copyright is theft? really?

this was an interesting paper which i read about from here. Abstract:

This paper exploits variation in the adoption of copyright laws within Italy – as a result of Napoleon’s military campaign – to examine the effects of copyrights on creativity. To measure variation in the quantity and quality of creative output, we have collected detailed data on 2,598 operas that premiered across eight states within Italy between 1770 and 1900. These data indicate that the adoption of copyrights led to a significant increase in the number of new operas premiered per state and year. Moreover, we find that the number of high-quality operas also increased – measured both by their contemporary popularity and by the longevity of operas. By comparison, evidence for a significant effect of copyright extensions is substantially more limited. Data on composers’ places of birth indicate that the adoption of copyrights triggered a shift in patterns of composers’ migration, and helped attract a large number of new composers to states that offered copyrights. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/10/evidence-from-opera-on-the-efficacy-of-copyright.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.IiGEA3z2.dpuf

quite an interesting argument. Copyright is intellectual property and you should protect it. I saw this great point in the comments, which I didnt know about. Do you think theft only happens in torrents today? See what this note says with respect to Dickens.

‘In publishing The Pickwick Papers in volume form after the book’s epoch-making serial run in 1837, Dickens dedicated the work to dramatist and politician Thomas Noon Talford, partly because this writer as an M. P. had introduced a copyright bill in the House of Commons in 1836. Dickens was already aware of how much money he was losing as a result of massive violations of his copyright both at home (via theatrical adaptations) and abroad (via cheap American re-prints). As a shorthand reporter for The Mirror of Parliament and the True Sun (1831-33), young Dickens had followed the copyright question avidly from the press gallery. In 1835, while a reporter for The Morning Chronicle, Dickens applauded the efforts of the young barrister who had been elected Member of Parliament for Reading in 1835 to introduce a copyright bill, which eventually became law in 1842. In early 1844, Talford would act as Dickens’s attorney in the case against Richard Egan Lee and Henry Hewitt for their flagrant plagiarism of A Christmas Carol.

Young Charles Dickens, in the process of being lionized by his Yankee readers, dared to assert that, had American publishers paid Sir Walter Scott appropriate royalties for his works re-printed in the United States from Marmion in 1808 to Castle Dangerous in 1832, he would not have faced bankruptcy in the middle of his career and would not have died at the age of 61, broken in body and mind by years of financial difficulties, and “unjustly deprived of his rightful income” (Ackroyd 350). Further, he alluded to the disgraceful treatment of Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), retired Royal Naval officer turned author, who established residency by means of his 1837 tour, but was subsequently denied copyright protection by American courts unless he were prepared to renounce his status as a British subject and become an American citizen.

Dickens was essentially using the plight of these authors to argue his own case, for as fast as he turned out The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and other early novels, American publishing houses snapped them up and published them in cheap editions which sold in the thousands across the country, pocketing the proceeds without sending so much as a letter of thanks to Boz. The piracies began as early as the publication of Sketches by Boz in 1834.

He bewailed, ironically, “the exquisite justice of never deriving sixpence from an enormous American sale of all my books.” Having already spoken up for increased copyright protection in Britain and for a British-American agreement, he had it in mind to advance a just cause from which he and others would benefit. Ignorant of the complications of copyright politics and of the recent severe depression, he crossed the Atlantic with the naïve expectation that in this republic of his imagination elemental notions of fairness would triumph over politics and power relationships, as if America were some elegant utopia. . . .(Kaplan 124-125)

The rowdy American press, particularly in New York, soon disabused Dickens of his utopian notions vis a vis copyright. Americans, expecting him to be grateful for their warm reception, were staggered when this young British goodwill ambassador at the beginning of 1842, at a dinner held in his honour in Boston, dared to criticize them as pirates while urging the merits of international copyright, which at that point in American history would have seen vast amounts of Yankee capital heading overseas with little reciprocation.’ http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html

here are some of the arguments on copywrite is theft. Here. And here.

Games earn more than movies

When a computer game ends up taking more than the double of the first week's takings of any movie, then you need to wonder what's happening to the world's idea of entertainment. I quote:

Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest instalment of the video game franchise published by Take-Two, racked up sales of $500m this week after seven days on release – more than double the record weekly take for any movie. Rival Activision had exceptional results on Thursday, with sales of Call of Duty 4 pushing profits well above estimates. While music companies and movie studios grapple with piracy, games publishers are in a sweet spot. It is much harder to copy software for the new generation of consoles. New instalments in a games franchise tend to be a technological and an artistic leap forward. On a cost-per-hour basis, a $60 game may be better value than a $20 CD. And, unlike the “dream factory” movie studios of the 1930s, there is no risk stars will defect to a rival producer or, even more inconveniently, die.

I keep on speaking at various conferences and with senior people and the fact that they are missing what's happening at the bottom is frankly frightening. Do you know that most of the 18-25 year olds, the feedstock of our future business, work and society spends way longer online than watching tv or films?

Do you know that the youth of today do not know how to value their online work any more because of rampant copying of films and music? I was at a board meeting recently and one of the board members (he has a private equity background) was talking about how people have no idea about how much to ask for, what's the funding requirement, etc. etc. They have no idea how to determine what costs are and what to charge for. I had to add to that, in my experience and what i have been seeing in banking and hearing, people who are coming into work have no idea about Intellectual Property and how to price it.

You are a spotty young chap, sitting in a dark bedroom, spending your time online. You get fed and watered. Then online, somebody asks you to code something, or translate something, or use your avatar to man a info stand on Second Life. These boys cannot make the link between the effort expended online, the time spend on the effort and the value of that. Also, how much should they ask for to simply exist.

Look at the numbers above, this weird economy is now in such a state that these spotty youths are spending more money on a game than a film!. Wake up folks, the world is changing under our eyes.

Technorati Tags: economics,gaming,technology,innovation,intellectual property rights,internet

Innovation in Financial Institutions

Pretty good stuff, on how financial institutions are innovating. Read this post in conjunction to this post about the future of financial institutions.


All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Intellectual Property Myths

Now here's an interesting document from the IFLA (The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). And given that most of the western economies are seeing their value addition and industrial development coming from Services, it behoves us to know these myths inside out! This impacts us from almost all directions, whether we are talking about software piracy, or illegal downloads of music and films, or counterfeiting of goods, innovation, copywrite, productivity, patents, arts, auction, value addition, etc. etc. etc. This blog is an example of an intellectual property!

Some myths about intellectual property

Intellectual property is a hot-button issue these days, and for good reason. In the heat of debate, however, it can become easy for dogmatic assertions to stamp out complex truths. In order to fairly consider intellectual property, it is important that our discussions not be clouded by misconceptions; for this reason, a number of false statements about intellectual property are here listed and rebutted.

---

Intellectual property is an ancient principle.

Not true. Intellectual property is an explicitly modern notion, having made its debut quite recently. The first patent law was enacted in 1623, and the precursor of modern copyright - the Statute of Anne - came into being in 1710. These early laws were limited in scope and restricted to only a few types of information; the broader interperatation of these principles used today in the western world is quite modern, certain elements having been added only within the last few years.

Intellectual property is recognized worldwide.

As the US's recent standoff with China demonstrates, intellectual property is not a concept which has worldwide acceptance. Indeed, a major foreign policy objective of the United States has been to force other nations to comply with its own intellectual property agenda - an unwelcome form of intellectual imperialism which is all too frequently ignored by watchdog groups.

Without intellectual property, no one will produce original work.

Given that intellectual property law made its debut in 1623, we may correctly consider any work produced before this time to dispell the myth. Man created for millenia before the advent of intellectual property; he will create for many more millenia after it is abandoned.

Intellectual property is necessary to create incentives for the production of original works.

This intellectual property myth has become the mantra of IP supporters. Often repeated, never questioned, the idea that creativity depends on a government granted monopoly needs no justification in the minds of most IP boosters. Sadly, however, they are mistaken: intellectual property "rights" are not essential to creation, and in some circumstances even deter it. Consider, for instance, the software industry. Free for years from the limitations of intellectual property, the industry flourished, becoming by all accounts one of the most creative of environments in the modern world. With the recent introduction of patent law into computing, however, many individual programmers live in fear of lawsuits from large corporations who claim "ownership" of techniques such as the scroll-buffer. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the creator! Intellectual property law, from its inception, has been about publishers and other powerful firms as much as it has been about creative individuals; the latter often find their interests poorly defended by IP.

Even if people DID create works without intellectual property protections, the quality of these works would be substandard.

Only if "Julius Caesar", Plutarch's "Lives", "The Last Supper", and Handel's "Messiah" are "substandard"! All of these, including such pivotal creations as the Bible, the Koran, and the hundreds of Sutras were created in a world without intellectual property. IP boosters claim that weakening intellectual property law means giving up great literature, music, and art; in fact, history shows us that this is not the case.

The "best" creators won't work without intellectual property protections.

Once again, history proves this to be false. Shakespeare, Plato, Confucius, Hero, Chaucer, Handel, and many others of the finest names in world literature, music, art, and invention worked in an environment free of intellectual property restrictions. Clearly, genius does not require copyright to produce!

To take away intellectual property rights is to deny creators the right to profit from their labors.

This myth is based on the idea that the only way to make money off of creation is to "sell" the ideas which are produced. In fact, this is not true. Consulting, support, performance, service: these are all ways in which creators can make money off of their abilities without appealing to intellectual property rights. Even if there were no copyright, a band could still make money by charging for live performances, for instance; an even better example is found in academia, where a great deal of idea production takes place without the ideas being "sold" to the universities which sponsor their creators. Removing intellectual property rights would not deny creators the right to profit from their labors; it would, however, allow all of society to share in the benefits of their work.

Intellectual property follows directly from the notion of physical property.

Physical property rights are derived from the basic fact that a physical object can't be in two places at once. In order to keep people from squabbling over material objects, we use a system of rights to say "who gets what". Information, however, differs from physical property in a number of ways, one of which being that it can be in many places at the same time. Let's say that Fred gives Barney an apple; after this, Fred no longer has the apple. If, on the other hand, Fred TELLS Barney about the apple, Fred STILL knows about the apple. Fred gave the information to Barney, but Fred still has it! Clearly, then, there is no need for Fred and Barney to squabble over who "owns" the information about the apple: to do such would be to try to treat information like an object, an idea which is clearly flawed.

---

As the debate of over the future of intellectual property unfolds, it will be more important than ever for participants, and bystanders, to have good information concerning the nature of IP. By removing the myths and misconceptions which surround intellectual property, we can make better decisions as to its proper status in our society.