Congressional economists tackle copyright issues

The Congressional Budget Office released a new study on digital copyright issues Tuesday, outlining economic problems that Congress should keep in mind as it grapples with making new laws.

While stopping short of specific legislative recommendations, the paper offers a set of principles for lawmakers that's largely focused on avoiding being tied too closely to past practices or to the interests of powerful companies or consumer groups.

"Revisions to copyright law should be made without regard to the vested interests of particular business and consumer groups," the congressional economists wrote. "Instead, they should be assessed with regard to their consequences for efficiency in markets for creative works and other products."

The paper could provide a strong working text for legislators, as they face growing calls from both copyright holders and consumer groups to reshape laws that have been severely tested by the growth of the Net and digital copying technologies.

This year, lawmakers are debating peer-to-peer software companies by holding them liable for copyright infringement that takes place on their networks.

The paper outlines the likely economic effects of several ideas that have been proposed in Congress or by copyright experts, without advocating support for any of them.

Doing nothing--and letting technologies such as digital rights management take their course--could make the market more efficient by letting copyright owners charge varying prices, the paper said. But it also could impose new consumer costs, as well as social costs for enforcement. Continuing piracy--if digital rights management doesn't work--could be harmful for copyright holders and reduce the output of creative works, it said.

A compulsory license plan, which would force copyright holders to allow distribution in return for a government-set royalty, could substantially reduce enforcement and transaction costs. But it might also reduce supply or demand, depending on where the fee was set, the paper said.

Changing laws to favor either consumers or copyright holders could reduce efficiencies of the market but boost the market--if they helped reduce piracy or opened up new digital markets, according to the paper, which was released independently by the Congressional Budget Office, without being requested by a member of Congress.

[PolarUpgrade]

Unintended Consequences

Unintended consequences have already manifested with respect to the DMCA.

For example, U.S. printer makers now routinely lock out third party ink manufacturers by building digital lock chips into the cartridges. The DMCA makes it a crime to crack this kind of lock, as I understand it.

It is about time thoughtful legislators realized that copyright owners (I being a Canadian who collects copyright royalties myself for some of my work) have always had sufficient enforcement powers, and that copyright law in the U.S. and Canada was from the get-go quite adequate.

I am amazed at the ease with which legislators have been duped by the IP sector into creating the draconian DMCA in the U.S.

A common argument in the Intellectual Property sector is that "Oh, yes there is copyright law, but to use it to sue infringers is sooo difficult and sooooo time-consuming and sooooo costly that we need cozy laws to group-sue every last living music and DVD pirate" etc. "And we need hardware locks like the broadcast flag..." etc.

Well, lawmakers, consider that this same argument that rolls over you all the time is EXACTLY the same when applied to all other areas of law. Law is never easy to enforce when it comes to civil matters. It was never intended to be.

Why, I wonder, do lawmakers think Hollywood and Big Music need a special legal setup to make things easier just for them. It ain't just, folks; and the sooner this fact is understood, and the sooner lawmakers get serious about NOT overdoing copyright, the better off we shall all be.

Step 1 of course should be repeal of the DMCA.

[JeffLewis]

Bravo!

The Copyright Board in Canada recently started the process of trying to determine how Canada should implement the same WIPO obligations that led to the DMCA.

It ended up being three fairly simple requirements - and in my submission, I pointed out that the existing copyright acts already covered the new requirements with one small amendment, which wasn't even really necessary: to explicitly make the distribution of a copyrighted work in large quantities without permission illegal.

Currently, that's covered by Bill 42 Section 42 Paragraph C, which prohibits a use of copyrighted works without permission if it diminishes the value of the original work.

The problem isn't that the copyright acts of most WIPO/Universal/Bern Convention countries aren't enforcable - it's that the copyright holders want to expand their rights at the expense of the consumer. The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act in the US wasn't about protecting rights, it was about making sure that nothing ever falls into the public domain.

Copyrights have never been about absolute control of intellectual property - they were supposed to be a kind of carrot and stick - the carrot was that the creator of the work gets a monopoly on it for a period of time so that they can make a living off it - and the stick was that at some point, that ends so you have to create more new art.

The notion that giving an artist an unlimited monopoly that now can extend into several generations after the author has died means that the author has LESS incentive to create new works, not more - and worse, lets their estate continue to rest on the author's laurels.

That's led to the Disnification of the art world.

I really can't see that this is a good thing.