| 'The entertainment industry controls not only what you see and hear, but the methods and devices with which you see and hear it.' |
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The Copyright Act of 1790  , Title 17, Chapter 1 of the United States Code , and subsequent judicial rulings may have granted customers certain rights with regard to copyrighted material - but the entertainment industry wants to undermine those rights by outlawing personal computers.
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According to cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, 'if you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; they're too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.'
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Unfortunately for the entertainment industry, the fair use provision is exactly why copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated for purposes including education, criticism and personal use. The core concept of fair use is that, in general, any use that does not exploit the commercial value of the original is permissible.
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Copyright has always been a delicate balance between the rights of the creator to benefit from his or her work for a short period of time, and the rights of others to innovate and benefit from those works when they move into the public domain.
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The US Constitution grants Congress the power 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries' .
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Originally, the Copyright Act of 1790 established the 'limited times' of copyright protection of 14 years, with an option for the author to renew the copyright for an additional 14 years, if he or she were still alive. That copyright term was good enough for the first 100 years. During the next 100 years, Congress extended the copyright term 11 times.
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The entertainment industry's demands eventually resulted in the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which extends the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years, or 95 years in the cases where corporations own copyrights . Later, it also helped to bring in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) .
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Designed specifically to control the use of published works, the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copyright protection technology. The result is that the entertainment industry controls not only what you see and hear, but the methods and devices with which you see and hear it. Even if the copy protection is circumvented to enable the fair use of a published work, it is prohibited and deemed to be a criminal act.
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The solution to copyright regulation on the internet is actually quite simple, requiring only four steps:
- Revert the term of copyright to 14 years, immediately and retroactively to all existing works. Works created more than 14 years ago would immediately revert to the public domain.
- Recognise moral rights in the works authors create, immediately and retroactively to all existing works.
- Immediately repeal the DMCA.
- Prohibit corporations from owning copyrights. Corporations create nothing - they're legal fictions.
Michael Fraase is the publisher of Arts & Farces internet, and is the author of several books, including the internationally bestselling Internet Tour Guide series.
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