Thursday, June 28, 2018
Monopolizing Other Peoples Creative Works
Monopolizing Other Peoples Creative Works
Music and Books are not like the proverbial buggy whips.
When motor vehicles were invented, horses, horse-drawn vehicles (and the means to motivate carriage horses to move) were rendered obsolete because of the convenience and virtues of the new, replacement vehicles (which might need to be cranked, but which did not respond to being whipped).
The car makers did not forcibly shackle the horses and buggies to motorized skates. Nor did they subject existing horse, buggy, and passengers to being dematerialized and rematerialized at their destination, as in "Beam Me Up, Scotty."
"Beaming Up" (or Down) is what Big Tech does when it digitizes creative works or performances. Congress ought to protect "creators" from their works being beamed hither and thither without the AFFIRMATIVE permission of the creators (opt-in) and without payment that is satisfactory to the creators and copyright owners.
In an interesting, and lengthy (and slow-to-get-to-the-good-stuff) article, the New Yorker discusses
the impoverished death of a musician, attributing the impoverishment to Big Tech which makes fortunes for "disruptors" at the expense of the "creators" of the content they hijack and publish and distribute.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/who-owns-the-internet
Also discussing the failures of the DMCA to protect creators from creative Big Tech exploitation and "permissionless innovation" is a discussion of digital resale. Remember, if digital music files are allowed to be resold, Amazon has a patent (and a web page all ready) for the digital resale of ebooks.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-grapples-digital-files-business-selling-used-songs-1031629
Also, if the bankrupt ReDigi could be sold, which of the Dark Lords would buy it?
All the best,
Rowena Beaumont Cherry
