Oligopolies and copyrights
An article in a recent New York Times Magazine ("The Tyranny of Copyright," 1/25/2004) explores the way I which big companies use copyright laws as a weapon to control mind space on the market and threaten competition, criticism, or even reportage. In the last decades, particularly in the US, oligopolies have used their political allies to extend the tenure and scope of copyrights. What was once a means to protect the rights of writers and musicians for a limited time has now become the means for multinational companies to guarantee themselves effortless long-term profits.
The history of copyright law in the US, as noted by the article, is instructive:
In 1790, copyright protection lasted for 14 years and could be renewed just once before the work entered the public domain. Between 1821 and 1909, the maximum term was increased from 28 to 53 years. Today, copyright protection for individuals lasts for 70 years after the death of individuals; for corporations, it's 90 years.
The result has been almost no work entering the public domain. Even worse has been the mad scramble by entities like music companies, photo archives, and book publishers to snatch up the rights of anything they can get their hands on. In addition, states the article.
The law has also extended the scope of copyright protection, creating what critics have called a "paracopyright," which prohibits not only duplicating protected material but in some cases even gaining access to it in the first place.
All this has happened with the rise of a major new segment of lawyering, "intellectual property law." Media companies are now as focused on accumulating intellectual property as they are in originating new material. Nay, more focused, since selling already produced and successful works requires little overhead and less risk.
For example, some of the biggest deals between music companies have had less to do with acquiring current artists (for these may flop or defect to other companies), but in acquiring the backlist of evergreen recordings and of song copyrights. These are perennial sources of income, no matter how incompetent the current staff is at finding new hits.
In addition, the US is pressuring other countries to match its draconian copyright laws, not just to curb piracy (a legitimate aim), but to extend the control of the multinational media companies. For one example, see this posting on Terry Frazier's blog. You should also check Frazier site for other insightful copyright-relayed postings.
All this might be fine if it enriched and inspired artist and writers to create better work. But it puts a premium on blockbusters and instant success, distorting any real creativity. It also in the end enriches only a handful of artists, many of whom eventually have to away the rights to their own work, just in order to get published or produced.
The ideal situation, which we may be approaching in our digital age, something called a "permission culture." As the Times article explains,
Whereas you used to own the CD or book you purchased, in the permission culture it's more likely that you will lease (or license a song, video, or e-book, and even then only under restrictive conditions: read your e-book, but don't copy or paste any selections; listen to music on your MP3 player, but don't copy and burn it on a CD or transfer it to your stereo.
Given that this situation is already starting to emerge (Apple iTunes, for example). That's a compelling reason for the big media companies to keep buying each other, even if the immediate financial return isn't there. The ownership of copyrights, along with control of the shelf space, actual and virtual, is giving a handful of companies unbounded power of intelelctual property.
