History Of Book Trade
In order to look at intellectual property, piracy and copyright it makes sense to delve into the history of the book trade, to see where this all began and how changes in publishing saw the introduction and change in copyright issues.
http://journal.bookfinder.com/websites-of-interest/
A brief history of the book trade begins in its pre form as manuscripts, in around the year 476, the time of the Roman Empire, scribes were copying manuscripts in monasteries. The job of the scribes was to copy from the original. By the 12th century this began to emerge into the mainstream market fuelled by demand from universities aswell as monasteries.
1300 was according to some authors as the start of the book. The 14th century saw the role of the four craftsmen who created the book, these were the parchminer, scrivener, lymner and bookbinder, So from someone who made the parchment and copying letters to the book being binded in its final form. This was then up to the stationer to sell these books. The Stationers Company of London was formed in 1557 to which all these craftsmen belonged and which regulated these craftsmen associated with the publishing industry. This company still survives today, and can be found at www.stationers.org.
The 1450's saw the introduction of the Gutenberg printing press, invented by Johann Gutenberg, in which the first book to be printed was the Bible. With the birth of William Caxton in 1422, he was the first English printer, and was seen as a publisher and bookseller aswell as a printer,
From the 16th century, there was a large number of small firms structured around a family business, which still survives today for example Macmillan publisher, who were founded in this way. There was a separation of bookselling from publishing, In the 18th century, the publishing supply chain structure was developed in its modern form. William Hogarth allowed for the beginnings of file sharing, and reproduction as he was an artist who sold versions of his own paintings by doing engravings of the original. The engravings were widely pirated. This led to the Engravers Copyright Act, 1735, protecting the reproduction rights of the engravers. The 19th century allowed for bigger number of copies being reproduced which coined the term "mechanization", which saw supply and demand grow where more books were bought which led to book prices going down. The 20th century saw technology being brought to the forefront, with typesetting and desktop publishing, which allowed for multimedia printing with a combination of text and images. Photocopying and colour printing was also formed.
The introduction of the World Wide Web transformed the publishing world, with online publishing which allowed for self publishing firstly in the form of blogs. This made way for the "Digital Age" in the 21st century with the rise of content, more self publishing and ease of sharing with social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This made it easier for copying, and blurred the lines of copyright as you are dealing with content that is not physical.
Adrian John. Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars From Gutenberg To Gates (2009)
Richard Temple The Pirate King:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance#Roles
A review of this Adrian Johns book by Claire Pettitt discusses the "1680's and the first use of the term "pirate" to describe violators of the Stationers' Register held by the Restoration Guild of Stationers" and "through the late nineteenth-century raids on pirate printers of sheet music" particularly the "pirate king", pictured above who pirated sheet music for popular operas and musicals. The review talks of how Johns discusses the introduction of technology as a lead to a shift of what intellectual property and copyright means and what it covers. He says that the internet is "fundamentally and structurally opposed to copyright and anti-piracy legislation designed to protect intellectual property" and now different problems have arisen to works published in earlier years. Intellectual property needs to be constantly redefined as times change. He touches upon hypocrisy of intellectual property laws which are "flouted by businesses that might later defend and extend regulation when they want to protect the success of their own piracies". An example he gives is how Steve Jobs the founder of Apple hacked or "explored" computer networks in order to come up with the brand you see today. Apple now places huge emphasis on anti-piracy to protect their company. Technology is in fact the focus of the book.
"Sabotage" & YouTube
An example of this technology in the context of piracy is given with "Sabotage", a song and video by the Beastie Boys, in 1994 was in 2013 copied and re-enacted by real Librarians from Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, USA. Mark Ferbrache and Duane Freeman created a rather funny parody of the video, The video went viral and although originally could be found on sites such as the Rolling Stone music magazine and website, it has since been taken down from such sites with the message "sorry this video does not exist" in its place. This is due to copyright infringement, exactly the message the video was trying to emphasise. The video has since been published by Graham Steel on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbSOZcfu2Y
The video shows librarians acting as a vigilante, hunting down book thieves and interrogating these thieves. Showing people stealing content, which in it's simplest form is being stolen physically, however I think this is also representing other forms such as online stealing and copying.
This message could be viewed as rather ironic, in that the creators of this video in fact themselves have stolen content by copying and using the Beastie Boys song Sabotage. Does that make them pirates, are they copying or plagiarising? Are they breaking the law by taking from the record label EMI? They have not used the exact same video, this is their own but is it copyright infringement as they are using this particular song which is not theirs?
Graham Steel can also be seen as also infringing rights by posting the video on YouTube. YouTube makes money out of video sharing, when a user uploads a video they are shown a message asking them not to violate copyright laws. YouTube does not govern each and every video that is posted, copyright holders are left to issue take down notices to offending users. It is argued that YouTube should do more to govern the content that is posted but this sort of task requires a great deal of money and time aswell as people to actually implement this. In 2007 YouTube introduced a tool that automatically detects if a video is infringing copyright, known as Content ID, the effectiveness of this has come into question as it is not implemented by a human, it is reliant on a machine.
https://ipcloseup.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/pirate_copyright21.jpg
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property gives rights to the author who produces a work of creativity, to give them an incentive to produce, and the access granted for public use. There are 4 different types:
- Patents (inventions)
- Trademarks
- Designs for product appearance
- Copyright
Copyright
Copyright in the UK begins as soon as a work is created. If you do a doodle on a piece of paper, as soon as you have done so the work is automatically copyrighted. It is the legal right that grants the creator of the work exclusive rights to its use and distribution. This is usually for a limited time depending on if it is a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, film, sound recording or broadcast. There is the economic perspective which means that the artist of the work makes money so they continue to produce. There is also the perspective that copying is wrong and therefore a fundamental right of the artist. In the courts they look at the economic impact if some works are used, if the economic impact is not significant the court may see this as Fair Dealing.
https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-not-theft-111104/
This diagram coined by Stefan Larsson, asks the question whether copying equates to theft? Theft removes the original and piracy makes a copy. Is it similar in terms of economics, piracy is the unauthorised reproduction of material owned by other people. What about on the World Wide Web? You can share and enhance access without breaking the law. The lines are blurred as to what is right when talking of the Internet and copyright.
Creative Commons (2001)
Creative Commons was founded in 2001 by James Boyle, Hal Abelson and Lawrence Lessig. It was in response to the problem that copyright is very restrictive in that it promotes the idea that all rights are reserved and permission always needs to be asked. The Creative Commons allowed for a move to skip the intermediaries, that actually there are instances that an artist does not mind their work being used and therefore licenses are available for this. Creative Commons gives the green light as if to say some rights are reserved, you may use this. People do not need to gain permission as this has already been granted, content is released with a licence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3BrAQl3so
The main concept of Creative Commons is that you are free to:
- Share - to copy, distribute, display and perform the work
- Remix - to make derivatives of the work
However you must attribute the work to the author, not use it for commercial purposes, and under share alike you can alter or build upon the work and distribute this the same way with the use of licenses. Creative Commons therefore is a very effective solution in that it works with copyright, not against it. It is an example that as times change, intellectual property and copyright laws also need to change, to adjust to the ever growing technology market that presents new ways in which work is used, accessed and shared.
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