The Needs of the Many
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 by Patrick Ross
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In the only truly excellent Star Trek movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock saves the USS Enterprise but in the process exposes himself to a lethal dose of radiation. He tells his friend and captain, James T. Kirk, that “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Kirk replies, “Or the one.”
Logic would seem to dictate that. But does the Star Trek franchise actually answer that question? No, because in a rather absurd twist of plot, the Genesis project brings Spock back to life in the next movie. So the Enterprise crew gets to have its cake and eat it too.
This is an issue that comes up a lot in copyright debates — not eating cake, or Star Trek, but the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. The many are all of us, everywhere, every single person on this planet, as we all make use of copyrighted works. The few are those creative types who are inspired by copyright to produce the very works we crave. I have warned against “tyranny of the majority” thinking from users but it continues to surface. We need to remember that the true logic in this debate clearly states that when the needs of the few are met, the needs of the many are met.
The latest trigger for my thinking was my time in Berlin last week at Popkomm, meeting artists and following the news there, where two German courts separately found Google infringing on photographers with thumbnails with Google’s Image Search. Most coverage has focused on the legal implications for Google — sensible given its market capitalization and global reach — but at least one journalist, Trinity Hartman, reminded us that there are individuals who saw their livelihoods threatened by Google’s activities.
Now despite the fact that our both our individual and institutional membership is international, I don’t feel it’s my place to weigh in on the German court system; frankly I’m not qualified to do so. And yes, I’m aware there is legal precedent here in the US for Google to post thumbnails. And I’ll confess I’ve used the service myself in the past (I find it not as thorough or sophisticated as Google’s text search, however).
That said, it is a bit dismaying to see how people talk about these cases. The perspective is always on what impact this might have on Google, how it might make more difficult Google’s ability to provide this service.
Copyright’s aim is not to make life easy on large corporations who make their money off of other people’s copyrighted works. Its aim is to motivate the creation of those works to begin with. If we buy in to the theory that the path of least resistance for users — the needs of the many — should be our guide in copyright policy, we will decrease the incentive for creation — the needs of the few — and find ourselves with fewer creative works to index.
For those enthralled with amateur culture, let me modify that statement — we will see fewer creative works by professionals looking to feed their children, and from music to motion pictures, from novels to photography, from software to graphic arts, the works most enjoyed by all of us are ones by artists hoping copyright can help them earn a living.
