Repudiate Copyright Monopoly

Gary North published a great article today titled Watching the New York Times Self-Destruct.¹ He talks of the end of an era — the end of the newspaper. I was born in 1974 and I still read newspapers. I ran print newsletters for years and they were successful enough. I killed all but 2 of my newsletters last year and I accepted the online blog format. I produce and finance music groups and some video groups as well as write online, and I’m on the verge of releasing 2 new books in e-book format (free) as well as in print format.

As many know, I’m anti-copyright — I don’t believe that you should retain any legal protection for anything you create if you release it to the world in any form. I believe there are ways to protect what I consider a “moral” right to be known as the original author of an exact work — if someone copies my words and attempts to call it their original thought, I’ll work to embarass them and call them out. If someone copies my words and republishes them and doesn’t make it seem like they’re the original author — I’ll gladly accept it as they’re working to grow a market bigger, and a bigger market means more customers for me even if they never knew I was the original author.

When I give money to a band to create new music, I work out an agreement that they’ll release their recorded music for free and allow others to copy it for free. So far, no band I support has seen their music “stolen” and renamed with a new band name — and the music they’ve freely given out has provably increased their fanbase which has increased their ticket sales at live shows (which has increased their merchandise sales). Music on a CD or MP3 form is an advertisement and a marketing gimmick — the real money is in live face-to-face performing. Anyone can copy a CD, very few can mimic the processes that create the composition.

When I give money to a videographer to create videos, I work out the same agreement — give away your videos in order to promote your next production. Sell your videos to those who want to see you create more. When you do create something new, charge the first batch of fans to see your video before anyone else. There is a market in the entertainment world, but the live market is very different than in music. My long term goal is to work with theatre groups to provide free digital copies of their past performances in order to drive business to their local theatres. For those making larger scale videos, the market is always in the value-added product. Don’t sell just one video, sell a subscription to receive all future videos for a certain period of time. Even a US$30 a year subscription is good income if you entice just 2000 subscribers. Don’t be lazy — constantly create.

It is in the print media world that I am at a loss as to what to do. I love e-books but I hate reading them on my PDA or laptop for long. I want paper. So do most readers. The two books I will be releasing in e-book format would do much better in terms of distribution if there was a new way to produce the book format. Maybe we need to start seeing “Book Binding” kits at Office Max or at Target. I’ve bound my own books before (tedious), and I definitely dislike 3-ring binders (unprofessional and too large). Why haven’t we seen a market to convert e-books into print books easily?

That is what I am calling on “society” and the entrepreneurs to work on — the “Physical E-Book Kit.” First, we need to figure out what the best format would be. I’d like to see a kit that includes paper (thinner than the current inkjet/laser paper we use) precut to a certain format, let’s pick 6.5″ x 4″ as an estimated size. By offering a preset size, just like a paperback, we can allow publishers to use that size when creating their PDFs or other formatted text. We need some sort of binding mechanism — I’ve always liked what the Bind-It² corporation uses: premade binders with hot glue in the seam portion. Put your pages in the binder, put the binder in a device that seems to be a regular clothes iron, press a button, warm up that glue, wait 30 seconds for it to dry and you have a permanent bound book. I own a Bind-It machine myself for my corporate brochures and submittals, and it works great. Why isn’t the device available in a competitive atmosphere for US$10? It’s a hot plate and a plastic shell.

What is the cost of 500 sheets of thin low-quality recycled paper at that size? I can’t imagine it being more than US$5, if that. I can buy a ream (500 sheets) of great quality laser paper for US$2.99 in bulk. This is less than half that size (but a much smaller market). Can you imagine the market that could pop up for home-bound e-books if it ever came to the market?

Of course the market won’t happen. E-book publishers don’t want any teenager in his bedroom to be able to crank out duplicates of the e-book for US$3 per copy. It could hurt Amazon and Borders and the million bookstores out there. Thank you copyright for that monster which restricts the market.

I’m still willing to come up with a solution and self finance it. I can buy one of those tea-cup boilers that plugs into the outlet for US$1.99 at the dollar store. This device shouldn’t be much more expensive. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas on how we can create a home-binding kit for e-books, come and discuss it at the repudiate copyright forum.

In a reply to yesterday’s e-mail exchange, Robin K, webster of Disobey the Radio in the UK shoots back another interesting e-mail offering me hope of a worldwide realization to the fraud of copyright in general. While Robin and I don’t come from the same political beliefs, I think this is a key relationship that can help bring both sides to common terms of agreement. In my experience, most anti-copyright advocates (not necessarily Robin, though!) come from the ultra-left wing establishment. They want MORE State-control of business, without realization that it is this State-control that hurts the artists and consumers the most. I’m not certain of Robin’s political leanings, but I’m glad that we agree on many different aspects of creative content control.

Read you post last night. It was very well worded and clear.
I already think along the same lines as you regarding copyright. The radio station seems like an isolated voice at the moment, so it would be really good to link up with musicians who believe in the same ideals.

I definitely agree. I am also looking for musicians to produce/finance who are interested in making their music freely distributable and will accept the CopyMoral ideals (that I am still working on). We have almost US$50,000 in donations we’ve received, or have been promised, that we haven’t done anything with — we want to finance music, podcasts, videos, etc.

If its ok, I’d like to take some quotes from your post to get a new section of the site started. This would concern the reasons why artists should consider free art. (I’ll run it past you first before I put it on the site)

I don’t believe in copyright (grin) so you’re free to quote all you want. While I appreciate an inbound link as reference, I don’t require it, either. Use whatever you want in whatever way you want, with or without referring to me. Information is free on all my sites.

I am still working through my thoughts regarding creative commons and copyleft, but your arguements against them are obvious. They are only relevant if you can afford to play in that legal framework.

Exactly. Why is copying wrong? Because it is _immoral_ and we all know how well laws work for morality. I see no reason to make drug use, prostitution and racism illegal — while I think these things _could_ be bad in the minds of _some_ people, the only way to change society is to convince them by being a positive example.

We all want to believe that government is by the people and for the people, but it isn’t. Government is force, and once the person you elect gets into office, they change. The taste of power seems to corrupt everyone, and you may even believe they’re doing good just based on speeches and a few laws passing. You don’t see behind the scenes, though, and no one can truly appreciate the full injustice caused by the unintended consequences of State-control of markets. It is very important to convince the left-wing movement to stop using the word “business” as evil, and instead look at every business transaction as a unique market of two individuals. Music is perfectly defined in this way, too. A musician can play for a variety of profits — ego gain, financial gain, fame, etc. A fan can listen for a variety of reasons — education, entertainment, and intrigue. They both profit from the exchange of music when it is played live; musicians need to look at digital music as profitable in a ego/fame sense because it does gain them fans who might gain them a financial profit later. Digital music is marketing and investing, not really a good sellable product.

I’d like to give you a little more background on the radio project: you can skip this bit if you want.
It’s been set up to encourage all musicians to contribute their work to a showcase of local Sheffield, UK talent. Sheffield is getting a lot of attention in the media here at the moment due to bands such as the ‘Arctic Monkeys’ and ‘The Reverand and The Makers’. It would be good to make the most use of the attention while it lasts to help promote some more musicians. The site offers a studio facility that is free for any artist to use.

I want to financially support studios that provide inexpensive recording services to artists. We are opening our own studio to help musicians, videographers, podasters and painters get free recording. Get me more information on Sheffield, UK.

They just have to agree to work under the name ‘The Disoedients’ and have an egoless and collaborative frame of mind. All the results of this work are released for free. People are encouraged to copy this music. It is used as a way of promoting the radio site, which in turn promotes all the Sheffield artists. Any money that is made (in theory, this remains to happen) is used to cover running and promotion costs for the radio. Again, this supports all those who have contributed material.

Very cool, let me know what you need to get more promotion. I can print 11×17 full color posters to ship to you if they’ll help (free of charge). I don’t really like the term “egoless” only because I am a capitalist so I love the idea of ego/profit as long as it hurts no one else’s property, but I can come to accept it, hah.

Remember, I am probably 180 degrees away from the usual anti-copyright people. I’m not a left winger liberal, I’m a pro-market capitalist. Most people think capitalism is _bad_ but they don’t realize that what they’re against is not capitalism but state-mercantilism: the protection of big industry by the government so that everyone is harmed. Real capitalism just means that two parties come together to trade with one another, and both parties make a profit of some kind in the trade. Profit means “personal gain of some sort” and isn’t a bad word — it is when government forces profits that we have problems.

There is a section on the web site for this ‘house band’, which we hope to extend over time. An explaination of what they’re about, and why the music is free needs to be added, but I am still struggling with an elegant and clear statement.

I’ll browse the site more today, I am helping with a music video shoot this weekend, so I’m a bit harried. I still don’t like the term “free” though because the music isn’t free, just the distribution of the music is no cost. We need a better term.

Sheffield has a lot of talent that seems to stay locked away on individuals hard drives, simply because they don’t know what to do with it. A lot of the people who have contributed music have given up on the dream of making a living at it, and have steady jobs.

If they want to further the art of music, instead of just distributing MP3 mixes of their music, they should distribute and share individual tracks, too. Can you imagine how powerful the movement would be if different artists can share different tracks of different songs? Mash-ups are wildly popular, why not jump on promoting the sharing of individual unmixed tracks?

In my opinion, these musicians are now free to make music for musics sake, without the pressing need to make a financial profit as their sole source of income. This just leads to market followers and stale music.

I agree but I don’t differentiate between ego-profit, art-promotion profit and financial profit. Any gain a person gets is a profit, even if it is just a “I’m happier” profit. There is nothing wrong with financial profit if it means that people are paying you to help make them happy again in the future. Stale music comes more from the cartelization and control of the copyright cartels who disallow new music styles and experimentation — ask any signed band how their wrists are cuffed in trying new things. It isn’t money that makes music stale, it is the control of the music by the distribution monopolies that keep it stale.

So free music is free on a number of levels. Artistically and financially. When we have a market that can be as diverse as listeners tastes we will have something to smile about. This is happening now, slowly, I can see it.

Again I dislike the term free (I’m sure it’ll be a long debate, hah) for music. Artists SHOULD appreciate some financial gain for music that their fans like. Here is a link to why I believe money is good: Making Money. I believe that money is a store of your time, and when someone pays you money to do something, they’re paying you to save them time from doing it themselves. When a person wants entertainment, they could spend time learning how to act or play an instrument or paint a picture. They don’t want to spend hundreds of hours learning it, though, so they pay a little of their stored time (”money”) to someone with a talent, and that talented person pays the person back in the added entertainment. Money is not evil — the control of industry by the law and the favored parties of the law is evil.

Would be really good to stay in touch and discuss this stuff. It’s not often that I meet people who have already thought about this. It’s normally me who has to talk them into it!

You have no idea how many beatings I get from artists and non-artists in regards to copyright. When they try to defend copyright, I ask them how they’ll afford to defend it. Then I ask them why people don’t copy their music and the answer is — “Because they know it’s wrong.” When a band is small, they get few pirates, because the fans really want the band to do well. When the band is huge, the number of pirates goes up but the main fans will still pay the band to make more. I’m against copyright because I think it creates this market of maybe a few dozen bands a year that earn massive money, but it keeps the thousands of other bands down because those bands aren’t willing to play the game in the way that the distribution cartels want them to. By repudiating copyright, we’ll see more opportunities for bands to promote themselves in an more united way.

I’m not against a person or group profiting in the way they want to. Some bands want money, some want fame, some just want to create, some want appreciation, some want drugs and liquor. Each individual is free to use their time and bodies as they wish — just as I think fans are free to use their time and bodies to copy digital data or recreate notes and lyrics on their own property, with their own tools and bodies.

Discuss this at the No Copyright Studios forum.

I received an e-mail from Robin K, who happens to be the webmaster of Disobey the Radio, a music promotion site based in the UK:

Just saw a post on slashdot from you regarding the itunes/record lables.
I liked what you were saying about copyright. I have set up a site in the UK that wants to explore similar philosophies. Its a IP radio with associated web site. We want to try to encourage people to explore the idea of free music as a marketing tool, reducing the value of a digital copy to what it really is: a means of promoting the artists.

I’m glad that more promotion companies are realizing that music offered at no charge does not mean it is being offered at no profit for the artist. Profit does not mean “financial gain” most of the time in life — we profit when we learn, we profit when we grow our businesses in customer awareness, we profit when we gain more money than we spent on a given action and we profit when we gain satisfaction or happiness. Profit is NOT just financial — in a free market sense, profit merely means “I gained from doing this action.” An artist that realizes that digital music has no direct financial value in terms of supply and demand is the one that can reap benefits from using that digital music for other profits — namely building a following of fans and interested listeners.

I think that taking control away from big record labels is great in theory, but many artists will need a hand in getting to grips with the practicalities of having a profitable online presence that is not just lost in the glut of information.

That is definitely true, but in the end what everyone wants is the “Show me the money” profit. Artists have two choices today: Play small venues for little money, or “sell out” to the large distributors in hopes of selling a lot of albums, which still may only guarantee little money. As long as copyright is the main topic of discussion, the distribution cartels will be the most powerful. The Internet is quickly changing this, but with so many artists holding on to copyright and other coercive schemes, it could be years before we see real change in the music distribution and financial profit models.

The site does not explicitly state its aims as well as some of your stuff, and a lot of the artists that have contributed so far have only done so knowing that the site only offers a stream, not actual downloads. Many still don’t seem to recognise the powerful opportunities that are now unfolding.

Powerful opportunities, indeed. The reality is that we need to find ways to support artists financially in new ways. I’m working on a variety of ideas on how artists can provide themselves with income without needing to deal with the coercion of copyright. I’ve recently talked to artists about selling their time (not their music, their time) to mid-budget movie production companies in exchange for providing sound tracks at a discount. We’re talking about hiring out their labor — the production company just wants a unique sound. We’re also finding more artists who are interested in making money by selling their time to large groups of people — we call these concerts. It is your time that is important to sell, not the product of your time if that product is easily duplicated by others. I’ve also talked to bands about co-oping together to create a “House Musician” group of 100-500 bands who play as house musicians at various clubs and bars. These bars get a great sampling of new musicians, and they pay the musicians’ co-op a base salary to get them to play. The band will take a lower pay-rate in exchange for being able to reach out to new fans, and the bars and clubs get the incentive of being part of a larger promotion and marketing experiment at no real cost increase.

It would be great to get some ideas from others who have managed to make this work for them. I’d like sections on the site offering advice and links on how this might work. I’ve looked into creative commons, copyleft and sponsored art and sites like freesound, itunes. Would you be able to offer any advice or links?

Creative Commons is bunk, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was another shill for big business. Lawrence Lessig seems like a nice guy, but he’s a lawyer! How can you ever trust a lawyer, the players who create the legal mess we live in today. No thanks. A lot of people love to tout CC as the copyright “fix” but they still don’t realize the problem — how will you protect that content if someone violates the contract? With what money are you going to go out and sue someone who infringes on your art? There is no way to do it financially — you will run out of money before the lawsuit is finished. I am as anti-CC as I am anti-copyright, because it still puts the power in the hands of those who have the deepest pockets.

Copyleft is no better, it also revolves around copyright laws, which again don’t work for the common artist or resident.

I don’t like those terms, but I still don’t have a term of my own to cover my beliefs. I think the right term would be Copymorally, which is what I’ll use for now. If anyone has any recommendations on a better term, let me know. I also like the term Effingo Virtus which is basically “Copy” and “Moral Virtue” in Latin.

What does Copymorally provide for? First, it tells people that the artist knows their music is easily duplicated at almost no charge. The artist has a moral belief that copies are absolutely fine to make in terms of promoting the music to others. Want to share with your friends, family or others? Go ahead. Just let them know where you received it from. If you’re trying to copy it for a financial profit, you’re performing an immoral act, and if you’re caught performing this act, you’ll be humiliated and embarassed. Someone who violates Effingo Virtus is now Effingo Turpis (Copy, Morally Corrupt).

Without copyright, would most people care if they were buying something “approved” by the original artist or copied by a pirate? Who cares? If the artist is 100% satisfied that their music is easily copied and can be morally copied, who is going to steal it? Why would a big company or a big pirate try to sell something that everyone can already get for no cost if they want? If the art is good, the artist will gain a fanbase and be able to find financial profit in a multitude of ways. This site will be dedicated to looking into those ways in coming weeks. We’ve raised 5 figures to start providing financing for artists to create Effingo Virtus music, now we just need to find those artists.

Discuss this at the Repudiate Copyright forum.

When I create any content that could be easily mimiced or copied, I honestly hope that other people don’t just take that content and redistribute it for their own profits. I don’t have a problem with other people taking what I made and making copies to redistribute freely — in fact, this is good for me if my name is still attached. It is completely free marketing! I also don’t have a problem if someone takes what I created and charges others to view it. Someone can duplicate all my websites, books and other creations and stick it on their site, run ads or charge for it, and I’d be 100% satisfied, as long as my name is attached to it somewhere.

So why am I against copyright? Because there is no way to enforce it morally. The few people who can enforce it legally have bottomless pockets — they’re able to use the legal system to manipulate, regulate and restrain the actions of other individuals. When someone takes my easily-duplicated content and reproduces it for their own media (websites, CDs, printed books, whatever), they are using their own labor to duplicate what I originally created. Of course it costs them less to do this, generally, because they didn’t invest the time to write it. So what? I don’t write articles just so a reader will see them once and forget about me — I write in hopes that the reader will come back tomorrow and the next day, reply to the articles on the forum or in e-mail, and help me create more value in myself through new knowledge and debate. What do I lose if someone takes my words and reproduces those words with their own name on them? So someone else might profit from what I created, but it still takes time, labor and drive for them to profit. If they profited in a huge way, it would eventually be discovered that they didn’t create that content. Remember Milli Vanilli? The fall came very, very quickly.

I do believe that I morally can not copy the works of another. I restrain myself often when I see something interesting said or written by someone who doesn’t have an audience. I work very hard to give respect and reference to anything I quote or use — but I do so out of moral obligation, not legal. There is no legal means for me to protect my work as my own, other than hoping that I can embarass the person who copies my work without offering a reference.

If they do copy me, I usually don’t care. I write in such a way, on such niche topics, that someone interested in the copied medium will likely still find me evetually. Google sends enough traffic to my sites that I see no need to protect anything I do legally, the few times I’ve found others copying my work, I still end up getting traffic from it even without the reference or in-bound linking.

Copyright has no justification in the legal spectrum. In order for true freedom to exist, we must repudiate copyright and instead start instilling in others the knowledge that copying is only moral if you produce a reference, and even compensate the original author in some fashion. Compensation can come in the form of just a reference to the author, it can be a financial compensation, or it can even be something unique and different that gives the author some form of tribute for creating the content originally.

I don’t propose to know the answer to the compensation structure other than to say that you morally know what the content you’re copying is worth to you. Use your moral guidelines to set forth the means and amount of compensation when you copy someone else’s content.

Discuss this at the Repudiate Copyright forum.

I repudiate copyright. I have no desire to take part in the equivalent of legal mind control, private property destruction and the trampling of one person’s right to perform any action they want as long as they don’t violate the physical property of another person. I see no reason to protect the monopoly of copyright, and I think it is one of the worst provisions that the law covers.

The basic design of copyright is to restrict how another person thinks and how that person uses their own capital. Capital includes their body, their land, their mind, their tools and the resources that they have bought or created. Capital is your land and your home, your car and your body. Capital can mean your guitar or your computer and keyboard. It can mean your chainsaw or your fertilizer. It can mean your CD-burner or your printer, too.

Capital is not your thoughts and capital is not the sound or the image or the words that are produced from some machine you own, not even your voice. Once you speak a word and it hits the atmosphere and vibrates it so that I can hear that word, I see no reason to believe that those words are now yours. You shared them with the world, and the world should be free to vibrate their own voice chords to create the same word, or groups of words, if they want to use their time in this fashion.

Copyright basically tells the world that they can not use their vocal chords or fingers on a guitar or fingers on a keyboard in the way that they want to. Copyright forces people to not produce actions that might coincide with the actions of someone else. Can you honestly believe that you can control the actions of another person?

Copyright as a legal creation has existed for less than 300 years — starting in 1710 with the British Statute of Anne. Since the creation of copyright monopolization, we’ve seen the creation of massive media cartels whose sole purpose is to try to create a restriction on the growth of a commodity — information. Because information has become easier and easier to duplicate, the cartels have fought harder and harder to make it a crime to duplicate information, even if you’re only using your own time, body and capital to do so. Through this cartelization that controls the monopoly, we see criminals made of people who are hurting no one’s physical property or bodies. We’re seeing entire legal wars fought over the control of the cartels, and I do believe that in my lifetime, the war over information will be lost by the cartels. I am fighting this war through a moral obligation — without weapons, without armies and without the law. I am fighting this war by starting a movement to repudiate copyright, but still find ways to profit from the act of creation and production of a creative commodity.

This website will be dedicated to 5 ideals:

1. Find ways to profit from the creation of information — without using the law to do so.
2. Find reasons why copyright is immoral and impossible to legislate.
3. Finance the creations of others who are willing to repudiate copyright — musicians, bloggers, artists, and other creative artists.
4. Find new ways to administer a cache of creative works so that the original creator of the art can show that they were the first to come across that work, and find ways to penalize copying through embarassment and acknowledgement of the copying.
5. Promote the immorality of copying content without acknowledging the original creator, and promote the reason why we shouldn’t copy. Realize that the law is not the best way to police copying.

Discuss this article at the No Copyright Studios forum.