S. 3325, Intellectual Property, and Art
The Senate is talking about Intellectual Property laws...
It seems a subcommittee have approved S. 3325 called the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008". The full Senate, House, and President would still have to approve the bill for it to become law, so you still have time to notify your Representatives to attempt to kill this thing. In my opinion, our government will pass it and deal a blow to copyright violators.
The strongest worded argument against this bill (and the best explanation of it) is here.
A dry, but interesting take in favor of this bill is here.
[In my discussion, I refer to it as "art" instead of "Intellectual Property". Science is intellect. Real estate is property. Art is intellectual property. These subtleties should not be confused.]
My take: I could care less about this in terms of how it directly affects me. I don't infringe on the copyrights of others as a matter of principle, and I don't support artists who would be so callous as to assert that I don't have a right to copy their stuff if I please. In that respect, I oppose any laws which supposedly protect these artists (or rather, the companies who represent them). Specifically, I oppose laws that place a value on digital content in the first place. The only copyright that I do support is that somebody should not be able to profit from another person's artwork (charging people to watch the Super Bowl at your house or selling pirate DVDs, for instance). As a matter of course, though, if digital artifacts weren't copyrighted in the first place, these business models would crumble.
But if you'll allow me to go off on a tangentially related rant.... it's my belief to strive for an economy where artists do it for the love of creation, the desire for fame/notoriety, and not the greed of monetary gain. In that spirit, I am going to suggest a financial encumberance that will downplay greed and cut "Big Business" out from the position of funding the creation of most types of art (arguably, BB would still maintain control over mediums of art that require large-scale co-ordination and efforts to orchestrate (such as big budget movies and video games)).
My proposal would be to offer tax incentives (via a "deduction" applied to decrease the "gross income" of creators during the year so that their overall tax burden is lessened). This would have the effect (in my opinion) of enticing businessmen and laborers to create and support art in their free time. Meanwhile, "starving artists" would benefit from this by earning the right to claim a high "artistic deduction" which would position them to be supported by minimium wage occupations. This would work so that an individual who has significant artistic talent could work at McDonald's to earn $25k and create art that qualifies him for a $50k tax deduction. As such, his "taxes" would be calculated based on $0 income. The additional $25k (because his previous gross was in the poverty range) would be refunded based on some TBD percentage. Meanwhile, a person who works as a bank manager might make $75k per year and dabble in performing arts during the holiday season. Let's say for the sake of argument that these performances (made to the public) would qualify him for a $10k tax deduction so that his annual tax burden is decreased to $65k. This presents a good incentive for him to continue to do this year to year.
Now the trouble becomes determining how to calculate how much the "tax deduction" should be, and that comes down to picking values. For example, if you did a painting that was accepted to be displayed in a public place you'd get a $2,000 tax deduction. You took photographs of a natural phenomenon and published them on the internet in a noteworthy archive? A $500 tax deduction. You metaphrasted Shakespeare's Sonnets? A $1,000 tax deduction. You donated $40 to charity at a public concert? Write it off as a tax deduction. Additionally, some types of art require multiple years to create (books, animations, statues), so there would be additional consideration to let people claim a certain amount of time and evaluate that using a predetermined rate (say, $10/hr).
Again, this is letting people work on their own projects in their free time in a manner that will allow them to lower their tax burden for the express purpose of producing a work of art that will be free of copyright to be enjoyed by the general public.
Now, politicians would argue that all these "tax deductions" would be lowering the government's income. Meanwhile, others would clamor that the corruption of big businesses would see the lucrative value of the deductions and take advantage of them for greedy purposes. But these arguments wouldn't understand the goals of the proposal in the first place. The whole point of the exercise is to expand the culture of creation. There are gains when Joe Smith has an incentive to get together with his buddies to put together a musical arrangement and publish it on the internet. Maybe, they can even find somebody with filming and editing experience who could cut a video for them. Perhaps (and this is the fear of the music industry), the Joe Smith Band has a fresh flavor that catches the ears of suburbanites and gives them a new tune to bop their heads to. To that end, the Joe Smith Band would receive their tax deduction for creating a song (maybe $1,000) and receive some bonus deduction for a production that influences the popular culture (maybe $25,000). This will trim the taxes that Uncle Sam can take from them during the year when they released their song and in the year where it gained notoriety. This provides them with a strong incentive to channel their energy into creative work. And by releasing their creation to the public without copyright, the Joe Smith Band doesn't have to worry about their work being "intellectually protected". And thus, the bill that has been approved by the Senate subcommittee misses the mark in terms of protecting artists who strive to create art. Instead, I would urge the subcommittee to focus on urging artists to create NEW art instead of making inane rule to "protect" them from revenues generated from their OLD art.
That is all. Thanks for listening.
It seems a subcommittee have approved S. 3325 called the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008". The full Senate, House, and President would still have to approve the bill for it to become law, so you still have time to notify your Representatives to attempt to kill this thing. In my opinion, our government will pass it and deal a blow to copyright violators.
The strongest worded argument against this bill (and the best explanation of it) is here.
A dry, but interesting take in favor of this bill is here.
[In my discussion, I refer to it as "art" instead of "Intellectual Property". Science is intellect. Real estate is property. Art is intellectual property. These subtleties should not be confused.]
My take: I could care less about this in terms of how it directly affects me. I don't infringe on the copyrights of others as a matter of principle, and I don't support artists who would be so callous as to assert that I don't have a right to copy their stuff if I please. In that respect, I oppose any laws which supposedly protect these artists (or rather, the companies who represent them). Specifically, I oppose laws that place a value on digital content in the first place. The only copyright that I do support is that somebody should not be able to profit from another person's artwork (charging people to watch the Super Bowl at your house or selling pirate DVDs, for instance). As a matter of course, though, if digital artifacts weren't copyrighted in the first place, these business models would crumble.
But if you'll allow me to go off on a tangentially related rant.... it's my belief to strive for an economy where artists do it for the love of creation, the desire for fame/notoriety, and not the greed of monetary gain. In that spirit, I am going to suggest a financial encumberance that will downplay greed and cut "Big Business" out from the position of funding the creation of most types of art (arguably, BB would still maintain control over mediums of art that require large-scale co-ordination and efforts to orchestrate (such as big budget movies and video games)).
My proposal would be to offer tax incentives (via a "deduction" applied to decrease the "gross income" of creators during the year so that their overall tax burden is lessened). This would have the effect (in my opinion) of enticing businessmen and laborers to create and support art in their free time. Meanwhile, "starving artists" would benefit from this by earning the right to claim a high "artistic deduction" which would position them to be supported by minimium wage occupations. This would work so that an individual who has significant artistic talent could work at McDonald's to earn $25k and create art that qualifies him for a $50k tax deduction. As such, his "taxes" would be calculated based on $0 income. The additional $25k (because his previous gross was in the poverty range) would be refunded based on some TBD percentage. Meanwhile, a person who works as a bank manager might make $75k per year and dabble in performing arts during the holiday season. Let's say for the sake of argument that these performances (made to the public) would qualify him for a $10k tax deduction so that his annual tax burden is decreased to $65k. This presents a good incentive for him to continue to do this year to year.
Now the trouble becomes determining how to calculate how much the "tax deduction" should be, and that comes down to picking values. For example, if you did a painting that was accepted to be displayed in a public place you'd get a $2,000 tax deduction. You took photographs of a natural phenomenon and published them on the internet in a noteworthy archive? A $500 tax deduction. You metaphrasted Shakespeare's Sonnets? A $1,000 tax deduction. You donated $40 to charity at a public concert? Write it off as a tax deduction. Additionally, some types of art require multiple years to create (books, animations, statues), so there would be additional consideration to let people claim a certain amount of time and evaluate that using a predetermined rate (say, $10/hr).
Again, this is letting people work on their own projects in their free time in a manner that will allow them to lower their tax burden for the express purpose of producing a work of art that will be free of copyright to be enjoyed by the general public.
Now, politicians would argue that all these "tax deductions" would be lowering the government's income. Meanwhile, others would clamor that the corruption of big businesses would see the lucrative value of the deductions and take advantage of them for greedy purposes. But these arguments wouldn't understand the goals of the proposal in the first place. The whole point of the exercise is to expand the culture of creation. There are gains when Joe Smith has an incentive to get together with his buddies to put together a musical arrangement and publish it on the internet. Maybe, they can even find somebody with filming and editing experience who could cut a video for them. Perhaps (and this is the fear of the music industry), the Joe Smith Band has a fresh flavor that catches the ears of suburbanites and gives them a new tune to bop their heads to. To that end, the Joe Smith Band would receive their tax deduction for creating a song (maybe $1,000) and receive some bonus deduction for a production that influences the popular culture (maybe $25,000). This will trim the taxes that Uncle Sam can take from them during the year when they released their song and in the year where it gained notoriety. This provides them with a strong incentive to channel their energy into creative work. And by releasing their creation to the public without copyright, the Joe Smith Band doesn't have to worry about their work being "intellectually protected". And thus, the bill that has been approved by the Senate subcommittee misses the mark in terms of protecting artists who strive to create art. Instead, I would urge the subcommittee to focus on urging artists to create NEW art instead of making inane rule to "protect" them from revenues generated from their OLD art.
That is all. Thanks for listening.
posted by Rob | 2:16 PM
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