Chronicle of Higher Ed: History of Intellectual Property Piracy

[ltamote]

The Chronicle of Higher Education had an article yesterday - "Yo, Ho, Ho, and a Digital Scrum" - providing an overview of a new book on the history of intellectual property piracy and its author, Adrian Johns. At this point, the article seems to be available to the public (many of their articles are subscriber-only). Some excerpts:

Johns has collected these and other pirate lessons in a new book, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars From Gutenberg to Gates (University of Chicago Press). The weighty work, more than 550 pages, covers hundreds of years of history of copyright and intellectual property in the West, focusing on the stories of those angling to disrupt prevailing practices.

...

It is packed with previously obscure but colorful characters, though. Like the so-called "pirate king" of England from the early 1900s, James Frederick Willetts. Well, that might have been his real name—he also went by several aliases....

The pirate king's argument: The country was experiencing a piano boom at the time, so a lot more families needed sheet music. But the major publishers catered to clientele who could pay 18 pence per song, while Willetts charged just two pence. Because the rightful owners had no hope of selling to the new audiences at those prices, Willetts testified, he did no harm to their businesses with his efforts—while bringing high culture and educational benefits to all. "Indeed, piracy might even increase the sales of the legitimate publishers, since it amounted to free advertising," Johns writes, summarizing the pirate's logic.

...

The comparison is not lost on Johns, and his book briefly covers our digital era as well, which is where an enemy of sorts does emerge.

This nemesis is a shadowy collective rather than a person. Johns calls it "the intellectual-property defense industry," and says it emerged in the 1970s or so, in the form of trade associations and entities like the Interpol Intellectual Property Action Group.

...

Johns recently bought a Sony Reader, after several people asked him what he thought of e-reading devices.

"What it's really good for, it turns out, is reading 17th-century pamphlets," he says, showing off a copy of Gerrard Winstanley's "The Law of Freedom in a Platform" on his gadget.

"I can now have dozens of 17th-century tracts in here, and I can flip between them all very fast," he says. "And I think in some sense the casualness of that may get one closer to what it was like to be in a 17th-century coffeehouse where, spread out on the table in front of you, would be half a dozen different newspapers, a couple of pamphlets, a poem or two, and one or two manuscripts, and you would read them in a fugitive manner.

Incidentally, the University of Chicago Press, which published this book, offers a free electronic book each month. The electronic version of this book by Johns was given away on February 1 (one day only!); their current free offer is another book by Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, which is referenced in the article. For those interested in registering, the link is: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ebooks/free_ebook.html.

I didn't see that this article had been linked yet, so forgive me if I overlooked it.

[charleski]

I'm currently reading Hilary Mantell's Wolf Hall and was amused when she talked about Thos. Cromwell finding it more convenient to buy Tyndale's New Testament in a pirated Belgian edition .

BTW - I downloaded the other book by Johns and it really looks very interesting. Thanks for the link! His book on piracy is available from Scribd (presumably legally) for $10.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by ltamote

Incidentally, the University of Chicago Press, which published this book, offers a free electronic book each month. The electronic version of this book by Johns was given away on February 1 (one day only!); their current free offer is another book by Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, which is referenced in the article. For those interested in registering, the link is: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ebooks/free_ebook.html.

I purchased Johns' The Nature of the Book in hardcover a couple of weeks ago and just finished reading it. It is scheduled to be the subject of a review at my blog sometime this week. It is a dense book, very scholarly, and not written in a style that makes it easy reading. But it is a book well worth reading, especially his first chapter where he describes what makes a print book so different from its predecessors (his book was written before the advent of the ebook age, but his reasons apply to ebooks as well). For anyone interested in books as books, The Nature of the Book is a worthwhile read.

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by rhadin

...he describes what makes a print book so different from its predecessors (his book was written before the advent of the ebook age, but his reasons apply to ebooks as well)...

This reminded me of this video from a while back...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE

[zerospinboson]

Another book that seems to be more or less in the same league as this, only from an economic perspective, and paying much more attention to innovation rather than creative work creation, is this book, Against intellectual Monopoly.
I can't quite get a feel for what Johns's approach is, but the point Boldrin & Levine make is deceptively simple: Monopolies stifle innovation, patents make sure competitors have to invest more to create a me-too product (because of the broadness of the notion of what a patent is), and only competition drives innovation. (I mention this book in part because they also discuss this sheet music pirate.)
While piracy plays a role on the sidelines, there isn't an industry that can't manage without IPRs; the only thing is they want higher profit margins.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The overview suggests the usual mantra: That times have changed, so our notions of copyright (and patent) law must change with it... but without a detail of exactly how things have changed at any but a superficial level, or exactly what changes will accommodate the New Order.

Is the book any more than that? Or does it provide some logical guidance to change said laws to fit the 21st century, other than to tell us that we've gone through this before?

[fugazied]

Interesting articles!

The worst part of existing copyright law is the constant extensions granted to corporations who never were involved in the creation of the content, but bought the copyright and use an army of lawyers to extend it for long periods. It does suppress human understanding to an extent, locking up knowledge and art so only the well off class can afford it. Profit driven endeavour is not always beneficial for humanity, and eventually the courts will have to better acknowledge that.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by fugazied

Interesting articles!

The worst part of existing copyright law is the constant extensions granted to corporations who never were involved in the creation of the content, but bought the copyright and use an army of lawyers to extend it for long periods. It does suppress human understanding to an extent, locking up knowledge and art so only the well off class can afford it. Profit driven endeavour is not always beneficial for humanity, and eventually the courts will have to better acknowledge that.

I know this is a common complaint... but as all it really prevents is someone's use of someone else's characters/settings, I still fail to see why so much animosity is directed at this. So Mickey Mouse isn't in public domain yet... so what?

Sure, it's always nice to think we can get something for free once it's been out there for 50 years... and I agree there ought to be a limit to the extent that corporations can rewrite law for their own purposes (first: Kill all the lobbyists!)... but we have serious problems related to copyright, and I see this as one of the minor points of contention, not a major issue.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The overview suggests the usual mantra: That times have changed, so our notions of copyright (and patent) law must change with it... but without a detail of exactly how things have changed at any but a superficial level, or exactly what changes will accommodate the New Order.

I'm currently on the second chapter of his previous work (The Nature of the Book, which also covers the issue of piracy, though in more specific senses) and there's a lot of detail on how things have changed at a very deep level.

Johns is a historian, not a futurist, and there's none of the wild-eyed Brave New World digital hype that is so tedious.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by charleski

I'm currently on the second chapter of his previous work (The Nature of the Book, which also covers the issue of piracy, though in more specific senses) and there's a lot of detail on how things have changed at a very deep level.

Good to hear... I may pick that up.