This is the 3rd and final article on Copyright from the Author.
Originally published in Scribe & Quill
(I am NOT an Attorney)
In the past two articles we have discussed Copyright, specifically as it applies to writers. The following is a short review of what we have covered:
To read the first article in this series, Click here
To read the second article in this series, Click here
US Copyright Office:
http://www.copyright.gov/
Postal mail address:
101 Independence Avenue S.E., Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
Telephone:
202.707.3000
We now come to an area currently more about Politics than Law- as in the "on the books" kind of Law.
Following emerging e-Rights issues has been a passion bordering on obsession for me.
It began with my monthly column I wrote for the nwu prior to the Supreme Court handing down their Tasini decision.
(Some have been kind enough to consider me an expert in this area.) I forewarn you now because the subject of Digital Rights Management
is one I have very strong opinions on, and none are very complimentary-ok- you have been warned!
Specifically, there exists a true need for protection against worms, and viruses; a need to extend one's Copyright equally from one type of media to another, as in print to online. There is also a need to ensure one is fairly contracted, and compensated for work that moves to a medium above and beyond that to which one agreed to initially.
Many equitable Court decisions have been made to legitimize complaints, and find favorably for those artists and writers who are victims of the theft of their works. Unfortunately, from pre-Tasini to date, big media corporations have retaliated and misrepresented the individual creator's rights in the digital arena.
At present, DRM has little, if anything, to do with the extension of protection to authors and artists whose work appears unauthorized online. DRM has evolved into a means of protecting the profits of big business, and is mere steps away from embarking upon vigilante retribution tactics, far beyond the reach of any legislative action to return to the original concept.
Known as a series of constantly changing acronyms and misnomers, there is no doubt as to the goals DMR seeks: to exact retribution from those who (either deliberately, or through ignorance) do not compensate big business for use of "their" materials.
Whether it is a copied program, a downloaded song or movie, or a copy of one's own purchased CD, the technology is in place to report and sanction any and all that would seek to freely use anything in cyberspace.
destroyed the profit and established business by recording, sharing, and downloading.
This, continues, despite the presence of empirical data proving no loss of revenue to them. In fact, the truth is, they likely have realized an increase in revenues!
Never mind that they fail to address the lack of any distribution of profits to those who actually created the work, (or recorded it). Their concern is strictly for the label and the profits.
Giants of industry, with untold sums of money, such as (but certainly not limited to) INTEL, Microsoft and IBM have, from the outset, funded the development of DRM technology. The bill of goods is propagandized by extolling the virtues of "trusted computing". It would be far more accurate to add to the "trusted computer" the additional explanation that they will be able to trust that YOUR computer will report any indiscretions to them, while they ensure a self-destruct action is a pre-programmed penalty.
Not only will the detection of unauthorized material be the result, DRM technology will allow for the control of what you are permitted, and required, to use. See: http://jilleliz.com/articles/palladium.html for more on this.
While proponents spout safety and protections from DRM, consider this scenario:
Rather than drone on with examples upon examples, lobby groups, tales of clandestine chips in all new digital equipment, from computers to DVD players, CD's to TV's, suffice it to say that DRM is an unregulated movement gaining momentum and covering all areas of possible technology. It has carefully chosen it's member partners. They have unequalled financial resources available to them.
As the past four years have certainly illustrated, Congress and the country can, and have been- duped into supporting and funding a legislative cause that is not necessarily what it is presented as.
Thus it should come as no surprise that Congress passed the DMCA with no debate, and no opposition. Told that this was just some minor protection needed to promote another technical advancement, they learned nothing of the implications DMCA would have on the public. Congress never even verified the Constitutionality of the Act.
Congress had no idea that support of DRM technology would threaten the most basic of rights under the Constitution- from privacy to competition, from education to free speech, evolving technological advances, no protection exists. DRM also effects ongoing evaluations that redefine Copyright use and considerations, as applicable to all issues of Copyright including Fair Use, and Infringement.
Those who rule the media and the global market have neatly circumvented the basic guarantees of freedom, privacy, and competition in the workplace.
The concept of Copyleft, conceived by the GNU Project, is a somewhat inverted form of Copyright. While it does make use of Copyright to gain it's desired end, it does so in such a way as to guarantee free access to all it's represented genres.
To ensure free access and distribution and to promote the continued unrestricted development of software, published works, documents, and programs, the GNU made Copyright Law work for them. To ensure their Terms of Use were adhered to, they added them to the Copyright specs. These unorthodox Terms of Use, which specify distribution- allowing anyone to use, modify, and redistribute the "product"
For published works, Copyleft makes available a Free Document License (FDL) that provides a textbook, manual, or other written product is available to all, with the freedom to copy and/or redistribute it, with or without modification, commercially, or non-commercially.
The Free Software Foundation provides its licenses, in various versions, in every language, as follows: