Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig (short story to read .TXT) 📕

Before I had read about chimeras, I would have said they were impossible. A single person can't have two sets of DNA. The very idea of DNA is that it is the code of an individual. Yet in fact, not only can two individuals have the same set of DNA (identical twins), but one person can have two different sets of DNA (a chimera). Our understanding of a "person" should reflect this reality.

The more I work to understand the current struggle over copyright and culture, which I've sometimes called unfairly, and sometimes not unfairly enough, "the copyright wars," the more I think we're dealing with a chimera. For example, in the battle over the question "What is p2p file sharing?" both sides have it right, and both sides have it wrong. One side says, "File sharing is just like two kids taping each others' records--the sort of thing we've been doing for the last thirty years without any question at all." That's true, at least in part. When I tell my best friend to try out a new CD that I've bought, but rather than just send the CD, I point him to my p2p server, that is, in all relevant respects, just like what every executive in every recording company no doubt did as a kid: sharing music.

But the description is also false in part. For when my p2p server is on a p2p network through which anyone can get access to my music, then sure, my friends can get access, but it stretches the meaning of "friends" beyond recognition to say "my ten thousand best friends" can get access. Whether or not sharing my music with my best friend is what "we have always been allowed to do," we have not always been allowed to share music with "our ten thousand best friends."

Likewise, when the other side says, "File sharing is just like walking into a Tower Records and taking a CD off the shelf and walking out with it," that's true, at least in part. If, after Lyle Lovett (finally) releases a new album, rather than buying it, I go to Kazaa and find a free copy to take, that is very much like stealing a copy from Tower.

But it is not quite stealing from Tower. After all, when I take a CD from Tower Records, Tower has one less CD to sell. And when I take a CD from Tower Records, I get a bit of plastic and a cover, and something to show on my shelves. (And, while we're at it, we could also note that when I take a CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that might be imposed on me, under California law, at least, is $1,000. According to the RIAA, by contrast, if I download a ten-song CD, I'm liable for $1,500,000 in damages.)

The point is not that it is as neither side describes. The point is that it is both--both as the RIAA describes it and as Kazaa describes it. It is a chimera. And rather than simply denying what the other side asserts, we need to begin to think about how we should respond to this chimera. What rules should govern it?

We could respond by simply pretending that it is not a chimera. We could, with the RIAA, decide that every act of file sharing should be a felony. We could prosecute families for millions of dollars in damages just because file sharing occurred on a family computer. And we can get universities to monitor all computer traffic to make sure that no computer is used to commit this crime. These responses might be extreme, but each of them has either been proposed or actually implemented.2

Alternatively, we could respond to file sharing the way many kids act as though we've responded. We could totally legalize it. Let there be no copyright liability, either civil or criminal, for making copyrighted content available on the Net. Make file sharing like gossip: regulated, if at all, by social norms but not by law.

Either response is possible. I think either would be a mistake. Rather than embrace one of these two extremes, we should embrace something that recognizes the truth in both. And while I end this book with a sketch of a system that does just that, my aim in the next chapter is to show just how awful it would be for us to adopt the zero-tolerance extreme. I believe either extreme would be worse than a reasonable alternative. But I believe the zero-tolerance solution would be the worse of the two extremes.

Yet zero tolerance is increasingly our government's policy. In the middle of the chaos that the Internet has created, an extraordinary land grab is occurring. The law and technology are being shifted to give content holders a kind of control over our culture that they have never had before. And in this extremism, many an opportunity for new innovation and new creativity will be lost.

I'm not talking about the opportunities for kids to "steal" music. My focus instead is the commercial and cultural innovation that this war will also kill. We have never seen the power to innovate spread so broadly among our citizens, and we have just begun to see the innovation that this power will unleash. Yet the Internet has already seen the passing of one cycle of innovation around technologies to distribute content. The law is responsible for this passing. As the vice president for global public policy at one of these new innovators, eMusic.com, put it when criticizing the DMCA's added protection for copyrighted material,

eMusic opposes music piracy. We are a distributor of copyrighted material, and we want to protect those rights.

But building a technology fortress that locks in the clout of the major labels is by no means the only way to protect copyright interests, nor is it necessarily the best. It is simply too early to answer that question. Market forces operating naturally may very well produce a totally different industry model.

This is a critical point. The choices that industry sectors make with respect to these systems will in many ways directly shape the market for digital media and the manner in which digital media are distributed. This in turn will directly influence the options that are available to consumers, both in terms of the ease with which they will be able to access digital media and the equipment that they will require to do so. Poor choices made this early in the game will retard the growth of this market, hurting everyone's interests.3

In April 2001, eMusic.com was purchased by Vivendi Universal, one of "the major labels." Its position on these matters has now changed.

Reversing our tradition of tolerance now will not merely quash piracy. It will sacrifice values that are important to this culture, and will kill opportunities that could be extraordinarily valuable.

To fight "piracy," to protect "property," the content industry has launched a war. Lobbying and lots of campaign contributions have now brought the government into this war. As with any war, this one will have both direct and collateral damage. As with any war of prohibition, these damages will be suffered most by our own people.

My aim so far has been to describe the consequences of this war, in particular, the consequences for "free culture." But my aim now is to extend this description of consequences into an argument. Is this war justified?

In my view, it is not. There is no good reason why this time, for the first time, the law should defend the old against the new, just when the power of the property called "intellectual property" is at its greatest in our history.

Yet "common sense" does not see it this way. Common sense is still on the side of the Causbys and the content industry. The extreme claims of control in the name of property still resonate; the uncritical rejection of "piracy" still has play.

There will be many consequences of continuing this war. I want to describe just three. All three might be said to be unintended. I am quite confident the third is unintended. I'm less sure about the first two. The first two protect modern RCAs, but there is no Howard Armstrong in the wings to fight today's monopolists of culture.

Constraining Creators

In the next ten years we will see an explosion of digital technologies. These technologies will enable almost anyone to capture and share content. Capturing and sharing content, of course, is what humans have done since the dawn of man. It is how we learn and communicate. But capturing and sharing through digital technology is different. The fidelity and power are different. You could send an e-mail telling someone about a joke you saw on Comedy Central, or you could send the clip. You could write an essay about the inconsistencies in the arguments of the politician you most love to hate, or you could make a short film that puts statement against statement. You could write a poem to express your love, or you could weave together a string--a mash-up-- of songs from your favorite artists in a collage and make it available on the Net.

This digital "capturing and sharing" is in part an extension of the capturing and sharing that has always been integral to our culture, and in part it is something new. It is continuous with the Kodak, but it explodes the boundaries of Kodak-like technologies. The technology of digital "capturing and sharing" promises a world of extraordinarily diverse creativity that can be easily and broadly shared. And as that creativity is applied to democracy, it will enable a broad range of citizens to use technology to express and criticize and contribute to the culture all around.

Technology has thus given us an opportunity to do something with culture that has only ever been possible for individuals in small groups, isolated from others. Think about an old man telling a story to a collection of neighbors in a small town. Now imagine that same storytelling extended across the globe.

Yet all this is possible only if the activity is presumptively legal. In the current regime of legal regulation, it is not. Forget file sharing for a moment. Think about your favorite amazing sites on the Net. Web sites that offer plot summaries from forgotten television shows; sites that catalog cartoons from the 1960s; sites that mix images and sound to criticize politicians or businesses; sites that gather newspaper articles on remote topics of science or culture. There is a vast amount of creative work spread across the Internet. But as the law is currently crafted, this work is presumptively illegal.

That presumption will increasingly chill creativity, as the examples of extreme penalties for vague infringements continue to proliferate. It is impossible to get a clear sense of what's allowed and what's not, and at the same time, the penalties for crossing the line are astonishingly harsh. The four students who were threatened by the RIAA ( Jesse Jordan of chapter 3 was just one) were threatened with a $98 billion lawsuit for building search engines that permitted songs to be copied. Yet World- Com--which defrauded investors of $11 billion, resulting in a loss to investors in market capitalization of over $200 billion--received a fine of a mere $750 million.1 And under legislation being pushed in Congress right now, a doctor who negligently removes the wrong leg in an operation would be liable for no more than $250,000 in damages for pain and suffering.2 Can common sense recognize the absurdity in a world where the maximum fine for downloading two songs off the Internet is more than the fine for a doctor's negligently butchering a patient?

The consequence of this legal