A Spectrum of Perspectives

There is a common axiom that you should not discuss politics or religion at a dinner party. But what about intellectual property? One part of the Ip's What's Up team found out that this topic can be just as impassioning as the others.

This past weekend I had the opportunity of attending a friend's birthday party. A birthday party is probably one of the last places you would expect to find much conversation about intellectual property, but we had plenty. The various opinions seemed to represent a good cross-section of different perspectives on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), so I think it could be helpful to offer a little recap.

[This video and the sound recording in it are under a different license than the blog post.  Video: cc by-sa 2008 goldenrail.  Sound recording in the video: "nunoo" cc by-sa 2004 maki, www.myspace.com/theopenwound.]

[Technical difficulties?  If the video does not appear above, you can watch it at youtube.]

Stronger is Better

First, I spoke with an Economic Counselor for the United States. He had met with the local government earlier in the week to check on the progress in its war on piracy. The local government has worked closely with the United States and other developed nations in effort to strengthen its IP laws and increase the level of copyright enforcement in the country. This gentleman clearly represented the camp working for stronger IPR, as well as the international relations and trade aspect concerns that are part of IPR.

Intellectual property is now one of the biggest commodities developed nations have. In order for these countries to reap the maximum benefits, the whole world needs to have strong intellectual property laws. Countries with large creative industries work hard to help make this happen. People on the developing country side can also be in this group. They want stronger protection in order to encourage foreign investment and often to protect their growing creative industries.  Stronger IP laws protect their domestic creations as much, or even more so, than foreign ones.

What Good is Protection if I Can't Get the Goods?

Next, I spoke to someone on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, a British NGO-worker who decried the lack of books in the country. "We just need more books, I don't care if they're copied or not!" she exclaimed. Here is one of the common arguments against increased copyright enforcement in the country. The legal supply clearly doesn't meet the demand. For those who want the products but cannot find legitimate copies, especially for things like text books, copyright seems like nothing more than a barrier to development.

Supply that cannot meet demand is not just a problem in the book industry. Two years ago the demand for Nigerian Home Videos in Nigeria was estimated at 50 million buyers, but only about 500,000 legitimate copies were produced. (NCC Committed to National Copyright Policy & Reform, 10 NCC Copyright Bulletin December, 2006 Vol. 3 No. 6, ed. Charles O. Obi.) Similar circumstances exist elsewhere, with music industries in many developing countries, and even to some extent in developed countries when dealing with out-of-print books and such.

Consumers who are generally concerned with copyright often justify obtaining infringing copies of these types of materials. They point out that the author wouldn't be receiving anything if they didn't buy the infringing copy because they cannot buy a legitimate copy. They may also blame the author for the shortage of legal goods.

Eh, So What?

Near the end of the evening, I had an encounter with a third group. Those who really don't care about or pay attention to IPR. Sometimes they are ignorant of the laws; sometimes, they just do not care. In this case, they were most likely the later. A high up government official from a developed country handed a higher-up official from the same country a clearly pirated DVD of an American Television series. For these people, piracy and infringement are matters for other people, for governments, enforcement agencies and private rights holders. They did not create the copy; they did not sell it; they are just 'innocent' purchasers.

This seems to be a very large group, and it blends into other groups, people who believe it is ok to make a copy of a cd for a friend, those who indiscriminately clip artwork from internet sites. It is highly likely that we have all fallen into this group at some time or another, and many people may be in this group with regards to some IP while falling into another group in regards to other IP.

In Between the Extremes

Of course, there are plenty of groups that care about IP but fall somewhere between the extremes represented at the party. There are organizations who want to change the system without chucking IP protection completely out the window or creating a single strict set of laws for the whole world. The trick for all these groups is balancing the interests of everyone involved, including the points of view above.

Getting War and Peace Peacefully

Yesterday Google announced some very exciting news: an agreement reached between them and the other side of the Google Books lawsuit.  (Press release.)  This is very exciting!  I'm not going to get into the press release because IPKat has already done a great post with a copy of the press release and some commentary.  Instead, here is some information about the nitty gritty of the proposed settlement.  (The settlement is currently awaiting approval by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.)  Later, we'll look at what the settlement could mean for general IP law and IP policy.

For a detalied expert opinion on the settlement, see Lessig's blog.

Benefits of the proposed settlement:

For the rightsholders (i.e. authors and publishers):

• cash payments for any works that have already been digitized (from $5 to $60 depending on the work)
• a portion of the proceeds collected by Google from the Google Library Project (63/37 split)
• usage fees based on how often their particular work is accessed
• inclusion fees for allowing the book to be included in the subscription database (basically like buying a copy of the book and the rights to reproduce it digitally and display it)  (expected to range between $25 and $200)
• the creation of a registry that's sort of like a collecting society (a book version of ASCAP/BMI/SESAC) that will maintain a registry of rightsholders and facilitate payments to the proper people
• the ability to opt out of the Google Library Project in whole or in part, provided they do so by April 5, 2011 [note: there is some concern that this gives the rightsholders too much power and defeats the purpose of copyright.  This author disagrees and feels that this provision allows rightsholders to exercise the rights given to them by the copyright law over digital versions of their works in the same manner they have exercised these rights over print copies.]
• promotion of other works via hyperlinks to publisher and author webpages
• a warm fuzzy feeling that their works are being appreciated and they are being compensated

For Google:

• the right to digitize works and compile the digital library (non-exclusive and subject to some restrictions, which may include rightsholder approval)
• revenue from the sale of subscriptions of its database, sales of individual books and advertisements (split 37/63 with the rightsholders, see above)
• a warm fuzzy feeling that it is making the world a better place

For us:

• a simple and easy way to google the library - we'll be able to search through millions of books the same way we can currently search through millions of webpages, and we will be able to view a certain section of the book surrounding our search terms (basically between 10% and 20% of the book)
• the ability to access the full text of books in the Google Library Project at local institutions that subscribe to the database, similar to JSTOR or ProQuest
• the ability to purchase on-line access to copyright protected books
• free and easy access to public domain books  (I've tried this out already by googling part of the first line of my favorite book, "it is a truth universally acknowledged."  Got the whole book right on my screen; it's pretty nifty!)
• access to the complete Google Library Project database at our local public libraries
• the ability to annotate and share annotations of books with others with whom we are collaborating, limit 25 (Google is all about the sharing)
• better disability access to works held at participating libraries (participating libraries who have digitized their collections with Google are allowed to use their digital copies for a variety of things including providing access to people who cannot use the physical books)
• faster access to knowledge via hyperlinks relevant to the works found in searches
• digital backups of works and easy replacement of destroyed or deteriorated hard copies (this may help solve some of the problems with library reproduction rights under the fair use doctrine in regards to digital copies)
• a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that our laws can work for us and make everybody (pretty much) happy

Now, the question is, since all this only applies to US access, how will it affect my Google Books here in Nigeria?