Copyright, DRM and Creativity
Hey Gang,
So this week we’ll be discussing copyright, DRM and other intellectual property issues, especially as they effect young people and creativity. Lawrence Lessig’s most recent book, Remix, deals specifically with how the current copyright regime is impacting the next generation’s to be creative without running afoul of the law.
Cory Doctorow, an author whom we have discussed because of his YA novels, also lectures about these issues, and a recent talk given at the Melbourne Writers Festival sums up his views nicely. He is speaking primarily to professional creators, but what he has to say impacts amateur creators–as most young people are–as well.
I’d like you to read the INTRODUCTION to Remix, and watch a video of Doctorow’s talk in Melbourne. The talk is in two 25-minute chunks, so if you’re pressed for time, you can skip the first 11 minutes as they deal more directly with DRM, though I encourage you to check out the whole thing. There are mp3s of the talk here and here, if you’d rather stick them on your iPod and listen on the go.
If you want to dig a bit deeper, check out the rest of Remix, and this recent episode of the Search Engine Podcast, which discusses the group Anonymous, and and some reasons for creativity that go beyond monetary compensation.
As you’re reading / watching / listening, here are a few questions to think about:
- Do people make art because the expect to get rich?
- What is the social impact when commonplace activities are illegal?
- DRM has been shown to be ineffective at preventing illegal copying. Why else would publishers want to use it on their products?
Just in case you weren’t sure, the Wikipedia links above are just in case you’re unsure of some of the terms. They aren’t required reading.
kifty
10 Mar 11 at 2:31 pm
The topics of Copyright, DRM, and Creativity routinely come up at home (what with the significant other working in Broadcasting with Rogers) and also routinely tie my brain in knots. Indeed, how far is too far when it comes to “capturing culture” as Lessig so beautifully states? At what point is capturing a moment in time on tape, video, etc., a violation of copyright law? At what point does creativity move from a fun activity to a place of infringement? These are the questions that cause my head to spin.
In my humble opinion, there are certain cases that do indeed willfully engage in copyright infringement and should suffer the consequences, but the majority of people using platforms such as YouTube to share culture with one another are more than likely not attempting to bring down the man by posting a video of them styling their hair with Prince in the background, singing away. This sort of thing just makes more criminals than it would seem to defer. I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of the questions we’ve been asked to consider this week, but I can say that making commonplace activities illegal only serves to create a population of pissed off individuals who will become more willing to defy current law regarding Copyright and DRM in the future. After all, you can’t arrest _everyone_ can you?
The idea that being a fan of something (i.e. John Lennon) can be a crime is criminal in itself. The expression of fandom can only serve to increase the visibility of the work or the artist. Fanfiction that uses the characters and settings of the original stories are often encouraged in contemporary society, and it tends to create more avid readers and spread popularity for the author and books. How, I ask you, is a non-profit exhibit showing fans singing a song, a criminal offense? I am baffled by the whole situation. Over and over again, I am simply befuddled.
Coming from an academic background that realizes the changing of institutions to come in line with changing cultural, the arguments from copyright lawyers, while apparently legally sound, are, to my ears, purely babbling from the mouths of idiots. In medieval times, works of art and literature were given more credence when they worked off of others before them. Chaucer’s work was given authority by using material that was written decades before. To use another’s work was prestigious and expected. Now, for some reason, to use another’s work or to even work off of it’s influence, or to use bits and pieces without going through years of legal battles, is criminal.
Sorry, I know I’m ranting. I really appreciate Lessig’s introduction and his insights into situations of copyright law. I also appreciate Doctorow’s work and his creative commons licensing that allows others to use and remix his own writing. I do understand how much money matters in this day and age, but if it’s economy at the expense of creativity and artistry, then we are headed in a terrifying direction for the future. I probably didn’t answer the questions how they were intended, nor did I speak directly to or quote directly from any of the sources this week (I wouldn’t want to be contacted by a lawyer), but this is what I came up with and I hope it makes sense.
Rob
11 Mar 11 at 12:34 pm
I really appreciated the theme of the class because it made me think on issues in which I don’t have much knowledge. Because of that, I will try to make a reflection about some of the themes proposed in the questions.
Respect to the first question, I don’t think that anyone makes art having the intention of becoming rich; because art category doesn’t depend on the author’s intention but on how the culture and cultural context classify the artistic object. A good example of this is the epistolary. Many authors wrote letters not thinking in publishing them or as an artistic object but as a medium of communication with their partners/friends/family. In some historical moment, however, literary critics decide that these letters are artistic objects and society accepts and reads them in that way. In this sense, the answer is not in the object itself but in the way through which culture defines and positions these elements.
We can see this in the example narrated by Lessig about the art exposition in the White Cube. Here the fans’ production/creation is considered art only if the will and the intervention of a renowned artist (Breitz) organizes the cultural production. In other way, fanfiction is not recognized as art without the intervention of a specific for of authority.
Respect to the second question, I think that it is necessary to re-evaluate the concept of legality because if everybody is considered a criminal, it means that the law is not protecting the interests of all people, but the ones of a reduce group. With this, we can see that the law works beyond the concept of ethic and social use and, in this case, exists to protect a specific form of economy (monopolistic and transnational). For example : Is it ethic that the majority of the computers that are in the market have the same operating system (Windows)? Is it ethic that the hardware companies don’t design drivers to more open operating systems like Linux? The laws, despite this, don’t force the companies to offer more alternatives but condemn the user when he tries to live outside the monopoly.
And finally, respect to the third question. I think that DRM are not effective at all, there will always be copies of cultural products. These copies exist because of the excessive prices of the products.
In addition to this, it is something known that the one who receives the profits is the intermediary and not the artist her/himself. Therefore, the DRM exists to protect the interests of the intermediaries more than the interests of the artists.
magdalena
12 Mar 11 at 7:12 pm
I, like Magdalena, have never really put much thought into this subject, so I found the reading and the Doctorow video really interesting. And by interesting, I mean weird and disturbing, and captured my attention for likely far longer than just this week. In fact, it’s likely changed my whole system of thinking.
In regards to the readings, and the discussion questions, I don’t think Doctorow was right in saying that “people make art because they expect to get rich.” Perhaps this is true for a minority, but generally I don’t think people seriously think that they will be rich and famous. Hope to be rich and famous, yes. Expect it? I don’t think so. If artists were in it for the money, I think that art would be a lot tamer than it can be. We’d be surrounded by Robert Bateman and Anne Geddes. Following Magdalena’s example, there is the culture of street artists, and how Banksy’s work now sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet most of them are temporary works that disappear. This is not art being created to make money.
One of the things I find most interesting about the dilemma of copyright and drm is the culture that encourages it. This is not just side cultures, or underground works. Mash-ups are on Glee. American Idol and So you Think You Can Dance use sampled music constantly. These shows are in the public consciousness, and, although I’m not certain, I would bet that their companies are owned by those same companies that are suing others for copyright infringement. Like Doctorow talks about- you don’t create a problem-solving company without perpetuating the problem for your own survival. So while intellectual property arguments abound, North America is gobbling up sampling and mash-ups on prime-time television, then trying them out at home. So in essence, those that are trying to uphold copyright and intellectual property laws are the ones that are encouraging us to break them? Continue down these lines of questions, and I may find myself muttering terms like “conspiracy” and “Blackwater”…
skmatson
13 Mar 11 at 10:30 am
‘ve been both looking forward to, and somewhat dreading, a discussion of DRM and copyright issues in this class; it’s a topic that I’ve followed with interest for many years now and I think the Doctorow and Lessig pieces afforded a good overview of the issues at hand and some insight into their implications.
It’s completely fitting that both use the music industry as a primary example of outmoded (but still potent) copyright legislation. As I think I probably mentioned at some point, I worked in music licensing for several years and have first-hand experience with the byzantine system of licensing fees, clearances and contracts that are necessary for almost any legal use of a piece of recorded music. Doctorow’s reference to a certain unnamed label’s insistence on only accepting licensing requests via fax sure brings back memories.. and illustrates just how committed these media conglomerates really are to actually pursuing licensing (more lucrative for artists) as opposed to album sales (more lucrative for labels) as a business model (read: not very).
However, rather than ranting at length about it in this public forum, I want to focus briefly on the concept of fans (and the audience) as a major stakeholder in artistic creation that both authors touched upon in their pieces. I really enjoyed Lessig’s description of listening to the fans sing John Lennon, and how much more moving that was than the recorded music to him because the fans’ own deep connections with the songs really came through. In my experience the appreciation of all art is a very subjective experience that is very much affected by the time and situation, but unlike Barthes, I don’t think that this ends with the consumer(/reader/fan/audience member), but rather their experience becomes something of a dialogue or feedback loop that interacts with the original artist/author’s creative intent. I feel that live music is an excellent example of this ‘feedback loop’ occurring all at one time; the musician performs, the audience experiences the show and gives feedback in the form of cheers (or jeers), dancing and a general ‘vibe,’ and the musician feeds off this, increasing the energy of their performance. This type of feedback happens in less immediate art performances as well, but on a longer time-scale; however, the rise of computer networking technologies has exponentially increased the speed with which it can take place in mediums such as sound and video – fan (consumer) responses can be found within hours or even minutes of a work’s appearance online, instead of days or years (or never) in the ‘old media,’ and the artist can react to these fan inputs as well creating a much more direct dialogue than is possible through the traditional publishing system. This concept is highlighted beautifully by Lessig’s ccMixer example with SilviaO.
The immediacy of this fan/artist dialogue that occurs through new media technologies allows for the fan to emerge as a much more direct stakeholder in the artistic process (as, I would argue, they well should be), but also cuts out the middle man (ie. the publisher) in many cases. This is why DRM and copyright has become such an issue; under the guise of “protecting artists,” wealthy old-media corporations are propping up their obsolete business models through legislation and DRM. As Doctorow notes, the DRM itself is easy to circumvent, but its existence allows for the use of the legal process to step in where the technology has failed. Furthermore, by targeting “pirate” websites and P2P technologies, the publishers are attacking not only “piracy,” but also an alternate means by which artists could distribute their media (and thus cut them out of the equation).
So maybe I didn’t quite manage to avoid that rant, so I’ll go ahead and answer your first two questions as briefly as possible:
Do people make art because they expect to get rich? If you’re primary motivation is money, it’s unlikely that you’re making anything I would consider “art.” – “What is art?” is a can of worms so big I think we’d need years to tackle it.
What is the social impact when commonplace activities are illegal? See: The War on Drugs.”
schuyler
13 Mar 11 at 9:05 pm
Me three! I too found this week’s topic to be totally interesting. I have little to no knowledge about DRM, copyrighting (although I took a class in 18th century copyright in England once), and issues of intellectual property. I really appreciated your article/podcast selection for this week, Jonathan, because it’s accessible while still providing an interesting and knowledgable review of DRM and copyright.
I think it’s difficult to comment on the social impact of people engaging in illegal activity sort of all the time. I think people by and large, and I include myself in this, know that torrenting movies and using a song without permission is wrong, but I don’t think they know why, or that there are actual legal implications. It seems so intangible, really, and like a law that’s put there for our own good, like jaywalking. Sharing files seems so tame that people talk about their illegal activity all the time. Also, there are so many people committing copyright infringement that it is impossible to stop it entirely, which Doctorow proves with his quick math about the number of hours it would take of check every video on YouTube for copyright infringement. So I think there’s this sense of: oh, well everyone’s doing it so chances are I won’t get caught.
I thought Doctorow’s discussion of the guy who basically just decoded/broke (whatever term is) DRM was interesting because A) I was amazed that someone understood how to do this, because as he was talking all I hear was jibberish technical terms, B) it proves how futile the implication of DRM really is, and C) highlights that DRM and copyright law do affect the creator more than the consumer.
This was a really interesting topic, and I’m looking forward to our discussion tomorrow!
jillian
13 Mar 11 at 9:10 pm
Schyuler: “‘What is art?’ is a can of worms so big I think we’d need years to tackle it.”
Years? Try centuries. And then never coming to a conclusion. 🙂
jillian
13 Mar 11 at 9:12 pm