The Challenge

Rambles and Riff Raff about all this and that

We are oh, so outdated!

Published by Esteban Glas on February 12th, 2008 | This post lacks all category except for: Social Media, philosophical rant

This article on the New York Times, which I got to thanks to Joho, put me to think about the never ending question of Copyright laws and overall intellectual property regulations. Regulations that have become so archaic that they don’t even start to consider some scenarios that we have become to regard as everyday things.

Copyright is a messed up thing. I shall keep my opinions on why I think the whole concept is misplaced, misconceived and plainly wrong. I think I am rather radically positioned on that, thus I’ll just remain quiet.

The concept of Copyright is modern idea. Its history is tightly tied to that of mass distribution and duplication of content. It was only when the printing press was invented (cutting book ownership costs and boosting book publications) that the need to pay authors for their work became a reality. Before that authors had to rely on patrons to support their labor.

I could continue with the history lesson, writing a dissertation on the end of the bourgeoisie and consequently ending Maecenates, yada, yada… You get the picture. Copyright is modern, a consequence of mass production and social changes.

So how is it that a rather modern concept became outdated? Because technology has changed the creation and distribution of ideas in ways that were unimaginable only 25 years ago.

I’m not stating anything new when I say that governments envy the pace and speed of snails. It is a known fact. The only way they act swiftly is due to pressure. Normally this pressure comes either from lobbies or public perception issues.

Out of the previous paragraph we can assume that there has not been any kind of intent from the general public or lobbyists to change the current regulations on Copyright and Intellectual property. Further more, a lot of content-distribution corporations have put quite a lot of effort on getting policy makers not to address this issues. Why so? Simply because it yielded a ton of profits during the last 100 or so years.

Yet, those profits are quickly becoming red numbers on books and even the dumbest corporations (ahem! music industry) start to realize the landscape has changed. A lot.

New regulations should not be left to policy makers, corporations or authors alone. There are tons of different shades on the million different ways to look at intellectual property. Is intellectual property proprietary or does it belong to "humanity"? Now that distribution is cheap and accessible, is there still a need for third parties involved in the author-to-consumer chain? Are patents really applicable to software developments? Who owns collective work? The questions build faster than copyright infringement demands pile up on courts.

The discussion should span from Philosophy to Technology, from authors to consumers. No voice should be left unheard, we have one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the way we create and the way we inspire. Let’s not waste it.

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