Eyes off the Prize
A while back the was an article in Toronto's Globe and Mail How copyright could be killing culture. The triggering event seemed to be a study by a group attached to American University: Center for Social Media.
The article takes as its starting point troubles the documentary "Eyes on the Prize" is having. From there it goes on to the
wider issue of documentary film making in general in the new millenium
age of copyright control. EOTP like many modern documentatries is a
collection of filmed events arranged in a broad unified narrative, the
five-year minimum rights for use of the various clips originally
bargained for are up, those rights no longer belong to EOTP so now, no
new copies allowed to go on sale.
When I read this I remembered a month earlier noting my friend Robert Bratton who is film cataloger for the
University of Maryland College Libraries processing a video series
(folk dances of the world or some such) that I knew we already had. I
remember it coming in a few years earlier, Robert indicated that they
were buying a second 'archival' copy, after the publisher indicated it
was going out of print due to © issues.
At the time that information passed by without awakening my
curiousity, but now I went back over to his desk and asked him how
widespread this is. He indicated it was a fairly common occurrence, but
short of forcing Nonprint Libraries like the one at Maryland to
organize a comprehensive re-acquisition program. The publishers seem to
take care to give film libraries a heads up when a title is going out
of print. Robert also added that discussion on library list-serves
confirm that the clerical cost of re-obtaining clearances is
often as much if not more money than clearances themselves, the costs
together are often prohibitive for the small producer. It's the sheer
number of entities, pictures in a historical documentary, or
tv and radio broadcasts, music whether in foreground or background
that
documentaries were used ladling in previously. Ironically I
imagine that documentaries success as a category in recent years may be
fueling its
demise, by making it profitable.
A few weeks latter Robert forwarded a press release on a protest called Eyes on the Screen.
They advocate hosting screenings in contravention of the ban on broadcasts and copying. He
followed this with a second e-mail forwarded from a list-serve (an
EOTS'er receiving indication they would be sued) the information comes
from this link Downhillbattle.org
which seems to be the organization sponsoring this protest effort. I
wonder if I'm the only one noting that protest movements aren't having
quite the same effect people imagined they used to have. The Man is less touchable with every passing day.
I think I see patterns in the substrate. I recall a web site I came across a few months ago: Grace note.com.
What I use them for is to get discographies of bands, and track lists
from individual discs. I like them because they are fast,
comprehensive, and function with a minimum of clutter. Looking
around the whole site; though, you find yourself wondering what their
business
model is. The business is music data and meta data and it's clear
they expect it to be a good business. I'll go out on limb and give a
name to this business - "Taming the wild." With digital reproduction,
for the first time (in a long time) the mechanics of original
manufacture do not
produce an inherantly better product, with unauthorized copies inferior
and subject to degradation. If they escape from control, they can enjoy
a nearly eternal life in the realm beyond the laws. Digital, plus the
right political climate, can turn this digital fungibility on its head
by making intellectual property a loan transfer that can enforce
limited duration possesion and require explicit renewal payments for
continued
use.
There is emerging IP model where you are never buying ownership,
when you buy an instance of a work embedded in (or transfering through)
some physical media. Rather a carefully defined subset of limited
usage rights. This is not a
legal break from most theoretical notions of property rights; the
bundle of sticks view - one stick allowing mutability of property, one
for collecting a rent, another for transfer rights etc. IP Rights
owners undoubtly feel this was the situation all along, they were just
letting circumstance and materiality mediate it for them. The
difference is they are now going to make it explicit. They are going
into the digital wild and shepherd every transfer copy and instance
they come across in every machine, broadcast, wire, fiber, or wire free
flow they can monitor. Of anything they can regard as property. They
will do this while supplying you metadata information as a service
function.
We seem to be in a period of transition from a set of limited
rights - reward for an act of creation - to a revenue stream/profit
center model. Copyright not dependent on, even unconnected to the IP
creator(s). Ownership justified on investment, ownership of the
process in which creation took place. This ownership is assigned to
a corporate body which will attempt to claim or structure into the law
a
permanent and perpetual rights restriction. This is not entirely new,
Copyright has
had a somewhat cyclic history (which underscores that it is not a
settled question lest someone say it is). [Intellectual Property Law - Wikipedia]
What, or rather, where is the public good in this equation. I look
at the specific instance of Eyes on the Prize, or documentary film
making as described in the G and M article and I don't see it. Elections do not turn on
issues of copyright law, so politicians are largely untouchable on this.
Intellectual property law is codified within the terms of agreements of
the World Trade Organization, inherited from earlier GATT rounds or the WIPO. Both of which are many levels
of abstraction from my life. Exquisitely tuned to the arguments
of lawyers and those who hire them. Profoundly unconcerned with the
publics good.
11:43:31 PM  ;;
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