The most interesting phenomena recently was the appearance and subsequent disappearance of an important (well historically important) video file on Google Video. (Should that be Gooveo? Goodeo? or am I just playing with typos.) The film (for it was a converted old film) was all about the advent of computer networks, stunningly titled Computer networks with an interesting subtitle of Heralds of Resource Sharing. The video only stayed on Gooveo for about 4 days before it was replaced with a very uninformative message that the video was unavailable, please try again later.
Subsequent research on my part found that the video was yoinked due to a possible copyright violation. Now I’m not a copyright lawyer (nor even a copyright believer) but the whole mess of trying to get a ‘legitimate’ version of the video is nothing short of educational. I asked our copyright person at Uni about the film. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey this video is rly kewl. Can I use it in my class? Liek, can we put it in the library?
Dude: Hmm have to check with the head honcho of copyright.
Me: But d0000d, there’s no copyright symbol on it, I don’t know who pwns it!
Dude: All work is subject to copyright, even when there is no copyright symbol.*
and I’m leik: d00000d, you not heard of Creative Commons? Copyleft? FOSS? Heck, what about Public Domain???
But I didn’t ask that.
And then the dude got back to me.
Dude: I’m sorry but we cannot accept a copy of the video. Please talk to this other person about whether we can buy a copy.
Me: Looky here!. It’s from 1972! There’s no copyright notice! Who do we ask???
But all that aside, it got me thinking a lot about copyright. What it means, what it does. And all the stuff I’ve been reading on blogs/journals and other weird and wonderful places around the intarweb came crashing together in the long tedious drive between here and there.
I mean, here we have this right, which is granted by various governments (that’s the legal phrase). And with each review, it gets longer. Works being created now will not be free of copyright until next century (I hope they never go for a millenial copyright). But the thing that really concerns me, and makes me wish I understood Descartes and/or other philosophers a bit better, is that there is this extensive protection for ideas, which can pass from one person to another (the actual copyright, not just the ideas), and it’s being protected by more and more legislation.
And then there’s the other side of the Descartesian coin. The body. What’s happening to the rights of the body? They’re being reduced. The right to medical treatment is not a right! The right to determine the fate of your body has just about been eliminated by other legislation. Unless, of course, you have the moolah to pay for it, moolah that probably came from exploiting the products of your mind (or the minds of others). But then, another lot of processes of the mind are not protected, not helped, not given any legislative protection/help/whatever. If you have a mental illnes, then bugger orf mate! no help for you, the mind is pure (but only when it makes money). The body cannot make money (except maybe in very specific circumstances and then only if it’s a ‘perfect’ form which probably accounts for many of the ‘mental illness’ that currently need ‘treatment’).
But how have we ended up with a system which protects one effect of living but not another (the one without which there is no evidence of us as living). Even if we argue for no split between the mind and the body, it’s being legislated and given differential protection. The whole system seems to have taken this notion of separation and run with it.
Perhaps I should just go back to tinkering with websites and leave the thinking to the philosophers.
Trying to write symbol when talking in clashes of cultures makes one want to type cymbal!