Online Copyright: Chicken vs The Egg

One of the biggest issues facing the ongoing online freedom we have come to take for granted, is that of Copyright. 

At it’s best the online environment exists as a global platform of equality (not with standing endemic social inequalities which create a very visible digital divide), where anyone and everyone can publish creative  ideas, and have their voice heard. This environment has revolutionised the dissemination of information. Knowledge is no longer the singular domain of the educated classes. Younger generations are inspired and encouraged to participate , share and create and sense of community is growing.

At it’s worst, the internet is swamped by a wasteland of digital ephemera, creating a narcissistic, reactionary generation of children. Where online culture is dominated by trivial  mash ups and fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media.

Either way, there is no denying that much of what we  find online is in some way a cultural remix.  And this re-mixing of culture brings us to the problem of online copyright.

Non-Profit, Creative Commons attempts to deal with this problem by allowing content producers the option of making content available for use creatively under a variety of license options. Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig and copyright activist is a vocal opponent of Copyright Laws, which he sees as archaic when applied to amateur remix.   Lessig advocates passionately (and polemically) for a “decriminalization” of amateur remixed creativity. Essentially, Lessig believes that creativity and innovation will prosper when the regulation for non-commercial use is treated separately to the current bundled copyright, which by default is given to the owner.  Lessig supports a Read/Write (RW) worldview where people connect with their culture by listening and interpreting. They also add to this culture by building upon it, so that the remixed work creates a new form of art. This, in turn, leads to the social benefit of a more diverse creative culture, and this diversity will better inspire creators.

However creative commons does struggle to come to terms with new ways of creating, sharing and reusing content in the contemporary legal environment.  What if eradicating, as Lessig proposes, the fair-use act (and its contemporary fair dealing clause in Australian law) opens up the possibility that many more un-fair use remixes are created?

Jaron Larnier, another polemic commentator,  suggests that the people who will be most screwed by open source, are the middle classes of intellectual and cultural creation.

An alternative is to consider the role social norms play in regulating remix culture, where a social norm is a social regularity, a behaviour that is widely adopted in society, corresponding with a conception of what people should do. It could be argued that the existence of norms, such as “The Norm of socially accepted and somewhat encouraged amateur remix”, which act as a set of self guiding regulations in internet governance in combination with existing fair-use laws work in unison to raise the costs of enforcement for copyright owners, making the pursuance of amateur non-commercial infringements a non-viable enterprise, leading to greater access to works in the shared domain.  Without copyright law, there would be no need for the establishment of these particular social norms as it is only the existence of doctrines such as Fair-Use which provide openings for norms to play an important role in the self-regulation of copyright law.  Therefore as a counter argument to Lessig, one could say that it is only the existence of copyright laws such as the fair-use act which has kept remix culture remaining predominately amateur and fair use, which are the key components in arguing that all amateur remix should be legal.

Such a “chicken before the egg” environment provokes the question: have social norms developed because amateur remix is predominately fair-use, or is amateur remix predominately fair-use because social norms exist? 

Food for thought...

Social vs Economic Value of Micro-payments

As arguments for and against online micro-payment systems (whereby consumers are asked to pay a taken amount, say $1 in order to view online content) continue, it was interesting to come across this piece in a new Blog set up by a New Zealand digital agency, Hey Day.

In 1992 New Zealand became the first country to charge for internet access per byte rather than flat rate.  Increasing popularity of BBS messaging (an early form of email), was putting strain on the capacity of available servers (generally provided for free by hobbyists and universities) and the only viable solution was to begin charging users according to how much data they consumed.

The international response to this initial fee structure was extremely negative and vilified as ‘not the Internet’ way and against the spirit of sharing.’ But, as is often the case with ideas for change, other countries in need of financial support adopted the model, and the “poison from New Zealand” was spreading.

Nowadays, the idea of paying for the internet on a usage basis is the norm (even flat-rate packages are based upon this model). So the initial payment system was perhaps not the “poison” decried.

Which makes me wonder what the future holds for micro-payments. Current lines of argument suggest a variety of solutions. Should it just be accepted that content on the internet exists under the same value system as offline content (despite accessibility and openness making it difficult to keep content hidden until payment is made). Or does an adjusted value system need to be adopted, whereby the consumer is asked to ‘donate’ a token amount, (with just the touch of a button) to ‘support’ the artist.

In 2000 Clay Shirky wrote a case against micro-payments. He introduced the point that micro-payments “create a double-standard. One cannot tell users that they need to place a monetary value on something while also suggesting that the fee charged is functionally zero.” In 2000, the action of making a mirco-payment was also as complicated as making an ordinary payment.

Now however, in 2010, the idea of micro-payments is being touted as a possible solution to the problem of illegal download, and the flouting of intellectual property rights online. Technology behind payment systems now exists to simplify the process, meaning that one of the original flaws in the micro-payment idea, (that time had no value), has now been overcome.

Perhaps the successful use of micro-payments will be as the result of a social solution, rather than an economic one. When a user pays a token amount for a product with much higher cultural value, safe in the knowledge that a huge number of other users are doing the same, and this in turn allows the original content producer/ artist to benefit. It allays the user’s guilt, which has a social value greater than its economic one.

As Shirky is now a great believer in the positive power of the crowd, surely the idea of micro-payment is still valid.

Food for thought…