.
If they can't, the public is stuck trying to do it themselves.
Is that such a bad thing when it comes to content? Plenty of homebrew stuff out there I enjoy MORE than the stuff from the traditional sources. Just sayin'
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Re: Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
I think you just made his head explode
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Re: Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
No, technically we care about the works, not the authors. Authors are just a necessary evil. If new works spontaneously popped out of thin air on a regular basis, or we had the true catalog for Borges' library, we wouldn't have to bother with incentivizing authors.
The important thing is to not romanticize them; that's how we end up giving them more copyright than we need to. For the purpose of setting copyright policy, an author is no different from a dairy cow. The farmer only cares about the milk and his own self-interest. He'll pamper the cows if it serves his own interests, or treat them harshly if that's better for his bottom line instead. If authors want generous copyrights, they should make it worth our while.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
There I fixed it for you.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Wow. You just compared making a company to actual looting, which is composed of theft and violence at the same time.
Just going straight for that full on bullshit/strawman/bad analogy right out of the gate aren't ya.
"The businesses evaporated and soon people left those neighborhoods because there were no services."
Businesses don't evaporate. Liquids do. Businesses go out of business, run out of stock, experience financial difficulties that force them to cease operation, etc.
Looting can cause a business to run out of stock and potentially cause financial damage on a scale that most businesses will not be fiscally prepared to recover from, but they don't evaporate because of looting.
Also, despite potential looting, services DO NOT disappear. Unless the equipment that facilitates any services a business can provide are taken. And then AND ONLY THEN will a business be unable to continue to provide services. (As far as after looting occurs goes.)
"If the creators don't make enough money to put a roof over their heads, pay for food and some health care, they're going elsewhere."
Stop. The. Fucking. Presses. You mean to tell me that if someone can't make ends meet that they'll find something else to do? I am shocked! SHOCKED I TELL YOU!
"They'll get jobs doing other things and the most of the copyrighted material will be cat videos."
Creators have been creating since before copyright, creators will continue to create after copyright is long gone.
People have been enjoying the arts since before copyright, people will be enjoying art long after copyright is gone.
Cat videos will still get made, along with many other things. As history is bereft with proof of.
"Oh sure, there will be occasional things funded by other sources, but the area will dry up."
Actually no, the area will NOT dry up. Why? Because people enjoy the arts and people enjoy creating. As long as one is being done the other will be done too. And people will give money to those who create, even without copyright.
"The fact is that the public has an interest in making sure that the businesses can survive."
Actually no. The public has no interest in ensuring the survival of certain businesses. As is made evident by the not so startling closing of record stores, video rental stores, etc. New services/businesses will arise to replace those that are no longer viable. It's a fact.
"If they can't, the public is stuck trying to do it themselves."
No problem with that, someone will do something themselves that will be quite innovate or something to that effect and a new business/service will arise from that.
Bob, seriously, just shut the fuck up. Like from here on out. Your brand of stupidity got old a long time ago and you know nothing. Literally nothing.
I feel sorry for you. One day the universe is gonna get tired of you and just beat you stupid with actual facts. And I know I won't be alone in laughing when that happens.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
That's about the only honest and truthful statement in your whole argument, but you try to support it with a lot of bait and switch crap that doesn't really hold water.
There will ALWAYS be creators, regardless of whether copyright exists or not. And there will ALWAYS be people who "steal" the works of others, regardless of whether copyright exists or not.
The biggest difference is that you believe the biggest robbers of other people's creative efforts to be "pirates", while the rest of us believe that the biggest robbers of other people's creative efforts are the large corporations who deprives people of the their due compensation via legislative means. The difference is also that when you really look at the actual data, it far more supports our position than yours.
I've literally personally known hundreds, if not thousands, of content creators (musicians, film makers, authors, jewelry/clothing creators, artists). I can name a good dozen that are among some of my closest friends. And while I can tell you that some of them do indeed blame "pirates" for most of the financial difficulties they have earning a living at their trade, the vast majority blame the large corporations that demand the rights to all their work, and take a staggering large majority of their potential profits for their "help" (and by help, what they really mean is not looking these people out of being able to compete in the marketplace because the control all the roads).
Quite frankly, most of these people don't rely on copyright for the majority of their income, and in many cases find the current state of copyright to be a rather large impediment to making a decent living at their craft.
Your argument here sounds, as always, like the opinion of someone who sits in a cubicle all day and has no real clue how the real world works.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
True, to a degree. Certainly not in the case of the companies you're referring to. They do not ever act in the interest of artists or the public. After all, what's their incentive?
You seem to have forgotten that respect is a 2 way street. Or maybe you just never learned that in the first place.
Fuck off, bobby.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Okay. Copyright doesn't distinguish between cat videos and anything else; so long as a work meets the very low thresholds for copyrightability, it's just as protected as any other copyrighted work. After all, we don't want the government engaged in subjective matters of artistic merit for published works.
But frankly, I have a hard time believing you. Let's say we rolled copyright back to the lower level of protection we had under the 1909 Act. Well, there were plenty of movies -- including big budget epics like Gone With the Wind and The Ten Commandments and The Wizard of Oz under those laws. There were plenty of TV shows. Elvis and the Beatles did all their best stuff under the 1909 Act. And there were loads of good books, works of fine art, etc. In fact, I doubt you could point to any creative works that were produced under the 1976 Act that would not have been created under the 1909 Act merely due to the differing levels of copyright available. (Obviously technology has come a long way, but YouTube had been around in the 1960s, I'm sure there would've been plenty of cat videos. In fact, the Hang in There Baby poster with the cat on it dates back to then)
If the post 1909 increase in protection was superfluous, as it likely is, one wonders what was superfluous between 1831 and 1909. And so forth.
What we should do is reduce copyright to the bare minimum that still incentivizes the most creation and publication of works that otherwise wouldn't happen. We want the most gain for the least cost. We ought to be experimenting with cutting back copyright to find that sweet spot. And we should remember that rewarding authors isn't strictly necessary; the promise of a reward that isn't often granted may work just as well, kind of like dangling a carrot in front of a mule, instead of just giving it to the mule straight away.
Don't give away the farm, man. We've got to squeeze the authors for everything we can get out of them.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Last time I looked all the creators were part of the public. They are not some special breed of aliens you know.
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Re: Horse manure! Without the creator, the public gets nothing
Which is why the looted did not have their merchandise anymore while the content provides still do. God, it's almost too easy to prove you wrong.
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unless, of course, new secret (but 'totally out in the open') discussions can take place, as they are atm with TPP, CETA and now with the ITU using the UN
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They don't ignore the public, they just make the rules that the public should follow and get upset when they are ignored.
They the try to make laws to make the public do as they are told.
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That's the point though, they're making rules that they have no actual authority to make, because whatever authority they possess is only what authority they can take and the majority of the public are willing to let them have. It's like the playground bully deciding on the rules for all of the games played and then getting angry when the rest of the kids realize that there are a lot more of them than there are of him and stop listening.
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What about those who WON'T pay, Mike?
And should be copyright for the old 28 years not forever, and limit anyone's gravy train from what's merely entertainment.
Mike yet again blithely ignores that sites like Megaupload TAKE someone else's work and get money from its value without ever PAYING at all.
So, baloney on your seemingly reasonable position here, Mike: it's not the sum of your notions, just a selected part.
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Re: What about those who WON'T pay, Mike?
Good ad hominem, needs work otherwise.
Blatant falsehoods should be avoided when trolling, try to make your lies as opaque and inscrutable as possible.
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Re: What about those who WON'T pay, Mike?
"The societal deal is/was" There. With that sentence you just ALMOST found the point of the article, but missed it once again. Copyright is a SOCIETAL DEAL, aka, a deal decided by the SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, not by an obscure UN subcommittee and whoever they define as "stakeholders." The article is about how SOCIETY should be involved in negotiating the SOCIETAL DEAL. Is that really so crazy?
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Re: What about those who WON'T pay, Mike?
Wait, what? How the hell did you get this idea?
If someone won't pay, then they won't pay. Copyright doesn't change that in the slightest.
sites like Megaupload TAKE someone else's work
Sites like Megaupload have nothing to do with this story, nor with this discussion.
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Re: What about those who WON'T pay, Mike?
Actually, copyright is precisely
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
God, it's almost too easy to prove you wrong.
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Trevor Clarke
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Stakeholders
This is certainly how our jurisprudence (mostly) treats copyright, but it's not universal. Whereas Anglo-American copyright has its basis in positive law (which exists only when granted by the legislature), other countries find theirs in natural law. So while the basis for American copyright is the our famous Constitutional compromise (essentially, limited monopolies to benefit a greater public good), in countries where natural law is favoured, copyright is a moral right of the author alone, a right which vests regardless of whether there is a law. It is a right which the legislature only acknowledges, rather than creates.
So I agree that the user communities should be represented, but saying that "the system is supposed to benefit the public" and that the public "is the only stakeholder that matters" is a little ethnocentric when you're talking about international law. They're two different philosophies, and though you may not agree with both of them, each has equal legitimacy in the international arena.
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Re: Stakeholders
This is a good point, as long as you keep in mind that "moral rights" are limited to things like attribution and integrity. The economic monopoly rights are generally not considered a part of "natural law."
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There's a list of them if you look up "moral rights" on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_(copyright_law)
They have links to the actual laws in the various countries (translated to English), if you feel like looking them up.
In all the countries where "moral rights" are recognized, they are considered distinct from "economic rights." They are not transferable to publishers or labels, and the term lengths are almost always different.
The U.S. and Britain have never recognized these "moral rights," and have only passed the bare minimum necessary for compatibility with the Berne Convention (and only recently). At least, not as copyright - the U.S. in particular has always insisted that those rights fall under libel and slander laws.
copyright is for nothing more than censorship and granting monopolies to a privileged class, ie. printers
You're thinking of the English/U.S. tradition. The European (and recently Asian) tradition is very different.
For what it's worth, it wasn't considered censorship - likely because the "economic rights" generally were applicable only to commercial publishers, until very recently. That is, it was usually considered restrictions on commercial speech, which is less protected by e.g. the First Amendment than speech by individuals among the public.
Obviously, when copyright was expanded to cover non-commercial infringement in the 90's, everything changed. I believe this will eventually be considered a huge mistake, and a barbaric restriction on free speech, in the same way that Schenck v. U.S. is considered abhorrent now.
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Beware of Harper's Gambit
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Re: Beware of Harper's Gambit
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Confused about stakeholders
Um, civil society means the public. It's just that the public has to organise itself in some way in order to participate meaningfully in international institutions like WIPO. The idea of making laws on a wiki or something is great, but we are light-years away from that.
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Re: Confused about stakeholders
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The problem with forgetting the public
I'm a musician. If I want to record out of copyright music, and I do sometimes I have to figure out if a song is still copyrighted, which is a not trivial exercise and even if I do record music that is out of copyright it is extremely likely that a corporation will claim that it is still there's even when it's not.
Another problem is that, in general, corporations don't die. People do. Even when a corporation dies it's intellectual property is generally sold to another so it's still copyrighted and nothing is going into the public domain.
NOTHING
One more time, even though the corporations aren't really listening. NOTHING
Part of the bargain to allow creators copyright is being violated.
It's not a problem with creators not being compensated. It's a problem of the fact, one more time, it's a fact, that the bargain has been violated by the corporations.
The corporations have NO natural right to perpetual copyright but with their lobbyists and bribes to legislators they have removed the public benefit and with our new global society they are trying to remove that benefit to the entire world.
I know you won't but you corporate apologists should hang your heads in shame but this is your job so you will continue to be corporate lackeys.
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haha, what a joke !!!
Masnick, what you want is to be able to have things you consider of value provided to you for free !!!!
the things you want are the things you want, so your willing to pay for things that are free for you, but not otherwise !..
Does that not also apply the other way around, you would not be willing to pay for something you did not want right ?
is that not then like everything in the world ?? you pay for the things you want, and not for the things you dont want.
but in your world, you want things, but dont want to pay for them, you attribute value to that thing (otherwise you would not want it), but you are unwilling to actually pay that value to place on it.
"I like that, give it to me" seems to be your mantra..
pure pirate mike,
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Just a bit of confusion
The UN said Stakeholders but, of course, they wanted to say Shareholders.
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