Digital Environmentalism
Hollywood has always been an oxymoronic intersection of political liberalism and hypercapitalism. One of the odder fruits of this unnatural union is the town’s continuing assault on progressive copyright philosophy.
In this article, we see a typically progressive pro-public attitude towards the intent of copyright and the current state of intellectual property rights enforcement. Here’s a taste (which, I’m sure the author would agree, would be considered fair use):
…the only groups with a common interest in the direction of such laws are those corporations who want to lock up culture in perpetuity (or “forever minus a day,” as former Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti once suggested).
…One of the most suggestive responses to this dilemma has come from Duke University law professor James Boyle…”What we have right now is an exponentially expanding intellectual land grab, a land grab that is not only bad but dumb, about which the progressive community is largely silent, the center overly sanguine, and the right wing short-sighted.”
Professor Boyle, who is on the Board of Creative Commons, which The Artful Writer uses to help establish its copyright policy, has certainly forgotten more about intellectual property law than I shall ever know.
He has put forth a call for “digital environmentalism,” in which politically progressive thinkers try to convince Americans to care as much about the public intellectual domain as they do about the public environmental domain.
I’m deeply pessimistic.
For starters, this debate centers around property rights, and Americans are fairly consistent in their belief in private ownership, particularly when it comes to questions of entrepreneurship. We only seem comfortable with public ownership when it comes to matters of blatant public welfare (e.g. utilities, roads, police). Hell, we haven’t even gotten around to publicizing health care. So what of intellectual property?
The need for communal possession of intellectual property is obvious in certain cases (e.g. scientific research), but less so in others (Gosh golly, just how long is Jay-Z going to own the lyrics to “Big Pimpin”?)
Indeed, while the thought of a corporation pouring carcinogens into our public water supply is instinctively repulsive, the idea that The Walt Disney Company will extend the term of its ownership of Mickey Mouse simply doesn’t have the same effect. While there’s the occasional horror story (and the article above cites a few), telling an elementary school they can’t paint a Mickey Mouse mural on their wall isn’t quite as environmentally outrageous as, say, Bhopal.
Granted, copyright was never meant to last forever, and Valenti was wrong to suggest that ownership ought to be permanent. However, if the “digital environmentalism” movement is the intellectual property cousin of anti-globalization and Green-ism, I wonder why more Hollywood stars aren’t protesting the steady tightening of the corporate fist around copyright law.
Could it be because those of us who work in Hollywood are the direct beneficiaries of such policies, no matter what our politics? Could it be because every time the corporate lobbyists prevent intellectual property from becoming public property, they don’t just enhance their bottom line, but ours as well?
Could it be that professional artists’ greatest economic ally is the corporate exploiter, and so they look the other way while corporations continue to pummel the public domain into submission?
Ah, well…no one likes a cynic. Besides, freeing Tibet is more fun.
I’ve never had a problem with “Life plus 40” for individuals who copyright their works because there’s a benefit to the family of the artist. However, I get a creepy feeling when now that it’s “Life plus 70” and you incorporate your family name and file for copyright extension until the end of time. Not because I want to see “Big Pimpin’” go into the public domain sooner, but because it creates this class of do-nothing parasites that live off the past glories of the dead.
It’s NOT the same as “standing on the shoulders” of giants when the talentless nephews and other family members of the long dead novelist Jack T. Artiste are cashing the checks from publishers who pay to print their uncle’s classic. I don’t really have a problem with an Artiste niece who dilligently read Uncle Jack’s novels and private letters to study his style and then became an acclaimed writer herself; mainly because she isn’t looking for a handout from the family industry created by Uncle Jack’s perpetual copyright. She’s got her OWN copyright to be proud of and protect.
And protect it she must! These guys in the Creative Commons complain about patents and copyrights but their policies would create little more than a digital version of pre-French Revolution IP protection (which wasn’t much at all). I like the idea of DRM and other IP protections for copyrighted music because the LAST thing I want is to destroy the people that create recorded music and replace them with a class of musicians whose only means of income would be playing live to the wealthy patrons.
The people that think they’ll be moving us forward with their progressive thinking would end up converting our modern day into a pre-18th century hellhole… If you communists want to copyleft your own cruddy “art,” go ahead and do it. Just don’t force the rest of us to do it, too!
It might be useful to point out that the rules sorta depend on the medium.
Disney might have Mickey Mouse trademarked. If so, they can renew the trademark every ten years and keep his image out of the public domain.
Songs are exploited much differently than literary works. Contrary to popular belief, a recording company usually doesn’t acquire all rights. They acquire exclusive rights to reproduce a recording. (An unscrupulous record exec could hold out for part of the authorship.) McCartney retains his interest in the copyright. If he sings a song he and Lennon wrote together, he won’t owe half the gate to Lennon, but he will owe Lennon half the royalty. When one of their tunes is played on the radio, I believe part of the royalty goes to the recording company, part to McCartney and part to Lennon. So when “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” plays “Palisades Park,” Freddie Boom Boom Canon gets a royalty unless the producer gets an unknown to re-record. Ditto the recording company. Chuck Barris, the author, gets paid either way.
When you sell a script, like a painting or sculpture, you usually sell everything. If you don’t want it hanging in the lobby of Exxon Mobile, don’t sell it. And if Exxon Mobile buys an object of art, it will hang in the lobby for a loooooong time before the copyright laws quit protecting it.
Dennis:
You’re correct. The economic realities of the medium dictate the manner in which copyright is applied (I’ll discuss that further in an upcoming article about why screenwriters are treated differently than playwrights).
Regarding Mickey Mouse: trademarks and copyrights are, of course, two very different things. Disney owns the copyright on the original work known as Mickey Mouse, and thus reserved the right to create all derivative works. No one else may use the character in any way whatsoever without permission. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the period of that ownership.
A trademark is essentially a commerce identifier. If (and when) Mickey Mouse passes into the public domain, Disney could still keep the character as its trademark. However, that wouldn’t stop anyone from creating derivative works with the Mouse—I believe it would simply restrict anyone from using the Mouse as a brand identifier.
I couldn’t sell my own line of “Mickey Mouse t-shirts” any more than I can sell my own line of “sneakers with a Swoosh?”, but I could write a book about the adventures of Mickey Mouse, and I could make a new animated film starring Mickey Mouse.
Does that make sense?
Yes, thanks. I’m delighted that someday I can use Mickey. I have an animated porn project…
Just kidding. Maybe it’s only urban myth, but I understand that the sky rains lawyers on a writer that uses ‘kleenex’ or ‘xerox’ in a way that tends to put them in the public domain. Yes, these guys might be our best friends.
Yeah, they sure do get antsy about that. There’s actually a legal term for losing your trademark to generic usage: genericide.
No joke.
One way to defend against genericide is to show that you are actively defending your trademark. That’s what those lawyers send all those C&D’s.
Here’s a neat article about genericide, with a surprisingly long list of former trademarks that lapsed into common usage (tabloid! zipper! heroin?!?).