Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars by William Patry

Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars by William Patry

William Patry focuses on the history of copyright as it pertains to innovation. The copyright wars refers to the dispute between the music corporations and other large corporations and individuals who use digital content. It is the continuing controversy over file sharing, digital downloading, and new formats of content which are bringing change to the publishing, film, and recording industries. William Patry includes a lot of history on technology and copyright. This book is very relevant to what is happening now in the publishing world and the library world.

When William Patry talks about moral panics, he often uses the idea of metaphor; ordinary people being labeled as pirates, highwaymen, or robbers for downloading content. Another metaphor which is quite interesting is the idea of authors birthing their works. William Patry claims that the copyright industry is trying to drum up resistance to change and innovation.

In this book there are many arguments put forth about how copyright should function. It is very much an attempt to persuade the reader that copyright should act and be a particular way. The arguments are very interesting. For example, he argues that copyright is a government program used to ensure that intellectual property benefits the public and authors. He further makes another argument that copyright is not like physical property and must be handled differently.

There are sections on DRM (Digital Rights management) and the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). These are very important because they have created many new issues in copyright like orphan works something that is very convoluted. As part of his going over new legislation, William Patry reminds us that copyright should encourage innovation not prevent it. The United States is falling behind countries like South Korea and Japan. His viewpoint is very much a call for a change in how copyright is currently being done.

This book is published by Oxford University Press. There are extensive notes and an in depth index. He includes many quotes from prominent people in the copyright industry. William Patry is a senior copyright counsel for Google, a practicing attorney, and a professor. This book combines the scholarly with the persuasive quite well.

Daily Thoughts 11/25/2009

Vincent Van Gogh, The Night Cafe, 1888

Daily Thoughts 11/25/2009

I am almost done reading Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. Right now, I am reading about the history of technology and copyright. It starts with movies, then moves to videos starting with betamax, then dvds, and finally I am reading about the internet and movies. This of course touches on the subject of DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). It is quite interesting and very relevant. It speaks directly to the issue of innovation and copyright.

I just finished the book. The last chapter is on innovation in relation to copyright. William Patry makes an argument that copyright often prevents innovation and limits the adoption of new technologies. I found his observations about how Japan and South Korea have become the world leaders in broadband adaptation to be enlightening. This is a very good book.

I received another suggestion for conferences that crossover between librarianship and publishing. The International Conference of the Book is another one: http://2009.booksandpublishing.com/

Daily Thoughts 11/24/2009

Book talks, 12:15 to 12:45 : noon hour, every Thursday Nov. thru Apr.
Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).

Daily Thoughts 11/24/2009

I am still reading Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars by William Patry. Currently, the book is focused on copyright as a form of property. It describes the issue of whether copyright is a natural right or is a created social phenomenon that is governed as a commodity. There is quite a bit on the congers or early book trade groups in England. This is an entry from Wikipedia. I am not saying that it is 100% correct, it is interesting though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conger_(syndicate)

I also watched some more of Cowboy Bebop, the anime series which is turning out to be quite entertaining. I like the data dog, a Welsh Corgi named Ein, it is my favorite character.

I took a short break from reading Moral Panics and The Copyright Wars and started reading Makers by Cory Doctorow. This is a science fiction novel about the near future. It hits the dot com and high tech world like a nail on the head. It is about a new technology revolution that is coming in the near future, fabbers, or three dimensional printers capable of working with metals, plastics, composites, and other materials combined with robotics and microchips in machine shop settings. The ability to custom make almost anything up to the size of a refrigerator in a small factory.

I found this on linked in. It is two more conferences focusing on the space between libraries and publishers. Timothy Dickey mentioned it in the ALA group. There is a very fine annual conference of librarians, publishers, and vendors in Charleston, SC (just completed for this year): http://katina.info/conference/

Also, OCLC has begun to host an annual symposium to explore metadata needs between librarians and publishers: http://www.oclc.org/publisher-symposium/

Daily Thoughts 11/23/2009

The library in the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights building at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States.. April 1, 2005. Benjamin D. Esham for the Wikimedia Commons.

Daily Thoughts 11/23/2009

I am reading more of Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars by William Patry. The last section I was reading was about metaphors and copyright. There are quite a few different metaphors described; people being pirates, birthing intellectual property, lawyers being sharks, copying works being thievery, and many others. The language is very charged, entertaining, and pointed.

You sometimes have to wonder about certain aspects of copyright. From what I have seen a typical book lasts about a month or so in the bookstore where it sells for a while, then the older copies are sent back to the publisher to be remaindered and sold at a discount. In a library, the library keeps the book for about a year or two, then checks the amount of time which the book has been circulated. If it has literary merit, they might keep if it has low circulation, otherwise it is likely to be deaccessioned. Not a whole lot of books make it past three or four years let alone seventy.

In Moral Panics and the Copyright wars, the author, William Patry says approximately 1.7% of books are still in print after 70 years. This is not a huge amount of books. In my mind, most of them go to that imaginary place, the library where all the forgotten books are in endless rows to be never found again. You also have to question this, with print on demand, as well as book scanning technology, it is not that hard to get a book printed again. Out of print is a fuzzy term these days.

Maybe, things will change, and many of the books in the libray of forgotten books will fade away and enter Google Books search to be found as digital ghosts that slowly make it back into existence as people look at them on the internet. They may even rematerialize completely through the magic of print on demand. The Espresso Book Machine has partnered with Google Books to make its content easily available. I can imagine whole isles of books disappearing from that imaginary underground repository as I write. http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/09/books-digitized-by-google-available-via.html

I spent some time during the last few days cleaning up and consolidating my keywords for my blog. I still have to do it again to eliminate even more phrases, but I have made an initial pass for spelling, duplicate style entries like professional books and professional literature, extra punctuation, and other mistakes. Google limits the total number of keywords allowed.