I didn’t think it was possible, but I am now even more confused:
Paul Williams Responds to Copyleft Challenge
How is Creative Commons, the organization behind those easy-to-comprehend, web-friendly copyright licenses that are designed for use by non-lawyer humans (which arguably means people who can’t afford lawyers are now more empowered to put their work out there on exactly the terms that they want) “anti-copyright”? Don’t these licenses actually help people follow copyright by spelling out for them–not in complex legalese, but in clear pictograms attached to a special content search tool, for goodness sake–exactly what kinds of usages a creator says are permitted and which are not? In a growing low-budget/high-distro/pro-am world, this kind of development seems essential to maintaining order. When I see “All Rights Reserved” on a site that distributes content under a full range of copyright options, it doesn’t dilute it. If anything, it actually carries a great deal more weight to me because I know that the declared copyright wasn’t just the default position–it was proactively chosen to say, “Hey, I mean it, do not assume you can just put this on your blog/in your video. I said All Rights Reserved. No touchy!”
And while we’re on this, how is challenging someone to a debate the same as “silencing” that person? Wouldn’t that only work if they then refused to participate? Oh, wait…
The more I’ve learned about these issues — and I’ve been studying them for quite some time — the more I’ve come to believe that it is in the interest of people like Paul Williams to keep the system of rights, payment, enforcement, and contracts as complicated, secretive, and obtuse as possible. This way, he can prevent artists and laypeople from ever being taken seriously in discussions about copyright. Organizations like Creative Commons are moving in the right direction by dismantling the current rules/systems and substituting rules/systems that are more obvious and transparent to both artists and consumers. This is why the (really very benign) Creative Commons organization threatens Paul Williams and ASCAP (and probably BMI and other institutionalized rights organizations as well). CC is making copyright clear and simple, which exposes ASCAP’s complicated, obtuse policies as shams erected to convince artists and consumers that they are powerless.
I suspect Paul Williams’ and ASCAP’s decision not to debate Lessig is simply a decision not to be embarrassed in a match of words between a composer and a master debater. Copyright and IP laws are not brain surgery and 2 points for you that now pictograms make it easier rather than knowing that the Copyright Act grants a bundle of rights to creators in their original works. Such rights are separately exercisable and can only be granted or relinquished by the author or his/her representative. If a creator chooses to set his work for free, . . . fine. But, those wanting to make a living from their original works ought not be characterized as evil. Hey, we just need to make a living. Why not use someone else’s material that doesn’t care? The copy-left promotes “information wants to be free”. Actually, information doesn’t WANT anything, … it’s information. Those owning the original work want to be paid fairly, and those not owing it want to use it without payment.
OK, two things:
Cory Doctorow threw in his two cents a couple of months ago on the origins (or not) of the ‘information wants to be free’ canard:
‘”Information wants to be free” has the same relationship to the digital rights movement that “kill whitey” has to the racial equality movement: a thoughtless caricature that replaces a nuanced, principled stand with a cartoon character.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/18/information-wants-to-be-free
And Lawrence Lessig doesn’t want anyone to not be able to make money from their work. What he wants (as a lawyer who really knows how the current rules operate in the real world) is to promote a copyright system that favours creators, that makes it easy for everyone to understand their rights, and that gives creators the option (manifestly NOT the obligation) to license their work for free, or with limited restrictions, through the Creative Commons license. Not everyone wants copyright in their work automatically conferred without registration or renewal. Some people do actually want to give their stuff away – tens of thousands of Flickr users, for example http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ – but before Creative Commons it was surprisingly difficult and unwieldy to define the terms under which you wished to manage your own copyright: the law assumes all rights reserved, and won’t relinquish this assumption until proven otherwise. So many works that their owners might have been happy to release into the public domain remained under lock and key. Moreover, works for whom authors can’t be found (‘orphaned works’) remain by default in copyright and cannot be used in any contemporary work. (This is a huge problem if you make documentaries and want to use historical footage, for example.) A CC license is a simple way of saying up front — in terms that anyone can understand — ‘I license this work to the public domain’. (For example: “Here’s some video footage I took of President Obama’s inauguration. I know I hold copyright in that footage, but I’d like others in the future to copy it, watch it and even use it in films about this important event. I’ll stick a CC license on it, and now everyone can.)
Lessig does not want to take away anyone’s rights to their copyright. He’s on record as being very pro-copyright. He does not characterise copyright holders as evil. What he objects to is a legal system that obstructs documentary makers, musicians, artists, librarians and researchers from going about their legal business — which is exactly what we have now.