[LINK] In Praise of Copying

[Kim Holburn]

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Copying+Right+Ripping+someone+else+work+always+indefensible/3680028/story.html

> Copying a Right: Ripping off someone else's work isn't always  
> indefensible

> California schoolchildren are obliged to copy ideas, and it was  
> copyright lobbyists who put them up to it.

....

> When is it morally acceptable to make or buy a copy of someone  
> else's creative work without permission? To the entertainment  
> industry and other copyright interests, the correct answer is almost  
> never. But to an increasingly vocal company of academics, however,  
> the question has shifted: If we were to liberate ourselves from our  
> old ideas about intellectual property and acknowledge that ideas  
> have already set themselves free, what benefits might follow for all  
> of humanity?
>
> What if copying is a perfectly moral thing to do?
>
> Common as Air is one of several recent books arguing that the  
> present age demands a debate about the morals of copying cultural  
> goods. Another was 2009's Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by  
> Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, who argued that  
> musicians, publishers, journalists and other creators should  
> acknowledge that the price of creative work and original information  
> is quickly plummeting toward zero, and anyone who wants to survive  
> must get more creative.
>

....

> Among the voices calling for a change in viewpoint here in Canada —  
> where C-32, a controversial bill to reform copyright legislation, is  
> inching its way through Parliament — is Marcus Boon, a York  
> University associate professor of English who launched a book this  
> week called In Praise of Copying, which hails the act of duplication  
> as technologically inevitable, inherently human and beneficial under  
> the right circumstances.
>
> "The core message of the book is to move the debate from a kind of  
> narrow discussion of copyright and intellectual property law … to  
> really understanding how broad the issue of copying is, and how  
> reliant we are on something like copying to function as human beings  
> and members of society," Dr. Boon says of his sometimes esoteric book.
>
> Without naked rip-offs of others' ideas, argues Dr. Boon and others,  
> there would be no folk songs, hip-hop or popular music as we know  
> it; no culinary recipes; we would not have the art of Andy Warhol;  
> nor, perhaps, would the worldwide market for Louis Vuitton products  
> be as hungry. Piracy of ideas and patents can even mean the  
> difference between life and early death, as when Indian-made grey- 
> market AIDS drugs go to African HIV patients who cannot afford the  
> genuine article.
>
> These benefits of copying, Dr. Boon believes, will happen no matter  
> what: A generational cultural shift in attitudes towards copying is  
> already well under way, and no amount of lobbying by luxury goods  
> makers, film studios and the recording industry will change that.  
> Going with the flow of information can actually benefit creators, he  
> says; for example, some musicians feel the pirate-driven  
> proliferation of their work builds audiences for profitable live  
> performances.
>
> In his students, Dr. Boon sees a generation brought up in a world of  
> casual piracy, unable to explain its moral choices but unwilling to  
> stop making them. (For the record, Dr. Boon's book is available to  
> be downloaded for free, and he encourages his students to  
> "plagiarize, but please cite your plagiarisms.")
>
----
> "We have this common wealth, but we can't actually do anything with  
> it without breaking the law. Right now I think the situation is  
> strange because so many people live in a legal grey zone where  
> they're downloading … and yet everybody does it, or nearly everybody."
>
> Comedian Mindy Kaling revealed what she felt was an absurdity  
> inherent to the theft-is-theft argument in a standup routine (which,  
> naturally, is available to be viewed for free at YouTube).
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcOdNc_seyM&feature=player_embedded
>
> Performing for an audience at Ohio State University in 2008, she  
> meditated on a public service announcement that equated digital file  
> sharing with theft. "The way they did it was they were like, 'You  
> wouldn't think of stealing a purse, would you? You wouldn't think of  
> stealing a car.' And I was thinking about that as I was watching it,  
> and you know what? I would steal a car — if it was as easy as  
> touching the car, and then 30 seconds later I own the car. And,  
> like, I would steal a car if the person who owned the car got to  
> keep the car."
>
> The 31-year-old added, "I would also steal the car if no one I had  
> ever met had ever bought a car in their whole lives."
>
> For theft to be theft, in Ms. Kaling's view, the victim has to be  
> left poorer than he was before it was committed. Needless to say,  
> the rest of the entertainment industry doesn't see it that way.
>
-----
> In China, where many knock-off goods are made, pirated DVDs are  
> giving Western consumer culture a way into homes. In an article in  
> the current issue of the journal Communication, Culture and  
> Critique, Penn State professor Yu Shi writes that young Chinese  
> viewers who buy pirated DVDs of U.S. entertainment are, ironically,  
> being trained via unauthorized episodes of Friends and Gossip Girl  
> on how to become Western-style consumers of brands including Coca- 
> Cole, Nike and the Boston Red Sox.

------
> A woman at the launch of Dr. Boon's book this week in Toronto  
> identified herself as an artist. She asked the author, how would she  
> be rewarded for her work in a world of looser copyrights?
>
> He admitted he does not really have an answer. "It's a big problem,"  
> he said, "but I don't know that the solution involves running into  
> the arms of an intellectual property regime that doesn't have  
> artists as its primary motivation."
>





-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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