"free" books still under copyright

Would have posted this under Lynn168's excellent post about LibraVox, but I think this is the other side of the coin. Anyway:

Wowio allows users to download from their collection of ebooks still protected under copyright, with some limitations:

1. Users must register in order to gain access to their library.
2. Users are limited to three downloads per day.
3. Although Wowio claims they feel that "technology-based DRM is essentially a fraud," publishers/content owners may still restrict use of texts via Adobe Reader controls [see Lessig's Free Culture, 148-53]. I'd be willing to bet $10 that some of these controls are exercised on works in the public domain.

So, this is somewhere in between Netflix and a library, which--to me--is great. But I'm not sold enough to give it a try yet. From the FAQ:

Does WOWIO use any kind of digital rights management (DRM)?

Since anyone can defeat the most "sophisticated" DRM with the print screen button, we believe that technology-based DRM is essentially a fraud. Our approach takes the market incentive out of misbehaving, rewards people for doing the right thing, and tries to stay out of the way of honest users.

^ emphasis mine. I like their ethos here, and took note of the morality approach there at the end. But:

To help keep everyone honest, however, readers must authenticate their identity and agree to a licensing agreement when they set up their account. Then, each ebook is serialized with the reader's authenticated name and a unique serial number, as well as other less visible markers. WOWIO will immediately terminate the account of anyone caught illegally distributing ebooks, and will prosecute serious offenders.

Again, emphasis mine. Why not call a spade a spade and just recognize that some of us cannot be trusted? I'm not railing against Wowio--it seems like they have good intentions--but it's clear that somebody, somewhere, has a different definition of "free" than I do, and is worried that this free experiment will run out of control.

In the very next question in the FAQ, Wowio explains their business model that is awfully close to what Lessig and Logie are talking about--basically, that this business model might lead people to go out and buy the print versions.

So what are we to make of this? On one hand, I feel like it's a step in the right direction. I don't mind that it's ad-supported so long as someone isn't trying to sell me another Baconator on page 146 of Cat's Cradle (available on Wowio, actually). And I can see where this distribution method might benefit aspiring authors willing to allow their work to be available for free, as well as established, "I've heard of her but never read any of her stuff" writers.

But on the other hand, why not go all out and slap a CC license on your work? That would get rid of the hassle of signing up (as well as make an end run around those pesky privacy concerns). My guess is that it eliminates the ad revenue from the equation. And we can't have that, now, can we?

Free use vs. Fair use vs. Fear use

If you're anything like me, at this point of the class you probably know how much you don't know about copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, and the grand media conspiracy to get government to legislate protections for the music industry. I never realized it was so complicated, and the very fact that it is so convoluted is a telling sign that something's not right.

Lessig summarizes his project by claiming a middle ground between "all right reserved" and "no rights reserved" with "some rights reserved" in the guise of the Creative Commons, where individuals can decide how much other people can use their creations. Presumably, if you come across a CC license, the creator of that work is giving you some permission to use that work/tool under certain restrictions. Will this lessen piracy and theft? Not knowing any better, the first time I came across a CC license I thought "Whoa. Hold on there. I don't want to get too close to this thing. I'd better back up nice and slow and everything will be okay." Rather than looking into the license, I thought it was copyright on crack, and I probed no further.

The hope is that by using CC, more work will be available for public consumption and the greater culture will flourish. Individuals will no longer have to "borrow" from corporations/institutions. However, don't forget that corporations "borrow" from individuals as well, as the case of the Chinese Olympic website stealing a game from a graphic designer without asking permission or offering compensation. Would this example had been averted if a CC license were present? Will people steal regardless of the restrictions? I don't know.

So we get to the end of Free Culture when we realize that the problem is alot bigger than we thought. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. What do we do? Take to the streets? Riot? Refuse to buy music? Join a cutting-edge p2p group? Ignore it? Lessig actually endorses this last option in regards to cracking down on illegal downloads when he says the ubiquity and speed of the Internet will soon make p2p file sharing obsolete; why be a content manager when it's easier to just subscribe to a service to listen to whatever you want? Though not exactly the same, Apple has been toying with a similar scenario by allowing new iPod owners to get unlimited lifetime use of iTunes for a one-time fee. Is this the future, all Internet, all the time? Abilene Christian University, that bastion of conservatism, recently announced that they're giving all incoming freshmen free iPhones. Is this the end or just the beginning?

READING RESPONSE: Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig

ARE YOU A GOOD PIRATE OR A BAD PIRATE?

I am not sure what else I can add to the previous reading responses. It is difficult to distill 175 pages into 500 words and be more original than my talented classmates.

The first half of this book is a legal, moral, social, and financial argument built upon case histories written in a story-telling format. The argument Lessig writes about is copyright law and the distinctions that need to be made regarding piracy and property as they relate to free culture. Specifically, he addresses the Internet and our ability not only to store information, but to share information. He argues about the pitfalls of extremism and monopoly in ownership rights. The United States government treats intellectual property similarly to physical property; however, only a select few, who are wealthy and powerful, benefit from the laws enforcing copyright. American culture suffers the stifling of its creativity.

Lessig takes us on a historical journey to support his argument about copyright as it relates to new technologies. He shares stories about the various creators of different inventions: photography, the airplane, AM and FM radio, synchronized sound in film, and the Internet. He examines these events in the context of the legal rights the inventors had juxtaposed with the need for everyone in our culture to share (pirate) and expand upon these inventions for the greater creative good.

As Lessig progresses in his argument, he shares examples of individuals expanding and improving upon existing technologies, which would benefit millions of people while threatening the fattened pocketbooks of the owners or inventors of these technologies. He tries to make distinctions between good pirates and bad pirates. He writes that in some cases, there are clear examples of right and wrong ways to copy and distribute information. However, he warns that some instances of piracy need to be examined more closely. As stated before, sometimes piracy rises out of a need for a culture to take advantage of a new technology in a more democratic way to promote creativity and intellectual growth.

Lessig defines piracy as born of a history of each new medium pirating on the generation of technology before it. He gives examples of these “pirates” as film, recorded music, radio, and cable television. He cites clear examples in each industry of piracy. He later differentiates types of piracy into four categories: those who download music without purchasing it (bad), those who use shared networks to sample music (good), those who share networks to access material no longer sold (good), and those who use shared networks that give access to material without copyright (good). (p. 68-69)

Although I simplify the various types of piracy as good or bad, Lessig takes the definition of piracy and teases it apart. He argues that it is not valid to define piracy as good or bad – that it requires a deep investigation to understand if the laws that protect against piracy are logical.

In the second half of Lessig’s book, as has already been written about in the previous response readings, he examines the nature of property. He states that our tradition is to think of property as something physical – I own the land. It is difficult and often times ridiculous to apply the same laws to intellectual property. He gives an example of a director creating a celluloid homage to Clint Eastwood. The director had to spend an enormous amount of time, one year, to clear and cover all the possible copyright infringements. Each actor that had ever been in any Clint Eastwood film for even a second had to be found and compensated in order for that minute or two of old film to be incorporated into something new without legal consequences. It seems wasteful to spend that much time in obtaining permission and waiting that long to create. Lessig gives another example of a man making a documentary. During filming, he captured a Simpsons broadcast on a television set for about 4 seconds. He was allowed to include that 4-second footage if he was willing to pay an exorbitant $10,000.

Lessig poses that copyright should not be regarded solely as property, but as a balance of incentives to artists and authors with public access to their work. He argues that free culture suffers when creativity requires permission and legal advice.