About Aaeru: Founder of FuwaNovel, a site dedicated to sharing our love for Japanese adventure games.

A member of the

Pirate Party of Australia who spends most of her time researching copyright. Blogger of sharingisliberty.wordpress.com

"Sharing is an innate human quality. It is the way of the human species to share. There is no individual reading this now who

expresses a single sophisticated thought, without it having been copied or derived from the ideas, language, methods,

expressions, designs and creations of those who came before us. Our most valuable tools for survival, is our ability to copy, to

create and to share, which predates the existence of copyright by at least 200,000 years. If it weren't for this ability to BUILD on

existing culture, we would still be like our predecessors who communicated in grunts and groans. Mark Twain: "The bulk of all

human utterances is plagiarism." Beware of anyone who wants to limit your ability to copy, create or share. Any person or

organization who seeks to stifle this human right is anti-human and ultimately threatens our welfare." - Aaeru

The Ideas Behind Fuwanovel #2

The formula to profit on the net is this:
1) More access to content = more fans
2) More fans = more true fans
3) More true fans = more money

The internet is the Economics of Abundance. Whereas in the 20th century, content
was a scarcity (as a child I played through the same Nintendo games over and over
again), Today on the internet there is overwhelming content & overwhelming copies
(people have huuuuge backlogs), which means My Time becomes the scarcity, not
the content (nor the copies). That is why the internet is called the Attention Economy.
John Perry Barlow, founder of eff.org states that the internet is monetized through
'Attention' or 'Familiarity'.
"Economically when you spread information you create demand for it." -- John P
Barlow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuxMJ8lnYA4

This is how it works:

The spreading of your copies BUYS people's Attention.
The more your work is freely available, the more attention you've bought, therefore
the more true fans you will generate, therefore the more money you will make from
true fans gobbling up your shit.

Your own fans sharing those purchases have now become your single BEST asset to
establishing even more relationships with fans. They have become your co-
conspirators, your vehicle of advertisement. When they copy you, they evangelize
you. And that is the BEST thing that can happen to any creator on the net because
ACCESS to content generates fans, fans brew into true fans, and true fans will pay to
see more of your work get made.

Why do true fans pay? Firstly they don't pay because they have to pay, they pay
because they WANT to pay. They are patrons. They want to hire you to make more.
Secondly they pay because they see value in exchanging their money for your goods.
Now the goods you have (or the service really) for sale is NOT your game. It is NOT
your video or music or writing. You are not selling games you are selling your labour.
Your goods (or your services) IS your labour. And the more people that know your
work, the more likely they will be attracted to your TRUE goods (or services) which is
your labour. Your labour IS the scarcity not the copies, for it cannot be
pirated. Once you get your head around that it makes no sense to try to restrict the
spreading of your works. If in doubt, repeat this a few times in your head:

If Ive paid you to write me an article, I expect to be able to share it.

If Ive paid you to write me an article, I expect to be able to share it.
If Ive paid you to draw me a picture, I expect to be able to share it.
If Ive paid you to make me a game, I expect to be able to share it.
If Ive paid you to make me a film, I expect to be able to share it.
If Ive paid you to code me some software, I expect to be able to share it.
So long as there are 1) People who want things created
So long as there are 2) People who are willing to create (for a modest fee)
Then 3) The free market will work to bring these two groups of people together
(through entrepreneurship and innovation).

Neil Gaiman (a prestigious author) explains it the best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

The Economics of Scarcity and the business models of the 20th century are
COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT on the internet. If you INSIST on using obsolete business
models in a post-scarcity world, you will not succeed. The art of making money is like
an art. It actually CHANGES as the technology of the time changes (Surprise!).

So to recap,

1) Post-scarcity world is where ONE TRILLION pieces of free entertainment

competes for people's free time.

2) With so much competition, it is difficult enough just to get people to READ your
work (for free), let alone PAY for it (and this is especially true if you have zero
marketing budget). People do not inherently care for your visual novels. they have
huge backlogs. Their free time is the scarcity. Not your content.

3) The spreading of your work generates demand for your work. Fan sharing is even
better, because it carries recommendation capital. People don't just share anything.
They only share the things that they like. When they copy, they're evangelizing it.

4) When you are ready, call in your true fans and ask them to commission your next
piece of work. Keep in mind that they are paying you to create. They are your
employers. It's not a donation.

5) The only way to make people feel comfortable about opening their wallets for you
is through transparency. "These are my living expenses. This is my budget for the
month. This money is going towards buying new equipment, this surplus money I
didn't need so I donated it, etc. etc."
If people LIKE you for being honest, generous, open and human, they will be more
willing to contribute.

6) If you have 1000 true fans who've paid for the game to be made, then 1 million
playing it is as expensive as a 'Torrent File'.

7) Note that I am not describing anything new. Jim C Hines's 2010 survey of today's
novelists show that the average time spent writing BEFORE a sale was 11 years.
Consider Alanis Morissette's attorney at the Future of Music Conference's remarkable
statement: 97% of the artists signed to a major label before Napster earned $600 or
less a year from it. And those were the lucky lotto winners, they were a tiny
fraction of a 1% who even made it to a record deal to begin with.

These are Independent studies on the effects of File-sharing: [Studies on File-

Sharing][What Filesharing Studies Really Say Conclusions and Links] We have
empirical evidence to show:
1) No negative effects on sales as a result of piracy. and 2) Piracy increases sales.
Notice that we don't have any empirical evidence to show that piracy drops sales
numbers. Please also see Christian Engstrom's summary article: File Sharing is not a
problem that needs to be solved.
As Neil Young puts it, "Piracy is the new radio." People need to get used to the idea
that internet is just like home taping when that came about in the 90s. The culture
business never died (much less culture itself). In fact, it flourished. The top 5 grossing
films in history were made in the last 4 years.

The Ideas Behind Fuwanovel #3

The confusion between sharing being vilified as stealing
is always... ALWAYS a confusion between the nature of physical objects in a physical
world VS the nature of information in the information world. And the big copyright
industries knows this and they exploit this confusion PERFECTLY by superimposing
1:1 the physical over the world of ideas.

The Nature of Property

Suppose you sell me an apple.

In a mutual non-coercive trade between two people, the property rights for the apple
is transferred. I relinquish control over a sum of money. You relinquish control of the
apple. In this case, the rights to the apple is being relinquished. Its ownership rights
go from you to me. I don't care how much effort you spent growing that apple, we
agree that you give up your right to control this apple completely because you
exchanged it for money.

Now this apple of mine I will share it if I want to. I will even COPY my apple (i.e. throw
it in the replicator from Star Trek) then share the copies to starving children. It
becomes none of your business what I do with my own apple.

Now what about pieces of information that have been sold?

Suppose someone has a game. Imagine if, while they were asleep, I sneakily
modified their copy of the game (as opposed to modifying my own copy). When the
person wakes up and finds that his game had been changed, he is furious. Would he
be justified in being furious? I am exercising control over his copy without his
permission (a right which is reserved ONLY for the property owner). It would not be
okay, because not only is it trespass, it is also a form of vandalism and a breach of
privacy.

Now contrast with this scenario:

Say if I purchased a copy of the game from him... what if I take my new copy, I go to
my computer and I make modifications to my copy. Would that still be trespass or
vandalism? ...not at all. Because me modifying my copy affects only MY copy. His
copy is unaffected. Even if I upgraded my copy to version 2.0, his would still be
1.0. That is why no conflict occurs over the use of property, each exercises
control over their own copy. This is how property works. Property rights is
absolute morality. We all know Don't steal. Don't hit. Don't trespass property. Don't
exercise control of what isn't yours. And so it is even with copies of information. In a
mutual non-coercive trade between two people, the property rights for a piece of
information is transferred. I relinquish control of a sum of money. You relinquish
control of that copy. I couldn't care less how much effort you spent developing it, we
agree that you give up your right to control this copycompletely because you
exchanged the right to control it for money. Now this copy of mine I will share it if I
want to. I will even COPY my copy (i.e. throw it in those 20th century devices called 'a
computer' and execute the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V command) then share the copies to
children living in poverty. It becomes none of your business what I do with my own
copy. The fact that you spent time assembling it is quite irrelevant. If you get
annoyed at these things don't sell any copies! Keep it for personal use.

Enter Copyright

Now as a society we can agree to give up certain rights to our own property in order
to promote the progress of learning, hence why copyright was invented [see Statute
of Anne]. In the 18th century, copyright was enacted as a statute for the
'Encouragement of Learning', its aim is to benefit the public, which is us. It's not for
authors. Copyright is the limited time, limited suspension of the PEOPLE'S RIGHT to
COPY. With copyright, that right we all have, the right to exercise full control over our
own property is taken away and given over to the copyright holders for their
commercial exploitation thereof. (hence Copyright 'Holders'. they HOLD your right to
copy.)
US Congress: "The granting of such exclusive rights [copyrights] under the proper
terms and conditions, cofers a benefit upon the public that outweighs the evils of
the temporary monopoly."

[See copyright is a government-granted monopoly privilege]

Copyright is merely a set of commercial laws that grant the holder special abilities to
employ the State's branch of coercion to shut down competing distributors, which is
us (in 21st century context). You must understand that when copyright was invented,
they weren't thinking of the internet. They were thinking of the Printing Press. Back in
the 18th century, it was possible to employ the State's power to shut all other
printers down because there were so few of them. Back then, you could afford to sue
and remove all of your competitors (thus achieving monopoly). In 2012, you would
have to sue your country's entire population. In an age where desktops, laptops,
phones, tablets et al have all become virtual copying machines and they're
all directly connected to each other, copyright begins to look hilariously outdated.

Questioning Intellectual Property

"Intellectual Property" law is not an inherent natural law, it is a "product" of

human design, it wasn't here "before the beginning of time" like property was
and we just had to articulate it and write it down as a law. Unlike real physical
property law, it was designed by a few people and then forced upon the rest
of us.
The fact is that property exist even among animals, they can't articulate (they can't
talk) they certainly can't understand it, but try to take something away from a dog
he will defend it because it is his property. The same was true for us. Before we
evolved into homo sapiens, our ancestors started to live in groups (the predecessor
of society) and they couldn't speak, they couldn't articulate their "thoughts", but they
already had the concept of property because that was the only way to achieve a
peaceful coexistence. If something was scarce and rivalrous, it was designated an
owner and it was shared only under the "blessings" of this owner and that it can be
exchanged for other property and they did this even though they didn't understand
any of the concepts behind their actions.

We consider theft a crime, not because of the "ten commandments", not because the
"people who wrote the law" said it shall be like this, but because it was a law long
before we could articulate such a thing as law much less write it down on paper. This
is why we tolerate and (most of us) accept the confiscation of unlawfully obtained
property because it doesn't disrupt the peace it actually makes the peace more
stable.

This is why the majority of the internet does not accept "Intellectual Property" (even
though they say they do), this is why there are so many "thieves" out there
downloading music, movies, books, software. These people are doing it because they
"know" it does not disrupt the peace, they "know" it is something we can do without
injuring another individual, and if we injure nobody then we are not disrupting the
spontaneous order and consequently we are not disrupting the peace.

When a large majority of the population doesn't care for some "law" and/or they care
about it only because of severe punishments, it is not law at all, it is just some bad
and counterproductive command from the "authorities" forced on us in order to serve
the interests of some groups at the expense of other groups. Real laws are those
respected by the large majority even without the threat of punishment from the
government only a small minority (the criminals) need to be forced to respect a real
law, that is why we call it law, because the large majority "know" it emerged in order
to save the peace, not designed in order to serve somebody's interest.
Objections
Objections to Fuwanovel (and other FAQ questions)
I'll try to answer some questions here. I'll just update this section as I think of stuff.
Give me feedback: aaeru@fastmail.fm

Objection #1 "Some fan translators request that their patches not

be distributed pre-patched with the game but this site distributes
them pre-patched."

It is hypocrisy -- that people who do not even care to seek permission from the
original authors (before translating their work), can nevertheless turn around and
stamp their feet at those who do things outside of permission.
I want to give an example and I'll draw a conclusion at the end when I've spoken my
example.... Say if you left a BIG basket of Hatsune Miku Dolls (TM) on the side of the
road and you put up a sign next to it that said, 'Please feel free to take as many
home as you like... but on ONE condition... that you do not abuse her. Hatsune Miku is
very dear to my heart, in fact I will be furious if you do. You must listen to me
because I GAVE IT TO YOU.'.... Now these strangers, these recipients of Hatsune Miku,
what then are they going to do? Are they going to bring her home and do as they are
told? Love-her-tenderly? ...well no. (some will but not all). People are going to take
Miku home and do all sorts of UNIMAGINABLE things to her. They will give her to the
dog, they will microwave her in the oven, they will abuse her sexually, they'll do all
sorts of hilarious things to her. They do this not because they don't appreciate your
gift to them, but because they are exercising control over THEIR COPY of her. They
know that whatever they do to their copy, it does not affect anyone else's copies. The
error here would have been for the owner to leave the basket where all these
randoms can take from it in the first place.

But it doesn't end there. The 3D printing and 3D scanning industries are estimated to
reach $3.1 BILLION by 2016 (Forbes). So very soon not only can I scan your Hatsune
Miku, I can scan her, put her into a sexually awkward position (using digital software),
PRINT her out, and then distribute the new version out for free to the masses and
THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME. The reason why is because they are
exercising control over THEIR copy. Not your copy. The fact that you spent a lot of
time crafting Hatsune Miku is irrelevant. If you get angry at these things, keep it for
yourself. Keep it for personal use. Don't leave it on the side of the road where people
can steal it & repurpose it where they see fit.

Everybody knows don't hit, don't steal, don't trespass, don't exercise control of what
isn't yours, but are you being consistent with those axioms? What about, don't veto
what other people can and cannot do with their own property. Don't even single out
one particular subset of the full spectrum of property rights (pre-patch a game) for
exclusion. Not even that. And not even if you gave it out for free. When you give it
out for free, you relinquish your ability to control your recipients' copies. Be an
upstanding member of society and don't be a thief.

wiki.fuwanovel.org.
Why Intellectual Property is Neither Intellectual nor
Property
Introduction
How should fan translators respond to Cease & Desist requests? As weve seen in recent years, the
usual pattern is either 1) abandon project or 2) go underground. Despite knowing that no legal actions will
be taken against them for continuing, translation groups will still feel obliged to do as they are asked. Now
the root of this response lies in our pervasive use of the term Intellectual Property. The rationale is, if it is
property, then the property owners will should overwrite our desire to build on human culture, therefore we
should back off. I want to explain to you why this is an unnecessary response.

The Nature of Ideas

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one
apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have
two ideas. Phi Kappa Phi Journal

Ideas are not like physical things, they cannot be subject to property rights. Ideas or information, or
recipes or patterns are a non-scarce and non-rivalrous resource. It means that they do not run out, and
that they do not conflict when multiple people use them. When I copy an idea for another person, I dont
lose my idea. I still have my idea I can still use it. Even if I copied it a trillion times, there would still be ample
left over. In fact if everyone on this planet decided to use the same idea at exactly the same time, it would
STILL not prevent the original author from doing the same. This is the miracle of ideas. In other words, my
use of a piece of information does not conflict with your use. We can both use it at the same time. Therefore
it makes no sense to implement property rights over that which is non-exclusive. (i.e. It's trying to solve a
problem that doesn't exist. It is also dangerous because they are actually rewriting physical property laws to
achieve 'intellectual property' law. See [1]) Bookmark needed to
http://web.archive.org/web/20121101232454/http://wiki.fuwanovel.org/index.php/Copyright_is_Not_a_Natur
al_Inalienable_Human_Right

On the contrary, physical things are not like that. If I take your bicycle, you dont have it anymore. If there is
two of us, my use of the bicycle denies your use of the bicycle. If I drank the cup of milk, you cant drink it
anymore. Physical goods are exclusive, scarce and rivalrous. That is why we assign owners to physical
things so that we don't have to kill each other over every piece of bread.

Information cannot be property. COPIES can be property

The only intellectual property one can own... are called Secrets. I can claim to own the ideas floating in
my brain or, I can claim to own secrets. i.e. anything that has been authored, but Not shown to anyone (for
example, a personal diary that has not been shown to anyone). Now the closest thing to a theft of
intellectual property, would be if someone broke into your house, opened your drawer, copied your diary and
then ran out with the copy. That would be like theft. So if they did that to the manuscript you were writing for
your next book, then indeed it would be a sort of theft. But if the author releases the manuscript to the public
of his own volition, then it becomes the possession of everybody. He would still have his manuscript, he did
not lose his work, but so does everyone else. Hence he becomes the shared-possessor of it with everybody
else who has it. It matters not what I do to my copy of the purchase, it does not affect the author's copy. I
can upgrade my copy to version 2.0, and yet the author's copy will still be at 1.0. That is why ideas,
information, cannot be property. COPIES can be property. But not the piece of information itself because
there is no conflict in the use of information. "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all
others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea..." - Thomas Jefferson.

When we assemble a piece of information, it is our exclusive

right to benefit from it in whichever way we choose.

We can release it into the public for free (if we want to), we can sell it, or we can not divulge it at all, keep it
for personal use. But as soon as it is divulged into the public (through whatever means), it is up to the
acquirers or purchasers for what they want to do with it because it has become their property.

Can we prevent our customers from making further copies of the pictures we've sold to them? Why should I
have the right to veto what others can and cannot do with their own property? Can I force my audience of a
thousand from re-telling the stories I have told them? Wouldnt such an ability obviously be a breach of their
freedom of expression?

Readers dont expect artists to work for free, but they expect to be free to share and build upon the work
you have sold to them. Notice I made a very important distinction! Id also expect to be free to share and
build upon any articles I have paid the writer to write for me. I certainly dont expect him to write for me for
free.

See: RODERICK T. LONG: OWNING IDEAS MEANS OWNING PEOPLE

How Then Should Fan Translators Respond to Cease & Desist

Requests?
Let me say briefly why I dont regard intellectual property as a legitimate form of property. The
objects of ownership in the case of intellectual property are supposed to be abstract objects;
but what does ownership over an abstract object amount to? Ownership is supposed to solve
conflicts over use, but there cannot literally be conflicts over the use of abstract objects; I dont
have to wait until youre done thinking the Pythagorean theorem before I can start thinking it.
Putative conflicts over the use of abstract objects are always really conflicts over the concrete
items in which those abstract objects are embodied. An abstract object, such as a design for a
new kind of mousetrap, gets its foothold in concrete reality only by being embodied in, say, a
mind that is thinking of it, or a sheet of paper that describes it, or an actual mousetrap built in
accordance with it. But if those concrete objects are already owned the mind by the person
whose mind it is, the paper and the mousetrap by whoever made or bought them then the
question of who has rights over those things is already settled, and there can be no further
question of who owns the design itself. If the originator of the design were to claim exclusive
rights over it, he or she would thereby be claiming, in practice, the right to control someone
 elses property someone elses individual mind or individual sheet of paper or individual
mousetrap. Intellectual property is thus essentially a claim of ownership over other people and
the products of other peoples labor, and so is necessarily illegitimate; in forbidding the free
circulation of ideas it constitutes a form of censorship as well. - RODERICK T. LONG [2]

Information, once acquired, becomes a part of the acquirer in the same way a student has learnt from her
teacher. As soon as you've read me a poem, I know the poem now. I've learned it. The words are stuck in
my head. Not only can I not give it back, I can't even give it back if I wanted to. I can less give it back to you
than you can drill into my brain and retrieve it. The amount of time or money it took you to compose the
poem is irrelevant. To stop people from expressing themselves through the ideas you've assembled, Keep
them a Secret! Don't read your poem out. Don't even sell it to others. Second point: Nowhere does that
poem exist in the physical world. Information exists only inside people's heads. We say that the poem can
be INSTANTIATED in the physical world, say... it's written on a piece of paper and we call that a physical
copy. But instantiating it doesn't cause it to cease being information! It is STILL information. It exists
ONLY inside people's heads. Any number of human beings can have the idea in their heads and instantiate
it onto paper. You can own the piece of paper that has the poem on it, but you cannot literally own the poem
itself. How can you own the way you say something? As soon as you've said it, you've carved it onto the
other guy's head! And it is the same with images, same with melodies, same with text. They are information
or ideas, not physical objects.

Art is Speech. Artistic expressions are just a special form of communication. You sing a song to me, I
can sing that song to another. I can even alter the words but recycle the melody. Now I have a new song.
And that is how culture was for hundreds of thousands of years until the development of mass-media in
20th century. When you give a speech to me, I can recite it and give it to another. I can even mix the speech
with a bit of my own views and turn it into a new speech and then deliver that. What you can't do is, you
can't sing me a song and tell me I can't mix yours into a new song. Those words and those melodies are
now mine. To use force to prevent people from transforming or building upon cultural works that have been
published, is to inhibit their Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression. You are inhibiting other people
from exercising their own liberty.

See: Everything is a Remix by Kirby Ferguson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc

Copyright on the other hand, is the permission to employ the State's arm of coercion to veto what
others can and cannot do with a piece of information AFTER you've sold it (the ability to deny other
people's liberty). Copyright says not only can you not repeat this information, you cannot even say
something similar to it. In fact, it prevents Anyone in the World from saying anything even SIMILAR to
it, even if they have never-experienced-your-work before. That is why intellectual property law is the Use of
Force to partly enslave other people's use of their own hands, their own legs and their own brains in order
to help some people make money (and is therefore illegitimate).

When you fan translate, you are exercising your Freedom of Expression. A Cease & Desist is merely a
threat of violence telling you to stop exercising your liberty so that they can profit off your resulting
incapacitation. (Remember, law is coercion. It is always violence and ultimately violence) OR, a threat of
violence to stop you from saying what they don't want you to say (e.g. they don't like how you translated that
line therefore C&D). C&D is immoral. It is insulting, it is lawlessness & it is boorish, and there is no moral
reason why you need to give in to a C&D.

Japanese companies rarely rarely enter civil cases (they consider it a meiwaku). They are even more
unlikely to sue fans in the West and they are even EVEN more unlikely to sue because they work in the
porn industry. (which means they need to keep a low profile) That is why if you have been C&D'd, there is
nothing to be afraid of. (Just ignore it. Don't reply, don't announce it) If you are afraid of law suits, then you
must also be afraid of being struck by lightning.

Your holding of a copyright over a certain work isnt about money at all. It is about control. You want to control my

use of what you have claimed to be your work. You want to control who I show it to, if anyone. You want to control

my use of the expressions or ideas for the purposes of analysis or criticism. (in otherwords) You want to force

me to ensure that I do not quote your words out of context. When I copy your work without authorization, you

have lost all of this. But where we disagree is whether you had any of this in the first place. And where I deeply

disagree is in your assertion that it is somehow unethical (much less something that should be a criminal offense)

for me to disrupt your control over me. Quite the contrary: I allege that it is inherently dishonest, unethical, and

should be illegal, for you to assert that you can control me in any of these ways. - STEPHEN DOWNES

Final Word
Lastly I just want to say that people who fan translate are spreading and propagating culture across the
world, satisfying the curiosity of so many, bringing hope to so many who have lost hope, making people's
lives so much better everywhere, and is the very driving force behind why we are seeing this utter flowering
of culture on the internet, and these people they do it without even being paid a cent! That is why do not be
ashamed. Don't apologize for making society a better place. Don't even cave in to the demands of
Japanese companies. Exercise 'Intellectual Disobedience'. Fan translation is already noble and justified.

Of course I believe in Freedom! I just want to know what Im allowed to do.

If youre asking that question, youve already lost.

Copyright is a Privilege
Introduction
When we are thinking of copyright, the rational thing to do is to decide the moral issues first and then not
to even look at the economic possibilities that might exist if we did not make the moral choices. We do this
in respect of murder, theft, slavery, racism etc. No one (I hope) is going to suggest that these things are OK
just because there might be some economic benefits.

The key point here is that copyright is not one of those things. I have studied the arguments that were made
in favour of copyright when it was first proposed and the argument that copyright was a moral right
belonging to the author only emerged gradually after copyright already existed. The earliest arguments for
copyright were made on the basis that it would allow effective censorship and that it would guarantee the
accuracy of printed works. Later the idea emerged that a temporary monopoly would encourage authors to
produce more work. This concept found its way into the title of the Statute of Anne and into the US
constitution. However it is important to note that this argument I just mentioned, which was the mechanism
by which modern copyright first arrived, is itself an economic argument not a moral one.

Morally one could argue against it as many do. But these arguments are irrelevant. Copyright is a type of
industry regulation to promote the public good, not the financial well-being of one group of constituents in
society we call Authors.

The Purpose of Copyright

US Congresss protection of copyrights is not a special private benefit, but is meant to achieve an
important public interest: to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision
of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited
period of exclusive control has expired.

Human beings have incredibly short memories. In 1974 the overwhelming majority of commercially
published works in the US was public domain. In order to receive the privilege of copyright, you must show
that you will be distributing copies, you must pay a fee, your copies must be marked with a copyright notice.
Notice of copyright - the familiar C-in-a-circle, along with the name of the copyright holder, the date first
published, when the copyright will expire, to whom you must address to request permission and contact
details. Failing to provide an accurate notice causes you to LOSE YOUR COPYRIGHT. It turns out the vast
majority of publishers in the 70s didn't care to register copyright. They simply didn't care for it.
[Source:Jessica Litman - Sharing & Stealing] .
Copyright Does Not Exist For The Artist
We are told, "Copyright is very important to Artists and Authors. Without it, they will not be able to make a
living!"
Irrelevant. Copyright does not even exist to help Artists make a living. It is a type of industry regulation to
encourage LEARNING. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, the purpose of
copyright is To promote the Progress of Learning and useful Arts. Copyright is essentially a limited time
privilege given to authors to incentivize more creation (and also more copies!) because the theory
underlying the system is that a rich public domain was essential to the progress of knowledge. By offering
copyright for a limited time to authors who distributed their works to the public, copyright bribed them to
generate material for the public domain.

That is why in the UK, copyright law was invented as An Act for the Encouragement of Learning", Statute of
Anne 1709. The pretext for copyright continues into the present: US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor (Feist) says, The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but [t]o
promote the Progress of 'Learning' and useful Arts." The WIPO website says its objective is, "to promote
innovation and creativity for the economic, social and cultural development of all countries... (through
copyright & patents)". [Also see: [1]]

US Congress: The granting of such exclusive rights [copyrights] under the proper terms and conditions,
cofers a benefit upon the public that outweighs the evils of the temporary monopoly.

That is why any legitimate conversation about copyright law must revolve around how to best leverage its
use to encourage the widest diversity of authors to craft the widest diversity of works to be distributed to the
largest number of people so that society can make free and unfettered use of it.

The Purpose of Copyright - Professor Lydia Pallas Loren

Copyright permeates our lives and yet, despite its impact on our lives, relatively few people, including
lawyers, have sufficient knowledge or understanding of what copyright is. And far too many people,
including lawyers, have major misconceptions concerning copyright. These misconceptions are causing a
dangerous shift in copyright protection, a shift that threatens the advancement of knowledge and learning in
this country. This shift that we are experiencing in copyright law reflects a move away from viewing
copyright as a monopoly that the public is willing to tolerate (in order to encourage innovation and creation
of new works) to viewing copyright as a significant asset to this country's economy. http://open-
spaces.com/article-v2n1-loren.php

Copyright is Not a Natural Inalienable Human Right

Why is Copyright not a Natural Human Right?
When people hear the word 'Copyright', they assume that it is the right to copy, that the author is born
with a right to prohibit copies of their published works and that pirates are trampling it into non-existence......
yet if it is their right, it must be strange that they can sell it or sign it away??

Nowadays it is almost impossible to express the definition of rights without qualifying it as a natural right
first. There are two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. As everyone should know, natural rights
are not created we are born with them. Privileges are created through the derogation of the rights we
already have. These privileges are like rights, but they are created through legislation, hence lawyers prefer
to term them legally granted rights, legal rights, or simply rights. Because (thanks largely to copyright
lawyers) the latter usage has now almost superseded the original meaning of right (much to copyright
holders delight), too many people use the word right interchangeably without realising that right qua
privilege is completely antagonistic to right qua right!

A rightsholder is really just an euphemistic term for someone who is privileged with the suspension of
YOUR rights for the commercial exploitation thereof. Copyright is not an inherent natural right. It is the
suspension of everyone's inalienable right to copy (which they were born with), to be held by exclusion in
the hands of the 'copyright holder' for their commercial exploitation. That is why copyright is not owned, it is
held. They HOLD your right to copy.

Why is Copyright not a Natural Human Right?

Copyright grants its holder certain rights.

What rights does copyright grant to the holder?

The right to produce copies or reproductions?

No, the holder already can do that. He does not need the government to tell him that he can.

The right to make adaptations and derivative works.

No, again the holder already can do that.

The right to perform or display the work publicly?

Again, this isnt a right being granted to the holder, he is permitted to perform the work as he
sees fit. None of these rights are granted to the holder by copyright law; they exist
independently. What copyright law does is take away the rights of everyone else to do these
things

What is a Natural Right?

There are two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights - however they are antagonistic opposites!

A right is only a right if, as with the rights to life, liberty, and property, you can rightfully use necessary and
sufficient force to defend yourself against those who interfere with your exercise of that right. A right is no
right at all if it is granted to you by the benevolence of your masters. The US Declaration of
Independence has an excellent reference to these natural rights:

This has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language",[5] containing
"the most potent and consequential words in American history."[6] The passage came to
represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably
promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his
political philosophy, and argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which
the United States Constitution should be interpreted.[7] It has inspired work for the rights of
marginalized people throughout the world." - Wikipedia, US Declaration of
Independence

It is Not That People Abuse Copyright, But That Copyright

Abuses People.
What we call copyright is really an 18th century privilege. It was granted by Queen Anne in her statute of
1709 for the ulterior benefit of the crown and its Stationers Company. Copyright annuls everyone else's
natural right to copy and reserves this for a minority, the 'copyright holders'. The reason why this is wrong is
explained by Thomas Paine, founding father of the US, "Human rights originate in Nature, thus, rights
cannot be granted via political charter, because that implies that rights are legally revocable, hence, would
be privileges: It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect
that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights,
in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few... They... consequently are instruments
of injustice ... The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and
sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode
in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist." -
Thomas Paine, [Right of Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man] In other words, State granted
legal rights work by taking away the human rights of everyone else. Intellectual property law can only be
achieved by rewriting physical property laws. They consequently are instruments of injustice because they
allow some people to control the physical property of others.

Copyright is the limited time, limited suspension of the age old

practice of sharing and copying. The reason they give is it's
to promote 'Learning'.
US Congress: The granting of such exclusive rights [copyrights] under the proper terms and
conditions, cofers a benefit upon the public that outweighs the evils of the temporary monopoly.

The ability to employ the State's arm of coercion to veto what your own customers can and cannot do
with pieces of information you have sold to them is not a right.

Frdric Bastiat: The Law

It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education,
our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free
exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these
same rights by any other person. - This is from Bastiats The Law, one of the great political essays to
emerge from the whole Continental world of the 19th century.

The purpose of government is to secure our rights, not rewrite them, not destroy them. You have the
natural human right to COPY. You have the natural human right to create fan translations. It is a privilege
(pretending to be a right) granted by the State that says otherwise. Human rights precede law. See:
Questioning Copyright by Crosbie Fitch.

There is A Priori Nothing Wrong With Infringing Copyright

That is why there is nothing a priori WRONG with infringing copyright. You are exercising your own natural
right to copy. Copyright is a privilege that means the holder has been given the ability to suspend your right
to copy IF THEY WANT TO (but in exchange they pay the hefty attorney fees). If the holder has no issue
with an infringement of their privilege then they simply do nothing, (e.g. if they really like what someone has
done with their work.) This is why copyright infringement is not wrong, not even illegal. Unfortunately, the
copyright cartel has hyped up infringement so much (they now class it as a cybercrime) that everyone now
assumes that all copyright infringement is WRONG a violation of a poor starving artists human right.
Copyright is not a human right. I will tell you what is a human right. Freedom of Expression is a human
right. You have a natural right to express yourself through whatever cultural works that has been
sold/published into the world.