[Air-l] intellectual property

[Jonathan Sterne]

Hi Folks,

I see three issues here.

1.      There's copyright law.  I think copyright law as it's currently 
enforced in the U.S. is morally bankrupt.  It's one thing to create and 
distribute content and be compensated for that fairly, and it's another 
thing to own the content and extract endless amounts of surplus value from 
the sheer fact of owning it.  Take a look at prices on student textbooks if 
you don't believe me.  It's all surplus value -- the press does a markup 
and then so does the university/college 
bookstore.  http://www.negativland.com  has a nice piece on the economics 
of CD pricing that I like to teach that makes a similar point.

The fact that someone legally owns something does not mean that a) they are 
in the right for owning it; and b) that it should be owned.

Moreover, FAIR USE is designed to facilitate precisely something like the 
forwarding of a message to a mailing list for discussion and the 
distribution of course materials to students as cheaply as possible for the 
purposes of learning.  The fact that right now U.S. courts are interpreting 
fair use law very conservatively does not make their interpretation correct 
or even justifiable.

Napster's a really tired issue, but it's the same kind of thing.  Musicians 
should be compensated.  The Napster ruling guarantees that record companies 
will be compensated, not musicians.

2.      There's Jeremy.  Given how copyright law is going in the U.S. right 
now, and given that he's supporting the list for all our benefit, I think 
we owe him the respect of playing it safe and not putting him in jeopardy 
if that's how he wants it.  It seems totally reasonable to me.

3.      There's the manners of forwarding.  I'm of the "less is more" 
school of forwarding, but I know there are other points of view on the 
matter, and I know where my delete key is, so it's no big thing.

My $.02, adjusted for inflation.

Best,
--J