"Good God" Is Right
Alleged "public intellectual" Richard Posner has discovered a possible solution to the plight of dying newspapers -- more copyright law:
Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.
Jeff Jarvis has an appropriate rebuttal:
Good God. Posner is not just trying to mold the new world to old laws - which is issue enough - but is trying to change the law to protect the old world and its incumbents from the new world and its innovators. He is willing to throw out fair comment and free speech for them. That is dangerous.
Bob Wyman, commenting on Jarvis' post, also raises an interesting comparison:
Legal briefs and judge's opinions are filled with "links" (i.e. citations) to other works. In many cases, those "links" are actually the primary value of the work produced, for pay, by those who write briefs. Lawyers provide "commercial services." Will lawyers and judges have to pay royalties when they cite cases, journal articles, and other data? Would some links be free and others not? How can you tell if a link produced by one commercial enterprise (such as a lawyer's office) is different from that produced by another? How can the technology used to produce the link impact whether it is subject to license when in fact the same link can be produced using other technologies that are not licensed?
Of course, by Posnerian logic I've now violated the copyrights of at least three people in writing this post. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.
Comments (12)
J Cortez
Posner is totally wrong. His short sighted-ness is depressing. Without fair use, whether it be commenting, summarizing, search engine aggregating or weblog linking, the whole of news and entertainment on TV, cable, print and the internet would grind to an absolute halt. Instead of treating the phenomenon as a problem, companies should restructure and figure out how to use it to their advantage.
As an anti-copyright aside, slashdot.org had a link to this article over at the register that had some interesting things in it regarding a new copyright trend.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/
Published: June 26, 2009 1:51 PM
Shane
Yeah....and....so....what?
If these so-called "professional" news agencies actually provided a product I was willing to pay for, we wouldn't have this problem. I get more useful news from LVMI and C4L than any newspaper. Hell, even the Onion is regularly more accurate and less semanticized than the major news people.
A lot of candle makers went broke when the lightbulb was invented, but my mother still burns candles day and night. The candle industry now manufactures candles to add scents to the room they are burned in, not light. Why can't the news industry make similar adjustments?
"Public intellectual"- I like that. Yet another tragedy of the commons.
Published: June 26, 2009 3:22 PM
Brad
It's O.K. I lobotomized myself and so have no memory having read the excerpts/citations made in this entry.
I've also forgotten how to tie my shoes and chew.
Oh well. It's all for a Good Cause.
I just wish the heahdahce wid gooawyshvbbla;v;a;
Published: June 26, 2009 4:18 PM
Brad
Do these reactionaries at the newspapers really think that anybody is going to follow copyright laws that outlaw linking?
Do these newspaper apologists really believe that, when those propagandists for the government finally go out of business, that there will be no sources of news other than the government?
Published: June 26, 2009 5:10 PM
newson
we should be grateful for these reductios for exposing copyright to the ridicule it deserves.
Published: June 26, 2009 7:31 PM
SV
"Do these reactionaries at the newspapers really think that anybody is going to follow copyright laws that outlaw linking?"
I don't think so, and that's why it's such a great tool for milking more money out of the state's citizenry.
Published: June 27, 2009 10:32 AM
Rick
Holland has an even 'better' solution: tax the internet and use that money to subsidize the dying newspapers. http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=nl&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Finternet%2F2027713%2Fheffing-op-internetaansluiting-om-kranten-te-steunen.html&sl=auto&tl=en&history_state0=
Published: June 27, 2009 10:48 AM
Greg Ransom
Does Posner write his own stuff? I'm guessing much of his stuff is written by research assistants, and then he throws his copyright on it.
Published: June 27, 2009 12:50 PM
Daniel J. Fallon
Since the Bible is to many the most important book ever written, shouldn't it be granted copyright privilege retroactively?
Published: June 27, 2009 4:51 PM
I Hate Religions
@Daniel J. Fallon,
LOL ! Christians claim that God wrote the Bible, that he in fact dictated it to the apostles and prophets.
That means we owe God copyrights, in fact we would owe him 6,000 years of unpaid copyrights.
How are we going to pay God? LOL !!!! HA HA HA !
Published: June 27, 2009 8:36 PM
I Hate Religions
@Daniel J. Fallon,
LOL ! Christians claim that God wrote the Bible, that he in fact dictated it to the apostles and prophets.
That means we owe God copyrights, in fact we would owe him 6,000 years of unpaid copyrights.
How are we going to pay God? LOL !!!! HA HA HA !
Published: June 27, 2009 8:37 PM
Troy Camplin
Wow, talk about short-sighted. And incredibly ignorant. If I make a link to an article from my blog, that means my readers will click on the link and go to the original paper on the original site. They may decide to continue visiting that site, click on ads, etc. But if I can't make links, people won't go over to those sites. Further, my firstbook was just published, and in preparing it, I had to make sure that the quotes were not above a certain number of words, or else I had to get permission from the publisher. It seems, at the least, that those numbers should count for blogs as well when it comes to quotes -- in which case, you should be okay.
Published: June 28, 2009 2:37 PM