How do you stop a viral spread of false information, for example the myth that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim or that a tooth left in Coca-Cola will dissolve overnight? Well, the fact is, you don’t. That’s the problem with these myths, they’re like Jason from “Halloween” – they won’t die.

That brings me to a myth I encounter almost daily; the myth that creators’ rights somehow stifle innovation. While it’s empirical on its face that quite the opposite is true, some folks out there who view copyright only as an obstacle to maximizing use of another’s creation perpetuate this meme of “copyright stifles innovation.” Like a politician lying about an opponent’s record, say it often enough and some people will think it’s true.

The umpteenth iteration of this irritant has surfaced in the debate surrounding RealNetworks’ RealDVD copying service. I’ve written on how the service does not in fact promote fair use and how in fact if the service were allowed to go forward consumers would be harmed, but it’s clear I must continue to hold a stop sign up to the tidal wave and make clear how innovation is not being suppressed by MPAA’s suit against RealNetworks.

While we’ll never know where this meme started, it’s fair to say the most prominent repeater of it is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF’s Fred von Lohmann – a smart guy and an even smarter debater — repeated this line over and over earlier this year when we shared a panel at this year’s Tech Policy Summit, but he needn’t have bothered because the meme had already long infected the techie crowd in the room. Recently Fred propagated the virus further when he wrote that in filing its suit the MPAA cared little about piracy (think about that for a second) but instead was focused on “controlling innovation.”

Fred defended his belief on piracy not being a factor by noting numerous circumvention technologies already exist, but neglected to mention their distribution was in fact illegal. If they were being offered, free or not, by an entity easily targeted by a law suit, I’m pretty sure MPAA would be in court. And I’m pretty sure Fred would say that too was stifling innovation.

It didn’t take long for Fred’s latest outbreak to spread, with CNET’s Greg Sandoval repeating Fred’s blog almost word for word mere hours later. No creative industry representative is quoted in Greg’s 579-word piece; in fact, no one is quoted but Fred, and from Fred’s blog. After that this latest meme iteration was all over the blogosphere.

Fred must secretly know there is no innovation in circumventing CSS to copy a DVD, especially when you are a CSS licensee and thus have access to code. He notes that circumvention technology has been around for years, so given that, I ask how RealDVD can possibly be called innovative? No, the DVD itself was an innovation, and that was crafted through a process that involved technology companies and creative industries. Building a business on top of someone else’s property without consulting or otherwise involving them is not innovation, it is free-riding.

What is innovation, anyway? The Internet could be called innovative, but not perhaps as much as some lacking historical perspective think. It has expanded global communications, yes, but only one step beyond what telephones did. Phones expanded global communications, but only a step beyond what the telegraph did.

Prior to the telegraph, do you think Abraham Lincoln could have walked from the White House to the War Department and monitored communications from Civil War battlefields in real time? No. Messages were sent on horseback. The Revolutionary War began in part because it took months for the American colonists and the British crown to communicate with each other by ship, thus preventing any kind of real negotiation while violence was flaring in Massachusetts. Jump ahead a half-century and Americans are laying a cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, allowing instant communication.

The telegraph provided immediacy; it was revolutionary. The telephone was 2.0, the Internet 3.0. They were evolutionary.

This is an important note to remember as we throw around the word “innovation.” One company’s non-innovative and desperate attempt to develop a new but infringing business model (RealNetworks) should not be placed above truly innovative business models being developed by creative industries that rely on their rights as copyright owners.

Innovation is indeed good, and we don’t want it stifled or “controlled.” But when the very concept of innovation is cheapened in the perpetuation of a convenient (for some) myth, our discourse begins to suffer, new ways to distribute works by creative industries suffer, and we suffer as lovers of creative works.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 4:28 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under blogging, copyright opponents, creators, drm, fair use, internet, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.