This is a good piece. Long but good. And if you even read part of it you’ll get the gist.
Titled The Digital Economy Bill: Fred Figglehorn, won’t you please come home? it’s about the disconnect between what many politicians think the digital economy is and what people actually engaged in it think it is (and what they do in it).
Fred Figglehorn (for those who don’t know) is this fictional character created and portrayed by Lucas Cruikshank a teenager from Columbus, Nebraska, who created the character for his channel on You Tube.
I found out about Fred a while ago through my nine year olds who insisted I google him.
The videos are centered around Fred Figglehorn, a fictional 6-year-old who has a dysfunctional home life and “anger management issues”.
I think he’s weird, but my kids really like it and word about Fred has spread like wildfire, as these things do.
The points of the piece being:
- The digital natives of today are good at making stuff happen out of raw material
- They can come up with ideas that, like Lucas Cruikshank, can make home videos regularly enough to run a channel that has a million subscribers and gets nine million views.
- The internet is made for content creators. And they know how to communicate with each other
- Many of the organisations that have managed content in the past are threatened by this emerging creativity and challenge its right to exist. These organisations are intent on creating barriers and are inevitably becoming irrelevant as people find their way around the barriers
- There are enormous challenges for law makers in protecting content creators while enabling people to have access to it
This is very relevant to New Zealand right now in it’s contemplation of a new piece of copyright law.
And importantly, the wider context is a controversial international treaty called ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) that impacts digital rights and is being negotiated in secret meetings, the latest round being held in Wellington next week.
For more information on this go to this website
Here’s a Fred clip (bet you only last 30 seconds)
Hat tip: Glyn Moody twitter.com/glynmoody
Yus – my concern is this focus on “3 strikes punishment” and whether it’s fair…
… as opposed to
a) whether copyright (the work once, get paid forever model) is a good idea in the first place
b) whether sharing is in fact a crime (there are no stats to support the idea that piracy hurts sales)
c) whether it is reasonable that our laws should be created for the benefit of corporations, foreign or otherwise.
d) whether or not people colluding with foreign corporations to bypass the democratic process – attacking the heart of the new 4th Estate are not in fact guilty of treason, and should be put in prison.
Because I’m a musician and a film maker… and copyright in its current for sure as hell isn’t helping me.
As well as the official ACTA negotiation happening from April 12th to 16th in Wellington (where the public is not welcome), there’s also the PublicACTA one-day conference being held in Wellington on Saturday April 10th – and the public is welcome to that one.
We’ll be talking about copyright in general, what ACTA should and shouldn’t include, how law is made, and a whole range of other related issues.
There’s over 100 registrations already but I believe there’s about 20 spots available, and it’s free. Find out more and register at http://publicacta.org.nz
(I know you linked to it but I thought it was worth spelling out in a little more detail!)
Quite. People create things all the time based on what has gone before. Shakespeare lifted most of the plot of Romeo and Juliet from English writer William Painter who published fifteen years beforehand; he in turn got it from an Italian author. Just think what we would have missed if copyright enforcement had been as it is now.
32 seconds. just
It’s scary that we don’t have decent laws, just the junk that is being slapped together.
I applaud Clare for bringing this up.
Copyright as it stands has done nobody any favours.
Copyright holders have been reluctant to adapt their business models and have not embraced the technology that would otherwise add value to their efforts (if they weren’t concentrating on how to limit the value).
Consumers are still waiting for promised technology to reach our shores that:
a) Doesn’t prove to be impractical in NZ – given the restrictive nature of our internet connections either in speed or data capping.
b) Comes out in a timely fashion to coincide with DVD releases (and hopefully the idea of zones can be removed as the whole idea was just silly).
c) Doesn’t attempt to restrict the user by restricting the number of times they can watch paid for content, or by making it of a lower quality than they can expect in the shops.
d) is priced accordingly (the same as the cost of a DVD minus the cost of the DVD, jacket, case etc. if you’re to own the digital file?)
e) Is playable on devices you chose rather than the devices they’ve ordained it to be used on.
d) The technology used isn’t used in a restrictive nature so that all operating systems (if using on a computer) can legally play the paid for content.
Where copyright infringement really does damage is in the form of books. With music there’s extra income from a fan following – whether that’s buying iPhone applications or going to concerts etc. and movies, there’s loads of merchandise normally. Books, you’re quite unlikely to buy ‘em after you’ve read ‘em.
Let’s not try to close our eyes here. Copyright infringement is damaging businesses. There are hardly any cd stores anymore. It can be argued that copyright infringement can lead to greater interest and thus greater revenue.
However, I still believe that given the choice of doing the legal thing and doing the illegal thing, most people will opt to do the legal thing.
I don’t think the companies fighting for more restrictive copyright laws have tried to participate in this new era of information and I definitely don’t think they deserve special consideration for their lack of adaptation and certainly don’t see any need to change laws to protect their copyrights when they knew the laws around it and the expiration dates (Disney with Steamboat Mickey – seriously – the copyright ran out. Deal with it.)
Regards,
Nevyn.
> Where copyright infringement really does damage is in the form of books.
> … Books, you’re quite unlikely to buy ‘em after you’ve read ‘em.
At least some publishers who have benefited from the free distribution of their books might disagree with you. One example is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baen_Free_Library
> Copyright infringement is damaging businesses.
> There are hardly any cd stores anymore.
While it may be true that there are hardly any CD stores it does not necessarily follow that is a result of copyright infringement. Authorised digital downloads, discount retailers, poor quality and changing customer habits all have the potential to affect business for dedicated CD stores.
Sidenote – I remember Last year one of the french perfumers (big brand name I forget) stopped someone selling a hardly used bottle on E-Bay. They claimed through copy-write laws that they could control distribution. They won, but its certainly not our idea of copying a product.
Parallel imports presented the same problem when the Wharehouse found they could buy the same goods cheaper in Aia and import cutting out the local distributors, who were obviously charging a premium for NZers.
No sympathy for these companies. And Nevyn – Books are often sold second hand (Trademe better than the SH shops who charge full price) as with cars, we buy new hoping there will be a resale value, so we can buy more….