[A2k] Re: [ORG-discuss] Simply stupid on copyright

[Kevin Marks]

On Nov 22, 2006, at 6:47 PM, Ian Brown wrote:

> That well-known copyright thinker Mick Hucknall (lead singer of pop
> has-beens Simply Red) has a rather confused rant in today's Guardian
> about copyright:
>
> "Copyright is fundamentally socialist - it is radical and
> redistributive, subversive even. How else would you describe a form
> of property that anyone can create out of nothing? Copyright's
> democratising effect is seen most clearly in the music business."

That's an interesting inversion of the 'conservative' aspect of my
politically focused arguments against term extension

http://epeus.blogspot.com/2005/08/memetic-targetting.html

> the argument against copyright term extension reframed for different
> political views:
> *Liberal collectivist
> The shared culture of society should belong to the people together,
> not to faceless corporations.
>
> *Libertarian
> Our ability to express ourselves freely should not be constrained by a
> state-granted monopoly.
>
> *Liberal Economist
> As non-rivalrous goods with a vanishingly small marginal cost of
> reproduction, cultural goods reach maximum utility by being freely
> replicable.
>
> *Conservative
> Creating property rights in goods that can be duplicated at will is
> inflationary, and undermines the value of real physical property that
> is the bedrock of a stable society.
>
> Each of these is a facet of the issue, and a defensible position, but
> if you have a mismatch between the argument and the political frame of
> your audience, you will be met with incomprehension or hostility, and
> won't win for your cause.

Hucknall's argument curiously changes target partway through from
socialism to entrepreneur, when it switches to BPI boilerplate.

The comments are splendid indeed.

Personally, I'm with Macauley rather than Hucknall:

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

Do read the whole thing; it is a splendid example of parliamentary
rhetoric. Here are a few of the more quotable bits:

> Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general
> voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. [...]
>  Why should we not revive all those old monopolies which, in
> Elizabeth's reign, galled our fathers so severely that, maddened by
> intolerable wrong, they opposed to their sovereign a resistance before
> which her haughty spirit quailed for the first and for the last time?
> Was it the cheapness and excellence of commodities that then so
> violently stirred the indignation of the English people? I believe,
> Sir, that I may with safety take it for granted that the effect of
> monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and
> to make them bad. [...]
> It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least
> exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly
> is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but
> the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the
> purpose of securing the good.
>
> Now, I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect, that it
> exactly hits the point at which the monopoly ought to cease; but this
> I confidently say, that the existing law is very much nearer that
> point than the law proposed by my honourable and learned friend. For
> consider this; the evil effects of the monopoly are proportioned to
> the length of its duration. But the good effects for the sake of which
> we bear with the evil effects are by no means proportioned to the
> length of its duration. A monopoly of sixty years produces twice as
> much evil as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice as much evil as a
> monopoly of twenty years. But it is by no means the fact that a
> posthumous monopoly of sixty years gives to an author thrice as much
> pleasure and thrice as strong a motive as a posthumous monopoly of
> twenty years. On the contrary, the difference is so small as to be
> hardly perceptible. We all know how faintly we are affected by the
> prospect of very distant advantages, even when they are advantages
> which we may reasonably hope that we shall ourselves enjoy. But an
> advantage that is to be enjoyed more than half a century after we are
> dead, by somebody, we know not by whom, perhaps by somebody unborn, by
> somebody utterly unconnected with us, is really no motive at all to
> action.[...]
> The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the
> purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad
> one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of
> human pleasures; and never let us forget, that a tax on innocent
> pleasures is a premium on vicious pleasures. I admit, however, the
> necessity of giving a bounty to genius and learning. In order to give
> such a bounty, I willingly submit even to this severe and burdensome
> tax. Nay, I am ready to increase the tax, if it can be shown that by
> so doing I should proportionally increase the bounty. My complaint is,
> that my honourable and learned friend doubles, triples, quadruples,
> the tax, and makes scarcely any perceptible addition to the bounty.