Week 4
- Jon Healy a writer for the LA Times writes about whether or not file sharing equals theft. Two Nobel Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman agree that copyright is not property and that treating it as so cause problems. The point of view of the entertainment industry is contrary to this, they believe that copyright is the same thing as traditional property. Another scholar Mark Lemley states that copyright is not traditional property but infringement on it "is wrong, and should be punished". This view that copyright is the same as traditional property that the entertainment industry holds so firmly works against them.
Healy taking a impartial stand suggest that infringement is similar to theft, comparing it to "theft of service", like in cable service. At first this argument seems correct but just because you get something for free and without the permission of the seller doesn't make it "theft". For example, if someone goes to a pizza place and they offer them a free soda with two slices, is this stealing? They got the soda for free without the permission of Coca-Cola, would anyone claim that is stealing? Another example if you go to the beach and hear the music that the people next to you are playing, is that stealing? The music has value and you just got to listen to it for free without the permission of the record label. These examples can surely be picked apart and examined. In the pizza example, one could argue that since the pizza place bought the soda he can do whatever he wishes with it, however this creates a problem with those who state that copyright is real property. After the creator sold the copyright item the buyer could do whatever they wish with it, that is IF copyright were the same thing as real property. Thus those who claim that copyright is the same thing as real property should also agree to letting their buyers do whatever they wish to that property they bought from them.
However it may be there are a million different "but, this is different" excuses and explanations. The main issue here is that this is a business model problem. What needs to be done is trying a new business model that embraces the infinite nature of goods. This fits in with what we have been discussing in class about file-sharing and the many court cases that deal with file sharing. One of the cases that comes into my mind is the case we read about in class involving Napster. Also, the court case against Grokster that our professor shared with us in class about how a group of college boys came up with the wonderful idea of making a file sharing software.
- Jon Healey sates his point in the debate about how complex it is to understand whether or not intellectual-property "theft" is actually theft, because here we are dealing with "non-real properties". We would like to treat property that cost practically nothing to produce and has the ability for an infinite number of people to use it, as "real" property. Some of these non real properties have a significant effect on our human welfare. For example the formula for "oral re-hydration therapy" could potentially be copyrighted but thank goodness that it is still in the public domain because it has saved countless lives in third world countries.
Our system today treats copyright as real property that contains no carrying cost, taxes or significant fees. Without these costs copyrights will remain in force for almost forever. When demand decreases the value remains but it becomes unavailable to further the progress of science and the arts. For the field of science this has a horribly negative effect because it does not allow the advancement of knowledge, which is just the opposite of what was intended by copyright laws. These days scientific manuscripts can not progress because you cannot find anything new from old, copyrighted paper literature. The same can be seen in other areas such as music and writing.
What should be done is finding what goes under the "Mickey Mouse" category of copyrights and which are socially beneficial such as the "oral re-hydration therapy" class, but this is not practical for the government. If they did however, charge a tax on copyright per year there would be a significant carrying cost and most material would go into the public domain, and then would actually be available to promote the progress of science and arts. As more people believe that copyrighted material should be considered real property, it should become a taxable property. If this were to occur society could continue to build on itself in creative ways.
This takes what we were talking about in class a bit further. In class we slightly touched upon the public domain. The public domain was about to get opened up however, they passed the Extension act causing the public domain to be closed for another 20 years. One of the most memorable cases because of this was the Eldred vs. Ashcrof.
- There was an amendment to the Higher Education Act trying to reduce illegal file-sharing on college campuses. Now universities are required to make publicly available their policies on illegal downloading. In the case of Penn they now meet some of the requirements, however other are too costly that the University can not support. Penn is a subscriber to Ruckus, which is a company that licenses music and other media in which students can legally download music for free. However, college students may not be the majority of illegal downloaders. There are today revisions to the Higher Education Act, which Penn is waiting to see how it will affect its campus.
This problem with illegal downloading goes along with our class discussions about file sharing. File sharing programs have the potential to not only be used for illegal purposes but for the benefit of society, as a method of sharing important information and documents. This is similar in a way to the case we read in class about the Betamax case, but here they found that because it had the ability to perform non illegal purposes it was ok. In most cases when file sharing applications go up against the court they are found guilty of copyright infringement even though they have the potential to be used for non infringing purposes.