Until it wasn't
I got namechecked in an interesting way today, one i'm not entirely positive to characterise in any given manner. I mean, it was cool, and a little bit unexpected, in the way that unexpected eavesdropping, but you know, what to say about it? It certainly was a way though. It's like, you need the grain of sand to form the pearl; or it could end up being an infectious, festering wound. But you know, thems = the breaks.
I find that I read nowadays not with the express purpose of actually enjoying what i'm reading or to gain new knowledge or whatever straightforward purpose that is generally intimated, but moreso on how defensible a position I can take spending the time and effort required to read said subject matter. This doesn't mean I stick to only those unquestionably solid standards that dot the various landscapes of writing, but rather that whenever I pick something up, i'll think about how well I can do a job of making the case that this was a worthwhile read. It's harder than you expect, and kinda fun. Ref: White Noise.
The new year approaches, and along with, rhapsodisation. Plans are made to ignore it. I may have to excommunicate myself in a big way.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
The inherent quality analogue argument
Editor's note: Hey, whaddya know, I wrote this, and it's been sitting in my drafts for 7 months ETERNITY, in internet times. Cleaned, edited, and bits added. Clearing out those cobwebs!
Line of thought that comes up:
The institution of slavery is such that there is no particular application or version such that any particular version or application is morally right, not inherently degrading and so on and so on. One of the more popular anti-abolitionist arguments of the time was that it wasn't the case that slavery was an inherently morally bad institution; it was that there were a 'few bad apples' that were giving a bad name to what was overall a fine system. This argument was rejected on the basis that this was impossible; there was no particular application that could possibly be fair or morally good or even morally neutral.
Chomsky makes a similar argument regarding corporations (presumably large, public, profit-seeking transnationals); the institution of corporateship is such that it leads to inequitability and social and environmental degradation and so on. We reject this argument on the basis that it is genuinely possible to imagine and institute a system of capital ownership and distribution such that it doesn't create or contribute to those moral bads.
Copyright these days gets much a similar rap. The idea that modern methods of distribution and creation of content these days lends itself strongly to draconian and unfair methods of copyright enforcement, and for that reason, we should abolish copyright. This is wrong because it ignores the differences between copyright and copyright enforcement: those are separate and distinct issues to be dealt with disparately.
I'm going to call this the inherent quality analogue, in that it tries to illustrate to that there exists certain inherent and basically immutable qualities in certain objects, and that these relevant qualities exist in the target of the analogue. Though, really it's more like meta-qualities, namely the qualities possess these properties, without being these qualities themselves.
Topics for further discussion: where else does this argument hold, where else is it employed, anything else I can think of, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...
Chomsky makes a similar argument regarding corporations (presumably large, public, profit-seeking transnationals); the institution of corporateship is such that it leads to inequitability and social and environmental degradation and so on. We reject this argument on the basis that it is genuinely possible to imagine and institute a system of capital ownership and distribution such that it doesn't create or contribute to those moral bads.
Copyright these days gets much a similar rap. The idea that modern methods of distribution and creation of content these days lends itself strongly to draconian and unfair methods of copyright enforcement, and for that reason, we should abolish copyright. This is wrong because it ignores the differences between copyright and copyright enforcement: those are separate and distinct issues to be dealt with disparately.
I'm going to call this the inherent quality analogue, in that it tries to illustrate to that there exists certain inherent and basically immutable qualities in certain objects, and that these relevant qualities exist in the target of the analogue. Though, really it's more like meta-qualities, namely the qualities possess these properties, without being these qualities themselves.
Topics for further discussion: where else does this argument hold, where else is it employed, anything else I can think of, Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...
Absurd
This is the story of Zeitoun.
The story of Zeitoun is set in the the complete clusterfuck that was the federal emergency relief effort of Hurricane Katrina. Like all clusterfucks, there are many factors to blame: levees that were ignored and improperly maintained; grandstanding by too many political officials to even begin counting, in nearly every position in the chain of command; a complete lack of co-ordination or even basic understanding of how the relief effort should proceed. It is in this backdrop that our hero Zeitoun, paddling about in his canoe goes about rescuing trapped victims, feeding stranded dogs, and generally being an all-round cool dude. What does he get for his efforts?
He is arrested, imprisoned, detained without charge, starved, denied medical attention, and refused phonecalls to both his wife and to a lawyer. All this, thanks to the wonderful wonderful relief efforts by
the good people at FEMA.
Eggers shows once again that he's a consummate and conscientious biographer (following on from the soul- and gut-wrenching What is the What). This is a supremely easy read; written simply, with ease and precision. Eggers also employs that trick whereby after the two main characters lose contact, he focuses on one, leaving a feverish cliffhanger on what the hell just happened to the other character.
Conceptual side-note: If there is anything that illustrated the 'near' and 'far' modes of thinking distinction, this is it. The DHS prepared for and imagined a scenario whereby al-Qaeda or the Taliban would stage an attack on the city of New Orleans in the chaos of Hurricane Katrina; and on the basis of this outrageous scenario proceeded to arrest Zeitoun and his companions. Instead of focusing on the 'near' and very real problems of the lack of sanitation, medical supplies, clean water, incompetent/insufficiently informed and trained officials, they focus on the Jack Bauer style 'far' problems of terrorism and civil war. Of course, it's more complicated than that (the use of mercenary third-parties i.e. Blackwater, the untrammeled use of deputisation, etc, etc), but when is it not complicated?
In short, this is a book about the very real effects of institutional failure, especially how those institutions fail in a time of severe crisis. There are very few silver linings in this: by the end, you're grateful and glad that our protagonist is alive and reunited with his loved ones. Compensation, justice, redress is discussed, but inevitably, little comes to fruition. An eloquently written, moving memoir of when the system fails, and what happens to those caught in it.
He is arrested, imprisoned, detained without charge, starved, denied medical attention, and refused phonecalls to both his wife and to a lawyer. All this, thanks to the wonderful wonderful relief efforts by
the good people at FEMA.
Eggers shows once again that he's a consummate and conscientious biographer (following on from the soul- and gut-wrenching What is the What). This is a supremely easy read; written simply, with ease and precision. Eggers also employs that trick whereby after the two main characters lose contact, he focuses on one, leaving a feverish cliffhanger on what the hell just happened to the other character.
Conceptual side-note: If there is anything that illustrated the 'near' and 'far' modes of thinking distinction, this is it. The DHS prepared for and imagined a scenario whereby al-Qaeda or the Taliban would stage an attack on the city of New Orleans in the chaos of Hurricane Katrina; and on the basis of this outrageous scenario proceeded to arrest Zeitoun and his companions. Instead of focusing on the 'near' and very real problems of the lack of sanitation, medical supplies, clean water, incompetent/insufficiently informed and trained officials, they focus on the Jack Bauer style 'far' problems of terrorism and civil war. Of course, it's more complicated than that (the use of mercenary third-parties i.e. Blackwater, the untrammeled use of deputisation, etc, etc), but when is it not complicated?
In short, this is a book about the very real effects of institutional failure, especially how those institutions fail in a time of severe crisis. There are very few silver linings in this: by the end, you're grateful and glad that our protagonist is alive and reunited with his loved ones. Compensation, justice, redress is discussed, but inevitably, little comes to fruition. An eloquently written, moving memoir of when the system fails, and what happens to those caught in it.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Get this, motherfuckers:
we own you now, and you owe us.
You know how there's that hoary old cliche of pseudo-and actual intellectuals complaining of how modern/finance/late-capitalism has resulted in certain groups of people - namely those in the finance and banking sector - have culturally and regulatorily captured governing structures, in order to maximise their profits and minimise their losses?
No? Me either. Well, i'm taking about this phrase: 'socialise the losses and privatise the gains', of which we've been seeing a whole lot of recently.
Now, what this phrase is meant to point out is the unfairness that certain industries and entities play by in the vagaries of modern commerce. The supposedly 'sensible' reaction by modern, right-thinking types (even if you're a leftie pinko, though not commie, which i'll come to soon) is to create a symmetry of non-intervention between those conjunctions: gubmint should privatise the losses and privatise the gains.
Well, here's where the commie bolshie in me kicks in. Let's have the symmetry run the other way. Let's socialise the losses, sure, but we sure as hell are gonna socialise those gains too. You made a lot of money this year? Well, hooray! Begin sharing. In a practical sense, what would this mean? High rates of progressive taxation, profit-sharing agreements, and one method quite close to the populist heart, windfall taxes. So, whiling away the time in this realm of bullshit-theorising, it's quite surprising to come across this:
Who da thunk it? Anyway, i've had this sitting for a little while now, and was partly inspired reading this New York article about the ongoing feud between AIG's Robert Benmosche and Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called 'pay czar' appointed by the Obama administration. It's...it's difficult to describe in words the sheer, unmitigated gall of the assholes. Bile-rising, rictus-inducing, finger-twitchingly infuriating stuff.
You know how there's that hoary old cliche of pseudo-and actual intellectuals complaining of how modern/finance/late-capitalism has resulted in certain groups of people - namely those in the finance and banking sector - have culturally and regulatorily captured governing structures, in order to maximise their profits and minimise their losses?
No? Me either. Well, i'm taking about this phrase: 'socialise the losses and privatise the gains', of which we've been seeing a whole lot of recently.
Now, what this phrase is meant to point out is the unfairness that certain industries and entities play by in the vagaries of modern commerce. The supposedly 'sensible' reaction by modern, right-thinking types (even if you're a leftie pinko, though not commie, which i'll come to soon) is to create a symmetry of non-intervention between those conjunctions: gubmint should privatise the losses and privatise the gains.
Well, here's where the commie bolshie in me kicks in. Let's have the symmetry run the other way. Let's socialise the losses, sure, but we sure as hell are gonna socialise those gains too. You made a lot of money this year? Well, hooray! Begin sharing. In a practical sense, what would this mean? High rates of progressive taxation, profit-sharing agreements, and one method quite close to the populist heart, windfall taxes. So, whiling away the time in this realm of bullshit-theorising, it's quite surprising to come across this:
Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. They are a sop to prejudice, a burden on risk-taking and a form of arbitrary confiscation. No sensible person should support them. So why do I now find the idea of a windfall tax on banks so appealing? Well, this time, it really does look different.From Martin Wolf, in the Financial Times, no less (!) Continuing:
The rest of the article is rigmarole about the incentive effects of windfall taxes, and where they should be applied (Wolf argues that it should be placed on the bonus pools of the employees of the institutions involved, mostly convincing), concluding with some mild boosterism for (carefully placed) populism.Fifth, it is hard to argue in favour of exceptional interventions to bail out the financial sector at times of crisis, and also against exceptional interventions to recoup costs when the crisis is past. “Windfall” support should be matched by windfall taxes.
Finally, these are genuine windfalls. They are, as George Soros has said, “hidden gifts” from the state. What the state gives, the state is entitled to take back, if it is not used for the state’s purposes.
Who da thunk it? Anyway, i've had this sitting for a little while now, and was partly inspired reading this New York article about the ongoing feud between AIG's Robert Benmosche and Kenneth Feinberg, the so-called 'pay czar' appointed by the Obama administration. It's...it's difficult to describe in words the sheer, unmitigated gall of the assholes. Bile-rising, rictus-inducing, finger-twitchingly infuriating stuff.
Golub, the chairman, was particularly angry at Feinberg’s decision to limit corporate perks—country-club memberships, private jets, sales retreats—to $25,000.I've never wanted to choke somebody so badly in my life.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Recasting copyright
EDITORS NOTE: This is something I wrote on copyright 7 months ago now? I've gone through this with people, but it seems like my notes are complete than I thought. I've even left in my very rough plan, which is the big blocked off bit that has DELETE surrounding it. And this is how I procrastinate, productively...
An approach concerning artistic control
Roughly: Commercial publication rights and commercial derivative-works rights. Commercial publication rights are just that: they are a copy-right, a right to copy that is legally restricted and legally enforceable (how long should this last? I have no idea, but not comparatively long. Estimates range anywhere between 7 to infinity, but i'm banking on somewhere between 17-20 years.
Economists could chip in here and compute some optimal period based on sales and social welfare and all that jazz.)
Commercial derivative rights on the other hand last for the life of the artist. Non-commercial derivative works are exempt...completely. If someone uses some Radiohead track for the background music for their funny cat video on youtube (though gods knows why, and I don't really want to find out), I seriously don't think this is worthy of moral consideration to the artist. If someone creates some kind of mashup between works in copyright (say, between Jay-Z and Radiohead, and proceeds to call it Jaydiohead [link]) and proceeds to release it non-commercially, that strikes me as okay as well.
However: if said derivative work is released in a commercial sense, then original rights-holders can take action. If the derivative work itself is used in a commercial fashion (say, in an advertisement or related some such), then the author of the derivative work can take action.
CONUNDRUM: What happens if some particular derivative work is used in a commercial sense, and the derivative rights holder actually agrees and licenses his derivative work? Is he liable to the original artwork authors? Is he required to obtain permission from the original artwork authors? I feel not, but something feels uneasy about that.
What's up with that: how come book authors maintain and own copyright, and yet bands/musicians routinely give it up? Book authors effectively license their commercial publication rights to publishing houses, while maintaining their own copyright. Why do bands give up their commercial publication rights and their commercial derivation rights to major publishing houses?
You can roughly equate non-commercial derivative works with fair-use, fair-dealing, etc etc.
Pour example of all this: Take Radiohead's (look, I like Radiohead) seminal masterpiece Ok Computer. Released in 1998, it has so far been in MGM's copyright for approx. 10 years. Ideally, i'd rather Radiohead own the copyright, and licenses out the commercial publication rights to them for 20 years or whatever.
After a 20 year commercial publication period, i.e. from 2018 onwards, the original record can be published and distributed without royalties having to be paid to copyright holders (you can stick the damn thing online if you like). However, if someone wants to create some kind of commercial derivative work using Ok Computer, then they have to get in contact with commercial derivation rights holders (ideally Radiohead, but possibly MGM if that ended up being the case) and figure out a licensing deal or pro bono or whatever.
The issue of versions: doesn't matter. If 10 years after the release of OK Computer, they come out with some re-mastered super-deluxe version, that is okay. The original work will go into (semi)public domain, and the new version will begin the 20 year cycle.
The main difference between this system and current systems of copyright and public domain and so forth is that currently, copyright encompasses both commercial publication rights and commercial derivation rights for a long, long time. When the work passes into the public domain, no authors have to contacted in order to assess commercial derivation or commercial publication issues. This separates that into two different domains.
Commercial derivation rights and commercial publishing rights dissolves when the original copyright holder cannot be reasonably located within a reasonable period of time and effort [Don't even begin to tell me how weaselly that sounds.]. If a band breaks up, commercial derivation rights gone. Author dead, commercial derivation rights gone, and so on.
Obviously all the above does not in any way remove attribution rights. You can't go around claiming some particular work of art as your own if it in fact isn't. This can apply even long after the original author is dead and the works in the public domain. Shakespeare et al. I'm even willing to apply criminal charges to add some teeth to this, though ideally, i'd rather not.
Many many issues: Problems arise with multiple creators (even with straightforward multiple authors, does copyright expire when one but not the other author dies?). Corporate owned copyright (perhaps make it illegal or impossible for corporations to own copyright? But obviously, issues: what about films, albums, even advertising that require collaboration between large teams, related to first point.)
DELETE
Artists given fuller control of their copyright. Copyright reconstituted or reconsidered at least through not the financial incentive of exclusive distributive rights (given that changes in modern distribution make creation and duplication trivial), but rather through the lens of creative controls: artists don't care about the money they make (they do, but not primarily, atleast within this view), but they do care about who or what is being done with their work. Essentially, this comes down to a massive expansion and improvement of fair-use (or fair dealings, or whatever; they're all synonymical for the sake of this argument) rights for non-commercial derivative works. In this view, copyright would exist for the length of the owners' life, shorter than today, but certainly longer than many people advocate.
DELETE
An approach concerning artistic control
Roughly: Commercial publication rights and commercial derivative-works rights. Commercial publication rights are just that: they are a copy-right, a right to copy that is legally restricted and legally enforceable (how long should this last? I have no idea, but not comparatively long. Estimates range anywhere between 7 to infinity, but i'm banking on somewhere between 17-20 years.
Economists could chip in here and compute some optimal period based on sales and social welfare and all that jazz.)
Commercial derivative rights on the other hand last for the life of the artist. Non-commercial derivative works are exempt...completely. If someone uses some Radiohead track for the background music for their funny cat video on youtube (though gods knows why, and I don't really want to find out), I seriously don't think this is worthy of moral consideration to the artist. If someone creates some kind of mashup between works in copyright (say, between Jay-Z and Radiohead, and proceeds to call it Jaydiohead [link]) and proceeds to release it non-commercially, that strikes me as okay as well.
However: if said derivative work is released in a commercial sense, then original rights-holders can take action. If the derivative work itself is used in a commercial fashion (say, in an advertisement or related some such), then the author of the derivative work can take action.
CONUNDRUM: What happens if some particular derivative work is used in a commercial sense, and the derivative rights holder actually agrees and licenses his derivative work? Is he liable to the original artwork authors? Is he required to obtain permission from the original artwork authors? I feel not, but something feels uneasy about that.
What's up with that: how come book authors maintain and own copyright, and yet bands/musicians routinely give it up? Book authors effectively license their commercial publication rights to publishing houses, while maintaining their own copyright. Why do bands give up their commercial publication rights and their commercial derivation rights to major publishing houses?
You can roughly equate non-commercial derivative works with fair-use, fair-dealing, etc etc.
Pour example of all this: Take Radiohead's (look, I like Radiohead) seminal masterpiece Ok Computer. Released in 1998, it has so far been in MGM's copyright for approx. 10 years. Ideally, i'd rather Radiohead own the copyright, and licenses out the commercial publication rights to them for 20 years or whatever.
After a 20 year commercial publication period, i.e. from 2018 onwards, the original record can be published and distributed without royalties having to be paid to copyright holders (you can stick the damn thing online if you like). However, if someone wants to create some kind of commercial derivative work using Ok Computer, then they have to get in contact with commercial derivation rights holders (ideally Radiohead, but possibly MGM if that ended up being the case) and figure out a licensing deal or pro bono or whatever.
The issue of versions: doesn't matter. If 10 years after the release of OK Computer, they come out with some re-mastered super-deluxe version, that is okay. The original work will go into (semi)public domain, and the new version will begin the 20 year cycle.
The main difference between this system and current systems of copyright and public domain and so forth is that currently, copyright encompasses both commercial publication rights and commercial derivation rights for a long, long time. When the work passes into the public domain, no authors have to contacted in order to assess commercial derivation or commercial publication issues. This separates that into two different domains.
Commercial derivation rights and commercial publishing rights dissolves when the original copyright holder cannot be reasonably located within a reasonable period of time and effort [Don't even begin to tell me how weaselly that sounds.]. If a band breaks up, commercial derivation rights gone. Author dead, commercial derivation rights gone, and so on.
Obviously all the above does not in any way remove attribution rights. You can't go around claiming some particular work of art as your own if it in fact isn't. This can apply even long after the original author is dead and the works in the public domain. Shakespeare et al. I'm even willing to apply criminal charges to add some teeth to this, though ideally, i'd rather not.
Many many issues: Problems arise with multiple creators (even with straightforward multiple authors, does copyright expire when one but not the other author dies?). Corporate owned copyright (perhaps make it illegal or impossible for corporations to own copyright? But obviously, issues: what about films, albums, even advertising that require collaboration between large teams, related to first point.)
DELETE
Artists given fuller control of their copyright. Copyright reconstituted or reconsidered at least through not the financial incentive of exclusive distributive rights (given that changes in modern distribution make creation and duplication trivial), but rather through the lens of creative controls: artists don't care about the money they make (they do, but not primarily, atleast within this view), but they do care about who or what is being done with their work. Essentially, this comes down to a massive expansion and improvement of fair-use (or fair dealings, or whatever; they're all synonymical for the sake of this argument) rights for non-commercial derivative works. In this view, copyright would exist for the length of the owners' life, shorter than today, but certainly longer than many people advocate.
DELETE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)