Copyright Fallacies

Posted on July 26, 2004 in Intellectual Property

Any or all of the exclusive rights, or any subdivision of those rights, of the copyright owner may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed (or such owner’s duly authorized agent). Transfer of a right on a nonexclusive basis does not require a written agreement.

Copyright fallacies abound on the Internet. One of the favorites that some web site owners try to fob off is that one can give away copyright with a click of a button. Wrongo. Everyone who writes a comment to this site retains the copyright. I cannot assume a transfer of rights beyond the right to keep these comments in my database no matter what text I put up. (It also follows that I don’t have to keep these comments on my site.) I can respond to them (fair use), but unless you give me explicit written permission (signed and dated) I can do nothing more with them.

If you want a comment removed from this web site, I will do it. It remains your work until you sign a contract with me. The only things I can do is choose whether to keep or remove your comments. No amount of verbiage will change your basic rights. You keep your copyright until you explicitly transfer them to me. So no publishing a “best comments of Pax Nortona” in paper form here. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours until you put your signature down to the effect that you have given what is yours to me.

What protects you here protects you elsewhere. Be aware of tinpot net thieves who claim that they can. The only purpose that their disclaimers serve is confusion: they can’t afford to let you know the real law as it stands.

A summary of copyright law by the American Bar Association.

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One of the common complaints of copyright thieves is that the law restricts their freedom. One can easily apply a reductio ad absurdem to this: the law also restricts the freedom to kill people as we see fit. Copyright laws protect creators and copyright holders from theft.

I have no problem, incidentally, with changing the means of music distribution. My beef with Napster is that they went about doing it in a wrongful fashion. They copied what was not their’s and put it out for free, thus depriving the rightful owners from collecting profits. No amount of arguing about whether the money really helps the artist or not changes the fact that Napster put private property out for the taking.

If you want easier distribution of music tracks (etc.) via the Internet and help the creators of works, then work out a system that benefits both. It must be voluntary on the part of the artist. This was the problem with Napster: there was no decision by the creators to participate. Napster just took it. And this is why many serious writers and artists — who share the concern about the profits from their work being eaten up by corporate infrastructure — spoke up on the side of Metallica against Napster. Napster wanted the tracks for free with no compensation to the creators. Sorry, boys. This is a power grab disguised as a strike against corporatism.