One way we have of sensing the future is to look back into the past. When
considering the effect of the new electronic media on the notion of
copyright, and to a larger extent, on intellectual property itself, it may
be instructive to look at the history of these concepts. I was aided in this
effort by a new book, "Copyright's Highway: The Law and Lore of Copyright
from Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox" by Paul Goldstein, a professor of
law at Stanford University. To assist our understanding of copyright, a
quick look at the evolution of authorship may be useful. It is my assertion
that copyright has evolved in tandem with our shifting attitudes toward the
creative enterprise and the social factors that have stimulated or
discouraged it.
In the medieval scriptoria, monks diligently copied out the Bible and other
sacred writings, as well as the corpus of classical texts preserved from
antiquity. Since no one "owned" these works, no one minded their
replication. Since there were so few works in circulation, however, literacy
rates hovered in the single digits. With the important exception of secular
poetry, most notably Dante, most literary works were created, copied, and
consumed within the elite circle of the clergy.
The Church was at least nominally a nonprofit institution, its workers
operating in a gift culture. In many medieval religious works, the emphasis
is on interpretation of the holy writ, not on creative expression. The
author's efforts are mere annotations on the revered words (indeed, on The
Word) inherited from the dim reaches of oral history. Authorship was more an
act of reporting than original expression. Books were like pearls, rare and
revered, with layers of commentary surrounding a core text. Small wonder
then, that the idea of authorship, and of being compensated for one's
creative efforts, was of minimal import in medieval society.
Gutenberg, of course, changed all that. But had he not existed, the age
would have had to create him. The humanistic explosion, the rise of the
university, the rediscovery of Aristotle and other classical authors brought
about by renewed contact with the Eastern Empire, the expansion of cultural
horizons stemming from the Crusades--all these social phenomena helped fuel
a dramatic rise in literacy, which, in turn, led to an enhancement in the
value of authorship. Gutenberg's invention, then, found rich soil in which
to flourish. The linkages between the rapid increase in literacy and the
attendant evolution of a merchant class, the formation of capital, and the
rise of the modern state--these events are well-known to any student of
history.
Suffice it for our purposes here to note that the increase in the number of
books quite naturally led to an increase in the number of readers. More
readers, in turn, demanded more books. And there had to be authors to write
them. While the Bible was, not surprisingly, Gutenberg's first printed work,
soon hundreds, then thousands of new titles came to be printed and available
for the reading public. As Goldstein points out, with mechanical means of
reproducing text, for the first time the effort of the author greatly
outweighed that of the scribe/copyist. The creative flowering we know as the
Renaissance heralded the advent of a new individualism, a new emphasis on
personal expression, and consequently, with this celebration of genius came
the idea of due compensation for one's artistic endeavors.
As evidence of the power of the printed word in early modern Europe, we need
only look at the reaction of the state to it. Aware early on of the potency
of print as a tool of sedition, the various crowns quickly imposed tight
censorship controls over what was printed by allowing only those works which
bore a royal license, or imprimatur. From these early state-granted licenses
grew the system of patents, and eventually, our system of copyright.
Copyright, fortunately, has moved away from its early origins as an
instrument of governmental repression. British publishers, arguing for one
of the world's first copyright laws in 1706, cited as need for such law the
fact that authors would soon cease to create new works if they were not
assured of some means of reward for their efforts. Appealing further to the
societal need for information, these same publishers titled the statute, "An
Act for the Encouragement of Learning." The U.S. Constitutional Convention
invoked the same spirit when enacting our first national copyright law ". .
. to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for a
limited Time to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries."
Up to our day, then, the capitalistic notion of ownership of the fruits of
one's labor, and the right to enjoy compensation for such labor, has
informed our sense of intellectual property. This value structure,
intertwined with the relatively high capital requirements for the means of
production (the printing press itself) and the means of dissemination
(marketing and distribution costs), has formed the economic basis for the
publishing business as we know it: a system in which booksellers profit from
displaying and selling a work, publishers receive the net proceeds, and the
author is compensated with a royalty percentage of the net sale. But such a
system is highly contingent upon the physicality of the unit of transaction,
in this case, a printed work.
Electronic media seemingly threaten the stability of the current publishing
paradigm. Now an intellectual or artistic work is no longer bound to the
medium of its initial creation; indeed, many works these days are never
"fixed" in a physical medium at all. They may exist only as electro-magnetic
impulses, as bits across a wire, as phosphorescence on the screen. The ease,
rapidity, and integrity with which a work may be transmitted across a
network or copied to a storage device render the distinction between
"original" and "copy" virtually meaningless. In the traditional visual arts,
we acknowledge the supremacy of the "original" work, and ascribe much less
value to a reproduction. But in the new media, how do we connote value to an
"object" which may be copied infinitely without degradation? Is value lost
with abundance?
With the advent of hypertext and HTML on the Internet, our notion of the
boundaries of a work are changing as well. The integrity, the autonomy, of
creative work is being buffeted by the winds of change. Via interactive
media, we can now append our thoughts to, redirect the narrative flow, and
even modify the essential data elements of a work. In itself, this is not
bad, just different, from the present artistic paradigm. Those of us who
participate in listservs and chat sessions may be present at the birth of a
new form of creative expression, a more fluid, dynamic, and collaborative
medium than has ever existed. And it may be that our notion of authorship
must once again undergo a transformation. As the web of connectivity grows
increasingly complex, the unit of any one individual's contribution will be
correspondingly diminished. In the future, works may never be "done"; they
may merely be put forth on the Net. Once there, they may attract the
contributions of other reader/authors, so that the original work becomes
subsumed in an accretion of content. Once again, as in the middle ages,
authorship may become a process of commentary and collaboration, a work
built up, layer upon layer, link to link, as nacre surrounds the grit of a
pearl. Who will own the copyright to such works? How will the contributors
be compensated? Ah, yes . . . and who's going to pay for all this?
There are those among us who cry, "Information wants to be free--if it's
digital, it's public domain." With these souls, I must part company. Much of
the copyright infringement that occurs these days, I believe, stems from
mere laziness. Given an honest and easy way to obtain goods, most people
choose to pay for them. I would argue that now, more than ever, in our
capitalistic global economy, we are recognizing the material value of
immaterial things. Information has become the primary exchange medium of our
culture. What a society values becomes the basis for its economics. Quite
literally, even our monetary system is converting from tangible paper-based,
gold-backed currency, to one of ATMs, EFTs, and debit cards--just bits of
information flowing in and out of our bank's terminals. We value
corporations, nations, and individuals by the amount of intellectual capital
they possess. With information as our unit of exchange, surely it can't be
free.
The issues of piracy, of integrity, of compensation, I believe, while vexing
in the short term, will be solved through technological means. They will
have to be, for the future of commerce and social interchange is already
riding on it. What I believe will change much more slowly, and perhaps not
at all, is the fundamental notion of copyright. We are creating a world in
which content is being literally loosed from its bindings, but we still need
that content, it still has value, and it still has to come from someone's
creative efforts. If the lessons of history apply, the technologies at our
hands will open up new realms of artistic and intellectual possibility.
Gutenberg's press ushered in a new age of individual expressive endeavor;
perhaps the technology of our day will give rise to a new collaborative,
cooperative, and communal form of expression. With the tools to create, and
the ability to connect at our fingertips, we will all have the capacity to
bear witness to the present, to reflect on the past, to speculate on the
future. We may all become authors.
And what of publishers then? If the means of production and dissemination
are no further than our desktop, who needs a publisher? Ironically, it may
be exactly why they'll survive. For publishers do much more than produce
content; they provide context. Publishers know how to adapt information to
fit the need, the customer, and the time. Publishers represent point of
view, which is, in essence, the ability to navigate through a body of
knowledge and distinguish the essential from the rest. In a world as
data-dense and knowledge-hungry as the one we're in, this an essential
function. Publishers will be less dependent on the book as the basic
physical unit of exchange as our model evolves to fit the more fluid, more
dynamic, and more collaborative model of authorship. But evolve it will. I
have no fears about the future of publishing.
One of the lessons of history is that human institutions may change, but
human nature doesn't. So while the dynamics of authorship and publishing may
change, creative expression remains the birthright-- the great miracle--of
the species. It will endure. And while its legal and social structure may
evolve, as do authors and publishers, the notion that supports our capacity
for genius--copyright--will endure as well.
Susan Saltrick is director of new media for the educational division of John
Wiley & Sons.
© 1995 Educom.