Music on coupons: about protecting public interest in copyright
I did not plan to open a broad controversy, but a post (http://habrahabr.ru/post/175115/) about the right holders to choose remedies, written as an answer to my post (http://habrahabr.ru/post/175115/) , and comments to both pushed on a few more thoughts that I want to share.
Anyone who, for one reason or another, is confronted with copyright protection information, has to hear something like the following: “an intellectual product is a product”, “consumers are a market”. This is written in license agreements, user reservations and other documents that the user sees. Densely mixing these theses with different turns “forbidden” or “impossible”, the right holder establishes his own rules in dealing with what will later be called cultural heritage. However, recognizing themselves to be market participants, right holders in every way avoid market mechanisms for the protection of public interest. The author has the right to indicate to the society the conditions on which he is ready to distribute his product, and can the society demand something from the author?
In this post, I propose to look at the balance of public and private interests in intellectual property law. This subtle and delicate category gave impetus to many fundamental studies in the field of economics, forcing the economic doctrines of countries to wander from Keynesianism to the state - the night watchman. The author is not an economist and does not set himself the task of conducting fundamental research. The task of this post is to identify the problem itself in three questions.
Question # 1: Why does the antimonopoly committee torture suppliers of petroleum products and not touch the musicians?
Society has long developed many ways to legally defend itself from the dictates of the manufacturer. Including monopolies. The antimonopoly committee has long become a thunderstorm of big business. 3 of the 5 largest penalties of the antimonopoly committee are related to the petroleum products market. And how many copyright antitrust investigations do we have in the country? I would venture to suggest that a little more than zero. It is difficult, however, to say that the reason for this is the lack of contenders for the title of a monopoly in the market, for example, software or music. With regard to music, it’s worth making a reservation that this is not about performers, but about labels , four of which control the bulk of the rights to music in the world.
It is important to understand that virtually any author is a monopolist to a certain extent. After all, the condition for the protection of the object of copyright is its uniqueness. Modern copyright does not even recognize that one and the same idea can visit several authors at the same time, as I wrote in one of the previous posts (http://habrahabr.ru/post/145481/).
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Question number 2: Why can I take the land, but not a song?
Poetic get the question. However, behind it lies the fact that the second aspect, where copyright does not follow the laws of the market of material objects, is the category of exemption for public use. For example, the state may simply take the land from a private individual by paying him compensation. You can talk a lot about the shortcomings of this category, but it exists. And it is difficult to understand how in a society where expropriation of land for public needs is possible, the state cannot restrict the right holder. Moreover, the land can not be made in a copy or duplicated. Why the state can take away something unique, and has no opportunity to stamp copies of a movie or software?
This thesis can cause skepticism: the land is taken to build a road, and why choose the right of intellectual property. First, we live in an era when information is already of primary value. The most banal example of public needs may be the patents on drugs mentioned by the Pope in 2009, the retention of which by private corporations in pursuit of profit leads to the extinction of a huge number of people. People are sick, the prescription is open, but it cannot be produced in sufficient quantities, because the company that bought the patent said so. Secondly, the objects of copyright are also of great value. They become part of the culture, the basis of social change. For example, the movie “Braveheart”, according to many, played a key role in the modern movement for the independence of Scotland . It is also worth remembering war films and songs that helped people live through the horrors of the Second World War, in order to see the obviousness of the absurdity of the ban for veterans to perform these songs now because they are not in the public domain by the deadline.
As an example of social justice, you can imagine the picture of how valiant employees of the domestic executive service are in the office of some foreign software giant with a court order. They enter right in the midst of the board of directors meeting, demand to provide data on the cost of any program, and state that the amount of $ 3025 and 30 cents calculated by an independent domestic expert will be paid to the company by the state. When - do not specify. But the program has already passed into state ownership. Voila! Legalization is completed - boxes with discs come to schools, national television broadcasts optimistic stories that now all the software in the country is legal. But something similar happens when families are evicted.
Question number 3: Why is the minibus rolls children for free, and the software manufacturer - no?
The third aspect where copyright shuns obligations to society is social protection. Practically every state declares care about the socially unprotected layers of the population - this is how politicians tread the electoral road for themselves. At the same time, a significant part of their promises should be subsequently fulfilled by the business. But according to what logic do the carriers of passengers be obliged to carry out transportation of preferential categories of passengers with the right to transport along the route, and they do not impose any obligations on the right holders? Or the opportunity to save two hryvnias on the drive through the city is more important than the opportunity to get acquainted with the latest cultural achievements? And if with respect to books, the law still contains rules on the existence of libraries, then for other objects of copyright there are no such legislative restrictions in the public interest. It is important to note that many rights holders support educational initiatives: they donate their products to schools, but they do so on a voluntary basis. The system of law is silent here, and this fundamentally alters the social assessment of their actions.
I have described these areas of imbalances in copyright protection, not to justify the position of Sharikov’s character "to take everything and share." It is important to understand that the violation of the basic rules of logic in the formation of the copyright system leads to the impossibility of its normal functioning. Today, the emphasis on the right of prohibition has just led to the global spread of piracy. The shift in the balance of interests towards the right holders did not lead to a positive effect for them. A system devoid of logic will not work. In other words, in order for society to respect more the interests of rightholders, rightholders must take steps towards the interests of society. Which - this is a topic for discussion.
Anyone who, for one reason or another, is confronted with copyright protection information, has to hear something like the following: “an intellectual product is a product”, “consumers are a market”. This is written in license agreements, user reservations and other documents that the user sees. Densely mixing these theses with different turns “forbidden” or “impossible”, the right holder establishes his own rules in dealing with what will later be called cultural heritage. However, recognizing themselves to be market participants, right holders in every way avoid market mechanisms for the protection of public interest. The author has the right to indicate to the society the conditions on which he is ready to distribute his product, and can the society demand something from the author?
In this post, I propose to look at the balance of public and private interests in intellectual property law. This subtle and delicate category gave impetus to many fundamental studies in the field of economics, forcing the economic doctrines of countries to wander from Keynesianism to the state - the night watchman. The author is not an economist and does not set himself the task of conducting fundamental research. The task of this post is to identify the problem itself in three questions.
Question # 1: Why does the antimonopoly committee torture suppliers of petroleum products and not touch the musicians?
Society has long developed many ways to legally defend itself from the dictates of the manufacturer. Including monopolies. The antimonopoly committee has long become a thunderstorm of big business. 3 of the 5 largest penalties of the antimonopoly committee are related to the petroleum products market. And how many copyright antitrust investigations do we have in the country? I would venture to suggest that a little more than zero. It is difficult, however, to say that the reason for this is the lack of contenders for the title of a monopoly in the market, for example, software or music. With regard to music, it’s worth making a reservation that this is not about performers, but about labels , four of which control the bulk of the rights to music in the world.
It is important to understand that virtually any author is a monopolist to a certain extent. After all, the condition for the protection of the object of copyright is its uniqueness. Modern copyright does not even recognize that one and the same idea can visit several authors at the same time, as I wrote in one of the previous posts (http://habrahabr.ru/post/145481/).
')
Question number 2: Why can I take the land, but not a song?
Poetic get the question. However, behind it lies the fact that the second aspect, where copyright does not follow the laws of the market of material objects, is the category of exemption for public use. For example, the state may simply take the land from a private individual by paying him compensation. You can talk a lot about the shortcomings of this category, but it exists. And it is difficult to understand how in a society where expropriation of land for public needs is possible, the state cannot restrict the right holder. Moreover, the land can not be made in a copy or duplicated. Why the state can take away something unique, and has no opportunity to stamp copies of a movie or software?
This thesis can cause skepticism: the land is taken to build a road, and why choose the right of intellectual property. First, we live in an era when information is already of primary value. The most banal example of public needs may be the patents on drugs mentioned by the Pope in 2009, the retention of which by private corporations in pursuit of profit leads to the extinction of a huge number of people. People are sick, the prescription is open, but it cannot be produced in sufficient quantities, because the company that bought the patent said so. Secondly, the objects of copyright are also of great value. They become part of the culture, the basis of social change. For example, the movie “Braveheart”, according to many, played a key role in the modern movement for the independence of Scotland . It is also worth remembering war films and songs that helped people live through the horrors of the Second World War, in order to see the obviousness of the absurdity of the ban for veterans to perform these songs now because they are not in the public domain by the deadline.
As an example of social justice, you can imagine the picture of how valiant employees of the domestic executive service are in the office of some foreign software giant with a court order. They enter right in the midst of the board of directors meeting, demand to provide data on the cost of any program, and state that the amount of $ 3025 and 30 cents calculated by an independent domestic expert will be paid to the company by the state. When - do not specify. But the program has already passed into state ownership. Voila! Legalization is completed - boxes with discs come to schools, national television broadcasts optimistic stories that now all the software in the country is legal. But something similar happens when families are evicted.
Question number 3: Why is the minibus rolls children for free, and the software manufacturer - no?
The third aspect where copyright shuns obligations to society is social protection. Practically every state declares care about the socially unprotected layers of the population - this is how politicians tread the electoral road for themselves. At the same time, a significant part of their promises should be subsequently fulfilled by the business. But according to what logic do the carriers of passengers be obliged to carry out transportation of preferential categories of passengers with the right to transport along the route, and they do not impose any obligations on the right holders? Or the opportunity to save two hryvnias on the drive through the city is more important than the opportunity to get acquainted with the latest cultural achievements? And if with respect to books, the law still contains rules on the existence of libraries, then for other objects of copyright there are no such legislative restrictions in the public interest. It is important to note that many rights holders support educational initiatives: they donate their products to schools, but they do so on a voluntary basis. The system of law is silent here, and this fundamentally alters the social assessment of their actions.
I have described these areas of imbalances in copyright protection, not to justify the position of Sharikov’s character "to take everything and share." It is important to understand that the violation of the basic rules of logic in the formation of the copyright system leads to the impossibility of its normal functioning. Today, the emphasis on the right of prohibition has just led to the global spread of piracy. The shift in the balance of interests towards the right holders did not lead to a positive effect for them. A system devoid of logic will not work. In other words, in order for society to respect more the interests of rightholders, rightholders must take steps towards the interests of society. Which - this is a topic for discussion.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/175499/
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