Not Quite a Blog

Richard Stallman came to speak at UC Berkeley's Department of Computer Science this past Wednesday about copyright reform. I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. I've heard a lot of what he said before and I had skipped another very interesting lecture (Brian Cantwell Smith on "Pilot Project for a Future University") to attend his lecture. Despite my disappointment, one central idea was definitely new to me. That is, Stallman made a concrete proposal for reforming copyright in the U.S.

Read on for more...

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Stallman maintained that no real democratic government, governed by the will of the people, would ever stand for the travesty that is U.S. copyright law. So, what does Stallman think democratic governments should do about copyright law:

• First, reduce the deal with authors... The length of time of protection would be a good place to start. Stallman proposed shortening copyright to 10 years starting from the date of publication; date of publication because society is not being restricted until published.

• Second, the breadth of activities covered should be reduced... There is a recognizable need to free up activities that are more important to users. We should be able to tune the "deal" in different areas (subject matters). Stallman proposes dividing works into three large categories based on the social way works are used:

  • Works of practical use: "software, recipes, typefaces, educational works, reference works. These works should be free... these are works that you use in your life to do things in your life. If you don't have control of them, you don't have control of your life. If you improve one of these, you should be able to distribute your improvement to benefit society. People should be able to improve your version or pick a different version. The free software movement, recipes, Wikipedia, etc. prove that these things will be produced without incentive. These works must be free."

  • Works that represent what certain parties think or thought: "memoirs, autobiographies, essays of opinions, scientific papers, offers to buy and sell. Modifying these works is not socially useful, it's a misrepresentation. There is no particular reason to have the ability to commercially redistribute modifications of these works. We should have a compromise... you should be free to noncommercially redistribute unmodified versions of these works."

  • Works of art and entertainment: "The purpose of these works lies in the impact they make, what it feels like to experience these works. I have been persuaded that modification by others can destroy some of the artistic integrity. However, most authors will let others, e.g., Hollywood, butcher the works for enough money. Modifying artistic works does contribute to society, however... take the folk process, for example. Or Shakespeare, who modified works from just a few decades preceding him. Although modifying an artistic work is useful, it's not urgent... you're not using such a work to do things. So, there should be restrictions on modified works in this class until after ten years."

As for the rest of the talk, here are some quotes I jotted down:

• "Publishers like to say that digital technologies create problems for copyright law... I like to say that copyright law makes it difficult to realize the full potential of digital technologies."
• "The Sonny Bono Copyright Act is named for the Church of Scientology's favorite congressman... and, fortunately for the rest of the world, he died."
• "DRM is typically put forth by a conspiracy of companies... companies that want to use DRM have to follow the conspiracy's rules. It's not a secret conspiracy... or I wouldn't know about it. For companies to restrict their users like this should be a crime."
• AACS = "the axe"
• "The FSF calls for a boycott of HD-DVD and BlueRay... however, if you can create a tool to crack them, then we wouldn't object."
• "The record companies claim that they'll go out of business if people share music... well, I hope they go out of business as soon as possible."