[Script Info]
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[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.74,0:00:07.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Intro: Good Afternoon, Org Con. I'd just like to very briefly introduce James Boyle
Dialogue: 0,0:00:07.15,0:00:12.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,professor at Duke University, and the author of Public Domain and in many ways inspirational behind a lot
Dialogue: 0,0:00:13.72,0:00:19.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of what Org does. So welcome to you, James, and without further ado, I'll let him present.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:23.53,0:00:31.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,James Boyle: Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Org Con is an organization
Dialogue: 0,0:00:31.63,0:00:40.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that I am quite inspired by. I had wondered, as a Brit, where, in the space of civil society,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:40.53,0:00:46.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Britain was going to find a series of organizations that would deal with the issues
Dialogue: 0,0:00:46.82,0:00:51.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the online world: issues of privacy, issues of free speech, issues of intellectual property.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:51.38,0:00:54.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that would actually say: "Now these are serious and important issues,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:55.18,0:00:58.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they are getting decided in little isolated silos,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:58.72,0:01:02.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,silos called network design, or intellectual property,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:02.71,0:01:08.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,silos called copyright law, silos called data base directives.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:09.28,0:01:13.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that there was no organization, no single organization,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:13.70,0:01:16.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that said: "Now we are going to take all of those issues and bring them together
Dialogue: 0,0:01:16.57,0:01:19.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and actually be the voice of civil society, not just the voice
Dialogue: 0,0:01:19.34,0:01:25.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of a particular industry stakeholders, or of a particular legal organization,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:25.90,0:01:27.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but actually the voice of civil society.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:27.50,0:01:29.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So Org Con,in my view, is enormously valuable, and
Dialogue: 0,0:01:29.49,0:01:33.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was incredibly honored to be invited here to give this talk.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:33.63,0:01:39.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm going to start with a quote from another Scot - I am a Scot - Lord Kames.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:41.42,0:01:47.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Kames, in a case in 1773, in the case called Hinton v. Donaldson,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:48.05,0:01:54.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It is a case about booksellers, and wheter or not there was a perpetual copyright
Dialogue: 0,0:01:54.74,0:02:00.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a perpetual commonlaw copyright. That issue got decided in England,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:00.49,0:02:03.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by the case of Donaldson v. Beckett, a rather famous case
Dialogue: 0,0:02:03.38,0:02:06.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but of course the Scots got there first, a year before,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:06.31,0:02:09.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with Hinton v. Donladson, and this is Lord Kaimes:
Dialogue: 0,0:02:09.84,0:02:14.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"I have no difficulty to maintain that a perpetual monopoly of books
Dialogue: 0,0:02:14.46,0:02:17.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would prove more destructive to learning and even to authors
Dialogue: 0,0:02:17.84,0:02:21.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than a second irruption of the Goths and Vandals."
Dialogue: 0,0:02:21.22,0:02:23.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:02:23.19,0:02:25.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: They did write better in those days.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:25.95,0:02:35.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,More mike, OK. Absolutely. I will stand here like a jazz night club singer
Dialogue: 0,0:02:35.86,0:02:38.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and become throatier
Dialogue: 0,0:02:38.59,0:02:41.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience claps)
Dialogue: 0,0:02:41.84,0:02:48.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: So, Lord Kames's point was one that seemed obvious
Dialogue: 0,0:02:48.85,0:02:50.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to most of his brethren on the bench.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:51.46,0:02:55.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They believed, as good believers in the Scottish enlightenment,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:55.39,0:03:01.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that monopolies were bad, and that occasionally - very, very, very occasionally -
Dialogue: 0,0:03:01.68,0:03:05.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,monopolies might be necessary and there would be a rigorous process of examiniation
Dialogue: 0,0:03:06.08,0:03:08.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of that monopoly, to make sure that it was necessary,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:08.48,0:03:12.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that it was not just the Crown handing over the monopoly of playing cards
Dialogue: 0,0:03:12.54,0:03:15.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or sweet dessert wine to its favorite customers,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:16.10,0:03:18.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that it was not just some industry incumbent saying
Dialogue: 0,0:03:19.23,0:03:21.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"But there would be no trade with India unless we get to own trade with India.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:21.89,0:03:28.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,unless we get to own the trade with India, without owning the trade with India, why would one ever trade with India?"
Dialogue: 0,0:03:29.11,0:03:31.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There was a time where people believed thinking like that.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:31.90,0:03:36.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Someone had to own trade with India for there to be trade with India.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:36.58,0:03:42.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And then, a group of thinkers, including a bunch of Scots,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:42.91,0:03:48.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Adam Smith among them, said: "But actually, monopolies don't work very well,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:48.62,0:03:51.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they have the tendency, as Macaulay said,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:51.45,0:03:56.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to make things scarce, to make them expensive and to make them bad.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:56.62,0:03:58.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That is the tendency of monopolies.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:58.84,0:04:07.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what I want to talk about today is why we have forgotten Lord Kaimes' wisdom.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:08.04,0:04:14.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Why we have created our own irruption - he spelt it with an i and 2 r's -
Dialogue: 0,0:04:14.64,0:04:20.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,our own irruption of Goths and Vandals. Why we have decided,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:20.29,0:04:24.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in fact, that we don't need Goths and Vandals to wreak havoc
Dialogue: 0,0:04:24.33,0:04:27.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on our own cultural heritage, because we can do it ourselves.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:27.92,0:04:32.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We don't need the Goths, we don't need the Vandals, we can write laws
Dialogue: 0,0:04:32.36,0:04:34.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that will wreak havoc on our culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:35.06,0:04:40.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So let me start with this paradox. The paradox is this:
Dialogue: 0,0:04:40.56,0:04:44.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you consider us a single generation - I'm being a little presumptuous
Dialogue: 0,0:04:44.33,0:04:47.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in putting myself in a generation with everyone in this room, but let's go with me for a moment -
Dialogue: 0,0:04:48.17,0:04:52.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you consider us a single generation, this generation has,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:54.04,0:04:59.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,during its life time, witnessed the greatest expansion
Dialogue: 0,0:04:59.22,0:05:04.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of information dissemination and retrieval tools in the history of the species by far,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:04.44,0:05:09.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by orders of magnitude. It is now so commonplace to us
Dialogue: 0,0:05:09.25,0:05:15.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we have access to enormous numbers of digital sources of information
Dialogue: 0,0:05:15.42,0:05:18.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that many of you aren't even looking at me, but you are focusing on the screen,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:19.04,0:05:22.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because clearly that will be much more important as a source of information
Dialogue: 0,0:05:22.52,0:05:25.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than what I was actually saying to you directly.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:25.12,0:05:29.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It is sort of like, check it out on twitter and it will be printed just in 140 characters.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:31.63,0:05:35.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I was on a podcast - a lovely gentleman in Australia -
Dialogue: 0,0:05:35.46,0:05:41.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he said I'd call it the right-click universe assumption, which is, he said,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:41.48,0:05:44.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when I'm walking around in the open air and I look at building,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:44.86,0:05:50.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I wonder when it was built, and I... where is the mouse?
Dialogue: 0,0:05:50.57,0:05:55.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and of course now, with your iPhone, there probably is a building recognition app
Dialogue: 0,0:05:56.06,0:05:59.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that can actually do this for you. And we take this for granted
Dialogue: 0,0:05:59.29,0:06:01.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that the knowledge will be there instantaneously.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:01.87,0:06:07.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What was that tune, what were those lyrics. What was the treaty of Westphalia again?
Dialogue: 0,0:06:07.88,0:06:11.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Whatever it is, we assume that the knowledge will simply be there
Dialogue: 0,0:06:11.48,0:06:15.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that we'll get it; and that if we don't have it, that we'll put out some search
Dialogue: 0,0:06:15.43,0:06:18.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that it'll eventually come back to us, and that in fact people will constantly be creating
Dialogue: 0,0:06:18.99,0:06:25.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,information retrieval tools to mash up our geo-spatial data with crime statistics,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:25.37,0:06:30.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with places where people live, with degrees of creativity in different neighborhoods in London,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:30.30,0:06:34.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and presenting this to us, and all of this would just be there, and there free for the taking.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:35.03,0:06:38.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's astounding and it's hard to believe - and for many of you in the audience,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:38.91,0:06:41.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the younger ones of you in the audience, it's impossible to believe -
Dialogue: 0,0:06:41.52,0:06:48.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that there was a time, about 18 years ago, when that was simply unimaginable,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:48.49,0:06:50.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when it just wasn't true.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:52.51,0:06:56.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's one side of the paradox. The other side of the paradox is this:
Dialogue: 0,0:06:58.91,0:07:07.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,absent conscious choice by a creator. None of you will legally share -
Dialogue: 0,0:07:07.70,0:07:12.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or be able to build upon - the cultural works created by your contemporaries
Dialogue: 0,0:07:12.23,0:07:14.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,during your life time. None of you.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:15.04,0:07:20.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No one, sitting in this audience, will have free and legal access
Dialogue: 0,0:07:20.79,0:07:28.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to build upon, to republish, to version, to translate the work of any of your contemporaries:
Dialogue: 0,0:07:29.59,0:07:35.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,any piece of music, any photograph, any piece of text, any movie,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:35.77,0:07:40.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,unless they have gone out and specifically tried to give you that freedom,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:40.64,0:07:42.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,unless they say, this is under a creative commons license, or
Dialogue: 0,0:07:42.84,0:07:48.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm putting this in the public domain. Amazingly, for the first time in human history,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:48.80,0:07:54.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you can look around this audience - actually, you all look like a bunch of communistic sharers to me
Dialogue: 0,0:07:54.23,0:07:57.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so this is probably a bad audience - but you could look around the audience and say:
Dialogue: 0,0:07:58.13,0:08:03.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"All of the works produced by my contemporaries, the default of the law,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:03.20,0:08:07.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the default setting of the lawyers, they are inaccessible to me.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:07.62,0:08:10.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, this was not true for prior generations.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:10.94,0:08:16.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Prior generations of novelists would look at the works produced by other novelists
Dialogue: 0,0:08:16.20,0:08:20.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and either see them having no copyright at all or that they would soon pass into the public domain.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:20.36,0:08:26.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Prior generations of composers either had no copyright on their compositions
Dialogue: 0,0:08:26.17,0:08:30.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or were confident either that the work would pass into the public domain
Dialogue: 0,0:08:30.65,0:08:34.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or that law would not intrude upon the practice of composition,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:34.14,0:08:37.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because it was assumed that there was an area within which law wouldn't go -
Dialogue: 0,0:08:37.99,0:08:43.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,wholesale appropriation, perhaps not, but certainly quotation, reference, parody and so forth
Dialogue: 0,0:08:43.59,0:08:47.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is a theme that my colleague Jennifer Jenkins is going to be discussing this afternoon,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:47.61,0:08:51.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when she talks about the comic book we are writing, the history of musical borrowing.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:51.89,0:08:54.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The title is "Theft! A history of music".
Dialogue: 0,0:08:54.69,0:09:01.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So there is this paradox that on the one hand, we have the greatest practical availability
Dialogue: 0,0:09:01.90,0:09:04.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of information and information retrieval resources,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:04.74,0:09:10.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and on the other hand, that the law has, in 2 distinct ways that I am going to lay out
Dialogue: 0,0:09:10.15,0:09:15.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,made, as a legal matter, made our collective culture, and particularly
Dialogue: 0,0:09:15.45,0:09:20.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,our collective culture from the 20th century, made that legally inaccessible to us.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:20.85,0:09:23.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,On the one hand, massive practical availablity.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:23.78,0:09:28.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,On the other hand, the default being more closed than at any time in human history.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:28.45,0:09:31.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I do want you to focus on that.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:31.42,0:09:40.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,OK. So let me start with the way in which we have closed off our cultural archives.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:41.33,0:09:46.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For many of you, this is old-hat, I apologize for bringing it up,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:46.28,0:09:48.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but perhaps some of you need a review.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:49.66,0:09:54.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, for much of the history of copyright, copyright terms were short.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:54.76,0:10:00.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They lasted, let's say 14 years, maybe a renewal of another 14 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:00.54,0:10:03.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So again, if you were looking around the audience, you could think:
Dialogue: 0,0:10:03.59,0:10:08.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"OK, that person writes a novel, come 2024, that's going to be in the public domain,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:08.73,0:10:11.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that song is going to be in the public domain, that movie is going to be freely available.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:12.62,0:10:18.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the US, as late as 1978 - this seems actually almost inexplicable nowadays -
Dialogue: 0,0:10:18.70,0:10:25.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but as late as 1978, the copyright term was 28 years, renewable for another 28,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:25.84,0:10:28.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at the option of the author or copyright holder.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:29.84,0:10:37.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,85% of authors did not renew their copyright. What that meant was
Dialogue: 0,0:10:38.09,0:10:42.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that 85% of the stuff went into the public domain at the end of 28 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:43.01,0:10:51.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, as of 1978, add 28 years, 2006, you could expect all of that stuff,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:51.37,0:10:56.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or at least 85% of the movies, of the books, of the photos, of the albums, of the songs,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:57.09,0:10:58.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to be coming into the public domain.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:58.76,0:11:01.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The people who were still successfully extracting money
Dialogue: 0,0:11:01.67,0:11:04.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from their compositions, or their books or their photos, to be sure,
Dialogue: 0,0:11:04.84,0:11:08.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,would renew their copyright, but the rest did not, because most works
Dialogue: 0,0:11:08.70,0:11:14.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,exhaust all of their commercial viabiitiy within 5 years of their creation.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:14.59,0:11:18.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,28 years, in fact, in many cases, is probably way too long.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:18.60,0:11:21.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There have been studies on the optimal copyright term,
Dialogue: 0,0:11:21.85,0:11:26.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,including some by some excellent scholars here, which show that the optimal copyright term
Dialogue: 0,0:11:26.00,0:11:30.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in terms of balancing the dead weight loss to society and the need to incentivize authors
Dialogue: 0,0:11:30.68,0:11:33.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is somewhere arount 12 to 14 years. It turns out we had it right
Dialogue: 0,0:11:33.71,0:11:35.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at the beginning of the copyright system.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:35.97,0:11:44.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That was 1978 in the US, but now of course copyright lasts for life + 70 years -
Dialogue: 0,0:11:45.40,0:11:48.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,95 years in the case of a corporate work for hire.
Dialogue: 0,0:11:48.76,0:11:53.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What does that mean? Well, the first thing is that the works that you create
Dialogue: 0,0:11:54.08,0:11:59.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are not going into the public domain until 70 years after you die,
Dialogue: 0,0:11:59.43,0:12:03.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which, given the age of the people in this audience, is a very long time indeed.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:04.14,0:12:10.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that might be bad enough, but unfortunately and brilliantly, what we did was
Dialogue: 0,0:12:10.48,0:12:15.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we retrospectively applied those copyright terms extensions
Dialogue: 0,0:12:15.55,0:12:17.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to the works that have already been created.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:18.26,0:12:22.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we also did a couple of other things. We abolished formalities.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:22.17,0:12:27.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the old day, you actually had to write a copyright © on it to get a copyright.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:27.57,0:12:32.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You actually may have had to renew your copyright after some period of time.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:32.55,0:12:36.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We decided that that was far too onerous and instead, that all of this work
Dialogue: 0,0:12:36.76,0:12:41.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,should automatically be copyrighted as soon as it is fixed in material form
Dialogue: 0,0:12:41.77,0:12:44.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and should be copyrighted for the life of the author + 70 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:44.73,0:12:46.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we applied those rules retrospectively.
Dialogue: 0,0:12:47.60,0:12:51.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So imagine the British Library, an institution I'm very fond of,
Dialogue: 0,0:12:52.55,0:13:01.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and imagine the British Library configured as a large British flan or meringue cake,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:02.08,0:13:05.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or perhaps fruit cake, given what I'm going to talk about.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:05.27,0:13:09.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A large, delicious confectionery. And if you look at that and you say, OK
Dialogue: 0,0:13:09.49,0:13:15.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,let us take the works that are, say, more than 28 years old, just to use that particular term.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:15.70,0:13:21.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Of those works that are more than 28 years old, how many are commercially available?
Dialogue: 0,0:13:21.17,0:13:25.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So you've got lots of stuff in the British Library, you have movies, you have songs,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:25.70,0:13:30.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you have books, you have - right, how many? And you'll find - it depends on the art form -
Dialogue: 0,0:13:31.12,0:13:36.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that the answer is between 3, 4 or 5%, depending on the art form.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:37.02,0:13:40.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So this stuff is just not commercially available. You can't go out and buy it.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:41.13,0:13:43.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now e-bay has made that slightly better off,
Dialogue: 0,0:13:43.43,0:13:45.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because it means the second-hand market is better, but even that -
Dialogue: 0,0:13:46.05,0:13:52.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,no new copies available. So the work simply cannot be bought, but it's still under copyright.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:52.59,0:13:57.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, sitting in the library, you can go and check it out, but of course there's only one copy there.
Dialogue: 0,0:13:57.64,0:14:00.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And in many cases, it turns out that actually, you can't check it out
Dialogue: 0,0:14:00.42,0:14:04.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for example, in the cases of the films, and some cases the music,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:04.30,0:14:07.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they say, well, we can't screen this because it might still be under copyright.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:07.25,0:14:10.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that might be bad enough, because we're locking this thing up,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:10.18,0:14:14.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,puportedly in order to incentivize creation and distribution.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:14.48,0:14:17.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We applied it retrospectively to a bunch of dead authors.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:17.80,0:14:21.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, for those of you not well-versed in microeconomics,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:21.89,0:14:26.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the odds of copyright terms extension incentivizing dead authors is relatively low.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:26.98,0:14:29.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:14:29.70,0:14:34.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We've done experiments on this, and there were some promising -
Dialogue: 0,0:14:34.51,0:14:37.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Madame Blavatsky had some promising kind of spirit-level medium
Dialogue: 0,0:14:38.05,0:14:43.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,contacts, some claim that the Ouija board might have made something,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:43.67,0:14:46.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but actually, relatively little activity.
Dialogue: 0,0:14:46.41,0:14:50.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Presumably, therefore, we just need to give them more copyright,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:50.61,0:14:54.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on the theory that if they didn't produce whithin 50 years being dead,
Dialogue: 0,0:14:54.79,0:14:59.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if we just give them 70, that might be the necessary dose.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:00.13,0:15:04.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, they aren't going to produce anymore, and their works aren't commercially available,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:04.36,0:15:07.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is somewhat of a shame. But now the true tragedy:
Dialogue: 0,0:15:08.06,0:15:13.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the majority of our collective culture are orphan works.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:13.46,0:15:22.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Not little Dickensian waifs sent up chimneys, but rather works whose copyright holder
Dialogue: 0,0:15:22.20,0:15:27.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is either unfindable, or unidentifiable, or both. Now what that means
Dialogue: 0,0:15:27.73,0:15:31.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is that if you go to this library and you say: "OK, I love this book, it's fabulous,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:31.39,0:15:38.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'd like to do a new edition for university students, I think that they can really learn from this.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:39.03,0:15:43.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm happy to pay: I'll pay a licensing fee or whatever. Who do I contact?"
Dialogue: 0,0:15:43.59,0:15:47.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Well, we don't know." "cause I will... OK. Well there must be some way, obviously.
Dialogue: 0,0:15:48.02,0:15:52.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm a good person, I want to pay the money. There must be some way for me to do this."
Dialogue: 0,0:15:52.09,0:15:56.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well no, there isn't, actually, a way to do it, because copyright is a strict liability system,
Dialogue: 0,0:15:56.37,0:15:59.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which probably makes those of you with BDSM tendencies
Dialogue: 0,0:15:59.81,0:16:04.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,get all kind of tingly, a strict liability not in the sense of a disciplinarian
Dialogue: 0,0:16:04.54,0:16:10.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with a birch rod, but rather in the sense that being a good person and trying really hard
Dialogue: 0,0:16:10.27,0:16:16.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to find the person is no excuse for copyright violation. You may not reprint that work,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:16.91,0:16:22.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you may not show that movie, you may not translate that poem or stage that play,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:22.99,0:16:28.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,though you want desperately to go out there and pay, and though, in all likelihood,
Dialogue: 0,0:16:28.53,0:16:34.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the author, if he or she could be found, doesn't care a bit, or would be delighted
Dialogue: 0,0:16:34.09,0:16:39.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to have the work out there. Now, this is what librarians call 20th c. black hole.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:40.02,0:16:46.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The nature of black holes is, you may remember, that they are very dense and that they suck things in
Dialogue: 0,0:16:46.47,0:16:51.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and in the end, sucking in things including light, and that nothing escapes from them.
Dialogue: 0,0:16:51.23,0:16:56.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Copyright with the retrospective term extension [aside: I can see a couple of people going "Well, actually I ....
Dialogue: 0,0:16:56.59,0:17:05.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,....which is one of the delights about speaking to a geek audience, I just love it - Copyright - You know who you are"]
Dialogue: 0,0:17:05.47,0:17:11.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Copyright sucks in our collective culture and some people do very well about this.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:11.97,0:17:16.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Gershwin's heirs are still reaping in royalties from "Rhapsody in Blue".
Dialogue: 0,0:17:16.71,0:17:22.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's fabulous. But the vast majority of the works (2x) are not commercially available
Dialogue: 0,0:17:22.62,0:17:25.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and, in fact, no copyright holder can be found.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:25.87,0:17:28.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is particularly true in the case of informal culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:17:29.12,0:17:35.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Think of all those home movies, a fascinating source of information for documentarians, eh?
Dialogue: 0,0:17:35.51,0:17:41.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But do you have a clearance? Who would possibly object to be showing this grainy home movie
Dialogue: 0,0:17:41.13,0:17:46.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of life in the segregated South? No one is going to care, you know,
Dialogue: 0,0:17:46.10,0:17:50.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but "Sorry, what do we get here, this is not pre-1923, the liability could be enormous,
Dialogue: 0,0:17:51.05,0:17:56.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we can't let you do it." What we've done - it's really quite striking - is cut off access
Dialogue: 0,0:17:56.69,0:18:03.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to our collective heritage in order not to benefit ourselves.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:03.82,0:18:09.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,To be sure, the 4 or 5% of people whose works are still valuable after 28 years,
Dialogue: 0,0:18:09.70,0:18:14.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or the 1% of people whose works are still valuable after 56 years
Dialogue: 0,0:18:14.60,0:18:22.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or the vanishingly small slice of that cake I asked you to imagine the raisinous aroma
Dialogue: 0,0:18:22.69,0:18:27.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that drifts out if you talk about after 100 years, they indeed are benefitting.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:27.44,0:18:34.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But we lose everything else, even though it doesn't make any economic sense.
Dialogue: 0,0:18:34.97,0:18:40.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, unfortunately there is already a Boyle's law by one of my ancestors, I gather:
Dialogue: 0,0:18:40.57,0:18:44.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's a perfect academic law, it dealt with the fact that hot hair tends to expand -
Dialogue: 0,0:18:44.58,0:18:46.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:18:46.71,0:18:52.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But now, here's Boyle's way of analyzing a law. You can see how truly messed up
Dialogue: 0,0:18:52.83,0:18:56.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a regulatory system is, a system regulating a particular area,
Dialogue: 0,0:18:56.62,0:19:02.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by looking at it and saying: "Show me something which clearly screws us up,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:02.66,0:19:06.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which clearly imposes massive dead weight cost on society,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:06.81,0:19:11.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,without imposing commensurate benefits, where we could clearly fix it
Dialogue: 0,0:19:11.46,0:19:15.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so that everyone would be better off, even the people who are currently benefitting from it,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:15.78,0:19:22.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and yet nothing gets done". Now, if nothing gets done, then you can tell that this is an impacted,
Dialogue: 0,0:19:22.10,0:19:29.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,data-resistent, closed little world of regulation, because it would be so easy to do better.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:29.80,0:19:34.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, I actually want to suggest quite seriously that Org Con run a competition.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:34.87,0:19:42.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The competition is for you to come up with a incredibly stupid, like room-temperature IQ -
Dialogue: 0,0:19:42.74,0:19:49.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,talking centigrades here - room-temperature IQ theory for how we should reform copyright
Dialogue: 0,0:19:49.72,0:19:53.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is just so stupid, so stupid it makes people's jaws drop.
Dialogue: 0,0:19:53.76,0:19:56.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs, someone suggests ACTA (?))
Dialogue: 0,0:19:56.92,0:20:00.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Wait till we get to the end, it's even better. Not bad, though, I have to agree -
Dialogue: 0,0:20:00.68,0:20:08.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and keep it secret? No, no, that's not part of it - a jaw-droppingly silly reform plan.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:08.09,0:20:13.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the reform plan has to be demonstrably far better than our current system,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:13.83,0:20:17.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,even for the market incumbents. So let me just give you one example.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:17.63,0:20:22.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Supposing right now, we went out and said: "OK, let's identify all the people
Dialogue: 0,0:20:22.38,0:20:27.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whose work is still commercially valuable after, let's say, 56 years, right, whatever it is,"
Dialogue: 0,0:20:27.47,0:20:33.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we'll say "OK, to all of you who were born on an even numbered year,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:33.47,0:20:36.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we will double the royalties you are currently getting,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:36.35,0:20:41.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and pay it all from the public fisc. And to all of you who were born on an odd numbered year,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:41.13,0:20:44.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we will triple your royalties and pay it all from the public fisc,
Dialogue: 0,0:20:44.85,0:20:48.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and everything else goes immediately into the public domain, all the other stuff.
Dialogue: 0,0:20:48.20,0:20:53.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we get all of the rest of culture, right? Isn't that amazingly stupid?
Dialogue: 0,0:20:53.81,0:20:58.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But it's much better than our current system. You get the idea now?
Dialogue: 0,0:20:58.61,0:21:05.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs and claps)
Dialogue: 0,0:21:05.12,0:21:09.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I look forward to this. I really imagine some sort of fabulous Heath Robinson (? check)'s like
Dialogue: 0,0:21:09.82,0:21:15.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,structure that this group could create that would show us just how bad copyright is.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:15.28,0:21:18.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What kinds of proposals are there? I'll just mention a few.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:18.89,0:21:23.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Orphan works legislation which would say, if a work is an orphan and you go through
Dialogue: 0,0:21:23.93,0:21:29.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a series of attempts to identify the author, then you should presumptively be OK,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:29.39,0:21:33.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you should get a kinf of safe harbor to use it, but then, if the author actually appears,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:33.51,0:21:37.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you have to take it down, something like that. These kinds of proposals have been put forward,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:37.07,0:21:38.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they've actually been introduced in numbers of parliaments,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:38.99,0:21:43.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,there are very anaemic versions of them in a couple of countries. Canada, for example, has a version
Dialogue: 0,0:21:43.91,0:21:47.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is better than nothing, but is still so limited as to be relatively useless.
Dialogue: 0,0:21:47.58,0:21:52.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But every attempt to do this ends up getting blocked, and as I said, gets blocked even though
Dialogue: 0,0:21:52.56,0:21:56.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it is not really helping even the market incumbents: it just basically makes them look bad
Dialogue: 0,0:21:56.58,0:21:59.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because in order to get their - keeping slices of the monopoly rent,
Dialogue: 0,0:21:59.84,0:22:01.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they have to put the rest of our collective culture off-limits.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:01.98,0:22:06.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, I mean, this is a just a wonderful case to illustrate how messed up we are.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:06.65,0:22:12.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So this is one way in which we have made our collective culture legally unavailable to us
Dialogue: 0,0:22:12.56,0:22:17.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,right at the moment when practically, we had this amazing tool for dissmination.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:17.94,0:22:23.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Just think for a moment about - remember my story about 1978 - imagine a world where
Dialogue: 0,0:22:24.02,0:22:30.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,85% of everything produced 28 years or more before went immediately into the public domain,
Dialogue: 0,0:22:30.47,0:22:34.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where all of that stuff is in the public domain and all of it could be digitized,
Dialogue: 0,0:22:34.59,0:22:40.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where instead of the tiny little slice of the stuff that is commercially available from the British Library,
Dialogue: 0,0:22:40.79,0:22:44.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you instead can say, "Well, at least 85% of this stuff is free to use (?),
Dialogue: 0,0:22:44.45,0:22:48.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm just going to be able to click the link in the catalogue and view the book,
Dialogue: 0,0:22:48.64,0:22:52.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,see the movie, get to translate something, etc. Imagine that world.
Dialogue: 0,0:22:53.11,0:22:57.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We could have had it, it wouldn't even have cost us anything,
Dialogue: 0,0:22:57.29,0:23:02.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because all we had to do was not to impose a stupid retrospective monopoly to get it.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:02.28,0:23:08.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we gave it up without ever thinking about it. And that is actually quite sad.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:08.51,0:23:18.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Second way. These themes of the length of copyright and the granularity, both themes
Dialogue: 0,0:23:19.05,0:23:23.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that Jennifer Jenkins is going to be taking up, and how this has affected music specifically,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:23.65,0:23:25.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I'm going to talk in more general terms.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:25.75,0:23:33.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The second one is the granularity of copyright, the level of cultural activity that it regulates,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:34.08,0:23:41.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like how atomic does it get? So this is a little harder to describe, because
Dialogue: 0,0:23:41.17,0:23:45.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you are describing not just law, that is to say the law in the books, the law in the cases,
Dialogue: 0,0:23:45.69,0:23:50.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the law in the statutes, but you are also talking about a set of business practices and assumptions.
Dialogue: 0,0:23:50.75,0:23:54.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We live now in a very weird world where on the one hand, people think that everything
Dialogue: 0,0:23:54.94,0:23:59.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,ought to be freely available, that there should be no barriers to it, but everyone also assumes that
Dialogue: 0,0:23:59.09,0:24:05.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,permission is always required. This is a weird sort of bipolarism in our attitudes towards permission.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:05.28,0:24:13.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How does this work? Well, what happens - Larry Lessig coined the term permissions culture for this -
Dialogue: 0,0:24:13.23,0:24:18.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is that there is an assumption that any piece of culture that might be copyrighted,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:18.86,0:24:22.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we have to go out and ask for permission for it, no matter how small.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:22.93,0:24:29.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So in the comic book that we did on the effects of law on the documentary film industry,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:29.41,0:24:35.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we went out and found that documentarians were being told, often with no legal basis whatsoever,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:36.13,0:24:43.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they had to do things like, for example, pay $10'000 to clear a cell phone
Dialogue: 0,0:24:43.38,0:24:49.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that rang in the back of a shot that was being taken on a documentary on ballroom dancing
Dialogue: 0,0:24:49.83,0:24:55.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because the cell phone played the theme tune for Rocky, which is still under copyright.
Dialogue: 0,0:24:55.55,0:24:58.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The documentarian actually wanted to keep it in, because it was an Italian-American family,
Dialogue: 0,0:24:58.93,0:25:03.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,she thought it really kind of brought out an aspect of their relationships,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:03.30,0:25:07.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and she was told $10'000, and when she talked to us, she was delighted she had managed to negotiate it
Dialogue: 0,0:25:07.94,0:25:15.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,down to $5'000. Now, for those of you who are wondering, there is no legal basis for this claim whatsoever,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:16.13,0:25:20.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you said that you need to pay a licensing fee in order to do this, clearly a fair use under
Dialogue: 0,0:25:20.96,0:25:26.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,American copyright law, you fail your copyright exam right then, don't even go into the exam room,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:26.46,0:25:30.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know, you're done, goodbye. We probably shouldn't have admitted you to law school
Dialogue: 0,0:25:30.42,0:25:36.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the first place. It is utterly ridiculous but it has become the norm in the industry,
Dialogue: 0,0:25:36.33,0:25:42.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because the insurance agencies who function as the gate-keepers for film distribution
Dialogue: 0,0:25:42.43,0:25:44.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have simply decided that everything must be cleared.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:45.01,0:25:49.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And luckily, there are some dozen people here who are trying to educate film makers
Dialogue: 0,0:25:49.58,0:25:52.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,- that was our comic book - or to actually get them together and come up
Dialogue: 0,0:25:52.97,0:25:56.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with collective statements of what they think the law should be, how fair use should be applied.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:56.87,0:25:59.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There's great work done by American universities there.
Dialogue: 0,0:25:59.20,0:26:05.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But this is just an area where no one thinks that we get more or better documentary films,
Dialogue: 0,0:26:05.66,0:26:11.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,more or better movies because, when a camera flashes across a tapestry or a painting
Dialogue: 0,0:26:11.66,0:26:16.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or a cell phone plays in the background, or God forbid, and this one is even stupider,
Dialogue: 0,0:26:16.66,0:26:20.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a person with a Nike swoosh hat (? check) walks across the scene
Dialogue: 0,0:26:20.64,0:26:24.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they were told they had to pay for this - false - because it was copyrighted - false -
Dialogue: 0,0:26:24.40,0:26:31.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and in fact that every logo in all movies had to be earbrushed (? check) out, also ludicrous.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:32.05,0:26:37.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No one thinks this gives us more or better culture. And remember, copyright is actually - hard to believe
Dialogue: 0,0:26:37.78,0:26:44.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,- supposed to fulfill a goal, which is to incentivize the production and dissemination of culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:45.31,0:26:48.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this is something that's applying across lots of areas.
Dialogue: 0,0:26:48.84,0:26:56.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Again, a lot of this is just misinformation. It's worth going and sort of talking to people who teach
Dialogue: 0,0:26:56.15,0:27:02.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in your high schools, and find out what they think the law is. It's really fascinating.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:02.59,0:27:06.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's sort of like, you know, what you were told about sex in the playground
Dialogue: 0,0:27:07.00,0:27:12.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when you were - OK, in my case, 10 in your case probably 4 -
Dialogue: 0,0:27:12.39,0:27:15.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:27:15.20,0:27:19.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Something to do with the belly buttons rubbing together makes the baby,
Dialogue: 0,0:27:19.83,0:27:23.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but if you jump up and down, not so much, except on a Thursday.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:24.33,0:27:30.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This is exactly the kind of stuff I was told. I went to a lovely, very earnest group of teachers
Dialogue: 0,0:27:30.25,0:27:34.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who were training North Carolina high school teachers on how to use technology
Dialogue: 0,0:27:34.27,0:27:37.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and were also thus the source of information about the law.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:38.07,0:27:41.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And one person in the group said "Well, we know that you are not allowed
Dialogue: 0,0:27:41.45,0:27:50.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to link to a website without permission, because that's the internet, which is in the law.
Dialogue: 0,0:27:50.30,0:27:58.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we know that under fair use, you can quote a cell from an Excel spreadsheet, but my question is,
Dialogue: 0,0:27:58.24,0:27:59.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what if you're not using Excel?
Dialogue: 0,0:27:59.80,0:28:02.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:28:02.17,0:28:04.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I've been a teacher for a long time, but I didn't think that there would be question
Dialogue: 0,0:28:04.95,0:28:08.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that would stun me by being so thoroughly disconnected from reality
Dialogue: 0,0:28:08.56,0:28:12.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that I couldn't - it's like, I remember taking drugs that made the world seem this way,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:13.05,0:28:21.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but it's been a long time. (audience laughs and claps)
Dialogue: 0,0:28:21.24,0:28:26.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Richard Feynman had a great line in response to a physics paper, it's like:
Dialogue: 0,0:28:26.94,0:28:32.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"This paper is so stupid it isn't even wrong." (audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:28:32.28,0:28:40.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,OK. So my point is that in these 2 weird ways, right at the moment when we have this fabulous
Dialogue: 0,0:28:40.48,0:28:46.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,technology of accessibility and dissemination, we have made our culture inaccessible,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:46.58,0:28:51.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,inaccessible reaching back in time, unnecessarily locking up which is commercially unavailable,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:51.21,0:28:57.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and which in many cases has no author. Inaccessible latitudinally, across our culture,
Dialogue: 0,0:28:57.97,0:29:04.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because we are being asked for permission to quote tiny, tiny fragments: 3 notes sampled in a song,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:04.52,0:29:10.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for example. And for those of you who are interested, the book that Jim mentioned,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:10.51,0:29:16.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Public Domain, which you can download for free, of course, has an analysis of how this played out
Dialogue: 0,0:29:16.03,0:29:19.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in Ray Charles's music for example. But I want to skip over that,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:19.18,0:29:21.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because I want to leave enough time for questions.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:23.25,0:29:30.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, now the question is, what is to be done? What I am describing is, I think, something that
Dialogue: 0,0:29:30.47,0:29:34.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,doesn't make sense, really, from anyone's point of view.
Dialogue: 0,0:29:35.21,0:29:38.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,To be sure, the people whose copyright got extended and who are still making money from them
Dialogue: 0,0:29:38.79,0:29:43.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like their copyright terms extension. They think that their monopoly is not the second irruption
Dialogue: 0,0:29:43.82,0:29:48.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the Goths and Vandals, but rather something that they deserve, because they,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:48.25,0:29:52.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or their heirs, more likely, or their corporate assigns (? check) even more likely,
Dialogue: 0,0:29:52.18,0:29:56.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,actually created something of culture. And fair enough. But all the other stuff
Dialogue: 0,0:29:56.89,0:29:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that is commercially unavailable orphan works, it just makes no sense to lock it up
Dialogue: 0,0:30:00.06,0:30:02.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because you just can't come up with a reason, right?
Dialogue: 0,0:30:02.94,0:30:07.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And as for the claims of the granularity of culture, I mean, is there anyone who seriously says:
Dialogue: 0,0:30:07.73,0:30:13.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"No, with all these mazes of permissions fees and this fabulous full employment guarantee
Dialogue: 0,0:30:13.44,0:30:18.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the people Boyle educates, to sit there painstakingly checking off every piece
Dialogue: 0,0:30:18.14,0:30:23.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of created culture and saying "Yeah, yeah, oh no, look look look, there's a picture in the background
Dialogue: 0,0:30:23.16,0:30:27.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that needs to be cleared or erased", which is often the case. A lot of the documentaries you see
Dialogue: 0,0:30:28.10,0:30:32.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are fantasies, because they accidentally included something that was copyrighted,
Dialogue: 0,0:30:32.26,0:30:36.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and so the film maker has to wash it out and replace it with something that never happened.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:36.90,0:30:39.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Kind of Brave New World, this, isn't it?
Dialogue: 0,0:30:40.34,0:30:42.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what is to be done?
Dialogue: 0,0:30:45.07,0:30:49.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One possibility, suggested by the idea of the paradox I started out with is to say:
Dialogue: 0,0:30:49.97,0:30:56.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"To hell with it. The law is just stupid. Let's just ignore it. Let's just use technology to do
Dialogue: 0,0:30:56.87,0:30:58.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whatever we want with copyrighted culture.
Dialogue: 0,0:30:58.77,0:31:00.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We'll share the all the files we want to, and to hell with you.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:00.98,0:31:07.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We'll put all the books online, we'll make our movies, we'll take fragments of your stuff
Dialogue: 0,0:31:07.37,0:31:10.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if we want to and you can't stop us and it'll all be up on YouTube,
Dialogue: 0,0:31:10.64,0:31:14.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,at least until the notice and take down request comes in."
Dialogue: 0,0:31:15.51,0:31:18.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that's certainly a response that we see out there.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:18.64,0:31:25.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I am a stodgy sort in many ways, but in this way particularly, that I don't like ideas
Dialogue: 0,0:31:25.73,0:31:31.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for a continuation of our culture that depend entirely on a) lawlessness
Dialogue: 0,0:31:31.76,0:31:38.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and b) the continued viability of particular free technologies which are constantly changing,
Dialogue: 0,0:31:38.20,0:31:43.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,constantly being reingeneered, and constantly being subject to ever greater regulation.
Dialogue: 0,0:31:43.52,0:31:51.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So to me, that seems like a thin reed to put our hopes in. And, as I said, I actually think
Dialogue: 0,0:31:51.17,0:31:54.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that the basic ideas of copyright are good ones. I think that the basic ideas,
Dialogue: 0,0:31:54.72,0:32:00.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not the absurdly long versions we have, not the absurdly granular versions we have,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:00.20,0:32:03.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,actually I think that the basic idea is rather a sound one.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:03.29,0:32:07.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And to be honest, I think that the people who have given it its current hypertrophied form
Dialogue: 0,0:32:07.79,0:32:11.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have actually really harmed themselves in one distinct way, which is
Dialogue: 0,0:32:11.40,0:32:18.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they have turned an entire generation of people into those who are either guilty law-breakers
Dialogue: 0,0:32:18.61,0:32:23.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or joyful lawbreakers, but lawbreakers nevertheless.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:23.42,0:32:27.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And if you think that doesn't matter, consider the last time you saw someone
Dialogue: 0,0:32:27.66,0:32:34.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who desperately wanted to park not in a handicapped zone, when they would have double-parked in a heartbeat.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:34.31,0:32:39.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because it's wrong. Right? And when you give up the idea that breaking the law is wrong,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:39.85,0:32:45.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is, i think, what an entire generation has done, then you lose a very powerful battle.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:45.42,0:32:49.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I actually think that was a mistake, an enormous mistake that the cultural industries,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:49.54,0:32:54.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in their pursuit of ever longer copyright terms and ever more rapacious demands for licensing fees,
Dialogue: 0,0:32:54.52,0:32:56.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have really shot themselves in the foot.
Dialogue: 0,0:32:56.49,0:32:59.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I think it's people like me who are actually the defenders of copyright.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:01.40,0:33:06.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So digital lawlessness or technological workaround certainly is going to be part of our world,
Dialogue: 0,0:33:06.95,0:33:08.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I don't think it's a way of solving this problem.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:08.45,0:33:15.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It particularly isn't a solution when what you need is collaboration from large and stodgy organizations
Dialogue: 0,0:33:15.82,0:33:20.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,full of very well-meaning people who work according to rules,
Dialogue: 0,0:33:20.67,0:33:22.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like libraries, for example.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:22.80,0:33:30.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I love librarians, I really do love librarians, I went to a conference in Argentina where I said that
Dialogue: 0,0:33:30.54,0:33:34.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,librarians were my heroes and that I regretted only that there were no place in popular culture
Dialogue: 0,0:33:35.06,0:33:40.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where they were celebrated as they deserved, that there was no iconic librarian that we could turn to.
Dialogue: 0,0:33:40.98,0:33:45.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I thought that this was dreadful, and I was upbraided seriously after the meeting
Dialogue: 0,0:33:45.24,0:33:49.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by a coterie of female librarians from Brazil and Argentina,
Dialogue: 0,0:33:49.07,0:33:54.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who said that the story of the repressed but sexy librarian in the porno movie
Dialogue: 0,0:33:54.59,0:33:59.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was one dear to their hearts. And how dare I disrespect it?
Dialogue: 0,0:33:59.59,0:34:04.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I apologized for that omission.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:06.32,0:34:09.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what else can we do?
Dialogue: 0,0:34:09.30,0:34:14.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, there's actually quite a lot that can be done with private axe (? check) and workarounds.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:15.13,0:34:20.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Creative Commons is such a workaround. Creative Commons tries to deal with
Dialogue: 0,0:34:20.43,0:34:26.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the no work, absent conscious choice by a creator, will be available to you to build upon,
Dialogue: 0,0:34:26.53,0:34:31.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to say: "OK, let's make the conscious choice part really easy, really, really easy.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:32.09,0:34:39.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And let's also make the legal accessibility of something, something that machines can figure out,
Dialogue: 0,0:34:39.26,0:34:41.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,something that is searchable on Google.
Dialogue: 0,0:34:42.07,0:34:45.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's a private workaround. The default of the law was: lock everything up,
Dialogue: 0,0:34:45.90,0:34:49.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so when we founded Creative Commons, we actually went to the copyright office and said:
Dialogue: 0,0:34:49.66,0:34:57.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"OK, we want a way for people to make their work free. What's your prefered method for creators
Dialogue: 0,0:34:57.64,0:35:02.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who choose to put their work in the Public Domain?" And they said: "We don't provide that service,
Dialogue: 0,0:35:02.83,0:35:08.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because we are about locking stuff up, not actually allowing authors to share their materials."
Dialogue: 0,0:35:08.60,0:35:10.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So that's the kind of workaround.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:10.31,0:35:16.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Google Books is a kind of workaround. For all of the criticisms made of it, this is an attempt to say:
Dialogue: 0,0:35:16.33,0:35:22.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"OK, let's see if we can actually make some of this material available online."
Dialogue: 0,0:35:22.17,0:35:27.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the critics of Google Books - and there was very fierce criticism
Dialogue: 0,0:35:27.11,0:35:29.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,particularly based on some of the potential monopolistic aspect - I think
Dialogue: 0,0:35:29.90,0:35:35.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,miss 2 fundamental points. The 1st is that it's very hard for people to imagine
Dialogue: 0,0:35:35.89,0:35:44.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how dumb our system is, until they get to see what they have given up because of the choices we've made.
Dialogue: 0,0:35:44.22,0:35:51.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And if you can suddenly say: "You mean that I can search inside books? That's amazing!"
Dialogue: 0,0:35:51.56,0:35:55.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,True story: one of my students was working on a research paper,
Dialogue: 0,0:35:55.29,0:35:59.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and he comes in with this research paper. It's quite good, but he has missed this enormous
Dialogue: 0,0:35:59.51,0:36:03.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,chunk of material about which 3 very good monographs have been written.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:03.38,0:36:05.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I say: "You need to go back and look at this, because..."
Dialogue: 0,0:36:05.40,0:36:11.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Well, I didn't find that, it's in a book!" And it actually took a long time for me ...
Dialogue: 0,0:36:12.20,0:36:15.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what does he mean, it's in a book? And then I realized that to his generation,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:16.02,0:36:22.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a complete flip had occurred. Since Gutenberg, we have assumed that the book
Dialogue: 0,0:36:22.15,0:36:27.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was the realm of accessible culture, right? You wrote stuff down, so that it wouldn't vanish forever,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:27.89,0:36:31.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like the oral lore. And within the space of a generation,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:31.45,0:36:35.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the book had become the symbol of total inaccessibility.
Dialogue: 0,0:36:35.05,0:36:38.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"How do you expect me to find that? It was written down in a book!
Dialogue: 0,0:36:38.100,0:36:41.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I can't be expected to look inside a book!"
Dialogue: 0,0:36:42.09,0:36:46.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, this is sort of as if I had asked him to go do research in medieval English, you know,
Dialogue: 0,0:36:46.47,0:36:48.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sort of like "I don't run that!"
Dialogue: 0,0:36:49.71,0:36:56.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, workarounds. In a way, the NIH, the National Institutes of Health's, open access mandate
Dialogue: 0,0:36:56.49,0:37:01.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which requires that NIH-funded research be placed under Creative Commons licenses,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:01.100,0:37:06.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is such a workaround. Copyright locks stuff by default, the publishers want to lock,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:06.89,0:37:11.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,particularly the commercial ones, the NIH founders, and this has been done in the EU also,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:11.33,0:37:15.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,say "No: if we are actually going to fund the science, it ought to be publicly accessible,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:15.58,0:37:21.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not just to the Mark I Eyeball, but to the forces of digital mining,
Dialogue: 0,0:37:21.29,0:37:21.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that could actually allow us to aggregate and rework our science in new ways."
Dialogue: 0,0:37:26.04,0:37:30.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That's a private workaround, in this case, a state workaround. But it's an initiative by the state
Dialogue: 0,0:37:30.33,0:37:41.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to flip the default set either by industry practice or legal rule. And then, there is law reform, our final possibility.
Dialogue: 0,0:37:41.99,0:37:49.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And this is where institutions like Org Con come in. Now, you might say, after the experience of
Dialogue: 0,0:37:50.04,0:37:58.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Digital Economy Bill, now Act: "I'm not so sure how this whole law reform thing
Dialogue: 0,0:37:58.57,0:38:07.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is going to play out." You might say: "I see enormous resistence to any kind of
Dialogue: 0,0:38:07.23,0:38:17.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sensible, balanced, civil liberties' respecting proposal, particularly in anthing that has
Dialogue: 0,0:38:17.11,0:38:19.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,an intellectual property label attached to it."
Dialogue: 0,0:38:19.31,0:38:21.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And you would have reason for that skepticism.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:21.90,0:38:30.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I however have a - I hoarded some optimisim during the Dot Com boom, there was a lot going around,
Dialogue: 0,0:38:30.34,0:38:33.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:38:33.20,0:38:36.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Being a Scot, I thought: "I'll put it under the mattress!"
Dialogue: 0,0:38:38.33,0:38:41.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I will now bring it out. It's a little dusty.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:42.13,0:38:48.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The optimism is this: something amazing has happened in the past 10 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:38:48.44,0:38:53.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It won't seem amazing to any of you who haven't studied the way that intellectual property was (? check)
Dialogue: 0,0:38:53.49,0:39:02.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But for the first time, we have actually started looking at data in order to figure out
Dialogue: 0,0:39:02.81,0:39:05.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,whether not the regulations are good or bad.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:06.00,0:39:11.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now, lest you get wildly enthusiastic, let me quickly say, we don't then do anything about it.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:12.47,0:39:15.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So there are a couple of really interesting examples. The Gowers Review,
Dialogue: 0,0:39:16.05,0:39:22.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the Gowers Review in the UK really did a fabulous, serious, balanced job
Dialogue: 0,0:39:22.66,0:39:25.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of doing an economic analysis of retrospective copyright terms.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:25.46,0:39:30.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Their conclusion: "Retrospective copyright terms extensions are never justified."
Dialogue: 0,0:39:30.39,0:39:35.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Right? It was very easy, you know, a good academic paper lead up to it: easy conclusion.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:35.79,0:39:38.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The European Union looked at the effects of the Database Directive.
Dialogue: 0,0:39:38.50,0:39:41.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"We have a Database Directive in the EU - is it helping? No!
Dialogue: 0,0:39:41.94,0:39:46.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Is it raising costs to consumers? Yes! Is it generating more databases than in the US? No!
Dialogue: 0,0:39:47.06,0:39:51.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Is their industry going faster without a Database Directive than ours with it? Yes!
Dialogue: 0,0:39:51.22,0:39:52.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What shall we do?"
Dialogue: 0,0:39:52.48,0:39:57.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:39:57.58,0:40:02.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's on the tip of my tongue. Oh, keep it, that's right, that's what we did.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:02.52,0:40:05.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They actually gave 3 options, the 1st was repeal it in a very useful way,
Dialogue: 0,0:40:05.68,0:40:06.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the 2nd was repeal it in a milder way
Dialogue: 0,0:40:06.70,0:40:08.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and the 3rst was keep it, and we kept it.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:08.80,0:40:17.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the point is that this has actually begun. Data has begun to enter the debates.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:17.12,0:40:19.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm a boring guy, I'm all about the data. If the data showed
Dialogue: 0,0:40:19.74,0:40:24.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that extending copyright term brought fabulous new influxes of culture,
Dialogue: 0,0:40:24.73,0:40:28.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'd say "OK, great!" But the data doesn't show that, of course. It shows exactly the reverse.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:28.07,0:40:35.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the 2nd thing is organizations like this. Because, again, for the first time,
Dialogue: 0,0:40:35.74,0:40:40.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,intellectual property has become something that both affects people -
Dialogue: 0,0:40:40.61,0:40:44.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it used to be really hard for a human being to break a copyright law,
Dialogue: 0,0:40:44.40,0:40:48.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you know, you needed a printing press, right? Or a movie studio.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:48.55,0:40:53.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And now, you know, the instruments of your legal violations sit on everybody's lap -
Dialogue: 0,0:40:53.53,0:40:59.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like, you are copyright actors, copyright affects you, whether you like it or not.
Dialogue: 0,0:40:59.54,0:41:06.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But you also are copyright re-actors and copyright anti-actors, agitators.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:06.40,0:41:11.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You are people who actually engage in the public debate. To be sure, it's a beginning.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:11.82,0:41:16.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the fact that both human beings and actual attention to evidence
Dialogue: 0,0:41:17.03,0:41:22.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have begun to enter the debate is something that my carefully ordered little piece of optimism
Dialogue: 0,0:41:22.99,0:41:25.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,finds very cheering. Thank you very much.
Dialogue: 0,0:41:25.56,0:41:49.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(applause)
Dialogue: 0,0:41:49.23,0:41:56.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You are to kind. So, questions? Is there a microphone protocol? There is always a microphone protocol.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:01.52,0:42:05.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I've alway longed to get one of these like (rocket sound).
Dialogue: 0,0:42:10.21,0:42:18.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The gentleman all the way at the very back, sorry, it's always that chap. Meet her halfway.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:18.59,0:42:20.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Spirit of compromise is not dead.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:22.67,0:42:28.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Q: Hello, I loved your point about the fundamental shift that happens
Dialogue: 0,0:42:28.72,0:42:31.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when we start thinking that breaking the law is OK.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:31.26,0:42:39.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Clearly, there is some kind of pragmatic balance with the whole notion of civil disobedience and
Dialogue: 0,0:42:39.15,0:42:43.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the need to acknowledge that some laws need breaking as an act of conscience.
Dialogue: 0,0:42:43.89,0:42:50.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How do we go about kind of moderating and constructing a dialogue around that,
Dialogue: 0,0:42:51.01,0:42:57.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that doesn't turn us into kind of clumsy anarchists, but actually, we form an ideology
Dialogue: 0,0:42:57.70,0:43:02.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that enables us, and use it as a progressive process for changing the law?
Dialogue: 0,0:43:02.28,0:43:06.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: That's a great question. I think - the sad answer is that very, very, very little
Dialogue: 0,0:43:06.40,0:43:13.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of digital law-breaking is done in what I think of as the fundamental civil disobedience tradition,
Dialogue: 0,0:43:13.35,0:43:18.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the first part of which is - remember that you acknowledge that you are breaking the law,
Dialogue: 0,0:43:18.13,0:43:22.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you are completely open about it and you say: "I believe this law is unjust, and I invite the state
Dialogue: 0,0:43:22.94,0:43:29.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to inflict its violence or its imprisonment on my body, because I will testify by my actions
Dialogue: 0,0:43:29.13,0:43:33.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that this is wrong. This lounge car should not be segregated, so I'm going to sit down.
Dialogue: 0,0:43:33.57,0:43:36.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm not sitting down saying, 'Hey, I hope they don't notice me.' right?
Dialogue: 0,0:43:36.27,0:43:40.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's like, I'm not sitting down saying - I'm not lying down in front of the train
Dialogue: 0,0:43:40.43,0:43:45.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because I hope they won't notice as it goes along in India, right?
Dialogue: 0,0:43:45.54,0:43:48.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm actually saying: "No, I testify by my actions this is wrong."
Dialogue: 0,0:43:49.12,0:43:53.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Some actions are like that - I can think of some programers, for example,
Dialogue: 0,0:43:53.21,0:43:57.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who have done that very consciously, I think of librarians sort of making a very conscious stand,
Dialogue: 0,0:43:57.54,0:44:03.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but most, unfortunately, is much more like speeding and hoping you don't get caught.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:03.41,0:44:08.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so I think, as a result, the sort of civil libertarian tradition isn't there
Dialogue: 0,0:44:08.69,0:44:16.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and my analysis of people is that they deem this as a law which they may think it has a moral basis
Dialogue: 0,0:44:17.04,0:44:19.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or not, they think that this moral basis is eroding.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:19.21,0:44:22.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But they do think it's a law and they don't think that they are in any way noble resisters.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:22.68,0:44:24.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They just think, I'm getting these songs for free.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:24.99,0:44:27.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I don't think that action in itself builds a movement,
Dialogue: 0,0:44:27.81,0:44:30.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I don't think it's particularly admirable either.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:30.45,0:44:31.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Over there? Thank you.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:38.77,0:44:44.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Question: Related to the last speaker, there is a precedent for laws being struck down
Dialogue: 0,0:44:44.51,0:44:49.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so (check) the cause, as they were criminalizing huge portions of the population.
Dialogue: 0,0:44:49.52,0:44:54.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I believe the ID cards during World War II were finally struck down well after the war
Dialogue: 0,0:44:55.06,0:45:01.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,permanently, because they were criminalizing a huge proportion of the population.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:01.61,0:45:03.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,.... (check) then, don't you think?
Dialogue: 0,0:45:03.36,0:45:08.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: That's a very good point. I think the answer is that I see no likelihood that
Dialogue: 0,0:45:09.02,0:45:15.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that is going to happen here. I see, in fact, exactly the opposite. I think the Digital Economy Bill
Dialogue: 0,0:45:15.88,0:45:20.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is one move to the opposite, which is, since you are all lawbreakers, we're just going to have
Dialogue: 0,0:45:20.56,0:45:24.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to increase the level of control. So, it's completely a different response.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:24.62,0:45:30.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the 2nd thing I think that makes it inapposite, sadly, in some cases,
Dialogue: 0,0:45:30.30,0:45:38.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,although as I said, I actually support the copyright laws, is that the current system is one
Dialogue: 0,0:45:38.91,0:45:44.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,where there obviously is going to be a level of leakiness in copyright enforcement.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:44.77,0:45:48.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There has always been a level of leakiness in copyright enforcement.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:48.42,0:45:53.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It used to be that we thought some of the leakiness was just OK, like we just didn't imagine
Dialogue: 0,0:45:53.57,0:45:57.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a copyright-regulated private behavior. L. Ray Patterson has a very good article on this.
Dialogue: 0,0:45:57.55,0:46:00.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It just neve occurred to anybody that copyright came into the private spnere.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:00.86,0:46:04.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And then there was another round way, we said "you know, this is probably technically illegal
Dialogue: 0,0:46:04.18,0:46:05.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but no one is going to fuss about it."
Dialogue: 0,0:46:05.91,0:46:08.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And what we've done instead was to move to an area where we say:
Dialogue: 0,0:46:08.83,0:46:14.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"OK, there is a percentage of copyright violation, let's say it's whatever percentage you want to say,
Dialogue: 0,0:46:14.52,0:46:20.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,30%, 50%, 20% of the market. And my job, as an industry rep is basically
Dialogue: 0,0:46:20.12,0:46:24.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to get the state to drive that down to as close to zero as possible.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:24.41,0:46:29.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But acknowledging that it's never going to be zero, so asymptotically moving towards greater control.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:29.55,0:46:35.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For those 2 reasons, sadly, I think the kind of coming to our senses - another example is the blue laws
Dialogue: 0,0:46:35.89,0:46:40.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the US, which criminalized sexual activities beyond the missionary position.
Dialogue: 0,0:46:40.64,0:46:47.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Still on the books in Massachussets as far as I know. And, so far as I can tell, not observed
Dialogue: 0,0:46:48.02,0:46:51.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by all of the population. (audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:46:51.62,0:46:55.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Long before the Supreme Court struck laws like that down as an infringement of personal liberty,
Dialogue: 0,0:46:55.90,0:47:00.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the government had effectively started saying "this is ridiculous, we're not going to enforce it."
Dialogue: 0,0:47:00.31,0:47:01.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But that's not the way we're looking at our copyright laws.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:01.60,0:47:07.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Largely, I would say, one addition, because we lump in things, the ludicrous enforcement of copyright
Dialogue: 0,0:47:07.78,0:47:12.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,against the thing that is commercially unavailable and you know, you can't find the owner,
Dialogue: 0,0:47:12.96,0:47:18.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with the copying of .... (check) album in its entirety, and we say those two things are the same
Dialogue: 0,0:47:18.15,0:47:20.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when I would actually want to make a distinction between them and say,
Dialogue: 0,0:47:20.24,0:47:24.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,one there might be an argument for saying it's illegitimate, the other not.
Dialogue: 0,0:47:30.43,0:47:34.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Question: can I just ask, how many people in here would say they got into this
Dialogue: 0,0:47:34.50,0:47:37.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,by illegal file sharing or free downloading, or something like that?
Dialogue: 0,0:47:40.12,0:47:55.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,OK - that kind of somehow - what I was trying to say is that you kind of rubbished the whole sort of notion of a
Dialogue: 0,0:47:55.44,0:48:03.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,massive disobedience, the whole sort of argument of getting something for free,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:03.50,0:48:07.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's just about getting something for free, as opposed to being ideological
Dialogue: 0,0:48:07.42,0:48:14.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but surely you see that people have come to it in a way like through their activity,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:14.20,0:48:20.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like through the Pirate Bay, those activities have lead to people actually scrutinizing the laws
Dialogue: 0,0:48:20.04,0:48:25.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and looking at them deeper. Do you not think that that has a value, at least initially,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:25.43,0:48:28.72,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if that's ultimately not the final solution?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:28.93,0:48:33.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: That's a good corrective. Let me change what I said. I do think there are people
Dialogue: 0,0:48:33.32,0:48:37.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who get into this. One of the things that I'd like to ask people, is like,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:37.27,0:48:41.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how did you come to be convinced that this was bad enough that something should be done about it?
Dialogue: 0,0:48:41.64,0:48:45.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And for a lot of people it's, they're doing their job, and the law is getting in their way,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:45.59,0:48:48.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they go: "This cannot be right, what, what, they're telling me about the law, it's just so stupid,
Dialogue: 0,0:48:48.69,0:48:53.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,this can't be right." Programmers, by the way, for those of you in the audience, this is you.
Dialogue: 0,0:48:53.68,0:48:58.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I have had so many conversations with - "Well, that's just stupid!" "Right, yes, I understand"
Dialogue: 0,0:48:58.33,0:49:04.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"No, but it's stupid!" "I understand the meaning of the word 'stupid', and also the word 'this'
Dialogue: 0,0:49:04.99,0:49:12.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I'm pretty clear on the whole conjugation of 'to be'. But nevertheless, it is the law."
Dialogue: 0,0:49:12.46,0:49:17.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"But it's just stupid!" And actually, it's a powerful disproof, I guess, of solipsism,
Dialogue: 0,0:49:17.29,0:49:22.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because if their disbelief could have caused the law to wink out of existence -
Dialogue: 0,0:49:22.35,0:49:23.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience laughs)
Dialogue: 0,0:49:23.46,0:49:25.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,then it would have done, so massive was that disbelief.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:25.61,0:49:31.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,(audience claps)
Dialogue: 0,0:49:31.81,0:49:35.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But yes, you're right. I do think that some people get into it in that way.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:35.66,0:49:38.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What I was saying was that I don't think that it's the case for the majority of people.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:38.75,0:49:43.41,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think that for the majority of people, it's like, 'what file sharing system do you use?' you know,
Dialogue: 0,0:49:43.41,0:49:46.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,'how do you get your stuff - isn't there something about turning off the uploads
Dialogue: 0,0:49:46.60,0:49:49.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and then they won't sue you', and that's the extent of the legal analysis.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:49.98,0:49:52.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I take your point, that's not everyone. Good corrective.
Dialogue: 0,0:49:54.09,0:49:59.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The gentleman right behind, and then - I'll try to keep my answers shorter
Dialogue: 0,0:50:00.42,0:50:04.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Question: The last time I looked, the cases, the judgments on defenses
Dialogue: 0,0:50:04.64,0:50:09.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,against infringement, whether that's satire or fair use, they were all over the place.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:09.84,0:50:14.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's pretty unpredictable,, depending which court you're in, which jurisdiction you're in,
Dialogue: 0,0:50:14.38,0:50:22.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what the nature of the case is. Do you have any ideas about some, as it were, revised concept
Dialogue: 0,0:50:22.30,0:50:27.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which could actually bring some harmonious predictability to those differences?
Dialogue: 0,0:50:27.39,0:50:32.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: It's a great question. It requires a significant legal disclaimer,
Dialogue: 0,0:50:32.26,0:50:36.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which is, the nature of fair use or fair dealing varies subtantially by legal system -
Dialogue: 0,0:50:36.66,0:50:40.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a point you're making. So what I could say about fair use in the United States doesn't hold
Dialogue: 0,0:50:41.06,0:50:43.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for fair dealing in the UK, which is much more on a sort of list-like basis,
Dialogue: 0,0:50:43.65,0:50:48.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the US, it's more a set of factors. People like me love those sets of factors
Dialogue: 0,0:50:48.48,0:50:52.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because they have been able to adapt to very new technologies: the courts did actually very well
Dialogue: 0,0:50:52.80,0:50:56.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in dealing with computer software. They made a series of decisions.
Dialogue: 0,0:50:56.88,0:50:59.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Copyright could have screwed up computer software totally,
Dialogue: 0,0:50:59.97,0:51:04.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they made a series of decisions, saying for example, decompilation for purposes of re-ingeneering
Dialogue: 0,0:51:04.41,0:51:08.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is fair use. Very, very good decisions, and that was those factors that let them do that.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:09.15,0:51:13.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The down side, though, is that you look at them and ask, what does this mean?
Dialogue: 0,0:51:14.03,0:51:17.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that's why we did a comic book on fair use, so that people could - it's called "Bound by Law",
Dialogue: 0,0:51:17.85,0:51:21.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you can download it - so that people be able to understand it.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:21.57,0:51:25.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Is there a real alternative? Yes. There actually is, and we have a concrete example of it.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:25.54,0:51:31.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Believe it or not, it comes from ICANN, Internet Committee on Assigned Names and Numbers.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:32.25,0:51:37.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The domain registration grievance procedure, the procedure by which you say:
Dialogue: 0,0:51:37.07,0:51:41.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,'You can't use this domain name, because you're saying you're Bruce Springsteen
Dialogue: 0,0:51:41.28,0:51:45.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and you're actually not, and then you go and deal with this in front of an arbitrator,
Dialogue: 0,0:51:45.29,0:51:50.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you don't need a lawyer. It's quite fast, it doesn't work perfectly, but it's very low-cost
Dialogue: 0,0:51:50.56,0:51:54.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it's very quick, and most of the decisions have actually been pretty good.
Dialogue: 0,0:51:54.39,0:52:01.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now one could imagine, perhaps in conjunction with something like the notice and take down provisions
Dialogue: 0,0:52:01.45,0:52:04.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the equivalent procedings
Dialogue: 0,0:52:04.59,0:52:09.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the European Copyright Directive, one could imagine a kind of adjunct, where you say,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:09.75,0:52:14.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you're disputing, you say: "No, this isn't fair use", you get to go in front of an arbitrator,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:14.52,0:52:18.16,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,make your case. Organizations like this, I'm sure, would provide fabulous guides for people.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:18.29,0:52:22.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think it might be in the interest of the companies, in fact, to have a fairly, pretty good
Dialogue: 0,0:52:22.25,0:52:26.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,working definition of what counts as fair uses or fair dealings or remixes of their songs or movies.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:26.25,0:52:29.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And it would be low-cost, and it would give definite answers,
Dialogue: 0,0:52:29.75,0:52:34.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and over time, develop a kind of common law. I think it's a really good idea and of course, that's one
Dialogue: 0,0:52:34.56,0:52:38.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for which there is absolutely no interest, as far as I can tell, in pursuing in any legislative body.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:42.05,0:52:47.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Sorry, the gentleman down here, and then that gentleman - I apologize.
Dialogue: 0,0:52:49.34,0:52:56.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Question: Thanks. I recently went to see Peter Jenner talk. He used to be the manager for
Dialogue: 0,0:52:56.13,0:53:01.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The Clash and Pink Floyd and all of that. And he said, if I can just quote from him:
Dialogue: 0,0:53:01.22,0:53:04.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"if we could get £1 /month from every person in this island for music it get,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:04.49,0:53:08.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,it's very close to the current value of recorded music. We have to start thinking radically,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:08.32,0:53:11.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we have to stop thinking about copyright law and how we can adjust it,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:11.77,0:53:15.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we have to think about how to rebuild copyright law in a digital realm where you can't stop copying,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:15.99,0:53:20.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,get rid of exclusive rights and get into remuneration rights.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:20.54,0:53:24.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I do recognize that my attack on copyright is a brutal attack on property rights and on capitalism,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:24.74,0:53:29.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but the speed and the fundamental nature of the change is so great that it requires really radical,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:29.51,0:53:33.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,really serious thinking." What's your view on that particular perspective?
Dialogue: 0,0:53:33.37,0:53:35.100,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Boyle: I think it's definitely something we should be pursuing.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:36.07,0:53:40.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Terry Fisher - William Fisher, Terry Fisher's friend, has a book called
Dialogue: 0,0:53:40.78,0:53:45.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Promises to keep", which details systems exactly like this. Something based on levies,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:45.99,0:53:50.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,maybe it would be on top of your broadband bill, maybe it would be based on number of downloads and so forth,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:51.01,0:53:53.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and basically, he says: "Let's get rid of this, let's just get rid of the copyright system,
Dialogue: 0,0:53:54.09,0:53:58.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,let's just tackle on basically have an "all you can drink, all you can eat" procedure.
Dialogue: 0,0:53:58.70,0:54:01.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,There's a lot of opposition to it, there are some real dangers.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:01.43,0:54:08.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,One thing is, if you're trying to reward artists in proportion to downloads, then you have to know
Dialogue: 0,0:54:08.62,0:54:12.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,who's downloading and how much. And if you don't want spoofing,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:12.77,0:54:16.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which of course you would get, then that gets you into quite intrusive monitoring
Dialogue: 0,0:54:16.70,0:54:20.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of what people are doing, ironically, to get away from the copyright system, you end up
Dialogue: 0,0:54:20.54,0:54:23.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,doing some of the same things. So there are real dangers,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:23.79,0:54:27.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I think it should definitely be on the table, and the fact it's not on the table is, I think,
Dialogue: 0,0:54:27.61,0:54:32.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,very unfortunate. Sadly, the proposals that record companies like is:
Dialogue: 0,0:54:32.26,0:54:38.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"I like the bit about the revenue stream. I like that bit. That's a good bit. I didn't like the bit
Dialogue: 0,0:54:38.24,0:54:42.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,about getting rid of the exclusive rights." So their prefered solution is
Dialogue: 0,0:54:42.66,0:54:47.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Keep everything we'e got AND tack a new levy system on as well."
Dialogue: 0,0:54:47.80,0:54:53.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that might be an unfortunate result of this procedure.
Dialogue: 0,0:54:53.20,0:54:55.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I think it's worth pursuing.