Intellectual Property, Rights and Wrongs

In light of the DJ Drama drama, here is Colin MacCabe on Godard on copyright and freedom (pp. 301-2):

Godard presciently understands copyright as a crucial artistic and political issue. Most legal discussions turn around differences between the French and the Anglo-Saxon systems, with the French being held to favour the author, while the Anglo-Saxon favours the owner of the copyright. What differences there are pale into insignificance beside the fact that neither system allows the audience any rights whatsoever. But in a world where we are entertained from cradle to grave whether we like it or not, the ability to rework image and dialogue, light and sound, may be the key to both psychic and political health. What is certain is that the work that Godard accomplished with Histoire(s) du cinema would be more or less impossible for any other individual on the planet. When Rod Stoneman bought the first two episode for Channel 4, the head lawyer decided that although one might argue that there were ‘gross breaches of multiple copyrights’, they would be broadcast without clearing these rights under the protection of the ‘fair dealing’ provision of the British copyright act, which allows a limited amount of quotation for the purposes of criticism.

Even if such individual bravery is to be commended, its effects will always be local. It is impossible to imagine broadcasters across the world daring to take on the massive entertainment corporations which understand their copyrights to be their most significant economic asset.

When John Milton wrote Areopagitica, his classic defence of free speech, the only part of the censorship bill he excused from censure was that which preserved ‘justly every man’s Copy to himself.’ It may seem simply an amusing paradox that the first bill in England to introduce copyright is famous for Milton’s attack on its other provisions which prevented the free circulation of ideas. But three and a half centuries on it is neither amusing nor a paradox, for copyright is now one of the major obstacles to the free development and exchange of ideas.

In so far as people think of copyright, they imagine (as did the drafter’s of Milton’s bill) an individual handing on to their children and grandchildren a right which then expires. In fact two thirds of global copyrights are now owned by six corporations. Even when the copyright rests with an individual, that individual may in the twenty-first century have amassed royalties beyond the dreams of those early Protestant capitalists trying to define a new property right. Should the Rolling Stones still own ‘Satisfaction’ when they have already earned many millions from it and when, if I wished to make any record of my own life, it would be impossible not to use it and yet impossible to afford the cost of permission? There is little doubt that these questions will become more pressing throughout this century. Godard’s obsession with copyright is not merely an individual idiosyncrasy but rather a real understanding of the contemporary realities of sound and image.

I'm drinking to psychic and political health, not to mention the free development and exchange of ideas.