Be careful when you wish for black and white
Todayonline - Spare the rod and spoil the industry?
Copyright owners have right to recourse, while kids need to be taught right from wrong
Letter from Galen Yeo
THOMAS Koshy’s commentary, “Who will protect the kids from copyright owners” (Sept 5) brought up relevant and serious concerns, but also unfortunately perpetuates the mindset that copyright infringement is somehow a lesser evil of sorts and that copyright holders are overzealous in seeking recourse.
His call for appropriate action to be taken is admirable, but it should not cloud the larger issue.
Some 20 years ago or so, Singapore was rife with pirated CDs, tapes, software and videos.
Today, it’s all on the Net. Many of us have grown up in a culture with the assumption that piracy isn’t that wrong.
If children today don’t know the difference, when will they learn?
Odex had no choice but to take a hard stand and should be respected for its efforts.
As a member of the creative community, I understand the nightmare that copyright holders go through in trying to do the right thing to defend their licences.
Singapore has taken a long time to get there, but has not quite figured out how to address or support creative intellectual property (IP) rights holders in this area.
People can say what they like, but the right to download copyrighted material for free is not going to help legitimate businesses survive.
Claims about how anime revenues are booming ignore the impact of revenue lost from piracy.
Production costs are high, and people who watch them need to pay.
Just because Hollywood makes billions does not mean that every production house benefits from this figure.
The letters I have read seem to ignore this fact, and focus on how “harsh” Odex is in its actions.
It seems our society is not ready to take copyright infringement seriously enough.
Certainly, no one wants to be heavy-handed when dealing with children. But the law has to start somewhere.
Besides, copyright holders may also not know they are after minors.
After all, the Internet accounts would surely be registered under an adult’s name?
Parents have to be responsible for their children as well and that’s not an easy task in today’s age.
Mr Koshy suggests that appropriate rules are mapped out for minors, which is well and good.
But it should not be at the expense of copyright holders trying to defend their rights.
Legal costs are extremely high and whatever Odex is doing is surely costing them a significant amount in legal fees. They have a right to recourse.
The real issue is keeping a few steps ahead of this problem. Education could play a big part.
Children today need to be educated about what they’re downloading and why it could be wrong. We don’t encourage our children to steal, spit or litter.
The Government and Internet service providers could contribute and help educate the public about downloading.
There have never been enough pro-active campaigns addressing this issue.
Singapore’s future in the new economy will depend on its ability to enforce IP rights.
Ethically, privacy and the rights of minors need to be respected, but it’s also a poor start if companies such as Odex can’t exercise its rights.
Wow, it’s a good read on copyright law. However, I’m puzzled: was copyright an idea mooted so that people are encouraged to create new works for the public domain, or was it something major companies (like Disney) lobbied for because they wanted to control the profits?
pkchukiss
8 Sep 07 at 10:49 am
pkchukiss:
thank you, I’m glad you liked this post. =)
You can research on the history of copyright law through Google, but if I am not wrong, the first actual copyright legislation is the Statute of Anne, way back in Ancient England times.
Prior to that time, there are rumours of common law copyright, but I don’t know if that is verifiable.
I guess economists will tell you that what copyright law does is to incentivise the creation of copyrighted works.
However, economists will also tell you that there is a fine balance to be struck: restrictions that are too strong and too broad will result in LESS creation of copyrighted works.
Personally, I think we’ve gone far beyond that balance already.
Han
8 Sep 07 at 3:27 pm
“On the Origin of the Right to Copy” by ronan deazley. that would sum up the history of CR.
CR now, essentially, serves different purposes in dif societies. ie. civil law CR is premised very differently from common law CR - and i’d even extend tt to UK CR and US CR.
ivan
8 Sep 07 at 9:23 pm
Write more copyfight posts leh.
galoisien
10 Sep 07 at 1:35 am
Also, copying is fundamental to appreciation. The fact is, our brains are copying machines — we can extract a tune and store it in our heads for later memory. Otherwise, songs would not be able to get stuck in our heads.
If our voices could be speakers, we could probably replicate mp3’s with reasonable fidelity. The brain is the ultimate photoshopping tool, the ultimate audio editor.
Sometimes, motifs linger in our minds, influencing the way we create works, and we don’t even know it.
I think the reason that so many libertarians (who you would expect to be quite vehement about property rights) are so upset over copyright law is that it often violates the notion of freedom to think. When we download an mp3, often we have heard that song so many times already — echoing in our heads — only we seek to reinforce it with external stimulation.
If you think technology upsets traditional conceptions of copyright now (what with all this filesharing), wait till we get to the age where our brains will have machinery to go with them. (Mind-machine interface. Sounds quite distant, but we already know how to manipulate nerves to generate perception (make artificial digital ears, etc.) What happens when we start sending the stuff inside our heads to our friends?
“NO! You may not think! That violates intellectual property law!”
galoisien
10 Sep 07 at 8:48 am
Hi Han,
Your entry has been featured in The Singapore Daily. Thank you for your support!
The Singapore Daily Team
singaporedaily.wordpress.com
SGDaily
11 Sep 07 at 11:11 am
SGDaily:
Thank you ^_^
Han
11 Sep 07 at 11:44 am
Great article. Would be better if this was published in the printed media, then much more people may get to see this.
abao
11 Sep 07 at 12:39 pm
Han
You misunderstand the letter with an argument which runs tangentially to what I wrote. People are copying all the time - the context of how that works depends as you have pointed out - in different ways. We can discuss photocopying a newspaper article in terms of “fair use” for education or we can talk about the creative commons structure created by members of the creative community. That wasn’t even remotely my point.
The letter does not explicate copyright. It does however address the mindset of people who feel entitled to download or acquire pirated goods for their own use without payment to the legitimate stakeholders. We can argue how about copyright works and should work, but that isn’t what’s at stake here.
Yes, intellectual property covers a broad scope, and yes, different viewpoints may exist. But that’s not what this is about. If Radiohead chooses to acknowledge the situation with their own response, and offer a free download of their new album - that is their choice. Perhaps you should investigate what people call the ‘free rider’ philosophy and write about that.
Galen Yeo
23 Oct 07 at 11:43 pm
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
hinder » Be careful when you wish for black and white
29 Oct 07 at 6:07 am
Hi,
I’ve been conducting some research for a while trying to get copyright for dubbing Naruto in another language, do you have any ideas as of whom I should be contacting?
Thank you for your time,
Sincerely
Michel Al Rahi
Michel Al Rahi
31 Oct 07 at 5:54 pm