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Wed Sep 19 15:50:20 JST 2007 

not required to register their content with the US Copyright Office
unless they wish to pursue a claim in court.  I would suggest it would
be useful for the purposes of archiving contemporary culture if
copyright holders were required to register their work with the US
Copyright Office if they were requiring royalty-based payments for the
use of their content.  They would provide the US Copyright Office with
a copy of the work, which could be copied by the US Copyright Office
for the purposes of moving to more reliable media (ie. copying from an
old hard drive to a new one).  When the copyright expired, then the US
Copyright Office would host a copy on its web site, which I understand
they already do to some degree.  The difference is that content
creators are not required to register their copyrighted works right
now.

The above solution would solve the problem of losing valuable content
before it reaches the public domain.  Take the example of the release
of a music CD.  The CD is released and copies of it are made available
for purchase.  Two years after the CD released, productions stops and
only used copies are available.  A private citizen who wishes to
archive the content would have to keep an original print of the CD for
93 years and would then be allowed to copy it to another medium when
the copyright expired and the CD contents were released into the
public domain.  But after 93 years, the CD will likely have decayed to
the point where it cannot be read anymore.  Perhaps the private
citizen could make a backup copy of the CD to extend its life, but
it's questionable how much copying is allowed for backups, especially
with the DMCA.  It is not too hard to see how this could easily lead
to a copyrighted work becoming unavailable (due to media decay) prior
to its release into the public domain, which makes its release into
the public domain moot because no copies exist.

Because of the difficulty of private citizens maintaining archives
(both for monetary reasons and the legal gray area of avoiding
decaying media), it makes a lot of sense for a government entity that
has legal immunity for copying for the purpose of archiving to keep a
copy of all copyrighted works for which royalties are required.

I would support a similar system (requiring that royalty-based
copyrighted works are registered with a government entity) in any
country.  I seems easiest to implement in the USA, though, because
such a system is already in place to some extent.

Denver

Note: Special thanks goes to Russell McOrmond for originally
describing a hypothetical situation similar to the one I used to
discuss media decay and copying issues.


On 10/26/07, Kevin Driscoll <driscollkevin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Great overview of some of the primary FC concerns, Denver.
>
> I should clarify my earlier comment w/r/t mirroring YouTube.  Although
> a literal mirror would be fantastic, I am thinking about less formal
> localized practices.  For example, I often use YouTube when teaching
> or presenting.  It would be wise for me to actually download those
> videos, despite the legal ambiguity of doing so.
>
> Likewise, I hope that, for a more pop culty example, fans of Mariah
> Carey are create an archive of the best Mariah clips.
>
> I may be reaching way back for some of the younger subscribers but the
> Napster shutdown should be an instructive memory for us.  Although we
> already had technical alternatives when Napster closed, it was
> nonetheless a serious setback in the project of archiving contemporary
> culture, free and otherwise.
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> On 10/26/07, Denver Gingerich <denver at ossguy.com> wrote:
> > I don't think that mirroring all YouTube content is a good idea.  Much
> > of what can be found on YouTube falls into a legal gray area.  The
> > leading example of this would be the use of music or videos in
> > remixing, such as using a song for background music or taking an
> > episode of a TV show and adding commentary.  (When I say "music or
> > videos" here, I am referring to music or videos that are copyrighted
> > and for which the copyright holder requires royalties for use that
> > does not fall under "fair use".)
> >
> > Determining who is interpreting the law properly is a very hard battle
> > to fight.  Perhaps Google will win this court case, but I'm sure
> > Viacom or some other group will soon be suing someone else.  While
> > these cases may set legal precedents, they do not change people's
> > behaviors, which is what I think we need to change.
> >
> > Instead of trying to protect or save legally gray content, I suggest
> > that we instead start producing and using content that is completely
> > free of these sorts of legal issues.  Naturally, content licensed
> > under Creative Commons licenses comes to mind, but there are lots of
> > other pro-sharing licenses out there.
> >
> > Another area where we need to be moving is educating the public.  Most
> > people have little knowledge how copyright works.  This is why you are
> > seeing all sorts of this legally gray sharing of content.  People
> > don't know that there are alternatives such as content that uses
> > pro-sharing licenses.
> >
> >
> > Although I don't think it's useful to use a primary point of the
> > argument for free culture, I believe that having recording and
> > publishing companies winning these sorts of court cases will
> > ultimately be a benefit to free culture.  People are starting to feel
> > the pain of dealing with legal issues surrounding the content they
> > wish to use that requires royalty payments.  As people become less
> > able to do what they want with such content, they will see that moving
> > to content that uses pro-sharing licenses is much better than dealing
> > with the hassle of the content requiring royalty payments.  Artists
> > will start seeing that it is unwise to sign their rights away to their
> > recording company and will start recording and distributing their
> > content themselves.
> >
> > By enforcing their copyrights more harshly, recording and publishing
> > companies will eventually destroy themselves.  What I think they are
> > trying to do right now is find the right balance of annoying people
> > and generating income from people.  Eventually I think they will push
> > their strategy too far toward generating income and people will start
> > realizing that things like the free culture movement exist.
> >
> >
> > But I don't think we should just sit waiting for the recording and
> > publishing companies to destroy themselves.  We can help move the
> > process along by using content with pro-sharing licenses in our daily
> > lives as much as possible.  When people don't recognize the music
> > you're listening to or the video you're watching and ask you about it,
> > you can say that it's part of a pro-sharing movement and that they are
> > legally allowed (without any gray area) to share it with anyone.
> >
> > Even better than just using free content is to organize events that
> > educate people on a large scale.  It sounds like the NYU people are
> > doing a lot of this, like organizing a screening of Good Copy Bad
> > Copy.  These are great steps and I'm always excited to learn about
> > more of these.
> >
> >
> > There's another part of free culture that I think is not talked about
> > a lot but is nonetheless quite important.  When an artist that uses
> > pro-sharing licenses requests donations, we should be the first to
> > donate.  One of the big arguments against pro-sharing licenses is that
> > they don't provide any income for the artists.  This is true only if
> > we choose not to donate to them.  If these artists are seeing huge
> > donations from their pro-sharing licensed content, they'll be
> > extremely likely to keep using pro-sharing licenses and to support the
> > free culture cause through activism.
> >
> > On the same note, it would be good to see some successful business
> > models built around pro-sharing licenses.  The donation model is one,
> > but others, like the Street Performer Protocol
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Performer_Protocol), also exist.
> > There are also some of the more well-known methods such as performing
> > concerts or hosting art galleries that people pay for.  Adapting those
> > to free content would be very useful.  I think finding one of these
> > models that works is key to promoting free culture.
> >
> >
> > I have pretty much ignored fixing copyright laws as a way of promoting
> > free culture in this message.  I think it's useful to do, but I'm
> > worried that it might have negative side-effects.  For example, people
> > may become upset if you reduce the length of copyright protection from
> > 95 years to 5 years because they feel that you're not protecting
> > property rights, which a lot of people believe are fundamental to a
> > properly-functioning economy.
> >
> >
> > I guess I went into a bit more detail of my understanding of and
> > suggested action for free culture.  In any case, I hope it will be
> > helpful to people and promote some discussion and, of course, action.
> >
> > Denver
> >
> >
> > On 10/26/07, Kevin Driscoll <driscollkevin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > This email just sparked a big debate in my lab about the use of
> > > "infinite" in this context.
> > >
> > > With the loss of Oink and TV-Links, our distributed libraries of
> > > culture are clearly not safe.  Has anyone heard of an effort to
> > > archive or mirror YouTube content?
> > >
> > > I can imagine a script that downloads the .flv's of every result for a
> > > certain search term.
> > >
> > > Fred, can you keep the rest of us updated on the trial?
> > >
> > > Kevin
> > >
> > >
> > > On 10/25/07, Fred Benenson <frederick at nyu.edu> wrote:
> > > > The google v. viacom trial is having a hearing in NYC tomorrow... check out
> > > > my FC @ NYU announcement:
> > > >
> > > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > > From: Fred Benenson <frederick at nyu.edu>
> > > > Date: Oct 25, 2007 5:51 PM
> > > > Subject: Google v. Viacom Tomorrow
> > > > To: "Free Culture @ NYU's list serv" < free-culture at lists.nyu.edu>
> > > >
> > > > Free Culture @ NYU,
> > > >   So one of the benefits of living in a self-proclaimed democracy is that at
> > > > least some of the court trials are mostly open to the public. That means
> > > > that when Viacom sues Google for ONE BILLION DOLLARS over YouTube's
> > > > "infinite amount of infringement" we're allowed to sit in on all the court
> > > > room antics.
> > > >
> > > > I attended the first (and last, as far as I can tell) hearing and it was a
> > > > scheduling hearing. Despite a stern warning from my lawyer friends that the
> > > > hearing would be immensely boring, I really enjoyed it. The two sides ended
> > > > up getting into their arguments in a very inappropriate and entertaining
> > > > way.
> > > >
> > > > Now, I have no idea whether tomorrow will have the same kind of fireworks,
> > > > but I am certainly intending on being there. There were mostly reporters and
> > > > lawyers (especially one lawyer who kept on sneering when Google would say
> > > > stuff like "How are we supposed to take responsibility for an 'infinite
> > > > amount of infringement?'") last time and I felt a little out of place with a
> > > > t-shirt, so you might consider wearing something nice if you don't want to
> > > > feel awkward.
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, here's the information:
> > > >
> > > > Google v. Viacom
> > > > 4pm, October 26th 2007
> > > > Room 21C
> > > > Judge Louis L. Stanton
> > > >  United States Courthouse
> > > >  500 Pearl Street
> > > >  New York, NY 10007-1312
> > > > Phone: 212-805-0136
> > > > If anyone wants to meet up, I'll be outside (or maybe in the lobby if its
> > > > really going to rain) around 3:30.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Best,
> > > >
> > > > Fred Benenson
> > > > President, Free Culture @ NYU
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Discuss mailing list
> > > > Discuss at freeculture.org
> > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> > > >
> > > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Discuss mailing list
> > > Discuss at freeculture.org
> > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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