[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: Copyright violations are a real problem - At least I think we can all agree?
Eric Burger
eburger at standardstrack.com
Sat May 19 04:38:42 PDT 2012
Norbert -
I thought some more about this since our last exchange on the topic.
I am trying to understand what you are asking for. Are you asking that Microsoft should be compelled to use PPP-adjusted pricing? Is it to compel Microsoft to sell MS Office (as an example) at $440/$30,200 * $560 = $8 so it is a "fair" price in Viet Nam? It it to compel Microsoft to sell Office for $8 in Viet Nam and $38,486 in the US to 'compensate' Microsoft for being compelled to sell the software in Viet Nam for $8? Is it to compel Microsoft to not pursue copyright infringement in Viet Nam because they 'should' be charging $8, not $560?
If what you are suggesting is Microsoft only charges $8 in Viet Nam, that makes great business sense for Microsoft. It guarantees a dominant, near monopoly position for them globally.
I have nothing against Microsoft, but while such a regime is great business for Microsoft, it is bad for the Internet. Would not the world and the Internet be better off with free and preferably open source software? It is hard to dislike the price, and it ensures the Internet does not become a monoculture. Microsoft can chose to give their software away in Viet Nam. Microsoft can chose to price their software out of the market. Since there are now real alternatives to Microsoft infrastructure for Internet access (what the Internet Society cares about) and ICT in general, why would we ever advocate protecting Microsoft's business?
--
- Eric
On May 18, 2012, at 11:53 PM, President ISOC Cambodia wrote:
> Dear Colleagues reading the [Chapter-delegates] List,
> on 29 April 2012, I addresses an email to Mr. Brigner on this [Chapter-delegates] list (repeated down here), explaining that I could not find his address on the ISOC website, hoping that he might see this mail anyway here.
> Thanks for the different direct responses I received – but as I did not get any response from Mr. Brigner, I try again here. I just checked again the ISOC website: Who We Are – Staff and Advisors
> http://www.internetsociety.org/who-we-are/staff-and-advisors
> but I find only the addresses of the Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America Regional Bureau Directors there.
> Could someone reading this list please help so that my mail is forwarded to Mr. Brigner.
> Thanks,
>
> Norbert Klein
> ISOC Cambodia Chapter
>
> =
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fwd: Copyright violations are a real problem - At least I think we can all agree?
> Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:04:41 +0700
> From: Norbert Klein <nhklein at gmx.net>
> To: 'Chapter Delegates' <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> CC: Lynn St.Amour <st.amour at isoc.org>, Raúl Echeberría <raul at lacnic.net>
> Dear Mr. Paul Brigner,
> as you know, on this ISOC Chapters list we have regular and active exchanges of information and opinion from Chapters from all around the world. These widely different backgrounds and experiences contribute to the rich volume of awareness in ISOC.
> I found a CNET report “Comment on: Anti-SOPA Internet Society under fire for hiring MPAA executive” - let me say that what I write is not about the ISOC hiring and your past role at MPAA – but there is a reference to copyrights which calls for further discussion.
> (http://news.cnet.com/8618-31921_3-57404804.html?assetTypeId=12&messageId=12154966&tag=mncol&txt)
> You are quoted there saying:
> “To be certain, copyright violations are a real problem, and on that I think we can all agree. (At least I think we can all agree?) But I've become convinced that the only way forward is through voluntary agreements between content and technology communities to deal with those violations.”
> Can we all agree? I think so – but I am not sure if we all mean the same when we agree.
> Is it the “violations” that are the problem – or is the real problem related to the way in which copyrights are defined and handled?
> As long as we, in the Internet Society, proudly work under the slogan “The Internet is for everyone” we seriously should take up the “real problems” at the basis of the present copyrights regime and the grave injustices which it creates, calling a very large numbers of everyone using the Internet to be pirates. Pirates are violent killers.
> Jordi Carrasco-Muñoz, working in 2002 for the European Commission, compiled some economic data showing that – under the present copyright rules for commercial software - the Internet is obviously not for everyone (if they would use proprietary software), pleading for “FREE/LIBRE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AS OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT AID (http://cosgov.ow2.org/xwiki/bin/download/Main/Sessions/munoz.pdf)
> These are some of his figures (from Vietnam and from 2002 – surely prices and salaries have somewhat changed since – though his discourse is much wider than economics). He does not end up “convinced that the only way forward is through voluntary agreements between content and technology communities to deal with those violations,” - but makes a proposal: “Mass Distribution0f one OfficialDevelopmentAid-FreeLibreOpenSourceSoftware CD-ROM.” This is not our business here, of course; but the economics he researched are:
> a) COST (I) - BASIC DATA
> Cost Windows XP + MS Office
> – Standard Version $560
> – Professional Version $800
> As an example, we can use the two most common packages found on a computer: The MS Windows operating system and the MS Office package. They cost $560 in the standard version and $800 in the professional version.
> a) COST (II) - VIETNAM
> (GDP per capita $440/year)
> XP+Office = 1 Year 3 months
> XP+Office (Pro) = 1 Year 10 months
> To a Vietnamese, that represents dedicating -respectively- 1 year and 3 months of wages or 1 year and 10 months of basically not eating; depending on the version.
> a) COST (III)
> Cost-Equivalent for the US
> (GDP per capita $30,200/Year)
> XP+Office = $38,436
> XP+Office (Pro) = $54,909
> For an American, that would be like paying more than $38.000 for the standard version, and almost $55.000 for the professional version.
>
> The Internet is for everyone? Surely not. – And there is not much room left, to be found “through voluntary agreements between content and technology communities to deal with those violations.”
> To update figures: a high-school teacher in Cambodia today, having a bit more than US$50 (fifty) per month, does not have much room for “voluntary agreements”- even if some companies start to offer concessionary rebated prices. If you compare them with the salary, they are far from being a solution.
> And the public total-loss calculations by the music, motion picture, and software industry, lamenting how much they lose, giving figures by multiplying the estimated number of shared but not licensed copies with the end-user price, are total fiction. Not many people would be able to but any of their products at the stated prices.
> Apart from hard economic facts, there is also another astonishing field which is hardly ever touched upon, when economic power-holders in the USA, from the position of a high moral ground, condemn all those who commit “theft and piracy” related to intellectual property.
> Roberto Verzola, in his 212 pages book Towards a Political Economy of Information(http://rverzola.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/infoeconomy-verzola.pdf) covers part of the history how the United States of America fought against the imposition of copyright protection for foreign intellectual property for decades – until it became more profitable for the USA to turn around and fight others. I recopy here almost his whole 3rd chapter:
> = = =
> 3. U.S. Piracy in the 19th Century
> Nineteenth century America was a major center of piracy. The principal target of U.S. pirates was the rich variety of British books and periodicals. The U.S. was a perennial headache among British authors and publishers, because foreign authors had no rights in America. American publishers and printers, led by Harpers of New York and Careys of Philadelphia, routinely violated British copyright and “reprinted a very wide range of British publications.”
> James Barnes, who wrote an excellent book on this subject, said that the Americans were “suspicious about international copyright,” and were afraid that recognizing international copyright meant “exploitation and domination of their book trade.” Barnes noted that “as a young nation, the United States wanted the freedom to borrow literature as well as technology from any quarter of the globe, and it was not until 1891 that Congress finally recognized America’s literary independence by authorizing reciprocal copyright agreements with foreign powers.”
> Throughout the 19th century, a group of American authors and Anglophiles led a persistent but futile campaign to get a copyright treaty between the U.S. and Britain ratified. But their efforts were overcome by a much stronger lobby for free access to British publications. Authors like Noah Webster of the U.S. and Charles Dickens of Britain campaigned vigorously, but time and again, the U.S. Senate rejected proposed laws or treaties that would have granted copyright to foreign authors in the U.S. Indeed, strong laws existed for the protection of local authors, but foreign authors had no rights in the U.S., and all foreign works were fair game for American publishers and printers.
> As Barnes put it, “If Americans thought of the topic [i.e., copyrights] at all they were concerned with protecting domestic copyright and not the rights of foreigners. As a country, nineteenth century America was akin to a present day underdeveloped nation which recognizes its dependence on those more commercially and technologically advanced, and desires the fruits of civilization in the cheapest and most convenient ways. Reprinting English literature seemed easy and inexpensive, and so America borrowed voraciously.”
> Barnes continued: “In 1831, ‘An Act to Amend the Several Acts Respecting Copyrights’ was signed. It extended the copyright term from fourteen to twentyeight years, with the option of renewal for an additional fourteen. If an author died, his widow or children could apply for the extension. For the first time, the law allowed musical compositions to be copyrighted. But not a word on international copyright. In fact, foreign authors were explicitly barred from protection, which in essence safeguarded reprints.”
> Even the U.S. president at that time, John Quincy Adams, was himself “strongly opposed to international copyright.”
> In 1837, Senator Henry Clay introduced a copyright bill before the U.S. Senate. Within days, “a flood of negative memorials reached Washington,” and objections deluged both houses of Congress. The U.S. Senate’s Patent Committee rejected “the intention of the measure,” its reasons sounding very much like the justification today of Third World countries for their liberal attitude towards intellectual property. The Committee’s reasons were:
> - “A copyright agreement would promote higher book prices and smaller editions. The point was driven home by comparing the retail prices of new books in England and America, for it was universally acknowledged that English books were disproportionately more expensive.”
> . . .
> - Copyright has never been regarded among nations as “property standing on the footing of wares or merchandise, or as a proper subject for national protection against foreign spoilation.” Every government has always been left to make such regulations as it thinks proper, “with no right of complaint or interference by any other government.”
> - British authors only want the U.S. Congress to pass an act which will enable them to “monopolize the publication here [in the U.S.] as well as in England, of all English works for the supply of the American market.”
> The Committee also explained why international patents were acceptable but not international copyrights: “American ingenuity in the arts and practical sciences, would derive at least as much benefit from international patent laws, as that of foreigners. Not so with authorship and bookmaking.
> In short, the Americans stood to gain a lot of benefits by recognizing international patents; and they likewise stood to gain a lot of benefits by not recognizing international copyrights. It was purely a matter of national interest...
> Thus, overwhelming opposition from various quarters, including two of the largest U.S. publishers, the Harpers of New York and the Careys of Philadelphia, continued to block any effort that would have granted copyrights to foreign authors in America. Not even the hired services of topnotch Washington lobbyists, as well as attempts in 1852 to bribe members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. press, could get an Anglo-American copyright treaty passed.
> The U.S. reprinters advanced their own arguments for reprinting British publications without regard for international copyrights:
> They were making available to the American people cheap books which would otherwise be very costly if they had to compensate foreign authors. It was generally acknowledged that the low prices of American books would inevitably rise after the passage of a copyright treaty.
> Access by the American printing industry to British works provided Americans with thousands of jobs.
> British authors and publishers would exercise “complete control over the publication of their works in the U.S.” Popular British writers “could then exact their own prices for their books when sold here [in the U.S.]” Thus copyright would not only enhance the profits of major authors, but at the same time protect and encourage second rate foreign talent.
> International copyrights “would also interfere with the laws of supply and demand because it encouraged monopoly which was never in the public interest.”
> Tariff duties might be appropriate for some industries, but they were never intended to confer a monopoly on a producer.
> Books are “unlike other commodities”; whereas it took the same amount of labor to create each new hat or boot, “the multiplication of copies of a book meant a saving on each additional facsimile.”
> Authors and publishers enjoy copyrights “only by virtue of statute law”; copyright is not “absolute and natural ownership”. The right of individual property is subordinate to the public good which is “best served through free competition and cheap reprints.”
> Several bills were introduced in 1870, 1871 and again in 1872, but they were all opposed by American publishers and the printing unions, because they would “make English books more expensive, really benefit American authors as a class, and permanently injure the interests of book manufacturers.”
> And so it went. In the early 1880’s, the copyrights movement gained more strength, but not quite enough to overcome the more powerful forces that benefited from free and unrestricted access to foreign publications.
> By this time, however, the U.S. had already accumulated a wealth of American authored works which were themselves widely reprinted abroad. American books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin became quite popular in England. Also, U.S. authors and their publishers had acquired considerable political clout. The U.S. was ready to “protect” foreign authors, so that it could in turn demand protection for American authors abroad.
> In July 1891, the U.S. Congress adopted the Chace International Copyright Act of 1891, establishing a framework for bilateral copyright agreements based on reciprocity. While the act granted copyright to resident and nonresident authors for a period of 28 years, renewable for another 14, it also set very difficult conditions, reflecting the interests of the U.S. publishing industry:
> 1. A foreign book had to be published in the U.S. not later than its publication in its home country.
> 2. All manufacturing of books, photos, chromos and lithographs had to be done in the U.S. (This is the so called “manufacturing clause”, which is today protested by the U.S., when Third World governments adopt it to ensure that a technology is actually worked in their own country.)
> 3. Foreign copyrighted books in English, photographs, chromos, lithographs or plates could be imported for sale, but not more than two copies at a time could be imported for use, and these were subject to duty.
> 4. Foreign works published before July 1, 1891 may not be copyrighted. In 1952, the U.S. joined the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), but not the Berne Convention, which was considered the “premier instrument of international copyright”.
> Under the UCC, the U.S. retained such protectionist measures as the requirement of manufacture in the United States.
> In the meantime, the U.S. had been exerting tremendous pressures against Third World governments to adopt strict intellectual property laws and to strengthen their enforcement. By the late 1980’s, a number of governments, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea in Asia, had finally succumbed to U.S. pressure.
> And so in 1989, the U.S. finally and belatedly acceded to the Berne copyrights convention.
> = = =
> 1989 – that is fairly recently, only about two decades ago – the USA was already a world super-power at that time. But why is the US copyright history not remembered more? And not applied to the understanding what the “real problem” of not respecting copyright legislation is?
> More on this issue is in the 208 pages of The Copy/South Dossier (http://copysouth.org/portal/node/1) which say as introduction:
> “We are told that we live in the 'digital revolution' era and that we can communicate across the globe as we never could before. In fact, restrictive copyright laws still act as a serious barrier to sharing and learning from each other. This is particularly true in countries of the South where three quarters of the population live.”
> And: The Internet is for everyone?!
> I would be happy to see here some responses from Chapters in the USA – how they might help to rectify a heavily biased approaches to “piracy.”
> And I would also be happy to know how you – on the background of your experience in the MPAA - plan to help that “The Internet is for everyone” becomes easier to be achieved. As Roberto Verzola pointed out: When we share material goods, we have less – but when we share knowledge, we do not lose it, but our community as a whole gets richer.
>
> Norbert Klein
> President
> ISOC Cambodia Chapter
> From our Chapter's site:
> http://www.isoc-kh.org/?p=227
>
>
> Mr. Paul Brigner - apologies: as the "Staff and Advisers" section of the ISOC site (http://www.internetsociety.org/who-we-are/staff-and-advisors) does not have your address, I share this only through the Chapter list, assuming that you are reading it anyway.
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