The document discusses the ethical implications of intellectual monopolies, particularly in the context of copyright and patents in the digital age. It critiques the increasingly restrictive laws aimed at controlling digital sharing, highlighting the tension between decentralized technology and centralized legal frameworks. The author argues for a re-evaluation of intellectual property rights to encourage access to knowledge and innovation, proposing that a shift towards decreased copyright and patent terms could foster creativity in an era of digital abundance.

1.
ethics of intellectual
monopolies
glyn moody

2.
the wars
 1971 – the war on drugs
 1971 – the war on cancer
 2001 – the war on terror
 2010 – the war on digital sharing

3.
ACT(A) of war
 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement
 US, EU, Japan + 7 others
 negotiated in secret
 analogue counterfeits; digital
piracy added later
 HADOPI (.fr), Digital Economy Act
(.uk), similar ”3-strike” laws in
S.Korea, Taiwan, Finland

4.
the engines of war
 collison between:
 uncontrolled, decentralised
technologies designed to share:
the Internet
 government-backed, centralised laws
designed to monopolise: copyright
and patents
 fundamentally antagonistic
 software code vs legal code
 (TCP/)IP vs ”IP”

5.
Internet
 relatively familiar
 new: its history as a mass medium
is only 16 years old (Netscape
Navigator released October 1994)
 perfect, near-instant, near-
frictionless, global replicator
of digital content
 feature, not a bug
 once a digital file is online
anywhere, it is effectively
ubiquitous and abundant

6.
”IP”
 relatively obscure
 ”IP” is a bundling of totally
disparate things: copyright,
patents, trademarks etc.
 nothing in common – except the fact
that they are time-limited,
government-granted monopolies
 ”IP” is a clever rebranding of
something generally deprecated
(monopoly) as something generally
approved (property)

7.
intellectual monopolies
 ”IP” a relatively recent invention
(1888)
 World International Property
Organisation (WIPO) - 1967
 Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) - 1994
 but patents and copyright are
medieval monopolies

8.
anglophone bias: an apology
 personal reasons
 historical reasons
 practical reasons
 *good* reasons
 war on digital sharing is being
driven by the US, whose law is
based on the English tradition

9.
letters patent
 issued by monarch to grant
monopoly for particular industry
 called ”patent” because not sealed
– early ”open source” law
 first English patent granted a 20-
year monopoly to Flemish stained-
glassmaker (1449)
 ”pirating” skills from continent
 afterwards, knowledge released
 later abused: patents on salt,
etc.

10.
Statute of Monopolies
 1624
 ”making of any manner of new
manufactures within this realm to
the true and first inventor”
 ”which others at the time of making
such letters patents and grants
shall not use”
 ”so as also they be not contrary to
the law nor mischievous to the
state by raising prices of
commodities at home, or hurt of
trade, or generally inconvenient”

11.
inventive scarcity
 patent law was framed in a world
with few inventors, and few
inventions
 monopoly was offered
 to attract foreign master craftsman
 to make technical knowledge freely
available after monopoly expired
 to stimulate local industries
 to encourage more inventions

12.
inventive abundance
 today, we live in an abundance of
inventors and invention, as the
creaking patent system shows
 in 2009, 482,871 patent
applications filed with USPTO;
135,000 in Europe
 abundance creates patent thickets
that impede progress, rather than
promoting it
 most evident with software patents

13.
software patents
 abstract – patent of maths/idea
 obvious – Wang's overlapping
frames/windows
 trivial – Amazon's 1-click
 ridiculously wide
 ”system for reproducing information
in material objects at a point of
sale location” (1985)
 used to sue generic e-commerce
sites

14.
software patent problems
 most litigated – causing much of
the backlog of cases in US
 3% in 1984, 26% in 2002
 for 1996-1999, the total cost of
litigating software patents in US
was $3,888 million per year
 total US profit attributable to sw
patents annually was $100 million
 software patents = overall net
loss

15.
why have software patents?
 patent infringement lawsuits
 entrench incumbents' position
 raise barriers to entry for
newcomers
 make innovation harder
 ACTA is all about *strengthening*
enforcement of intellectual
monopolies, including patents
 raise barriers to entry higher,
reduce innovation further,
disadvantage developing countries

16.
”copy right”
 in 16th
and 17th
century England,
the Stationers' Company had
exclusive and perpetual state
monopoly over producing copies
every registered book (their
”copy right”)
 aim was to *control* what was
printed by establishing
responsibility – instrument of
censorship

17.
Statute of Anne (1710)
 ”An Act for the Encouragement of
Learning, by Vesting the Copies
of Printed Books in the Authors
or Purchasers of such Copies,
during the Times therein
mentioned.”
 gave limited monopoly (14 years +
14 year extension) to authors or
publishers (”purchasers”)
 quid pro quo was book entered
public domain after that period

18.
US copyright law
 US Constitution (1787) Section 8
 To promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and
Discoveries;
 US Copyright Act (1790)
 An Act for the encouragement of
learning, by securing the
copies...during the times therein
mentioned. (14+14)

19.
copyright then and now (1)
 originally: books
 now: books, maps, charts,
engravings, prints, musical
compositions, dramatic works,
photographs, paintings, drawings,
sculptures, films, sound
recordings, choreography and
architectural works

20.
copyright then and now (2)
 originally: 14 years + optional 14
years extension
 public domain relatively soon after
first appearance
 public domain included recent books
 now: UK, US, Sweden etc.: life +
70 years
 public domain hugely impoverished
 no longer have free access to
creation of our contemporaries

21.
copyright then and now (3)
 then: analogue
 now: analogue *and* digital
 adds computers and the Internet
into the mix

22.
copyright infringement then
 analogue publishing of an
unauthorised copy required:
 somebody to typeset the text
 somebody to print the sheets
 somebody to bind the book
 somebody to distribute the book

23.
copyright infringement now
 digital publishing of an
unauthorised copy requires
 digital content (CD, DVD, ebook,
etc.)
 a computer + (free) software
 an Internet connection
 they've been available for years:
why the war on digital sharing
*now*?
 it's all about abundance...

24.
of CDs...
 first CD appeared in 1982
 without any kind of copy protection
 because it was impossible to copy
the CD's 700 Mbytes of data: the
1983 IBM PC XT had a 10 Mbytes
hard disc – less than one song
 similarly impossible to share it
across the Internet: the Hayes
Smartmodem, released in 1981, had
a speed of 300 bits/s – about 400
hours to upload one song

25.
...and MP3s
 developed in early 1990s, just as
Internet was taking off
 used clever tricks to reduce music
file size to 10% of original –
reduced time to upload file by
factor of 10
 modem speed then 14.4 Kbit/s
(Netscape Navigator was optimised
for this speed) – less than one
hour to upload/download one MP3
song: slow, but possible

26.
today
 Mbit/s broadband connection means
that entire films can now be
shared
 P2P networks like BitTorrent make
it even easier to distribute
those files and share them in the
background
 1 Terabyte hard disc (1000 Gbytes)
costs 50 euros; stores 150,000
MP3s

27.
tomorrow
 gigabit/s connections will
transmit 1000s of mp3 files
anywhere in seconds
 a 1 Petabyte (1000 Terabytes) USB
stick will cost 50 euros and
store every song ever recorded
 a 1 Exabyte hard disc (1000
Petabytes) will cost 50 euros and
store every film ever recorded

28.
unless
 the content industries win the war
on digital sharing through
increasingly Draconian
legislation - ACTA 2.0, ACTA 3.0
 if they do, they will err towards
too much enforcement – already
seen with DMCA abuse
 as a result, much less will be
shared freely, and much more
content will be paid for

29.
●would that be so bad?
 maybe not – for you and me
 maybe not - for those who can
afford to pay
 but...

30.
what about the others?
 what about the billions that can't
afford it?
 what about the 4 billion that
don't even have access to the
Internet?
 double obstacle to overcome:
 they must get connected
 they must then pay for access to
the world's knowledge

31.
●what if the war on digital
sharing is ”lost”?
 every person on this planet with
Net access could obtain a copy of
every digital artefact – text,
image, sound, video - ever
created
 could give access to practically
all human knowledge, to anyone
with a Net connection – not just
the developed world, or the rich
 shouldn't we hope for this Pyrrhic
”defeat”?

32.
back to basics
 copyright not about preserving the
West's grip on content
 copyright not about protecting old
business models
 copyright not about defending
authors' or publishers' ”rights”
 copyright is about ”the
Encouragement of Learning”

33.
creative scarcity
 copyright was framed in a world of
creative *scarcity*: few authors
producing few books
 designed to encourage more authors
to write more books, and for
publishers to print them
 because the process was
complicated and costly, and
incentives were needed

34.
creative abundance
 today, we live in a world of
creative abundance
 the Internet liberates creativity
by removing barriers to
publication
 anyone with an Internet connection
can create and publish for near-
zero cost
 incentives are no longer needed

35.
the virtuous circle
 today, the optimum way of
”encouraging learning” is to free
it up for the billions who
currently have little access to
it
 educating them through access to
knowledge will feed back even
more creativity into the system
 self-fuelling, positive feedback

36.
but
 ”nobody has the right to diminish
my copyright in this way”
 but society *does* have that right
- just as it had the right to
strengthen copyright, repeatedly,
by extending its range and its
term
 society might well decide changed
circumstances require *reduced*
copyright terms

37.
the precedent (1)
 for those who insist that simply
can't be done, there is a
historical precedent: the first-
sale doctrine
 rights to control the change of
ownership of a particular copy
end once that copy is sold
 society decided this was a fair
and reasonable limitation for the
sake of balance

38.
the precedent (2)
 those who talk of ”IP” compare
copyright infringement with
trespass
 in 20th
century, law on trespass
radically limited by taking away
airspace rights
 "every transcontinental flight
would subject the operator to
countless trespass suits"

39.
digital airspace
 we need to allow copies to pass
freely through the associated
digital space ”above” analogue
objects, just as planes can pass
freely through airspace above
private property
 if not, the war on digital sharing
becomes a war on the ability of
the mind to connect, to share, to
collaborate freely online

40.
ethical copyright?
 copyright was originally 14 years
+ 14 years; the copyright
”ratchet” has been moving it up
to 70 years + life
 the ratchet went the wrong way –
should have decreased the term of
copyright as more creators
arrived, less incentive needed
 for analogue content, perhaps
bring it back to 14 years

41.
Internet time
 what about digital content?
 famously, one calendar year is
seven Internet years
 digital content lives on Internet
time, so for that, should measure
copyright on Internet time
 14 Internet years = 2 calendar
years

42.
ethical patents?
 what about patents?
 as for copyright, there are two
kinds of patents: analogue and
digital
 analogue patents operate on
calendar time, so leave the term
of 20 years (as it was in 1449)
 digital patents – software patents
– block innovation
 abolish them

43.
ethical intellectual
monopolies?
 are ”ethical copyright” and
”ethical patents” a contradiction
in terms?
 perhaps need to abolish both
completely to allow all knowledge
to be shared freely, to let
humanity soar
 growing evidence that's not only
ethically right, but economically
possible

44.
share nicely
glyn.moody@gmail.com
@glynmoody on identi.ca/Twitter
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