Intellectual Property Rights run amok

Two interesting and related articles came to my attention today. First, in his extensive blog about all things copyright, Michael Geist considers the recent CIPO initiative "Promoting Respect for IP Rights." Professor Geist, who has become a virtual Lone Ranger (do I have to pay a licensing fee to use that comparison?) crusading for rights, discusses how this initiative is focused, almost exclusively, on the restrictive aspects of intellectual property rights (IPR) rather than factors such as fair dealing (fair use in the U.S.) or alternative licensing.

It seems to have been kismet that, the same day, Howard Knopf of Ottawa notes, in his "Excess Copyright" blog that Access Copyright continues to list G. B. Shaw works (which are now public domain in Canada) among their repertoire for digital licensing.

Now, for those who aren't familiar with Access Copyright, it is an agency that provides a limited (i.e., for non-substantive portions of works) license to copy works that are within their "repertoire."

How interesting that Access Copyright which provides one type of alternative license mentioned by Michael Geist, is not even keeping proper track of what it's licensing; particularly when they recently received a not insubstantial tariff decision for educational institutions from the Canada Copyright Board.

We have serious issues in this country over copyright, licensing, fair dealing, etc. It seems that the "big players" (publishers, copyright collectives, etc.) are trying to bully the government into enacting legislation that will place a strangle-hold on the general public.

Add to this the whole issue of digital rights management (DRM) and how that restricts one's potential enjoyment of licensed digital content (careful, remember you didn't buy that song, you just bought the right to listen to it in a manner dictated by the industry). I remain convinced that, if record companies could figure out how to do it, they'd license us for each time we even thought of a song in our heads, never mind each time we actually listened to one.

Stop the madness! There needs to be some reasonable middle ground with all of this. A friend quipped, earlier today, that we don't install flip-up barriers at every stop sign or traffic light. We rely on citizens to do the right thing. And, you know what? They mostly do!

Sure you'll have some folks sliding through stop signs, exceeding the posted speed limit, and so on. It's funny, though, I bet the majority of folks don't do that.

If the industry (recording, printing, film, video game, take your pick) spent some of their money developing better products and marketing channels instead of trying to lock everything down, I bet their sales would improve and, with it, their bottom line.

Or here's a novel idea (excuse the pun): charge a more reasonable price for your product.

Make it a small hop to "do the right thing" instead of a huge chasm. Don't charge me extortionist prices for a book, or movie, or video game.

Your per-item profit will be down, but maybe you'll sell more than enough units to make up the difference. And think of all the money you'll save by not investing in all the DRM technology; 'cause, you know what? If someone is going to crack it, they're going to crack it and no amount of legislation or technology will prevent that. Just like the folks who are going to run stop signs.