[Nettime-bold] Copyright

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>]

Copyright, consumer to consumer publishing and
 distributed computing.

Lachlan Brown

        Somewhere in the debate and contest between 
academic and scientific economies of sharing 
information, knowledge and research and corporate 
commercial economies of accumulating intellectual 
properties, we have forgotten how and why the 
copyright law came into being. Around the time 
that the public emerged as an economic and political 
force in the late eighteenth century the rights of the 
primary producer to the friuits of his or her labour 
for a period of seventy years were guaranteed. 
Prior to the appearance of the copyright law, which 
was of course associated with the emergence
of 'publishing' industries (as opposed to patronized 
production and printing industries) a wide range of 
contracts of an 'obligation' form existed between 
patron and producer. 

What we see now and not only in culture based in 
digital transactions but inflecting culture at large is 
an ad-hoc regression into these 'obligation' economies 
which are feudal in their character without any of the 
'guarantees' for welfare of feudalism,such as they were. 
While people who occupy new 
roles of mediation in these economies may temporarily 
assume positions of power, this is likely to be mere 
proxy by corporate entities whose interests (public 
service and/or commercial) are best served by a knowledge 
and articulation of such power relations. 
The only possible winners in a contest on these terms 
are those who already have accumulations of power, 
economic or political. If, that is, we did not have
copyright to protect the labour and the moral rights 
of the primary producer under law.

        Napster provides a case in point of a failure to
tie new relations of distribution and mediation with
the economy.
 First a technology  of consumer to consumer (or peer 
to peer) sharing through distributed computing was 
made available. Ironically, the 'meaninglessness' 
of consumer to consumer exchange meant that the 
deployment and growth of this technology 
was 'invisible' to conventional media, media 
industries and economies. They didn't really understand it, 
and they  still don't, except in the goodwill value and 
the potential value for marketing of the brand and the 
user lists. One can imagine conventional business plan 
assessors trying to wrap their heads around an analysis 
of the economic viability of consumer to consumer music 
distribution... .

Second a community of users engaged with a passion 
for sharing and a passion for music (and no doubt a 
passion for community) began through principles tying 
new relations of mediation to new means of distribution 
of music in the digital form to threaten through declining 
growth insales and revenues across the music industry 
retail, promotional, legal, marketing and distributive
segments of the industry - ie around 85% of it.
.
Third, with media conglomerates in a heightened 
state of distress, (one of my research subjects in the 
music industry in London illustrated this distress in 1998) 
over Napster the company and the community of users 
who formed Napster (and arguably had a stake or share 
in the organisation - as well of course responsibility 
for the actions of the community). The detail of 
'librarianship' of transactions and administration of
payment of royalty were not developed.

Artists receiving royalty they had not expected from 
Napster and its stakeholders, now that would have been 
the radical move. 

Its always the third step that's difficult in any revolution. 
The development of an alternate way to ensure that 
royalty was paid and the rights of the primary producer 
were protected would have been the radical move.
 A wide range of e-commercial subscription and
micro-payment models were available of course, but no
thought was given to the boring and mundane work 
of administrating the exchange. 

I find it really strange that the 'shareware' priciple of 
research supported by public service institutions, or 
supported by commercial research and development 
is carried over to the implementation of the circulation 
of the cultural product as publishing. The cultural product 
(music, artwork or writing) is the outcome of labour that
is not necessarily supported by either commercial nor 
public service institutions (nor should it be). Do any of
us have any objection to paying for alternative media?

There have been many tentative steps to query the
 ideology of shareware in the publishing market for 
digital content. (Quim Gil of Metamute tried obliquely 
to raise the question in Nettime last spring since 
revenue via metamute might help further cogent 
and intelligent mediation, analysis 
and critique of digitalartnculture in the Mute Media 
Empire as a whole).

Ironically, the copyright law articulated around 
protecting the rights of the primary producer, the writer, 
artists, musicians. Its not right to copy and pass off work
 that is the outcome of someone else's intellectual labour, 
full-stop. Its not right to query the moral right the artist
 has to the fruits of his or her labour. 

Of course, after seventy years (the initial proposals in the 
1780s were for a 10 or 12 year period) copyright reverts 
to the 'common treasury'.

Just thought I would state the position. Somethings
got to give in the present ideological log-jam in the 
broadband river that is contemporary Digital Culture, 
(so to speak) and while 'copyleft' and 'copyrites' 
are welcome , they do not give comfort to those
who would like to make a living from writing and
producing.


Lachlan Brown






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