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| The Copyright Monopoly Is a Limitation of Property Rights Posted: 20 Mar 2011 05:14 AM PDT
This is only rhetoric from the copyright lobby in an attempt to justify the monopoly as righteous: to associate “the copyright monopoly” with a positive word such as “property”. However, when we look at the monopoly in reality, it is a limitation of property rights. Let’s compare two pieces of property: a chair and a DVD. When I buy a chair, I hand over money for which I get the chair and a receipt. This chair has been mass-produced from a master copy at some sort of plant. After the money has changed hands, this particular chair is mine. There are many more like it, but this one is mine. I have bought one of many identical copies and the receipt proves it. As this copy of the chair is mine, exclusively mine, there are a number of things I can do with it. I can take it apart and use the pieces for new hobby projects, which I may choose to sell, give away, put out as exhibits or throw away. I can put it out on the porch and charge neighbors for using it. I can examine its construction, produce new chars from my deductions with some raw material that is also my property, and do whatever I like with the new chairs, particularly including selling them. All of this is normal for property. It is mine; I may do what I like with it. Build copies, sell, display, whatever. As a sidetrack, this assumes that there are no patents on the chair. However, assuming that the invention of the chair is older than 20 years, any filed patents on this particular invention have expired. Therefore, patents are not relevant for this discussion. Now, let's jump to what happens when I buy a movie. When I buy a movie, I hand over money and I get the DVD and a receipt. This movie has been mass-produced from a master copy at some sort of plant. After the money has changed hands, this particular movie is mine. There are many more like it, but this one is mine. I have bought one of many identical copies and the receipt proves it. Despite the fact that this copy of the movie is mine, exclusively mine, there are a number of things that I may not do with it, prohibited from doing so by the copyright monopoly held by somebody else. I may not use pieces of the movie for new hobby projects that I sell, give away, or put out as exhibits. I may not charge the neighbors for using it on the porch. I may not examine its construction and produce new copies. All of these rights would be normal for property, but the copyright monopoly is a severe limitation on my property rights for items I have legitimately bought. It is not possible to say that I own the the DVD when viewed in one way but not when viewed in another. There is a clear definition of property, and the receipt says I own the DVD in all its interpretations and aspects. Every part of the shape making up the DVD is mine. The copyright monopoly, however, limits how I can use my own property. This doesn’t inherently mean that the copyright monopoly is bad. It does, however, mean that the monopoly cannot be defended from the standpoint that property rights are good. If you take your stand from there, you will come to the conclusion that the copyright monopoly is bad as it is a limitation of property rights. Defending the copyright monopoly with the justification that property rights are sacred is quite like defending the death penalty for murder with the justification that life is sacred. There may be other, valid, justifications for defending the copyright monopoly and these limitations of property rights — but that particular chain of logic just doesn't hold. – — – Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at http://falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Follow Rick Falkvinge on Twitter as @Falkvinge and on Facebook as /rickfalkvinge. |
| Music Industry Destroys Another Powerful Free Download Tool Posted: 19 Mar 2011 05:10 AM PDT
But a few days later it was gone. Undoubtedly prompted by IFPI, BPI and the Big Four labels behind them, the British police arrested the owner of the domain. Despite no charges sticking, the operators pulled the plug on the project. What the labels could not do, however, was anything about the source of the music – VKontakte itself. This problem was exploited during November by a new and altogether more powerful tool. The Mielophone app truly was Mulve on steroids, not only pulling music from more sources but integrating discovery, last.fm, a playlist and download manager, videos, lyrics and more. But as history repeated itself, on February 16th the person who registered the Mielophone domain name received an email from EMI and Gala Records, which set in motion the death of this fledgling and promising application. “As you probably know, our company actively protects its copyright and related rights in the territory of the Russian Federation, including via the courts and law enforcement agencies. The Mielophone software which, obviously, is connected to you (in any case, according to the technical information for your domain name) violates the copyright and related rights of EMI / Gala Records,” the email began. The email then went on to state that the operation of Mielophone constituted a civil breach of Article 146 (Infringement of Copyright and Related Rights), which allows for imprisonment for up to 6 years. Secondly, and most strangely, EMI and Gala then indicated that the Mielophone operators’ activities constituted a criminal breach of Article 273 – offenses which carry a maximum sentence of 7 years imprisonment. Article 273 concerns the “Creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs” as detailed below. Creating computer programs or changes to existing programs, which obviously lead to the unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification or copying of information, disruption of computers, computer systems or networks, as well as the use or dissemination of such programs or machine carriers with such programs -shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three years with a fine of up to two hundred thousand rubles or the salary or other income for the period up to eighteen months. The same act which negligently caused grave consequences, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term of three to seven years. However, since EMI and Gala Records are very fine and reasonable people, something they were keen to point out to in their correspondence, the operators of Mielophone were given the opportunity to “close the issue with a peaceful pre-trial procedure”, i.e stop the Mielophone project and end its distribution. TorrentFreak has learned that the people behind Mielophone wisely tried to seek legal advice but were met with an unhelpful legal profession – specifically when the lawyers they approached learned they would be going up against EMI. So, with little option, Mielophone is no more. The creators have made it very clear that they want to steer clear of legal action and won’t be reviving or revisiting the project. In the meantime, the Mielophone.air installer remains available via Google Code and the Google search engine. Oh, and VKontakte is still up and doing its thing but they, of course, are easily able to retain lawyers and as such probably don’t respond to scary emails. But this is the Internet, and it seems that the demise of this software hasn’t gone unnoticed. Already there is another group promising to bring out a new application to replace Mielophone although at this stage we were unable to get a comment from those behind it to find out more. We’ll persevere, investigate and report back in due course. |
All too often, we hear the copyright lobby talk about theft, about property, about how they are robbed of something when someone makes a copy. This is, well, factually incorrect. It is a use of words that are carefully chosen to communicate that the copyright monopoly is property, or at the very least comparable to property rights.
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