Book People Archive

Redeeming copyright (Was Re: Eldred v. Ashcroft)

On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 06:05:58AM -0500, Joseph Pietro Riolo wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Eric Eldred wrote:
> > 11. In a separate move, also originated in this mailing
> > list, some of us are forming an intellectual property
> > conservancy to be known as 'Creative Commons.'  Like the
> > Nature Conservancy, it would give incentives in the form
> > of tax deductions for donations to the public domain that
> > would make works accessible on the Internet.  We are 
> > working with The Knowledge Conservancy at CMU to form a
> > new corporation, make some tax law changes, and implement
> > an organization that would provide the incentives.  We
> > plan to include patents as well as copyrights, and we
> > are considering starting with a limited scope and then
> > broadening it to combat the 'strong intellectual property
> > rights' forces.  We have received some financial backing
> > and have attorneys in place and participation by a half
> > dozen universities.  We will reveal more on this
> > subject as it happens.
> 
> If it is permissible, can you expand on this part?  My
> first impression when I read this part is that it simply
> encourages people to seek for longer copyright term.  They
> may think that the longer the term is, the more valuable
> their works will be, the higher tax deductions they will
> get.  How will the intellectual property conservancy
> prevent people from wanting longer copyright term?

Hi Joseph, 

Thank you for presenting your response.

I don't have a ready answer to your point that a conservancy
might encourage the noxious idea of copyright as some sort
of personal property, instead of directly encouraging a free
public domain on the utilitarian principles of the U.S.
Constitution.

When I first presented the idea to Richard M. Stallman, he
quickly pointed out that the ethics of the conservancy would
be similar to redeeming slaves from slavery.  He asked
whether we really wanted to drive up the price of slaves in
such a process, and make slavery more attractive financially
to the slaveholders.  On the other hand, redeeming slaves
has been an important moral obligation for people of many
religions for thousands of years.  Slavery still exists in
some parts of the world (including the United States).
Groups that raise money to buy slaves' freedom in Africa
face the same criticism from honest people who do not
approve of slavery in any form.  Many who belonged to the
Society of Friends did not approve of the 1861 war against
southern slave states, because they did not believe in
killing people--yet they had for many years raised money to
buy freedom for the slaves instead.  I haven't examined any
studies that purport to show the effect on slavery of any
of these responses.

The situation with patents is even more directly ethically
questionable.  Some of us at first thought that the
conservancy might help preserve the role of copyright in a
world where its utility is disappearing, being replaced by
encryption.  However, some of us do not agree with patents
on software or business practices in any form.  Yet members
of our group from MIT insist that patents be included.

Another factor is that current U.S. law prevents the creator
of a copyrighted work from obtaining a tax deduction when
donating it to the public domain, yet heirs or publishers
can profit.  It seems to some of us that if anyone is to be
given an incentive, instead of stealing their works, it
should be the authors.  And if anyone should pay, it should
be the general tax-paying public.  For that we can be called
communists, I suppose.

As far as a longer copyright term is concerned, I doubt
that anything we do would have an effect on that.
Essentially it is already "forever minus one day," no
matter what we do.  However, the concept might have some
expressive power like a form of jiu-jitsu, to make people
think about so-called 'intellectual property,' and allow
individuals to make a personal response to the problem.

This issue is not as simple as it sounds.  We need input
from everybody concerned here.  Thanks for raising this
issue.  We will expand on the general concept as we meet
this spring and decide on a charter for the corporation and
will be back in touch.  In the meantime, we welcome more
discussion here.