COPYRIGHTS v. the Internet Communist Youth

(a confrontational essay)

First, a little history for you. Very early on, our government decided that it was in the best interests of American society to legislatively declare that artists own what they create -- their works. Not the government, not the public; the artists own them.

So -- that's where copyrights come in. Just like when Joe Blow invents a new kind of computer and obtains patents, likewise songwriter Jane Doe gets copyrights on her songs. Since Jane is gifted as a composer but not as a performer, it's only her copyrights that give her a chance to make a living off her music.

(Of course, members of the Internet Communist Youth don't think Jane should expect to make a living off her songs – they think she should become an obedient member of the “herd-of-independent-minds”

-- and thus let anyone who’s so inclined download her songs for free – maybe even let people rewrite them -- because -- according to the ICY -- that would “foster creativity”! Simply put, the ICY believes Jane should, like, shut-the-fuck-up about her music paying her bills, and just be satisfied withknowing that the drone-workers genuinely appreciate her free music.)

So – to reiterate, our legal system stipulates that whosoever writes a song or takes a photograph or writes a book or makes a movie or paints a painting, etc., etc. -–

that someone owns what he created. It is his property.

Ultimately, what that translates to is that until the copyright expires, the creator of the work has the right to control what happens to it. He can give it away, he can sell it, he can set it on fire or flush it down the toilet – whatever – but, with very few exceptions, no one else has the right to do anything whatsoever with his creation -- without his permission.

So – misguided ICY stooges of self-serving techno-morality -- forget about Jane's songwriting. Let’s pretend you have a great ambition to be a screenwriter.

You want to write these amazing screenplays that the world will adore, and that will also earn you enough money to keep a roof over your head and tamales on the table – or maybe even make you rich. (Among other dues to be paid, you will most likely have to move to L.A.)

So – you’re in L.A. for three years honing your craft (or crafting your hone) and you write this satirical screenplay called, say, “Chicken-Fried Fried Chicken”. Now, about the only way Chicken-Fried Fried Chicken is ever going to be made into a movie is by you finding a movie studio that loves the screenplay so much that it is willing to shell out a great deal of money -- millions and millions of dollars.

So you pitch your screenplay to some agent or producer your uncle knows, and this agent or producer loves it, and he pitches it to three movie studios and they all love it – and a bidding war starts and -- at the end of the day you sell your screenplay for $300,000. Un-fucking-believable! (And, this scenario isn’t some fairy-tale – things like this really do happen to some talented and determined people.)

But – those fortunate ones almost always have two things in common: they have major-league talent -- and --

they have seriously busted their butts for years

writing screenplays and networking before they finally score the big bucks.

And -- oh yeah – they have one other thing in common: They are secure in the knowledge that the agent or producer or the movie studio can’t rip them off. Some crooked producer or studio head can’t erase their names off their screenplays. Why? Because they – the screenwriters -- OWN (as Q. Tarantino would put it) the goddamn motherfucking copyrights. Those copyrights are the sole property of the writers. And, the agents and studios know that if they try to steal the screenplays, the writers will sue their greedy asses because it is against the law to steal someone else’s property – even if that property consists of nothing more than words on paper.

So -- back to your amazing script, Chicken-Fried Fried Chicken. You’re now dating ultra-hot actresses

and driving a Porsche, thanks to the 300k you got from the studio. Best of all, the studio is going make the movie – it is going to bet – yes bet -- twenty-million dollars based primarily on what you wrote, and your name is going to be right up there on the screen with the director’s! And – naturally – the studio will own the movie it has made because, well – it also has a copyright

because it is spending 20 million to make the son-of-a-bitch, and it dearly wants to make the 20 mil back, and then some. It sure-as-hell doesn’t intend to donate the proceeds to charity -- it intends to stay in business. (FYI, many a studio has gone bust.)

So – Chicken-Fried Fried Chicken gets made and will soon be released, and you’re dreaming of fame and Oscars and a place in Malibu and the studio is all excited and is beginning to get optimistic that it hasn't blown all those Chicken-Fried millions on a turkey.

But, here ----- comes ----- trouble.

Unfortunately for the studio, some righteous rat/weasel member of the Internet Communist Youth

gets hold of a copy of the movie just about the time the studio is ready to release it, and – thinking how cool he is because he’s doing all his fellow ICY comrades a big fat rat favor – uploads the movie to this “secret” website so anyone “in the know” can see the movie for free. He is one big-hearted rodent, and he actually feels good about stealing the movie – like he’s some new-age

Robin – fucking -- Hood.

And, wouldn’t you know it, tens-of-thousands or even millions of the very hip yet clueless Internet Communist Youth take advantage of this “free-lunch” offer, and -- unfortunately for the studio -- it ends up making about half of what it spent on Chicken-Fried Fried Chicken.

And what’s really bizarre is that the

Internet Communist Youth

believe what they are doing – ripping off the studios -- is totally OK –- even something to be proud of! They feel no guilt whatsoever. In fact, they get teeth-gnashing indignant when someone suggests they are doing something dishonest.

They preach to their choir:

“Yes -- this is as it should be. Society is much better off

when the proletariats have access to all music and

movies free of charge. So-called 'intellectual property'

is capitalistic bullshit.”

But it turns out that the Internet Communist Youth have some serious

scales covering their tunnel-visionary eyes.

In the Brave New Free-lunch World they imagine, here is what they are unable to see:

Piracy plague -- begins to realize that it can no longer make a profit on its pictures. And -- as this black plague spreads, the entire movie-making industry comes to the same conclusion – that thanks to the rapidly multiplying righteous rat/weasel members of the Internet Communist Youth

So – there you go. Do not think for a moment, ICY techno-pod-people, that this scenario is bullshit. Piracy has already done a marvelous job of destroying the livelihoods of thousands of non-performing people in the music industry –

songwriters, engineers, producers, among others, and unless stopped, piracy will do exactly the same thing to the movie industry – and any other industry whose products can be easily digitally duplicated and shared. (I love that term “shared” – it sounds so benevolent, so . . . kind.)

So, card-carrying members of the Internet Communist Youth, we creators of intellectual property can only hope that one day you will have an epiphany

and awaken from your iPod iPad groupthink delusion that intellectual property doesn’t need to be protected; that one day you will realize that in the bullshit Utopia you seek to create, few if any gifted people are going to be attracted to professions which guarantee -- thanks to your theft -- they cannot make a living.

If the future of American arts is one in which the public doesn't give – what’s that term?

– a rat’s ass –

about whether or not artists own what they create, and thus silently condones the stealing and sharing of artists' work -- the public will come to deeply regret that error in judgment. All digitizable -- i.e. share-able -- art will be done by amateurs obligated to hold "straight" jobs. (Imagine the level of talent, the quality of play, in the NFL -- if the players didn't get paid.)

A Fantasy Pharmaceutical Analogy to File-Sharing

There you go -- communism in action.

PS See also "Digital Disaster -- Illegal File-sharing" on the blog menu