Read Online The Case for Copyright Reform by Christian Engström, Rick Falkvinge - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christian Engström, Rick Falkvinge
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wisdom during the dawn
of the Enlightenment [insert sunset and kittens here], referring to the Statute
of Anne in 1709, which wasn’t the first copyright anyway. In reality, the
neighboringrights monopolies were created in Europe as late as 1961. These
monopolies have been controversial and questioned from day one in 1961, and
were certainly not the product of any Enlightenment wisdom.
Second, we were but a hair’s breadth from still regarding record labels
as service bureaus for musicians, had ILO not failed, instead of the
stranglehold on musicians that they have been for the past decades. This would
have been the case if it had not been for two intervening fascist governments
– fascist in the literal sense of the word – supporting the record
industry in corporatizing society and becoming the copyright industry.
1980s: Hijacked Again – By Pfizer
Toyota struck at the heart of the American soul in the 1970s, and all
her politicians started carrying mental “The End Is Nigh” signs. The most
American things of all – cars! The American Cars! – weren’t good
enough for the American people. They all bought Toyota instead. This was an
apocalypse-grade sign that United States was approaching its end as an
industrial nation, unable to compete with Asia.
This is the final part in my series about the history of the copyright
monopoly. The period of 1960 to 2010 is marked by two things: one, the
record-label-driven creepage of the copyright monopoly into the noncommercial,
private domain where it was always a commercial-only monopoly before (“home
taping is illegal” and such nonsense) and the monopoly therefore threatening
fundamental human rights, and two, the corporate political expansion of the
copyright monopoly and other monopolies. As most people are aware of the former
development, we will focus on the latter.
When it was clear to politicians that the United States would no longer
be able to maintain its economic dominance by producing anything industrially
valuable or viable, many committees were formed and tasked to come up with the
answer to one crucial question: How can the US maintain its global dominance if
(or when) it is not producing anything competitively valuable?
The response came from an unexpected direction: Pfizer.
The President of Pfizer, Edmund Pratt, had a furious op-ed piece in a
New York Times on July 9, 1982 titled “Stealing from the Mind”. It fumed about
how third world countries were stealing from them. (By this, he referred to
countries making medicine from their own raw materials with their own factories
using their own knowledge in their own time for their own people, who were
frequently dying from horrible but curable third-world conditions.) Major
policymakers saw a glimpse of an answer in Pfizer’s and Pratt’s thinking, and
turned to Pratt’s involvement in another committee directly under the
President. This committee was the magic ACTN: Advisory Committee on Trade
Negotiations.
What the ACTN recommended, following Pfizer’s lead, was so daring and
provocative that nobody was really sure whether to try it out. The US would try
linking its trade negotiations and foreign policy. Any country who didn’t sign
lopsided “free trade” deals that heavily redefined value would be branded in a
myriad of bad ways, the most notable being the “Special 301 watchlist”. This
list is supposed to be a list of nations not respecting copyright enough. A
majority of the world’s population lives in countries that are on it, among
them Canada.
So the solution to not producing anything of value in international
trade was to redefine “producing”, “anything”, and “value” in an international
political context, and to do so by bullying. It worked. The ACTN blueprints
were set in motion by US Trade Representatives, using unilateral bullying to
push foreign governments into enacting legislation that favored American
industry interests,
of the Enlightenment [insert sunset and kittens here], referring to the Statute
of Anne in 1709, which wasn’t the first copyright anyway. In reality, the
neighboringrights monopolies were created in Europe as late as 1961. These
monopolies have been controversial and questioned from day one in 1961, and
were certainly not the product of any Enlightenment wisdom.
Second, we were but a hair’s breadth from still regarding record labels
as service bureaus for musicians, had ILO not failed, instead of the
stranglehold on musicians that they have been for the past decades. This would
have been the case if it had not been for two intervening fascist governments
– fascist in the literal sense of the word – supporting the record
industry in corporatizing society and becoming the copyright industry.
1980s: Hijacked Again – By Pfizer
Toyota struck at the heart of the American soul in the 1970s, and all
her politicians started carrying mental “The End Is Nigh” signs. The most
American things of all – cars! The American Cars! – weren’t good
enough for the American people. They all bought Toyota instead. This was an
apocalypse-grade sign that United States was approaching its end as an
industrial nation, unable to compete with Asia.
This is the final part in my series about the history of the copyright
monopoly. The period of 1960 to 2010 is marked by two things: one, the
record-label-driven creepage of the copyright monopoly into the noncommercial,
private domain where it was always a commercial-only monopoly before (“home
taping is illegal” and such nonsense) and the monopoly therefore threatening
fundamental human rights, and two, the corporate political expansion of the
copyright monopoly and other monopolies. As most people are aware of the former
development, we will focus on the latter.
When it was clear to politicians that the United States would no longer
be able to maintain its economic dominance by producing anything industrially
valuable or viable, many committees were formed and tasked to come up with the
answer to one crucial question: How can the US maintain its global dominance if
(or when) it is not producing anything competitively valuable?
The response came from an unexpected direction: Pfizer.
The President of Pfizer, Edmund Pratt, had a furious op-ed piece in a
New York Times on July 9, 1982 titled “Stealing from the Mind”. It fumed about
how third world countries were stealing from them. (By this, he referred to
countries making medicine from their own raw materials with their own factories
using their own knowledge in their own time for their own people, who were
frequently dying from horrible but curable third-world conditions.) Major
policymakers saw a glimpse of an answer in Pfizer’s and Pratt’s thinking, and
turned to Pratt’s involvement in another committee directly under the
President. This committee was the magic ACTN: Advisory Committee on Trade
Negotiations.
What the ACTN recommended, following Pfizer’s lead, was so daring and
provocative that nobody was really sure whether to try it out. The US would try
linking its trade negotiations and foreign policy. Any country who didn’t sign
lopsided “free trade” deals that heavily redefined value would be branded in a
myriad of bad ways, the most notable being the “Special 301 watchlist”. This
list is supposed to be a list of nations not respecting copyright enough. A
majority of the world’s population lives in countries that are on it, among
them Canada.
So the solution to not producing anything of value in international
trade was to redefine “producing”, “anything”, and “value” in an international
political context, and to do so by bullying. It worked. The ACTN blueprints
were set in motion by US Trade Representatives, using unilateral bullying to
push foreign governments into enacting legislation that favored American
industry interests,
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