IP Matters

Back on January 14th, the New York chapter of the Copyright Society hosted a debate between junior law school student Derek Khanna and MPAA Vice President of Legal Affairs Ben Sheffner.

The video has been posted on YouTube.

It's about an hour long, and it's worth a watch. It's a civil discussion, though I think the substantive arguments in favor of strong copyright protection trump Derek's rather facile arguments.

And I forgive Ben for botching our name <g>.

The discussion ranges from the politics of copyright to the economic importance of copyright. It's worth a watch.

Last night, CBS’s 60 Minutes news magazine did a profile on Kim Dotcom, the infamous personality behind the now-shuttered Megaupload file sharing site.

I watched out of curiosity to see whether 60 Minutes would accurately portray Kim as the serial criminal that he is, or whether they’d allow him to get away with his “I’m just the happy elf of the Internet” persona that he tries to convey.

Within the time available, 60 Minutes actually did a pretty balanced job. Of course, the SWAT-like raid on his compound got considerable attention during the piece, and frankly even critics like me have to admit that was probably overkill—seems to me you don’t bring in an armed assault team unless you’ve been given some reason to think you’ll need it. Of course, Kim’s extensive criminal career (see below), might well have suggested to law enforcement personnel that more than a courtesy call was in order. But the details of the raid are a distraction from the facts of the case, given the rest of the details of the 60 Minutes story, and especially after considering some of the facts that 60 Minutes omitted.

Last Thursday (December 12) the Department of Commerce hosted an all-day discussion\public meeting on “Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy.” And thanks to the miracle of on-line streaming video, I was able to “be there” for most of it.

This event was part of a process that began with the release of a “green paper” back on July 31^st that was an attempt to survey existing copyright law in its relationship to technology changes, and see what updates might be necessary.

This is, of course, a healthy process. While we at IPI are strong proponents of intellectual property protection, no law is perfect. It’s important for defenders of IP to not simply be kneejerk defenders of the status quo, and in fact, if we are confident that we are correct in the obvious utility of IP protection, we should not be afraid of examination and even the need to update the law periodically.

Today, IPI submitted comments to the USPTO regarding the U.S. Department of Commerce Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy.

Responding to whether and how the government can facilitate the further development of a robust online licensing system, IPI president Tom Giovanetti states in the comments:

Our conclusion is that there is nothing additional that the federal government needs to do to facilitate a robust online licensing environment other than to fully engage in its existing obligation to protect copyright and to ensure an environment where rule-of-law prevails and where rights holders can be assured of justice and enforcement of their rights. 

Specifically and most often this means 1) not allowing the proliferation of sources that offer illegal access to protected works, and 2) not succumbing to activist pressure to weaken copyright protection. 

Apparently the folks over at Engadget sponsored a conference in New York this past Sunday, and of course they did a panel on copyright policy. Of course they did.

But balance wasn’t apparently high on the agenda. In fact, hearing from people who actually create, own, and market creative goods—the main stakeholders in copyright—apparently wasn’t on the agenda at all. Here was the makeup of the panel:

On Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) held its 2013 Global IP Summit at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The event was very well attended, at least through its highlight, the luncheon panel on patent litigation reform.

One highlight for me came early in the program when former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez made it clear that attacks on intellectual property rights are attacks on capitalism. You might could tell that this is a pet theme of mine from this recent blog entry.

During the patent litigation reform panel, it was clear that there is some subset of Rep. Goodlatte’s proposed legislation that pretty much everyone could agree upon, though of course such a subset of solutions would not please those who are fond of very broad definitions of patent “trolls,” and who would like to see it made much more difficult to uphold a broad array of patents. As Manus Cooney put it, “to the degree to which you make patent enforcement more difficult, you make patent trolling less risky.”

Our libertarian friends over at the Mercatus Center have set up a website that bashes the movie industry because it doesn’t release movies according to the schedule that the Mercatus Center thinks it should.

At least, that is the clear implication of the site.

What they do at the site is compare the most pirated movies for a particular week with the legal streaming availability of those same movies. Which isn’t even relevant, despite what Tim Lee thinks.

It IS interesting that TorrentFreak brazenly publishes a list of the most pirated movies. That’s pretty in-your-face behavior, considering that piracy is illegal. As you might guess, the most pirated movies are the most recent successful movies.

But it is utterly irrelevant whether or not a pirated movie is available for streaming. That’s because the release schedule and business plan for the movie is entirely the business of whoever owns the movie, and not anyone else. That’s an implication of property rights that libertarians ought to understand. You and your pirate friends do not get to decide what happens to my property.

My favorite tie is the London School of Economics tie. It’s purple, and my wife likes purple. Plus it’s got black in it, and I like black. No, I didn’t attend the school, but their tie is cool and I wear it.

I know it probably offends LSE grads that someone who didn’t attend the school wears the tie, but I’m about to offend LSE grads with this blog post far more than I do when I wear their tie.

That’s because the LSE dropped a big plop of barbecue sauce on their ties recently. Or, as I put it more colorfully in the title, they wet themselves.

If an institution wants a reputation for credibility and serious analysis, they shouldn’t put out a report like the LSE did in a week or so ago, “Copyright & Creation: A Case for Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing” [PDF].

The paper is yet another iteration in an effort by academics and others not involved in the music industry to define how the music industry should operate in the digital age, which most commonly and most emphatically involves not enforcing copyright. And, lately, in a more focused theme, that graduated response mechanisms should not be implemented.

The most fundamental question in economics is not about math: It’s about philosophy and morality. And how you answer the question takes you down a path that is not only economic, but also philosophical and moral.

(Please bear with this brief economics discussion)

So what is this question? Whether the general public benefits from private ownership (and control) of capital.

Marx, of course, famously answered this “No” —the public does NOT benefit from private ownership of capital.  In fact Marx, who coined the term “capitalism,” said that private ownership of capital leads to abuse of the public because capitalists use control of their capital to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.  In this worldview, if private ownership of capital harms the public, it’s private ownership that is immoral, and theft becomes a moral, even heroic act. So Marxism does away with private ownership and control of capital and turns it over to the general public, in the assumption that the general public will better deploy capital in its own best interests.

According to a study released today by the European Patent Office (EPO), one-in-three jobs in the EU is dependent on the IP-intensive industries.

It’s a 144-page study, available here as a PDF. The press release is available here.

Carried out jointly by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) acting through the EU Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and the European Patent Office (EPO), the study finds that about 40% of total economic activity in the EU (some €4.7 trillion annually) is generated by IPR-intensive industries, and approximately 35% of all employment in the EU (77 million jobs) stems from such industries that have a higher than average use of IP rights. The report also finds that average remuneration in IPR-intensive industries is more than 40% higher than in other industries. 

Of course, this is no great surprise to those of us who understand that the modern, knowledge-based economies of the developed nations are very much dependent on their ability to imagine, create, and innovate, and then crucially to monetize those creations into economic activity.

And it’s completely consistent with what has been found by others who did similar such research with an honest look at the data, as opposed to those who set out intentionally to argue against IP protection.

Now, of course, we await the study by CCIA that claims that twelve-in-three jobs in the EU are dependent on fair use.

Admit it, we’ve all done it—This morning I was doing a web search on my own name. Normally there are no surprises, but that’s kinda why we do it, right? To see if there are any surprises? And when you have a last name like mine, odds are when you do a web search on your name, it’s you that comes up, not 500 other people with the same name.

Anyway, a surprise came up, and it was an unpleasant one: I found that a website called DocStoc.com is selling pirated copies of a book I wrote some years ago. You can buy copies of all sorts of pirated books on DocStoc, it seems.

This year’s International Property Rights Index, a project of the Property Rights Alliance, ranks the U.S. #17 for the protection of both physical and intellectual property.

The US score is thanks in part to its strong intellectual property protection system, and ranked second only to Finland’s IPR structure (which is also #1 on the overall property rights list.)

So this morning I see news of a release of a paper from a law professor in Australia who finds that graduated response enforcement, such as “three strikes” policies, doesn’t work.

And that’s as far as almost anyone goes these days in our information overload society. You see a subject line in an email that says graduated response doesn’t work according to a new study, and you tuck that little detail away in your mind. “I remember reading somewhere that graduated response doesn’t work” the little voice in your head will say 18 months from now when the topic comes up in a discussion somewhere.

And then Mike Masnick over at TechDirt and Tim Lee over at the Washington Post will gleefully blog that, according to this new study, graduated response doesn’t work. The echo chamber does it’s work. And that’s that.

So I decided to actually go to the trouble of reading the study. And not only that, but also reading a few other things the author has written, look into some of the author’s affiliations and assumptions, etc.  It takes time, of course. But I do these things as a service to you.