Over The Counter Culture

We’re not rational, we’re lazy: hence economic models, assuming rational decision-making, are often very wrong.

In 2008, economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein made waves with a book called Nudge. It advocated the idea that socially beneficial policy could be implemented without forcing anyone to behave a particular way. All you had to do was make the socially optimal option the default; e.g. saving a certain percentage of your monthly wages.

Anybody not happy with that could opt out and do something different. No freedom or choice is taken away from anyone: you’re just nudged in the right direction.

Well, could nudges help something as ‘far out’ as copyright?

Advocates of the copyleft movement think that in this day and age, more of culture should be in the commons: free to be shared, remixed and disseminated. Scarcity business models are completely out of touch with a world where copy, paste, share & remix is such a ubiquitous feature of cultural participation.

So why not nudge creative works into the commons? I’m talking about default public licensing of copyrighted works (not to be confused with – illiberal and paternalistic – compulsory licensing).

The idea is that by default, new published work would be licensed to the public for non-commercial sharing and remixing (those familiar with the Creative Commons will recognise this as a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence).

The author would still be free to override that with any other licence. Copyright it would still fully apply to works; the rights “castle” is still there from day zero of a work. But by default, a non-commercial share/remix “drawbridge” is let down.

You would still have to go to the artist and negotiate a deal (or at least, ask for permission) if you intended to make money from the work or a from remix of it. And she would always be credited, and so the more you share, the more famous the artist would get.

I am posting this because it surely can’t be a new idea, but my googling hasn’t thrown anything up yet. I have a dozen questions/ideas, and so was hoping you either could refer me to existing discussions, or give me your own thoughts (in the comments below, or contacting me directly).

(Instructions for a gene transfection kit* my girlfriend routinely uses at work. Gene transfection or “knock-in” is the process of inserting a gene or other DNA sequence into a cell to give it new or altered properties)

Mulve: a RIAA lobbyist’s wet dream, and a Spotify killer.

Wonderful.

Was the current piracy regime so badly broken that this needed to happen?

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the Gallo report, the UK’s Digital Economy Act, and in particular, the brand Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Bill, will all:

a) seem completely warranted, and yet

b) will make even moderates presently optimistic about Spotify making copyright enforcement hardening unnecessary, despair

c) finally, the awful copyright policy we’ve seen pushed in 2010 (see above) will seem inadequate to all, and even harsher measures will be necessary. “Throw the safe harbour / intermediary immunity out the window, allow wanton monitoring, consider making wilful downloading of infringing content illegal, bring back DRM, etc… Three strikes? Let’s make it two!! Children are in danger in this Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy*.

And if Mulve had never come along? people would just learn how to conduct their business online with greater discretion. Privacy, anonymity, encryption, closed communities, being selective about which computers you let your PC connect to – hardly a bad schooling?

If it ain’t badly broke, don’t fix it. This is a step backwards for all concerned, not least the freetards that will gorge themselves on a service that seems too good to be true. As an acquaintance recently pointed out, if you don’t know who the free lunch is, there’s a good chance you’re it.

*yes, Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber really is that cock-mouthed. Children in danger – what a hammy line to trot out, and in the House of Lords. I mean really. And a ‘Somalia of unregulated theft’? As opposed to what, a Somalia of regulated theft? A Wales of unregulated theft? What on Earth does that mean??

How tragic that a legislator can admit that “I do not come equipped with the answers; frankly, they are way beyond my world of musical theatre” in Parliament, then gets so widely lauded (for a rhetoric and bad stat-laden tragic, melodramatic pantomime of a speech) as to be able to kick start the horrifying fisting of the Digital Economy Act (by which I mean hijacking a good bill that was about boosting Britain’s digital telecoms infrastructure, and filling it with copyright enforcement measures so draconian they would have derailed the bill completely but for the use of the ‘wash up’ subterfuge).

According to the now-defunct SABIP (Government Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy)*, they can’t find a record of any recourses to Section 296ZE of the UK Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988. Who cares, right?

Thing is, with all the press and moaning that DRM (Digital Rights Management; a.k.a locks on mp3 files, DVDs, software and so on) has received, it strikes me that not one person has ever used the catchily-named “Remedy where effective technological measures prevent permitted acts”.

There’s a whole host of stuff you’re allowed to do with content under UK copyright law. I tried to find a good list online where someone explains them, but oddly, I couldn’t (I’d love a pointer to one though!). The best I could find was this, on the UK IPO website.

If DRM or any other technology stops you, you can report them to the Secretary of State, who can slap them around as much as he considers necessary in order to give you your rights.

I just thought that this should be more widely known. Feel free to pass this info on if you think so too.

*”The Relationship Between Copyright and Contract Law report, 2010”