Neil Turkewitz of the RIAA sent an email commenting on the current obsessing about economic development and IP:

I submit that there is one dominant, if unexpressed, reason for the inability of developing countries to successfully compete in "cultural trade." If private capital is not employed in the development and distribution of cultural productions, then cultural production is silenced. Private capital knows no politics (or geographical boundaries for that matter)--only the pursuit of profits. Where there is no realistic possibility of achieving profitability because of the lack of effective copyright protection, there is no investment.

This calls to mind (well, to my mind) an excerpt from an article that I wrote some time ago (copyright and the public interest). I hope that you enjoy it.

Neil

That society has a manifest interest in ensuring the viability of copyright protection is well demonstrated in the case of developing countries. In many developing countries, the marketplace has been so dominated by piracy that there is no viable mechanism for private capital to be employed in facilitating the creation and distribution of creative works.. In such instances—i.e. where copyright protection is not effectively introduced and maintained in law and in practice, the creative community is silenced. Communities throughout the globe—particularly in parts of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, bear silent witness to the devastating impact that lack of effective copyright protection have on the ability to create. Where there is no financial incentive for the creation and distribution of cultural materials, the distribution of local cultural materials ceases, much to the detriment of society, as well as to the putative creators who are foreclosed from adding their voices to the cultural mix.

It is essential that policy makers keep in mind that the copyright system replaced private patronage as the mechanism for permitting creators to live through their craft. Do we really want to return this function to the hands of the private elite—or worse yet allow governments to be the sole determining factor in making decisions about cultural production? By permitting creative genius to be fuelled by market forces, we unleash the cultural power and potential of the public at large, freeing creative impulses from the tyranny of government control and making creative works accessible to the public at large. While the copyright system carries with it the potential for abuse, it remains by far the most powerful tool for fostering creativity and democratizing cultural production and access thereto.

It is also critical that we create a greater awareness that copyright is, after all, about the protection of the individual and some aspect of the creator's personality. Copyright protection, while it may serve the interests of multinationals, is what permits individuals to devote their lives to the creation of original materials, and serves as a critical catalyst for the preservation and growth of cultural identity. Societal understanding of this more complete and complicated picture of the objectives and functioning of the copyright system is critical in ensuring that policy decisions derive from reason rather than rhetoric, and that the public enjoys a greater appreciation for a dynamic that is not immediately discernible from the outside.

posted by James DeLong @ 3:26 PM | International

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