Eng 356: Blog Post 2

The Politics of Copyright

 

I do not believe Lessig can be labeled as a copyright communist. Gates recognizes that people who create quality art and work often need an incentive, and often that incentive is money. Meanwhile, Lessig believes an environment where new ideas and innovations are chocked out by the government and other “powers that be” is a form of communism in and of itself. Lessig doesn’t say that having copyright law is bad. He says that the current way that copyright law is used is bad. Lessig could be defined as a Copyright Liberal. Copyright law should exist, but it and the way it is used needs to change. aSpeaking of definitions, here’s the way I’ve defined the various political views on copyright.  

A Copyright Communist believes that any and all creative work belongs to the public upon creation. If you have an idea, anyone and everyone is free to take that idea and copy it, improve upon it, build, sell, distribute, or give it away themselves. Ideas and creativity are not proprietary. I think a large number of young digital natives, such as the kinds you see on internet forums, galleries, and video websites act like copyright communists, though perhaps hypocritically. They seem to feel fine using copyrighted material in their own creations, but often become infuriated if someone else rips off of their ripped off material.

A Copyright Liberal believes that a person, within reason, has a right to profit off of their creativity. A copyright liberal would likely be fine with the eventual moving of intellectual property into the public domain, but would be willing to shift, rewrite, and update copyright law to better reflect the changes that modern technology has brought about. I think the leaders of the Creative Commons movement would be classified here. The individual can profit for a time, but if they do not wish to profit, they may share their work freely.

A Copyright Conservative believes that the current copyright law ought to be followed. Copyright law might need to be updated, but if change does come, it needs to come slowly and cautiously. Based on the interview in the prompt, I believe Bill Gates would be classified as a Copyright Conservative.

A Copyright Fundamentalist believes that current copyright law should be followed down to the last letter. After all, why have a law if it isn't used? Attorneys working for major corporations are paid to be copyright fundamentalists, since the smallest jot or tiddle of the law can decide whether a corporation wins or loses a fortune.

Copyright Libertarians may be the hardest to define. I suppose they are the anarchists of copyright. To a copyright libertarian, I suppose there should be no copyright laws. They go a step beyond the copyright communist. A copyright communist believes that copyright belongs to the public. The copyright libertarian believes there is no public for the copyright to belong to. If you come across intellectual property, you can do whatever you wish with it. Fortunately, it seems that this category is fairly uncommon. I honestly cannot think of someone who would hold this position.