The End Of Ownership: How Big Companies Are Trying To Turn Everyone Into Renters

from the ok-landlord dept

We've talked a lot on Techdirt about the end of ownership, and how companies have increasingly been reaching deep into products that you thought you bought to modify them... or even destroy them. Much of this originated in the copyright space, in which modern copyright law (somewhat ridiculously) gave the power to copyright holders to break products that people had "bought." Of course, the legacy copyright players like to conveniently change their language on whether or not you're buying something or simply "licensing" it temporarily based on what's most convenient (i.e., what makes them the most money) at the time.

Over at the Nation, Maria Bustillos, recently wrote about how legacy companies -- especially in the publishing world -- are trying to take away the concept of book ownership and only let people rent books. A little over a year ago, picking up an idea first highlighted by law professor Brian Frye, we highlighted how much copyright holders want to be landlords. They don't want to sell products to you. They want to retain an excessive level of control and power over it -- and to make you keep paying for stuff you thought you bought. They want those monopoly rents.

As Bustillos points out, the copyright holders are making things disappear, including "ownership."

Maybe you’ve noticed how things keep disappearing—or stop working—when you “buy” them online from big platforms like Netflix and Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. You can watch their movies and use their software and read their books—but only until they decide to pull the plug. You don’t actually own these things—you can only rent them. But the titanic amount of cultural information available at any given moment makes it very easy to let that detail slide. We just move on to the next thing, and the next, without realizing that we don’t—and, increasingly, can’t—own our media for keeps.

And while most of the focus on this space has been around music and movies, it's happening to books as well:

Unfortunately, today’s mega-publishers and book distributors have glommed on to the notion of “expiring” media, and they would like to normalize that temporary, YouTube-style notion of a “library.” That’s why, last summer, four of the world’s largest publishers sued the Internet Archive over its National Emergency Library, a temporary program of the Internet Archive’s Open Library intended to make books available to the millions of students in quarantine during the pandemic. Even though the Internet Archive closed the National Emergency Library in response to the lawsuit, the publishers refused to stand down; what their lawsuit really seeks is the closing of the whole Open Library, and the destruction of its contents. (The suit is ongoing and is expected to resume later this year.) A close reading of the lawsuit indicates that what these publishers are looking to achieve is an end to the private ownership of books—not only for the Internet Archive but for everyone.

Bustillos is trying to help buck this trend. She's part of a high profile, recently launched publishing cooperative called Brick House. Brick House is releasing a quarterly publication full of art and writing from Brick House members. But, unlike the big publishers, Brick House is happy to actually sell a digital copy to the Internet Archive, just as it would have sold a physical copy.

The book is called the

Brick House Apparent Quarterly (Vol. I), and it’s an archived selection of some of our favorite art and writing from the nine current Brick House publications: Awry, FAQ NYC, Hmm, No Man Is An Island, OlongoAfrica, Popula, Preachy, Sludge, and Tasteful Rude. We sold a digital copy to the Internet Archive’s Open Library, for the same price ($32) as the forthcoming paper copy.

We wanted everyone to be clear on what selling—really selling, not licensing—a digital copy means, so we talked with Harvard copyright adviser, lawyer, and librarian Kyle K. Courtney. The copy of the Brick House book we sold to the Open Library is theirs to keep forever. Even if they should need one day to transfer the book to a different medium (for example, if ebooks were to become obsolete), the Open Library will still own it. The Open Library will always be free to loan the book to their patrons through the magic of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), whereby one (digital) copy can be loaned to one patron at a time—just like with paper books. Long-established library security systems ensure that a patron can’t just pirate and distribute our digital book. (If the Brick House Apparent Quarterly proves very popular, libraries might need to buy extra copies!) CDL is the legal means by which digital books and paper books are made equal, and every publisher should support its global adoption.

This shouldn't be seen as radical. However, as we've noted, the big publishers have more or less gone to war with libraries over ebooks, jacking up the prices, limiting how often they can be lent out, and demanding "renewal" payments after a certain period of time or number of lends.

And this is incredibly important to culture and the preservation of culture. As Bustillos notes:

As writers and artists whose work has often disappeared from the Internet, we Brick House publishers have a keen appreciation of the importance of archives and libraries. Most books are out of print; most of what has been written has also been forgotten. We don’t want that to happen to our work. And we are acutely alive to the threat of corporate encroachment over the right to access information in a free society. We stand with the Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle, who said: “If a publisher maintains control over every reading event, who’s allowed to read it, when are they allowed to read it, if they’re allowed to read it… we are in George Orwell world.”

The big publishers and other large copyright holders always insist that they're "protecting artists." That's almost never the case. They regularly destroy and suppress creativity and art with their abuse of copyright law. Culture shouldn't have to be rented, especially when the landlords don't care one bit about the underlying art or cultural impact.

Filed Under: books, ebooks, end of ownership, licensing, ok landlord, ownership, publishing, renting

Masks & More: Techdirt Logo Gear Is Now On Threadless

from the wear-your-techdirt dept

Get your Techdirt Logo Gear in our store on Threadless »

Lots of people have been buying our newly-launched face masks on Threadless, so we figured it was time to make the classic Techdirt logo gear available on the platform. You can now get face masks in both our logo gear styles — the standard logo and the big logo — with two different kinds of masks available, as well as youth sizes.

Plus, as with all our designs, there's a wide variety of gear available: t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters and other apparel — plus cool accessories and home items including buttons, phone cases (for many iPhone and Galaxy models), mugs, tote bags, and stylish notebooks and journals. And you can still get all our other popular designs:

As always, all the profits from gear sales help us keep Techdirt going and continue our reporting through this challenging pandemic situation and beyond. You can also check out our list of all the different ways to support Techdirt with a bunch of options for readers to help us out and get something cool or useful in return!

Filed Under: gear, merchandise, nerd harder, ok landlord, techdirt, techdirt gear

In Case You Missed It: The Return Of Nerd Harder Gear, Plus New Face Masks!

from the mask-harder dept

Nerd Harder gear is back, and face masks are available
in the Techdirt Gear store on Threadless »

At the end of last month, we fulfilled two of the most popular requests (one long-standing, and one brand new) for Techdirt gear: we brought back the Nerd Harder line of gear, and introduced a series of face masks featuring some of our most popular designs!

You can find all these offerings in our artist store on Threadless, with multiple products available. Face masks come in two styles (standard and premium) as well as youth sizes, and there are t-shirts, hoodies, sweaters and other apparel — plus a variety of cool accessories and home items including buttons, phone cases (for many iPhone and Galaxy models), mugs, tote bags, and stylish notebooks and journals.

All the profits from gear sales help us keep Techdirt going and continue our reporting through this challenging pandemic situation and beyond, and we're hugely appreciative of all the support. You can also check out our list of all the different ways to support Techdirt with a wide variety of options for readers to help us out and get something cool or useful in return!

Filed Under: gear, merchandise, nerd harder, ok landlord, techdirt, techdirt gear

Techdirt Gear: New Masks, Old Favorites

from the face-it dept

Face masks are now available in the Techdirt store on Threadless »

We've had some requests for this, and now it begins: we're adding face masks as an option for all our gear in the Techdirt store on Threadless. Not just that, we've expanded the Threadless line with our ever-popular Takedown gear and the much-anticipated return of our most successful design ever: Nerd Harder.

All the face masks are available in two versions (premium and standard) as well as youth sizes. And of course, the designs are also available on a wide variety of other products including t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, buttons, and more! Check out the Techdirt store on Threadless and order yours today.

Filed Under: face masks, nerd harder, ok landlord, takedown, techdirt, techdirt gear

New Gear By Techdirt: OK, Landlord

from the well-deserved-eyeroll dept

Get your OK, Landlord gear
from our store on Threadless »

Yesterday, we wrote about law professor Brian Frye's deployment of the phrase "ok, landlord" and its success in riling up copyright holders who, usually, are insistent that copyrighted content should be treated just like property. We liked the idea so much that we figured it ought to be on a t-shirt — and so now it is, among other things!

OK, Landlord t-shirts, hoodies, buttons, notebooks, and many other pieces of gear are now available on Threadless, where you can also find our Copying Is Not Theft gear. All profits support Techdirt, and irritate copyright maximalists!

Filed Under: copyright, intellectual property, ok landlord, property

OK, Landlord: If Copyright Supporters Are Going To Insist Copyright Is Property, Why Are They So Mad About Being Called Landlords?

from the copyright-is-funny dept

After writing this post, we realized that the phrase would make a great t-shirt! So now you can get yourself some OK, Landlord gear from the Techdirt store on Threadless »

For a long time now we've explained why comparing copyrights to property is fraught with problems. So much of the reason that we engage in property rights is to enable a more efficient allocation of scarce goods. When you have something that is not-scarce -- or as the cool economist kids like to say "non-rivalrous and non-excludable" -- treating them in the same manner as if they were scarce creates all sorts of weird problems, many of which we've spent two decades detailing on this site. Indeed, for every argument made that copyright is property, you could make a compelling case that it's actually the opposite of property in that it frequently takes away the rights and ability of individuals to do what they want with products they rightfully own.

Five years ago, I noted that one of the big problems around the concept of "intellectual property" was the failure of people to separate the content, from the exclusive rights. That is, it's fair to think of the copyright as a form of property -- as the "right of exclusion" that it creates is more property-like -- but that it must be seen as separate from the underlying content. The "copyright" is not the content. And so much of the discussion around copyrights conflates the right and the underlying content and that creates all sorts of problems.

Meanwhile, law professor Brian Frye has spent the last month or so making a really important point regarding the never-ending "is copyright property" debate -- saying that if copyright is property, then copyright holders should be seen and treated as landlords. This whole approach can be summed up in the slightly snarky and trollish phrase: "OK, Landlord" used to respond to all sorts of nonsensical takes in support of more egregious copyright policies:

Like everyone, the copyright cops want to have their cake and eat it too. They claim that copyright is a kind of property, so the law should protect it just like any other kind of property. But they also claim that authors are morally entitled to copyright ownership because of their special contribution to society. I find both claims uncompelling, but in any case, they can’t have it both ways. If copyright is a property right, they have to own it and can’t claim the moral high ground.

What's been most telling about this useful analogy is just how angry it seems to make copyright holders and copyright-system supporters. They react very negatively to the suggestion that they are "landlords" and any money they make from copyright licensing is a form of "rent." But if you're going to claim that your copyright is profit, then, well, the landlord moniker fits.

But the copyright cops persist, insisting that copyright is property, so copyright owners are entitled to the entire value of the works they create because that’s what property means. Accordingly, copying a work of authorship without permission is theft, even though it only increases the number of copies, because the copyright owner didn’t profit. And even consuming a work of authorship without permission is wrong because copyright owners are entitled to profit from every use of the work they own.

The circularity of these claims should be obvious: copyright is property because copyright owners receive exclusive rights, and copyright owners receive exclusive rights because copyright is property. But let’s run with it. Okay, copyright is property and copyright owners are property owners. Why are copyright owners entitled to profit from the use of their property?

Because they’re landlords. Copyright owners want to own the property metaphor? Then, let ‘em own it. If copyright is property, then they are landlords and copyright profits are rent. Just like landlords, copyright owners simply make a capital investment in creating or acquiring a property, then sit back and wait for the profits to roll in.

As Frye notes, the whole idea that copyright holders are landlords (even as they claim that they are holding property that you need to pay them to use), shows the sort of emotional trickery that copyright holders use in also claiming some sort of moral right to their works as "creators." They're picking and choosing which arguments to use when -- and, have long tried to imbue some sort of magical mystical status on holding the copyright to creativity (which is often quite different than creating itself).

Of course, the real issue at play is that many of the most vocal copyright system supporters want to believe that they're "artists" who are fighting the system and speaking for the oppressed... and being a "landlord" who is renting out their property goes against that self-image. But as Frye notes, they can't really have it both ways. If they want to declare that they have property rights, they should be perfectly find with recognizing that they are the current landlords for that "property."

Want to irritate the next copyright holder you meet? Then get yourself an OK, Landlord t-shirt (or hoodie, or button, or notebook, or...) from the Techdirt store on Threadless »

Filed Under: brian frye, copyright, intellectual property, monopoly rents, ok landlord, property rights, rents