Talk given at the conference "POST-ACTA: How to protect our digital freedom?", European Parliament, Brussels, June 07, 2012

1. Enhancing the Digital Public Domain:
With and Without Copyright Reform
Leonhard Dobusch
Freie Universität Berlin – School of Business & Economics
June 07, 2012

2. Digital technology is not the problem.
We do have problems with copyrights
Addressing copyright problems

3. Digital technology is not the problem.

4. “ Anything that is in the world when you’re
born is normal and ordinary and is just a
natural part of the way the world works.
Anything that’s invented between when
you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and
exciting and revolutionary and you can
probably get a career in it.
Anything invented after you’re thirty-five
”
is against the natural order of things.
Douglas Adams: „The Salmon of Doubt“

5. “ A tuneless future is the writing on the
wall. If today and tomorrow the music
industry is not able to solve its economic
problems, the day after tomorrow, in spite
of all the super-technologies, there would
be hardly any music left that could be
copied.
”

6. Taken from: DER SPIEGEL, 17/1977

7. Bild: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Home_taping_is_killing_music.png
Anti-copyright infringement campaign by the British Phonographic Industry in 1980

8. Video: Copy Kills Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=sJ5a4484NEo

9. + 66%
+ 50%
+ 30%
New feature New music New books
films per year albums per year per year
(2003-2007) (2000-2007) (2002-2007)
Oberholzer-Gee/Strumpf (2010): File-Sharing and Copyright, Online: http://musicbusinessresearch.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/paper-felix-oberholzer-gee.pdf

10. Bild: http://www.techdirt.com/skyisrising/

11. Labels
(record sales/downloads)
les/do wnloads
record sa
Artists
live revenue
Collecting societies
UK Musikindustrie, Quelle: Times Online, http://bit.ly/4v8pKl

12. We do have problems with copyrights

13. Make a living
with writing?
40%
Could live from writing alone
Need another job to survive
60%
Professional writers (>50% of
time to writing) in UK and Germany
Kretschmer/Hardwick (2007): Authors‘ Earnings from Copyright and Non-Copyright Sources: A Survey of 25,000 British and German Writers, Online:
http://www.cippm.org.uk/alcs_study.html

14. Unequal distribution of income
(1 = one person earns everything)
1,00
Importance of copyright for income
0,78
0,75 UK
0,67 Germany
0,63
0,52
0,50 0,47
0,43
0,33 0,31
0,25
0
ALCS/VG Wort Writing income Total income of writers All employees
Equal distribution of income
(0 = all earn the same) Kretschmer/Hardwick (2007): Authors‘ Earnings from Copyright and Non-Copyright Sources:
A Survey of 25,000 British and German Writers, Online: http://www.cippm.org.uk/alcs_study.html

15. “ [T]he more copyright related the income
stream, the more extreme is the distribution
of income.
A small number of very high earners earn a
disproportionate share of total income.
”
Kretschmer/Hardwick (2007): Authors‘ Earnings from Copyright and Non-Copyright Sources: A
Survey of 25,000 British and German Writers, Online: http://www.cippm.org.uk/alcs_study.html, p. 64

16. Problems beyond
distribution and
income?

17. 1970s: Violate copyrights!
2000s: Don‘t violate copyrights!

18. Example: Transformative Consumption

19. Transformative Werknutzung
Im Hintergrund:
Prince - Let‘s
Go Crazy
Video: Holden Lenz Dancing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=N1KfJHFWlhQ

21. Example: Amateur Art

22. Video: O Fortuna Misheard Lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=nIwrgAnx6Q8

23. >70 Millionen Views auf YouTube
Video: JK‘s Wedding Entrance Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4-94JhLEiN0
Song „Forever“ von Chris Brown:
Durch Video Wiedereinstieg in die Charts

25. Example: Orphan Works

26. After ten years the huge majority of works is
no longer commercially exploitable.
100% of works are still protected by copyright
for decades to come.
Bild: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_book_-
_Basking_Ridge_Historical_Society_(1).jpg

27. The Missing 20th Century
New Books from Amazon by Decade
(Random sample of 2.500 books)
Quelle:http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-missing-20th-century-how-copyright-protection-makes-books-vanish/255282/

28. Orphan (documentary) films
rot in archives.
Bild: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ektachrome-
_and_Bell_%26_Howell-brand_film_reel_canisters.jpg

29. Addressing copyright problems

30. (1) Copyright Reform

31. USA: remix & transformative
consumption are mostly legal
„Fair Use“

32. Europe:
list of exceptions and limitations
Open up this list!

33. Work register
on the European level
with a
use-it-or-lose-it-clause
Bild: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Datei:Schlagwortkatalog.jpg

34. (2) Without Copyright Reform

35. Support & Demand

36. Copyright Creative Commons
©
All rights reserved Some rights reserved

37. CREATIVE COMMONS
Attribution ShareAlike NonCommercial No Derivatives
Share & remix without asking

40. Support:
New guidelines for (cultural) subsidies
+10%
CC Bonus

41. Support:
New business models
Funding in 2012:
$ 150 million

42. Demand:
Open Access in Science

43. Demand:
Open Educational Resources

44. Open
Access
Open Open
Formats Licenses

45. “Imagine a world in which every single
human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.”

46. Further Reading (Online & Offline):
§ Aigrain (2012): Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age.
Amsterdam University Press, online: http://www.sharing-thebook.com
§ Dobusch (2010): Bad for Artists? On Digitization, Remuneration and
Copyright, online: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-07-01-dobusch-en.html
§ Benkler (2006): The Wealth of Networks. Yale University Press,
online: http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf
§ Lessig (2003): Free Culture. Penguin,
online: http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf

47. Contact details
E-Mail:
Leonhard.Dobusch@fu-berlin.de
Twitter:
@leonidobusch
Homepages:
http://bit.ly/FU-Dobusch (Freie Universität Berlin)
http://www.dobusch.net
Blog:
http://www.governancexborders.com