If you had any doubt that intellectual property law will destroy innovation in the US, check out this article from the EEF.
Fair use has always been a forward-looking doctrine. It was meant to leave room for new uses, not merely “customary historic uses.” Sony was entitled to build the VCR first, and resolve the fair use questions in court later. This arrangement has worked well for all involved — consumers, media moguls, and high technology companies.
Now the RIAA and MPAA want to betray that legacy by passing laws that will regulate new technologies in advance and freeze fair use forever. If it wasn’t a “customary historic use,” federal regulators will be empowered to ban the feature, prohibiting innovators from offering it. If the feature is banned, courts will never have an opportunity to pass on whether the activity is a fair use.
Voila, fair use is frozen in time. We’ll continue to have devices that ape the VCRs and cassette decks of the past, but new gizmos will have to be submitted to the FCC for approval, where MPAA and RIAA lobbyists can kill it in the crib.
Ars Technica as its own take on the issue.
So, if you were planning to launch a startup and make millions off the coming digital broadcast media revolution by inventing the next iPod or by combining digital radio with Web 2.0 and VoIP and Skype and RSS and WiFi mesh networks, then forget about it. When digital broadcast nirvana finally arrives, the only people who’ll be legally authorized to make money off of music and movies are the middlemen at the RIAA and the MPAA.
What the articles fail to mention is that innovation won’t really stop. It’ll only stop in the US. Every other nation will be free to continue innovating with technology. Thus, we’ll be even farther behind in the technological race. It’s bad enough we can’t manufacture the stuff, but when we can’t design it or even buy it, we’re in trouble. In twenty years we’ll be a third world nation all because we wanted to protect outdated business models.
For what it’s worth, I believe the EFF has a form letter to send to the Senators on the Commerce commitee. I’ve already sent mine!
What the articles fail to mention is that innovation won’t really stop. It’ll only stop in the US.
Dream on… 🙁
Movies, TV shows, and music are some of the few profitable export products the US has. So our government has been lobbying all of our trading partners, and fellow WTO members, to bring their copyright and DRM laws “in harmony with” those of the US.
There are “DMCA-like” laws being agreed to by other countries as part of trade treaties with the US. Uncle Sam is saying: ” We’ll give you easier access to our insatiable markets, if you agree to protect our cash cows”.
See:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/
and
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=141&res=1680_ff&print=0
But you’re ignoring WIPO and other international treaties when you say, “Every other nation will be free to continue innovating with technology.” Here’s generally the way it works: Countries meet to negotiate and adopt new restrictions on copyright. The DMCA was bascially the US enacting laws to bring it in line with terms of international treaties it has signed on to. A tightening of fair use in the US is only a precurser to new international treaties or provisions that tighten things up everywhere. What happens here, will happen elsewhere….
Ok Steve, I’m on board.
China will never agree to limit their tech industry to suit the stagnant US market. Nor will India. Both countries have enough home market and brains to develop technologies surpassing what we have now. What could the US offer either that they can’t do on their own. In fact, if they don’t import another thing from the US it will make them happy. Then their home industries can expand.
So, now that we (the US) have started wars over oil and had the CIA and military take out leftist government leaders over business interests, when will the first war be waged over IP rights?
COMMENT:
The LAWS in the US, are more restrictive then you may imagine.
In Idia, they make over 200 movies a year. But, cant get them marketed in the US, why…because the INDUSTRY wants there share. NOTING that is majorly produced ANYWHERE can be distributed into the US without going threw the industry companies…they want there 200% of EVERYTHING. Look at the prices for imported movies.
The US, is MORE puritain, then ANY other nation on music and movies. there is LOTS of music and movies being made in other countries that will NEVER see the light in the US. And I thought we were for freedom of expression. but, we run them into the marketing companies and distribution companies, and regulatory, and BANG them to death.
We had more freedom, 20+ years ago, then we do NOW.. You could find a X rated movie theater SOMEplace back then.. And now they are almost GONE.
Ok so it’ll be the US and countries that side with the US, UK, that will lose out here. Does it strike anyone that the freedom that America claims to protect doesn’t seem to stretch to the digital domain!?
Paul
Ok, but in a few years who will side with the US if the rest of the world is way past us technologically? Other nations will always go where they can find the best deal, and the US as a third world, bankrupt nation will not be it.
Steve,
I was under the impression that RIAA and MPAA were associations, not the actual corporations who make money off of music, TV, and movies. Am I mistaken? Are you trying to tell me the entertainment industry is not profitable? That US TV shows and movies aren’t shown in most foreign countries – let alone popular in those countries?
I’m not speculating about Australia, which has recently signed a Trade Ageement with the US, which requires Australia to enact tougher “copyright protection” laws. See:
http://tinyurl.com/cnz4z
As for China, I personally believe they would be happy to make concessions regarding protection of intellectual property, rather than discuss their human rights efforts. But, that is just my personal opinion.
Maybe they will someday, maybe they won’t.
And you say I am speculating? 🙂
Does Europe have the same law? Nope.
True statement, but only because the draft legislation – with strong “US style” patent protections – caused such a public outcry.
But, of course, the industries who want the patent protections are not giving up – as discussed in the article ” Industry Readies For Round Two Of EU Patent Directive” on the Intellectual Property Watch website.
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=195&res=1680_ff&print=0
The Australian government has signed an agreement with the US government stating Australia will enact restrictive copy-protections into law. You’re corect that the law(s) aren’t on the books yet, but they have taken a step in that direction.
What interest does our government have in extending our copyright laws on an international scale if it is not to protect the profits of the US entertainment industry? Especially if those industries loudly proclaim “losses” due to piracy?
Have you read a newspaper in the last three years?
A few.
And I’ve also read some financial reports:
Disney President Robert Iger reported “another year of double-digit growth in earnings per share” in Disney’s 2005_Q4 report.
NBC Universal reported operating profit of $2.3 billion for the first nine months of 2005, up 35%, resulting from the 2004 combination of NBC with VUE ($0.5 billion) and the preferred share acquisition gain ($0.3 billion) partially offset by the investment impairment ($0.1 billion).
Viacom [CBS} earnings for 2005_Q3 : Revenues increased 10% to $5.9 billion from $5.4 billion for the same quarter last year, led by growth of 15% in Cable Networks and 54% in Entertainment, as well as increases in Outdoor and Radio.
News Corp [Fox] had a nice Q4:
• Record operating income at Cable Network Programming, Filmed Entertainment,
Newspapers, Television, Magazines and Inserts and Book Publishing.
• Cable Network Programming operating income up 44% on advertising and
affiliate revenue growth at all major cable channels.
• Continued robust home entertainment sales of film and television titles drive
Filmed Entertainment operating income up 17%.
• Television segment operating income increases slightly as record operating
income at STAR was offset by higher programming costs at the FOX network
and a soft U.S. advertising market.
Sony seems to be bleeding money, but I can’t find any details on the Sony BMG websites. 🙁
The Australian government has signed an agreement with the US government stating Australia will enact restrictive copy-protections into law.
The government signing an agreement to enact future legislation is in no way an indicator that they will actually enact that legislation. If the party in power changes that agreement is all but toast and with the anti-US sentiments around the world growing any government that sides with the US on anything is taking a chance.
Mike V: I do agree that the entertainment industry, as a whole, is not losing money. The media seem to be reporting it that way though so I can see where someone might get that impression. What’s really happening is that their profits aren’t increasing at the rate they have in the past. Most analyst look at this as the entertainment market stagnating.
The MPAA and RIAA are losing money and, in my opinion, beginning to lose influence in the industries they represent – though not in Washington. iTunes has proven to the record labels that it is possible to allow online distribution and still make money. The new video downloads are already showing a profit so it won’t be long until the movie and TV industries start looking for other ways to distribute their product online that aren’t restricted to Apples hardware. The radio industry is already adapting to the iPod/podcasting wave by creating more and more stations that play a random selection of music and have few if any DJ’s.
The network TV industry does seem to want to hold on to their model of you watch what we want you to watch when we say you can watch it but that will fail as broadband becomes more widespread and better independent content starts popping up. If they want to continue making money by the bucketfull they’ll have to adjust.
It’s to late to put the genie back into the bottle and while some people think that our government might just start limiting our access to the world wide portion of the web doing so would wreck our economy almost overnight and the majority of the businesses aren’t going to let them do that just to appease a handful of entertainment companies.