The right to copy: August 10, 1998 issue of New Thinking

August 10, 1998 New Thinking:
The right to copy

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August 10, 1998

The right to copy

By Gerry McGovern

One of the first known copyright infringements occurred in Sixth Century Ireland. St. Columba created a copy of the Latin Psalter unknown to its owner, Finnian of Druim Finn. Finnian was not impressed and brought Columba to the king who ruled that, "As the calf belongs to the cow, so the copy belongs to its book."

The American Constitution would take a more complex view of copyright. Article I, Section 8 states that: "The Congress shall have Power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Interestingly, the emphasis of the Article is not so much on the rights of the author but rather focuses on the good of the public and the desire to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” Authors are given limited rights so as to encourage them to create works that will be useful to the public.

The principle of ‘fair use’ limits the rights of the copyright owner. This allows someone to copy a limited amount of the author’s work without asking permission. Under what circumstances this can occur and what amount can be copied tends to vary from case to case, though generally, criticism and comment, news reporting, research and scholarship, non-profit educational uses and parody would tend to fall under the principle of fair use.

Copyright faces a number of challenges in the digital age. These include:

Things digital are extremely easy and cheap to copy and it is very difficult if not often impossible to monitor what is being copied.
A digital creation may involve sound, images and text; copyright tends to have different rules depending on the medium. Figuring out the correct copyright approach for such a multimedia creation poses new challenges.
With things digital it is very easy to take slices or excerpts and to manipulate these to create something that may or may not be ‘new’.
Because of the ease of copying and manipulation, defining what is fair use and abuse becomes more complicated.

While undoubtedly the Internet poses serious challenges to copyright, in some ways it can make copyright protection easier:

Cryptographic technologies allow digital works to be protected by strong software codes which require special ‘software keys’ to open.
In physical intellectual property the original is where the central value lies, and the older the original often the more value it acquires. Certainly, in the case of software, the value of having the original is much less than having the ‘latest version.’ In fact, the older the original the less value it acquires. In many instances we will see a ‘rent’ of intellectual property (guaranteeing the latest version) rather than a straight-out purchase.
Because duplication is so easy in an Internet environment it has started to cloud the whole environment with ‘digital pollution.’ Many people will prefer to stay with trusted sources where they are guaranteed quality product, rather than venture out into the ‘free zone’ where it is hard to find what they want and where poor quality and viruses may lay in wait.

(As a matter of interest, St. Columba refused to accept the ruling, went to war, won, and kept the copy.)

Gerry McGovern

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In many instances we will see a ‘rent’ of intellectual property (guaranteeing the latest version) rather than a straight-out purchase.