Nina Paley is not only a famed artist and producer, having produced Sita Sings the Blues, the movie that is being called the most widely available film in history (review). She is also a one-woman warrior against copyright, leading first by example and then through patient explanation to the world art community via the website she runs with her colleagues, QuestionCopyright.org. The site is filled with fascinating articles on the topic.
Nina herself has the open-source faith and I find myself in full agreement with her on the advantages that accrue to artists from Creative Commons, the flat-out contradiction between the notion of intellectual property and the desire to spread beauty, the disincentives to creativity that are imposed by coercive monopolies on innovation, and the reliance that high-quality art in all ages has upon that creativity of others.
Artistic development in all ages is much like economic development: a complex and interactive process of both emulation and competition that relies on openness and not artificially imposed state restrictions.
She is so insistent on this that she reverses the usual language on her own art, insisting that no buyer or viewer of her film may copyright any portions of it or “attach Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to Sita Sings the Blues or its derivative works.”
On the subject of Digital Rights Management, however, Nina has presented something of a challenge. From a private enterprise perspective, there would seem to be nothing wrong with DRM-like technologies, even if DRM itself has its own problems. It is an attempt to restrict the distribution of a product in the hope of greater commercialization and sales of the product. It might be a bad choice. Consumers may not like it. It might not eventually stand up to the long-run market test. But there would not seem to be anything particularly anti-market about the concept. It is like a trade secret, up to the discretion of the producer to keep or reveal.
Perhaps. Nina has a different point of view. She turned down the opportunity to distribute her film on Netflix because Netflix insists on using DRM. Nina does not want her fans to be forced to sign a DRM-based End User License Agreement that insists that viewers “surrender rights well beyond what copyright restricts.” She asked Netflix if it could make an exception for her film. Netflix could not and would not. So she surrendered what might have been her most lucrative distribution channel.
I can respect this decision. It seems to be a principled one based on her own open-source EULA she asks of her own viewers. The position seems rather extreme in some way, but she is on a mission to make a point. I do wonder, however, if her position here actually distracts from her core argument, which isn’t so much about DRM but copyright itself.
And surely there is a difference between keeping a secret, using private means to artificially restrict information flows, and a law enforced by the state that forcibly prohibits imitation, reproduction, and competition.
For example, let’s say that I’m selling the best watermelon you have ever had. I don’t have to reveal to you precisely how I’m able to grow it. It’s my secret. I might change my mind, but no one can change it for me. You may not use coercion to force me to tell you. At the same time, I cannot forcibly prevent you from trying to replicate my efforts. If you are able to figure out my secret, and you grow a watermelon that is equally good or better, and bring it to market, that’s my tough luck.
So I can easily imagine that DRM-like technologies would exist in a market economy and there is nothing particularly wrong with them. I don’t really see how the existence of DRM really depends on the state as such. How they are enforced, whether they should be enforceable, and what are the penalties (if any) should be hacking through DRM are other subjects that only Stephan Kinsella can fully explain.
At the time, one can’t but cheer on Nina’s stand in the Netflix case. An ideal resolution here would be for Netflix to loosen its own restrictions and make an exception for Paley.
In the meantime, we are planning a screening of Sita at the Mises Institute.
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If we look specifically at what DRM does, it should be pretty apparent that DRM has always been the modus operandi of content distribution throughout all of history, by simple fact that all content had to be present on physical media which could not be easily copied.
For example, the videogame industry is selling quite a bit of it’s product via digital distribution now (on the PC anyway). Because of this, the likelihood of pirating of said material has skyrocketed, and actual pirating has indeed done so. This is problem is in many ways not nearly as prevalent on the videogame console market, where you have a specific manufacturer designed machine that can only play certain games specifically designed for it. The reason being that most game are sold on physical media (DVDs or BluRays) and it is more difficult for the games to be cracked through the machines operating system. Furthermore, because the manufacturer controls the network connection they can actually shut down particular machines if folks try and play pirated games online.
Protections like this seem to me to fully comport to genuine property rights, so really there is nothing wrong with these that I can see.
Boy was I upset when saw this movie. Along with the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh, the Ramayana was one those cherished childhood memories that I never went back to and re-examined with the mind of an adult.
Losing the childhood innocence is ok, even when it is disappointing. Besides I never held the Ramayana to be sacred anyway nor was I ever compelled to. But the thought that lots of people who do not know the classic are going to be exposed to it for the first time, in this distorted form makes me cringe. It is like drawing a mustache on a copy of the Mona Lisa. I suppose some people would enjoy the Mona Lisa more in that form. In their eyes, a mustache actually improves the artwork. But it still makes me cringe.
I do not know enough of Ms. Paley’s position enough to make specific comments. Is her opposition to DRM due to a Pirate Party-style viewpoint on IP?
No, it is very principled and rooted in opposition to coercive structures. Look at the link in my post.
Because from a technical standpoint, DRM is more or less useless. “Pirates” have cracked just about every DRM-locked game, music system and movie. Making DRM effective requires convincing people to respect it. State coercion can do that (see DMCA, ACTA.)
That’s exactly what people who use DRM need the state to stop. Without laws against circumventing DRM, few producers would bother using it.
Exactly. It’s the DMCA in combination with the DRM that’s anti-libertarian.
Nina is wonderful, principled, courageous, and heroic here–even if I wish she would just put it on Netflix!
You’re quite right that DRM+DMCA is terrible. But how does it affect Sita Sings the Blues on Netflix? People who get it from Netflix get a DRMed copy, but they can still a get non-DRMed copy through other channels if they want it: the DRM on Netflix has no more effect on them than the non-existence of the film on Netflix — except that they get exposure to it that they might not otherwise.
Principled individuals who cannot easily explain deviations to those who are learning something important from them may appear rigid but maybe they are just wise and detached. Eventually the market will show accomodation if it is unhampered. In these Dark Ages of economics that may not happen.
Regardless, Nina is a champion in her own right.
As an anti-IP libertarian, I take issue with the DMCA and any other coercive attempts at “regulating IP”; I, however, see no problem with copy protection/restriction technology.
It’s the publisher’s product and they can add whatever they want to their product. If some protection scheme they have is a liability, let them suffer the discipline of the market.
An example of this is Assassin’s Creed 2, which has copy protection that requires a constant connection to the internet, despite being a single-player game. Because of this I have not, and will not purchase this. And I am not a small contributor
“How they are enforced, whether they should be enforceable, and what are the penalties (if any) should be hacking through DRM are other subjects that only Stephan Kinsella can fully explain.”
Indeed, without the coercive and socialized power of the police state, it would be interesting to see how DRM would be enforced. Any violation of non-disclosure or trade secret agreements would essentially be a breach of contract. If it were up to individuals to bear the cost of their own policing, and if truly just courts granted awards based on actual economic damage rather than the absurd and arbitrary copyright fines, it might turn out that the market would just reject DRM and look for a different business model.
Tucker
“I can respect this decision.”
So you respect her ownership over her IP, since her decision is claim of sovereignty over her IP.
If she doesn’t or can not own the product she has created, as IP socialists claim, how then can she have a say in what another person does with it? If she can object to me putting a drm’ed version of her work, isnt this her controlling me, as IP socialists claim?
Actually I’m not using copyright to keep Netflix from showing Sita. I’m withholding my Endorsement: http://questioncopyright.org/creator_endorsed It’s not clear whether CC-BY-SA inherently prohibits DRM, or whether that would be legally enforceable. All this went through an aggregator, too; Netflix is still free to access Sita themselves, without using an aggregator or my distributor, who is really only negotiating my Endorsement. Please read the whole story here: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/04/23/turning-down-netflix/
Also to clarify: I like Netflix, and am glad they carry physical DVDs of “Sita.” It’s only their DRM’ed VOD that I don’t endorse.
Dear Kerem,
whether Nina wants to have a say in how her “IP” is used is irrelevant as long as the state forces others to ask her permission if they want to use it. In fact, this only demonstrate issues with IP. If she told everyone them she rejects the notion of copyright and did not want to provide a licensing agreement, the state would interfere with anyone’s attempts to use any of her work. So, you see, it’s the coercive state that causes these situations.
I’m a software engineer, so I face the same problem. I don’t have the option of not-copyrighting the code I write, it is forced on me by the state. So, unless customers ask otherwise, I use GPL, which for me is the next best option. I am aware that in a world without IP, software licenses, including GPL, would be unenforceable against third parties and I have no problem with that, nevertheless, such a construct is not permitted at the moment.
Also, just like others on the thread said, the issue of DRM would wither away without the anti-circumvention laws.
According to a free market it’s not the DRM that’s the problem, but the government mandate enforcing it (WIPO treaty of 1996, aka the DMCA of 1998 in the US).
DRM in a free market would be almost useless, as both the creator and the consumer will be discovering new technologies with which to defeat each other’s mechanism of subjugation. A contract signed by the creator and consumer could mimic the effects of the DMCA under a free market, but other than that DRM would not be compatible.
Services (such as telephone or cable) could require that customers agree to not modify equipment against the company’s will. Products (like DVDs) are not that easy – deals would have to be made with department stores to require a contract before the purchase.
Supporting a free market against government protectionism is not “hacking” unless copyrighted works are private property – hacking implies force and trespassing.
It is really great that we have the LvMI pointing out that opposition to intellectual property is not communism, but rather free trade (as in Adam Smith, not pro-IP international agreements). Every other so-called “conservative” or “free market” or “libertarian” think tank strangely skips 200 years of history when claiming copyrights and patents are private property (or that such a view was promoted by the Founding Fathers, as the Heritage Foundation has)
One of the reasons why libertarians have failed, and will always fail, is that they hate and detest Ludwig von Mises and the Constitution.
They get a few fiat dollars in them from some foundation or university, and they start railing against property rights for creators and inventors.
All you fanboys hate Mises.
“Politically there is nothing more advantageous for a government than an attack on property rights, for it is always an easy matter to incite the masses against the owners of land and capital. .
Read more: The Quotable Mises http://mises.org/quotes.aspx#ixzz0oCoSwqi4
”
The truth is that every infringement of property rights and every restriction of free enterprise impairs the productivity of labor.
Read more: The Quotable Mises http://mises.org/quotes.aspx#ixzz0oCoX1Tgl
lozlzlzlzlzlzlz!
Fan of Mises,
You have totally and utterly missed the point.
what’s the point?
hey jay laker
should bank accounts be protected with drm?
doesn’t information just want to be free?
I don’t get it. How should bank accounts use DRM?
All I want to do is replicate this brilliantly insightful comment that was made at Nina’s blog when she posted her original story about turning down Netflix:
“Elfwreck
April 26th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Several people have said variations of, ‘you can’t expect Netflix to change their security around just for you.’
And you haven’t. You offered (or at least brought up the idea) to allow the DRM–with a note indicating that the content was available elsewhere without the DRM. The fact that Netflix isn’t willing to consider an annotation that says ‘the copyright holder doesn’t require these restrictions’ says that the purpose of DRM is usage restriction, not rights protection.
[Cory] Doctorow had the same problem trying to release an audiobook–not only would Audible not allow him to release Little Brother without DRM, they wouldn’t allow him to put a note at the beginning that said ‘Random House Audio and Cory Doctorow, the copyright holders to this recording, grant you permission to use this book in any way consistent with your nation’s copyright laws.’
DRM isn’t about protecting copyrights; it’s about restricting customer uses. Thank you for refusing to accept it.”
well, as you know, the federal reserve creates money from thin air by altering bits on a computer.
suppose you were to copy those bits into your own bank account?
would this be theft? why are the fed’s accounts protected with drm? why can’t you just change bits in your own account?
why is it that artists and creators are denied teh right to restrict the use of that which they created by blood, sweat, and tears, while the fed is afforded teh right to protect that which it created from thin air–billions of dollars?
That makes no sense. Copying bits has no effect on your bank account. Ever heard of double entry bookkeeping?
This makes no sense either. An account can’t be protected by DRM. Do you even know what DRM is? It means that you have a bunch of data on your own computers, but technology restricts what you can do with it. For example, that only sanctioned software is able to decrypt it. Since when do bank accounts distribute encrypted form of their own accounts?
You conflate things which have nothing to do with each other, plus are false or metaphorical. This makes even less sense than the above.
I kindly propose that you educate yourself before making bold claims.
Re: stupid comments conflating copying with fraud:
http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/cint_release#comment-7187
Fraud is different from copying. If you download a song and share it, there is no fraud — there may be copyright infringement, but no false claims are being made. On the other hand, if you remove the original author’s name from the song and put your own name there instead, that would be completely different — that would be fraud, of course (it would be plagiarism, which is a specific kind of fraud).
Likewise, if you make copies of my birth certificate, IDs, etc, and you keep them locked in a drawer in your house forever and no one else is ever confused by them, that’s actually okay. It’s not the copying that’s the issue there. But if you were to use that ID to open a bank account and cash checks meant for me, that’s different. It has nothing to do with copyright. The issue is simply that it’s lying.
No one here has ever advocated loosening laws that protect against fraud, or against medical privacy or things like that. But don’t confuse those issues with copyright.
Sometimes you’ll hear people say “Well, if copyright is so bad, how about I just start copying dollar bills! That would be okay too, right?” Which is silly, of course — there’s a reason that no country has their copyright office policing counterfeit currency, and it’s that counterfeiting is fraud, not copyright infringement. A physical token of money is a claim on the issuing authority’s assets; to duplicate the claim token is just like duplicating someone’s birth certificate or ID: it is only useful to enable fraud, because all these tokens are indicators of value held somewhere else, rather than containing the value themselves. Thus when you make and circulate duplicates, you do not increase the total amount of value, and you actually decrease the amount of value per token (thus effectively stealing from everyone else who already has tokens, which is why counterfeiting is a crime). Contrast this with culture, where duplicating it does actually increase the total value in circulation, because more people are exposed to it.
Copying is not theft. It’s also not fraud. Fraud, on the other hand, may be enabled by copying certain kinds of things, but it’s not the copying itself that’s the fraud, it’s the subsequent lying, which the copies are merely used to bolster.
Banks do not provide any forms of their accounts. They provide encrypted access to your data, or your data encrypted with a mutually agreed upon key. Both with regards to customers as well as inter-bank. The used encryption protocols are, for example: SSL and derivatives, IPSec, Connect:Direct. No sign of DRM. I actually used to work in this area, and I also worked with source code for several encryption algorithms. Just a heads up that you’re facing an uphill battle.
Not DRM.
https is not DRM.
None of it is DRM.
Anecdotal: I have a Netflix account, and use it regularly to rent DVDs and also stream video to a Wii console. However, since I use linux on my laptop – no streaming there. So in this particular instance, DRM affects me in a negative way – in order to use Netflix on my device, I’m forced to run an operating system from Redmond (who historically have been anti-open) or from Cupertino (who are starting to make Redmond appear open by comparison these days). Not a very savory choice.
And I fail to see how DRM really benefits the artist or the consumer. It appears to benefit media conglomerates at the expense of both the artist and the consumer. With any luck more and more artists will take an approach similar to Sita, and DRM will no longer be the norm.
I recently bought a DRM-ed ebook, but had trouble reading it. I was only able to read it on Windows with a program that is quite uncomfortable. I don’t normally use Windows, I only have it on one laptop for testing compatibility. So, after spending a while looking for a cracking tool and not finding one that was able to handle the file, I ended up downloading the decrypted file over bittorrent. That took me about 5 minutes googling (as opposed to several hours trying to decrypt it).
The whole concept of DRM is contrary to the declared goals. Instead of making it harder to copy, it makes it harder to consume (for “legal” customers of course, “illegal” customers are unaffected). Alas, nothing is preventing me from copying the encrypted file wherever I want, but I can’t decrypt its contents on Linux. Well, maybe after a couple of more hours I might have been able to find a way to decrypt it, but what kind of product is this? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is an outcome of protectionism. If the market forces were in place, a “good” copy would be easier, rather than more difficult, to consume.
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