Part Three of Lessig’s _Remix_ is titled “Enabling the Future,” an unfortunate title for those who would take issue with his ideas; for “enabling” has connotations of addiction and co-dependency—notions that are not addressed in this book (to my memory). What I think Lessig wants is a new polyamory between artists, art, consumers, and law. Strange bedfellows for sure. The problem lies deeper than copyright law, as Lessig points out in this last section of his book; deep enough that he resorts to his refrain of “children as criminals” and exaggerates it by saying he might agree with owning handguns, but not with giving them to children (e.g., children can’t understand the law so shouldn’t be expected to use it). Ultimately, he sets up a few suggestions for reform and ends the book with his refrain. Of course artists should be paid, Lessig pronounces, but, copyright should expire after fourteen years if the author does not seek to renew it.
Here is a question that Lessig does not answer about his call for reform: if an author dies, can his family or his estate seek to renew this copyright? Isn’t it great that we can have a Dylan Thomas House (or, Wales can), and Edith Wharton House, an Ernest Hemmingway house with all those polydactyl cats? (http://www.hemingwayhome.com/cats/) The Hemmingway House does not mention its funding on its website, but you can book your wedding there, and they do charge for tours. Still, it takes a certain amount of monetary capital to take care of our cultural capital, and I, for one, think that proceeds from Hemmingway’s books should go to his estate and to his heirs. It seems such a big part of the issue that Lessig is leaving out.
Lessig does seek to make the difference between commercial and non-commercial use clear, but in academia, we do not allow students to plagiarize. In elementary school, too much “help” from parents is frowned upon, and copying someone’s homework is a serious baddy. It is true that the U.S. government should not be tasked with tracking down and prosecuting file-sharers, but clearly, in the time since this book was published (five years ago), the government has not been so concerned with this. Youtube seems concerned with this, as other commercial enterprises do, but from what I understand, the worst that can happen is that the content is removed and then uploaded again under a different pseudonym—a veritable game of foot stomping.
In a quick internet search for Hemmingway House and funding, I came across this lawsuit that involves conversations and letters that quote Hemmingway and his wife: http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/23_NY2d_341.htm. It’s a bit of a wandering away from Lessig, but I feel he is and we are done with the issue. As quoted from section 12 of this brief (?),
The indispensable right of the press to report on what people have done, or on what has happened to them or on what they have said in public. (see Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374; Curtis Pub. Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130; Associated Press v. Walker, 388 U.S. 130) does not necessarily imply an unbounded freedom to publish whatever they may have said in private conversation, any more than it implies a freedom to copy and publish what people may have put down in private writings.
But copyright law says we must ask to have these things removed, rather than the other way around. It does seem the least cumbersome way for the government to be involved in this complicated, perhaps dead relationship.
No comments:
Post a Comment