Tag: copyright alliance

To Support Diversity, Independent Creators Should Not Give Up on Copyright

On Monday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation and Policy Center (GPIC), in collaboration with Copyright Alliance, hosted a panel and roundtable discussion entitled A Conversation on Diversity and Inclusion in Copyright. The main topics discussed were the importance of fostering diversity among creators and creative works as well as a desire to see more diversity among the attorneys and other professionals specializing in copyright law and policy. In addition to the two panel discussions on those themes, video statements were submitted by creators working in music, film, and visual arts, and each described copyright protection as essential to their creative careers. (See participants list below.)

During the roundtable segment, I asked what might be improved about the copyright system to better support diversity in creative production. Rachel Kim of Copyright Alliance and Karyn A. Temple, former acting Register of Copyrights, now General Counsel at MPA, noted the goal to make registration easier at the Copyright Office because, of course, registration is necessary to fully enforce copyrights for U.S. authors. Temple added that the copyright small claims board, which will begin operating in the Spring of 2022, should help make copyright enforcement more accessible to a greater number of independent creators.

There is no question that, in addition to institutional changes within media companies or law firms etc., one of the best ways to foster diversity in creative careers is to inspire independent authors to participate in the copyright system in the first place. Because unfortunately, most do not.

A core principle of copyright law is that it is fundamentally egalitarian—a bundle of rights vested in any individual, from anywhere, who creates works of expression and makes those works available to the public. But the practical barriers to enforcing those rights, especially in contrast to the ease of infringement in the digital age, has been catalytic in discouraging entrepreneurial creators to the point of perhaps believing the narrative that “copyright is exclusively for big corporations.”

That theme, amplified by vocal copyright critics over the last twenty or so years, has played a role in discouraging the individual author about the value of his own rights. The message that the internet “bypasses the gatekeepers,” was, in addition to being overstated, implicitly coextensive to the assertion that the individual’s copyrights are meaningless in contrast to “new” modes of reaching audiences and generating revenue. That internet platforms enable marginalized voices, including artists, to be heard is absolutely true, but the idea that this social benefit demands the price of abandoning one’s copyrights was, and is, untenable.

Nevertheless, the digital native whose development as creator happened to coincide with the “copyright wars” beginning in the 1990s, often has conflicting views about her own rights, which have been described by various critics as greedy, rent-seeking, obsolete, anti-speech, a barrier to her fans, etc. Thus, in addition to the systemic hurdles in copyright law for indie creators, there exist internal obstacles for some, who have been made to feel uncomfortable about asserting their legal rights. Add the dimension of race and a history of exploitative IP grabs to the mix, and the belief that copyright is solely for the already privileged may be an even greater impediment for the author who happens to be a person of color. Consequently, demoralization of the people who should be advocating for their copyright rights produces an ideological vacuum, which the anti-copyright crowd has filled with its own agenda.

Perhaps because I could read the names or see the faces of everyone participating in the roundtable via Zoom, it occurred to me that although the moderators and guests are correct that all corners of the copyright world have work to do when it comes to diversity and inclusion, the anti-copyright segment strikes me as remarkably homogenous in this regard. And, of course, when we turn to the principal beneficiaries of the anti-copyright agenda (i.e. Silicon Valley), the white-male curve bends almost ninety degrees vertical.

It is common enough to observe that most, if not all, anti-copyright ideas are hatched in the comfortable aeries of academia, where the authors of many unfounded theories neither experience, nor even understand, the challenges faced by most creative professionals. So, whether it is fair to describe the class of copyright antagonists as too White, it is certainly fair to call it a pastime of privilege to invent and promote policies that, in one way or another, would divest the author of some amount of agency in her copyrights.

So, to answer my own question, if I could choose one goal for the moment, it would be to convince as many independent creators as possible that their copyrights are not worthless, even if advocacy of those rights may be entangled with myriad conflicting views. Yes, there are practical obstacles to meaningful enforcement, some of which may only be addressable by legislation; but even that will be more likely attainable if the millions of entrepreneurial creators in the country refuse to abdicate their rights in a war of attrition. Because giving up is what the anti-copyright interests are counting on copyright owners to do, and that is certainly no way to support diversity and inclusion in creative works.

Photo by: Igor2006

A Conversation on Diversity and Inclusion in Copyright

Welcome & Program Overview

Rick Wade, Senior VP, Strategic Alliances & Outreach, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Terrica Carrington, VP, Legal Policy & Copyright Counsel, Copyright Alliance

Keynote Address

Representative Sharice Davids (D-KS)

Creator Video Appearance

Ebonie Smith, Music Producer, Audio Engineer at Atlantic Records; and Steering Committee Member of the Recording Academy’s Producers and Engineers Wing

Panel: Copyright Empowering Underrepresented Creators

  • Grace Wu, Executive VP, Entertainment Casting, NBCUniversal 
  • Moderated by: Rachel Kim, Copyright Counsel, Copyright Alliance

Creator Video Appearance

Yanique DaCosta, Graphic Designer and Fine Art Painter

Creator Video Appearance

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, CEO/Founder of Red-Horse Native Productions

Panel: Careers in Copyright Empowering Underrepresented Communities  

Creator Video Appearance

Patrick “Guitar Boy” Hayes

Roundtable Discussion

Facilitated by Latricia Boone, VP, Equality of Opportunity Initiative, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Closing Remarks

Mei-lan Stark, Executive VP & Chief Counsel, Intellectual Property, NBCUniversal

Techdirt’s Masnick reveals own irrelevance.

Mike Masnick, editor and founder of Techdirt often writes like a smug frat boy, substituting scorn for ideas, and is frequently careless about fact-checking. This may be be why his mantra sounds sillier every day, as he bangs on about all that is wrong with just about anyone who believes copyright still plays a role in the digital age.  Seriously, other than die-hard myrmidons, is anyone still listening to what he’s saying?  Because he’s in danger of becoming the poster child for everything that is wrong with the very things he purports to defend.

Most recently, Masnick revealed his capacity for carelessness when he wrote this blog post about an event he did not attend, focusing on two words taken way out of context, and then making no effort to confirm the basis of his tantrum.  The subject was a recent conference hosted by the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, which included panelist Sandra Aistars, CEO of Copyright Alliance. (I have worked with both organizations.) Masnick claims in his post that Aistars was “insisting that the efforts for copyright reform are really coming ‘from criminal elements’ and that no one in ‘any sort of innovative sector’ is actually on board with copyright reform.”  Had Mike bothered to wait for the video of that meeting, he might have heard  the following, in which Aistars adds to her recap of 40 years worth of debate and discussion on copyrights thus:

And an element that goes a little bit further than what we’ve heard before and almost seeks the entire elimination of intellectual property protection, and that element I think is coming in its most aggressive form not from any sort of innovative sector in any business, but is coming more from the, I’ll call them “criminal elements,” cyberlockers, entities like that who support and benefit from cyberlockers, and they are not interested intellectual property in any way, and I think those of us who rely on intellectual property in our business lives are just collateral damage. 

So, in case any Techdirt readers (or editors) need that simplified, Aistars is making a very clear distinction between real innovators — whose voices she welcomes and has always welcomed to any discussion — and actual criminals who really don’t deserve a seat at the table.

And speaking of not deserving a seat at the table, people who are incapable of presenting ideas that challenge the imagination beyond cheap sarcasm and false reporting have clearly lost contact with the nuanced evolution of this ongoing debate.  In other words, when you just start making shit up as an excuse to keep calling everyone who supports copyright a “maximalist” (whatever the hell that means), it might be a sign you’ve run out of things to say.  By coincidence, I happen to be on my way to attend a similar event hosted by CPIP as I write this, and all of the topics for discussion are written humbly in the inquisitive and not in the conspiratorial imperative that guys like Masnick like to imply.  Experienced adults are trying to solve problems and come up with new ideas; and all the sniping from the kids’ table doesn’t speak well  for the cause of the Internet as a medium for enlightened discourse.

UPDATE:  It looks like while I was writing the above, Mike updated his own post in order to both reveal the full quote in context and then stand by his bizarre assertion.  All I can say is that perhaps what Aistars ought to have said is that the copyright debate is being skewed by a criminal element and also some really stupid people.

Is copyright a threat to free speech?

This is a piece I wrote as a guest post for The Copyright Alliance. It got the folks over at TechDirt into a lather, but I suspect that’s because it wasn’t read or read very carefully by most of them.  

Not only have Copyright and Free Speech coexisted peacefully for the entire history of the Republic, but I would go so far as to suggest that Copyright is both literally and figuratively the money where our proverbial mouth is when it comes to the power of the First Amendment.  Think about it:  we are not only free to criticize our government, but if we’re really good at it (like Lewis Black), we’re entitled to make a pile of cash doing it.  How cool does that make America?  I say pretty cool, but there are those who seem to think the enterprise piece of the equation somehow diminishes the freedom part.  Au contraire.

If the U.S. is founded on one idea above all others, it’s that there is a link between free enterprise and freedom itself. Yes, this ideology has its flaws, and we’re still living through the economic woes of certain kinds of enterprise run amok; but let’s not throw out the baby with the bankers just yet. I believe it is no accident that we grant special rights of enterprise to those who exercise free speech in the form of books, music, and the performing and visual arts. After all, the First Amendment guarantees the right of anyone on U.S. soil to speak, but it in no way guarantees that everyone has something to say.

I know this may be hard to believe in the age of Tweetdecks, blogs, and threads; but all speakers are not created equal. Those who speak well enough to do it for a living have benefitted society in precisely the way intended by Article I Section VIII of the Constitution; and while you may quarrel with a particular form of expression, you can’t quarrel with the trillions of dollars in economic activity derived collectively from all works. Still, the mental contortionists of the copyleft claim that copyright, in the magic wonderland we call The Digital Age, now threatens Free Speech. And their position reminds me of another First Amendment stumper:  that same-sex marriage threatens the Freedom of Religion.

As alluded to in one of my recent posts the Kantian principle that your rights end where they infringe on the rights of another is logically implicit, if not explicit, in the broad, human rights established in our laws.  In a nutshell, society functions because most of us agree that your pursuit of happiness does not extend to a right to, say, drive an ATV across my yard and tear up the garden. Strangely, though, we often encounter folks trying to argue this principle in reverse — i.e. that my right to restrict trespassing infringes on your right to drive an ATV wherever you please.  Yeah, this sounds dumb because it is; but the logical construct is applied by religious zealots regarding same-sex marriage and by copy zealots (they actually have a religion now) regarding copyright.

The craftiest of gay-marriage opponents will argue that legalizing these unions infringes on their rights to be Christian in America, which is tantamount to undermining religious freedom.  Yes, anyone with two working brain cells can recognize that this isn’t sound reasoning so much as thinly veiled bigotry. Same-sex marriage can only be a threat to religious freedom if we agree that the zealot’s belief that homosexuality is a sin should implicitly influence our legal definition of marriage. There is no way to cut through this logical Gordian Knot without concluding that all marriage would have to be religious (and ultimately Christian) in order to be legal in the U.S.  And that would violate the definition I believe most of us apply to religious freedom.

Similarly, the copyright-threatens-speech proposal uses the illusion of reverse discrimination to suggest that when the producer exercises his copyright, this somehow infringes on the consumer’s desire to reuse or “share” the work as he sees fit, which amounts to a “chilling effect” on speech. Like the same-sex marriage thing, this argument glosses over personal bias to foster a logical leap to a shaky conclusion.  Copyright only threatens speech if we agree that the consumer’s right to reuse is more important than the producer’s right to treat his work as property. But we haven’t agreed to this for the same reason we don’t agree that you may drive an ATV over my lawn in the pursuit of happiness.  Freedoms have boundaries defined by the harm done to others; and free speech has managed to survive just fine despite the fact that it does not grant permission for plagiarism, perjury, libel, vandalism, disturbing the peace, hate crimes, or, indeed, theft of intellectual property.