Copyright Talk

The basic underlying principle behind our copyright laws is to encourage creative work by making it so that the people who create can make a living by controlling the use and sale of their works.

We’re in the midst of a revolutionary expansion of ways and means to distribute information, including creative works protected by copyright. This means the opportunity to make music, books and photos available to ever greater audiences with relatively small cost compared to traditional distribution channels. Ordinarily in the business world, the opening of new markets leads to expanded productivity and expanded profits. The irony I find in our digital technology is that while the opportunity for creative works to be distributed to a wider audience should have created more revenue for the creators, what we are actually seeing is big businesses exploiting a confusing moment in time to try and cut the creators out of the money stream. Starting with Napster in the mid-90’s, much of the legal activity over digital technology and copyright law has involved these big businesses trying to avoid paying for the use of works that they have always in the past paid for. I love free music as much as the next guy, but if it’s all free then something is wrong. I occasionally get a freebie from my local store, but if I loaded up my basket and walked out without paying everytime, I know the store would go out of business.

College students and private music lovers are not hurt by having to continue to pay for music. We still need a good model for doing so when digital file exchange is so simple (but we weathered the introduction of cassette tape recording, so I expect we’ll weather this, too). The challenge is to make sure that the actual creators benefit from the model we choose. Napster wasn’t trying to protect the rights of college students, it was trying to protect its access to free products to sell. Other companies are still carrying that banner, in lawsuits going on today.

Record Companies and search engines and internet based businesses are not the ones who need copyright laws to protect their ability to make a living. The ones who need copyright law to protect their ability to make a living from their work are the novelists, freelancers, musicians, songwriters, photographers, and artists. Don’t ever let them slip away in the undertow.