Original Image by Joi
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview James Boyle. He’s a law prof at Duke University, and he’s also the author of The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. He argues that the current move to define intellectual property (copyright, patent, and trademark law) very strictly, deprives us of the kind of creative and intellectual “commons” we need to innovate and create. He says we need the equivalent of an environmental movement for the Public Domain.
Although the book is available for purchase, it’s also available as a free download at The Public Domain website.
A shorter version of this interview will air on the April 8th and 11th episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
Play audio:
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Thanks for the informative and entertaining interview with Boyle. I'm checking out the book's free version on the thepublicdomain.org site, but I'll probably end up buying it nicely formatted for my Kindle from Amazon. See, it's working already. (That's the punchline from a fifth grade joke that's better left untold here – and, no, I don't know who owns the copyright to that joke.)
Glad you enjoyed it. The 'fee or free' model is something that first came up last season, when I interviewed Rick Prelinger about his huge collection of archival video.
Good interview Nora. I am very much of the mind that the copyright process needs a revamp. The way I would like to see it done is as follows:
A copyright holder should have exclusive rights to sell their product for the balance of the creators life. Conversely anyone who buys the product should have the right to share it with anyone they want. So long as there is not money changing hands, the copyright holder should have any right to stop the independent distribution of their work. Peer to peer file sharing is a good example of a free distribution method that should be legal.
A system of copyright law that follows these rough guidelines is unlikely to decrease either the profitability or prevalence of the works. This is because a reproduction is never up to the standard of the original distribution. If someone likes a product that they have gotten for free, they are more likely to buy the authorized version.
I realize that this is not a popular perspective. Call me a commie, but think that intellectual property should be largely the property of the people. If it were up to me, only the copyright holder would be allowed to sell their creation, but anyone who buys it would be free to distribute it at their own cost. I don't think that this would undermine sales.
Mr. Boyle is correct, copyright law as it is now holds little moral sway over me or my generation.
Great interview. Unfortunately, evidence based policy making is an extremely radical thing when we are talking about PCT (Patents, Copyright, Trademarks, etc). Even the language we use — Intellectual Property — misdirects people about what we are talking about as the nature of ownership of tangible things and exclusive rights on intangibles are entirely dissimilar.
The issue that brought me into Copyright was so-called "Digital Rights Management". It took me a while to understand why policy makers were legalizing and legally protecting these techniques, only to find out that their understanding of how these techniques worked were based on science fiction and not science. Once people understand how DRM works in the real world they most often become opponents just as I am. I know many people on the "stronger, longer" copyright side of the debate that went from thinking we needed strong DRM protection to thinking it was an Orwellian attack on creativity — simply by moving to an evidence/science based analysis.
BTW: People wanting to participate in the Canadian debate may want to check out http:/digital-copyright.ca
Jim Lebans, one of the producers on Quirks and Quarks, did an excellent documentary about copyright on IDEAS a while back. We'll blog about it, but I believe the audio is up at cbc.ca/ideas, if you're interested in delving more deeply into copyright issues.
It's called "Who Owns Ideas" and it's here: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/who-owns-ideas/i…
I can't seems to find tha show you're refering to… any "ideas"
Many thanks!
Jesse Brown over at http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/ has also extensively covered this topic. It is a pretty core one: who controls the means of production/etc in the new economy.
I think it's time to separate the idea, product and profit.
The profit component is the most complex as shaping information so that the product consumer only knows of your product may be the kernal of the entire problem.
Creative Commons appears to address the issue one way and this is important as the ideas and products required to serve people change constantly.
Cheers,
Nick
http://www.neuropersona.com
Nice questions, good answers! I especially agree with the notion that excessive copyright laws have ruined the practice's good name. Among all the people I know, no one has a high opinion of "DRM."
Innovative practices that avoid the mess of intrusive security programs and online validation checks are out there. For instance the system for ebooks run by DrivethruRPG.com, an online publisher of roleplaying materials, watermarks books with the purchaser's name and order number to provide a disincentive for them to upload the files they purchased on a file sharing server, but does not have any software locks that prevent them from backing up their own files for future use.
Interesting innovation, Kyle. I'll have to check out DrivethruRPG. Thanks!
It is interesting how there are uses of technology that could offer most of the benefits people want, with minimal downside. Watermarking along with good search engines and a willingness on the part of copyright holders to provide evidence in a court would be sufficient to deal with most infringement. Existing Canadian law provides full protection for copyright holders in such situations, and such appropriate uses of technology are not legitimately controversial. It is when they take the opposite approach of trying to dictate the functionality of our devices and an unwillingness to properly use current law (IE: bother to provide evidence of infringing activities) where we get into trouble.
Most Canadians are still unaware of the fact that unauthorized P2P sharing of music is illegal in Canada, and that the lawsuit against the 29 John and Jane Does lost due to lack of evidence and not a "deficiency" in Canadian law as claimed by many uninformed politicians and lobbiests (both in Canada and the USSA).
"He says we need the equivalent of an environmental movement for the Public Domain. "
I think the whole Creative Commons and Copyleft movement IS that environmental movement. Accepting to share works is the basis of such an environment, and by alowing readers/listeners/consumers to do so, we're opening the way to a borader understanding of copyright and copyleft initiatives.
My 0,02$
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place
Hi Nora,
I think I've listened to this interview about four or five times. I keep finding new things I like about it. It's a really important conversation.
Thanks,
-Fabiola
Hey, thanks, Fabiola. It stands out in my mind as one of my favourite interviews.