I came across this newsletter article from
www.brokenjoey.com. I believe CPPA members may be interested in its
content.Excerpt from www.brokenjoey.com newsletter, April 2010:
Critiquing Copyright Canards
Written by Patirck Ross, made available courtesy of the COPYRIGHT
ALLIANCE
Canard #4. "Copyright owners need to
change their business models to recognize
consumer demand. They should stop trying to make money on intangible goods
and focus on revenue streams from tangible goods."
As to the first part of that statement, copyright owners are doing that every
day, because
they know if they don't they will go out of business. That is true in any
industry, period.
Some change quickly enough to survive (Southwest Airlines), some don't (Pan
Am). But
it is a peculiar digital-age argument indeed when people who are not creators
and are
not earning a living off of copyrighted works feel they have a right to dictate
to those
creators and copyright owners exactly how they should be earning a living. Do
we have
a right to change how they do business? I suspect not.
There are certainly some artists out there - mostly up-and-coming musicians -
who are
experimenting with giving away creative works and focusing on touring and
merchandise. Likely that is, for their level of fame and success, the best
economic
strategy. But it is their choice. Copyright gives them the right to give their
works away.
But it also gives them the right to try to earn money on those works, whether
they are in
digital or physical form.
This argument is usually focused on music, where there are many copyright
owners,
many creators of varying levels of financial success, and many passionate fans.
But let's
look beyond that. Should authors and publishers make e-books available for free
and set
author speaking tours and sell T-shirts of authors, bestselling and not? Should
software
manufacturers all abandon proprietary models and place their works for free
online, even
though under copyright law (reinforced by a recent ruling) both proprietary and
open-
source models are fully valid and thriving under existing copyright law?
There are two key points to take away here. Copyright allows any creator or
owner to do
whatever they want with their works, and if they're looking to satisfy
consumers, as most
are, they will do as they're doing now and continue to find new ways to make
works
available legally. But consumers in this arrangement have every opportunity to
walk
away from any copyright owner's offer they don't like. That doesn't mean they
are
justified in taking that work without authorization if they don't like the
terms offered
legally. And it certainly doesn't mean they have any right whatsoever to
dictate to other
industries what their business models should be. Bitch about them? Sure, that's
what the
First Amendment is for. But recognize that there is a difference between not
liking the
way someone does business, and feeling you have a sense of entitlement as far
as
dictating how they do business.
Whether or not to sell our copyrights...that, of course, is the challenge for
all of us.
