June 28, 2005
So Information Wants to Be Free. Who Cares?
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Yes, as the old technophile saying goes, information does want to be free … which is exactly why we have copyright law. And the Supreme Court ruling yesterday on file sharing was the right one to make.
As one might expect, there are lots of opinions floating around the blogosphere that take an opposing view. Much gnashing of teeth over the decision, viewed — rightfully — as a huge victory for record companies. It’s amazing the hoops through which some of these bloggers jump in an attempt to justify the fact that they are too cheap to pay for music that they feel, for some inexplicable reason, entitled to listen to. For example, here’s uber-liberal-blogger Matt Yglesias:
“… the first thing to say is that it’s worth distinguishing between the music industry and the film industry. A world where you can’t make a profit selling albums would radically alter the music business but not, I think, kill it off. Recording music is relatively cheap, being a rock star is cool, the vast majority of artists make very little money off CD sales, and musicians have alternative sources of revenue. Movies aren’t like that. They’re inherently expensive to make, many of the contributors have totally ungalamorous jobs, and broad categories of movies don’t have real merchandising opportunities. Without copyright, you’d have less new music recorded, but by no means none. What’s more, music would be free — which is a real advantage. A film industry without copyright, by contrast, is hard to imagine. So I think there’s a solid case for treating these things differently.”
Uh, no, there isn’t. I’m quite thankful that we haven’t decided to carve out different versions of copyright law for different industries based on whether or not we think individual participants couldn’t figure out a different way to make money. I mean, really.
And, well, I guess music being free would be a “real advantage.” So would free HBO, free Internet access, free booze on Friday nights — hell, free just-about-anything. (I don’t see how free cauliflower could be viewed as an advantage for anyone. But you may disagree.)
In the association world — at least the one I live and work in — we sell information. That’s pretty much what we do. So I’m a fairly passionate supporter of copyright and IP protections, because my livelihood, and the profitability of our organization, depends on our ability to protect against misuse of our intellectual property.
Our members join us to get access to our knowledge and information. And that’s how we can afford to produce more knowledge and information. Which members pay for. So we can produce more. Etc.
Since we fully embraced this role as “knowledge broker” our membership has increased significantly (as have our product sales). But at the same time, we also began aggressively policing our intellectual property. The two go hand in hand.
Yes, there’s some information and content that we make available for free — some because we feel it improves our industry and furthers our mission. And some because it’s a “hook” that lures future sales. If we gave it all away, though, we wouldn’t be in business for very long.
If you have information that wants to be free — and you want to make it free — then by all means, do so. But don’t take away other people’s right to sell theirs. It’s what the creator wants that matters.
It appears that regardless of this decision, filesharing can continue unabated, provided those wishing to make money from it move elsewhere where it’s not illegal.
I’m not condoning filesharing of most copyrighted material. But seems this judgement really doesn’t have teeth unless the rest of the civilized world plays along.
True, Rich, true. That goes for most intellectual property, not just filesharing — from corporate logos on T-shirts to books. Human nature (and, as you point out, varying laws across nations) mean that there’s always going to be a market for cheap stolen goods, and creators/owners are always going to have to police vigilantly.
What gets me perturbed about this particular issue is when individual file-sharers try to justify their desire for stolen goods as somehow appropriate when it obviously isn’t. Just because technology makes something possible doesn’t make it right. Jeez, I’m really starting to sound old-fashioned…