That’s not quite what I understood Prof. Heller to be saying. As I heard it, he was not comparing “creative works to physical industries such as airports and runways and automobiles and highways.” He was comparing the process of technology innovation to the process of building airports and runways etc. In each case, an excess of property rights claims–whether real or intellectual–produces a barrier to innovation and thus a net deficit of new wealth creation, even for those whose property rights claims created the barrier.

I don’t think Heller was taking a position on the relative similarities or differences between real and intellectual property. His is an argument about the impact of a legal system of exclusive rights on economic efficiency.

I for one DO agree that intellectual property is property. A copyright is exactly what it is called – the right to copy….the right to publish and make public and replicate.

When you “buy” a product (including a piece of recorded music) you are in effect paying a relatively small fee for an individual license to use the product. The technologies that have made available more ease of personal use & mobility are not a green light to become a mass replicator or publisher of the product.

If suddenly there was simple technology to replicate any other product, would there be the same passion for advocating the mass stealing of it?

You cannot go buy a coke and replicate their formula in your kitchen and bottle & sell it – or spread it around for free by the millions. The right to do this, as well as the formula, the packaging, the name, is owned by the people who have spent decades & billions to create, market & promote it – making it something millions of people want to have.

This is true of any product or idea one can think of!

I will never understand the support for stripping songwriters & artists of their rights and ownership in what they created. Nor will I ever see any logic in how this has been “for the greater good of society.” The funding of music is being destroyed by this thinking, with thousands of people losing their jobs, artists & songwriters not being paid, getting dropped or not getting signed.

You were never getting it for free or hearing it for free. You were either paying to buy it on vinyl, tape or CD and you were paying by hearing it on radio or TV where you tolerated listening to paid advertising.

The people advocating for free use should then equally be all good with taking their weekly paycheck, cashing it and laying the cash out on the sidewalk for others to freely use for the greater good of society.

Youtube has become the #1 source for music consumers like myself, more than terrestrial radio and TV. Every person in the world is on the Youtube wanting to be a star and actively grabbing subscribers. This has taken a lot of attention from major artists.

Here is my little analogy. Let’s say the artists are all on stage performing for the audience and wants them to PAY ATTENTION. However, instead of paying attention, the audience is down there sharing music amongst themselves and paying little to no attention to the artists on stage. Now let’s say that the artists on stage are represented by major record companies trying to sell their music and let’s say that the audience is collectively “Youtube.”

Every guy and girl with a guitar or boombox is down there trying to be a Youtube star. There are a million unsigned artists down there trying to grab the market share of listeners’ attention and not paying much attention to the major artists. So I see the major artists jumping off stage and into the Youtube crowd trying to get back their attention.

Every time I turn around I see the new Beyonce videos put up by her record company for all of us to listen to and enjoy. Over a million people will watch and comment on her videos. Does that same record company who put the video up to grab the listener’s attention now want Youtube to pay Beyonce royalties when they are using Youtube as their medium of choice? Can someone explain how that all works out please?

Here is a downfall I see for artists on Youtube. Back in the day, when I heard a hot song on the radio that moved me and/or inspired me, I could not get enough of it by just waiting to hear it on the radio, so I went and purchased the song. However, now with every major record company posting their videos on Youtube I don’t have to buy it anymore. With the economic downturn, most people are at the computers more than any other place, especially young music consumers, so if I can hear my favorite song posted up by EMI, or Universal Music Group, over and over and over again until I get sick of it, why purchase it?? It’s my personal opinion that Youtube hurts sales for major artists.

So as a listener, I feel that Youtube is really the NEW “major record” company and that being able to have free access to the music any time of the day or night takes money from the artists pockets’ because it’s less incentive to buy it. Youtube is a “Goliath” to be reckoned with.

So can someone explain to me how the artists are benefitting when their record companies are putting their music up for free consumption on Youtube and then wanting Youtube to pay them royalties? Wouldn’t it be different if Youtube went to the major record companies and said “let us use your music to draw listeners to our site and we’ll pay the artists royalties in return for drawing viewers.” Instead, it seems like the major record companies are saying “We need to have access to all of your millions of viewers because that’s where we see them hanging out all day in large crowds.” It seems like whether its Youtube who has millions of viewers sitting in their lap waiting to enjoy music or the major record companies going broke and trying to sell music by any means, the artists who create the music are in the middle of the loop losing out! lol

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that based on what you’ve said, Heller and Levine are not arguing against copyright, or claiming that it’s totally outmoded – but rather that it would be better for society if it were tweaked. While they may well be very wrong in the specifics of what they called for, you didn’t provide enough information for us to know – it seemed like you were stereotyping them as “freetards” for addressing real and important concerns.

My issue with the professor was improper conflating of real and intellectual property. I concede the two are different. Often, however, people unhappy with copyright raise this point as if that should undermine the argument for intellectual property. An apple is not an orange but both are fruits.

Intellectual property expires, real property usually does not although there are forfeiture laws. Intellectual property is limited by fair use, but real property has multiple limitations on use from city, county, state and federal regulators. Steve, you’ve hit here on Copyright Canard #8: http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2008/12/critiquing-copyright-canards-part-four-of-five/

I have to say that I am at a loss for how anyone could read “intellectual property is valueless” out of it, or “there is no reason to protect it”; or even “it is not wrong to violate it”.

The point of the post is to illustrate that intellectual property is not the same as physical property because, though valuable, its definition has changed over the years for the good of society and will continue to change. I think that many of you believe its coverage should only ever grow – even if there are negative consequences to certain aspects of certain rules which have been put in place.

This leads you to read the words of someone who doesn’t believe exactly as you do to be a pirate and a thief. Can that be anything but fanaticism?

The French will look like heros when everyone see’s how successful they will be at the 3 strikes and you are out. This is the simplest of all solutions that is incredible to belive nobody in the American entertainment industry has yet to figure out. FORCE the ISP’s to warn 3 times and then shut down users if violations continue. It’s guaranteed that the majority of online property stealers will stop taken intellectual property if they know their internet will be shut down. The industry should have been suing the ISP’s all along as an enabler.

The only real thing that has to happen is- the innovators and the content owners have to come upon REASONABLE useage fee’s that are also tied to future growth of the site. It is not brain surgery to figure this stuff out. If the innovator(s) does not generate enough money to support paying for the product they are using in there store- then they should be out of business. Their should be NO upfront license fee’s. All fee’s should be tied to actual revenue occuring on the sites and paid out on a simple mathematical formula that is appropriately divided to content owners based on amount of streams/downloads.

In the case of YouTube- the problem is: WHY would YouTube have to pay for the use of copywritten music and other media to the big Industry corporations? Well if the big dogs are getting paid, then I also want to get paid for having Aunt Sally’s birthday party video up there. I should be entitled to money for every view just like a major record label is. If this were the true case, then YouTube would be a sight with NO copywritten material ever allowed. Maybe YouTube should institute a policy that will take a reasonable amount of revenue (70% of all revenue generated – like iTunes) and split it accordingly between ALL content uploaders based on the amount of views. In the case of someone using copywritten music or video- it would be a simple 50/50 split between the new content creator and the owner of the content that is used “in fair use.”

Another thing that should occur- there should be a fund created that all manufactures of any kind of storage media/device are required to put a % of revenue into because they also are enablers of stealing. The big tech companies should be forced by law to contribute to royalty fund- kind of like the Home Recording Act requires- or just expand the scope of the Home Recording Act.

Steve, a street seller selling bootleg DVDs *is* intruding on the copyright owner’s rights who doesn’t get a dime off the sale of the illegal DVDs. What you’re saying is that stealing a little bit is ok since there’s enough left for the labels / movie companies. That is BS with all due respect. The current US copyright law strikes a balance between protection of author’s rights (copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years) and the public domain, and has several exceptions for inter alia fair use.

YouTube’s position as paraphrased here is just convenience – it’s too much hassle to ask for permission so they just go ahead allow people to post until somebody complains. The better way however is to falitate the clearing and licensing process.