An Interesting Copyright Project

My admiration goes out to Jason Rohrer, author of a new open source project called Monolith. According to Jason, Monolith is:

Monolith is a simple tool that takes two arbitrary binary files (called a Basis file and an Element file) and "munges" them together to produce a Mono binary file (with a .mono extension). Monolith can also reconstruct an Element file from a Basis file and a Mono file.

"So" you may say? Well, after links to download the Monolith alpha version, Jason spends the rest of the web page exploring the copyright implications of his self-admitted "philosophical experiment." Basically, he is of the opinion (and he makes an interesting and coherent argument) that if one uses public domain files as the "basis" of the Monolith-ic combination of files, the resulting file is also public domain (including any copyrighted file used as the "element" file). That means that you could share both the Basis and Monolith file freely (and more importantly, legally), and later use the Monolith program to reconstruct the copyrighted file in your own home. Thus, you side-step any copyright or file-sharing legal issues and return the issue of "home taping" back into the unenforceable, private sphere where it lived prior to our discovery of Napster.

This is an informed and interesting take on the issues of copyright in general and music copyright in particular. Of course, I have no doubt that should his argument prove legal, you'll soon see an expansion of the DMCA to outlaw the "munging" of files. But the most interesting part of his argument is that copyright is an analog phenomenon. To again quote Mr. Rohrer:

Copyrightable entities are inherently analog. Music, painting, sculpture, writing---all of these must be presented in the physical realm to be consumed by a human audience. Even mediums that are always created and represented digitally, such as digital photography, must be translated into the physical realm (for example, into a lighted display on an LCD monitor) to be consumed. The bits (the "ones and zeros") used in the representation mean nothing to us by themselves---we cannot experience or otherwise consume them.

Is this necessarily true? Does that mean that the copyright only becomes "real" when something is viewed, read, or experienced? And does this mean that all I have to do is change the digital representation of content (through Monolith, encryption, or similar processes). To circumvent a century of copyright protections? Man, I'm glad I don't work for the RIAA; this guy alone would be giving me a 3-Tylenol-headache...

Day Later Postscript

I let the Monolith project wander around in my head all yesterday, knowing that something about the comparison between the program and general encryption bugged me. Then this morning I remembered that one of the newer anti-terrorism laws (I believe it was part of the Patriot Act, but it could be something else) made it illegal to use encryption to hide or abet illegal activities (basically, if you're a terrorist or a Mafia member using encryption to ply your trade, the use of encryption is illegal). Now this law has always caused me to be suspicious - if someone is doing something nefarious, go get them for those actions, not the use of encryption. But it strikes me that Monolith, being very similar to encryption, might fall within this same general heading - the obfuscation of a file (music file) to commit an illegal act (home taping of copyrighted material). Thus the user may still be breaking a law, just a different one... It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. But for now, I'm watching a Congressional Hearing on Intellectual Property on C-SPAN, so stay tuned...

The Death of Photography?

A few interesting announcements have bounced across my screen over the last few days concerning the future of Photography. The first of these was the rumor that Pentax will leave the traditional camera market for digital-only photography products. This immediately made me sad; my first serious camera was the trusty, if archaic, Pentax K-1000, a sturdy and simple SLR camera that for decades enabled broke art students to buy a servicable 35mm camera. Although discontinued, I know that I can still use this workhorse for my own work, slides, and other 35mm needs. So I was sad to think that this "Big 5" camera maker might leave the business.

And yet I still have great hope for the future of the photograph. For example, here is a snippet from an interview with Derrick Story, author of the new Digital Photo Hacks from O'Reilly Publishing:

Kathryn Barrett: Now that digital cameras are outselling film cameras, what sort of effect will this have on the state of photography? And what about the computer side of the equation? If computers are necessary, could that hurt widespread adoption?

Derrick Story : I think photography is on the rise. It's so instantaneous. You take a picture with your digicam or camera phone, and then you look at it. "Hey, that's great; I'll keep it," or "OMG I look I've just been beat with an ugly stick; trash that picture now!" It all happens within a matter of seconds.

You don't need a computer for digital photography, although I find them quite helpful. But for example, my sister takes photos, puts the memory card directly into a printer, outputs a few snapshots, then files the card away. Memory cards are cheap enough where you can do that if you want. I can't get her to return my email, but she is totally digital when it comes to photography.

In general, we don't write letters anymore, we hardly know our family history, we don't sit around the dinner table and tell stories, but we do like to take pictures. And thanks to the metadata embedded in the files, those pictures are our living history. Photography is going to become more ubiquitous than ever before.

Pictures as living history - this is both an exciting and frightening time to be a visual artist in general and one who deals with photography in particular. Not since the invention of the Brownie Camera has the cutting edge of photographic technology been easily available to the public at large. Can we survive this onslaught of photos now beginning to crest? Is there room for a professional image maker when everyone can make images at a whim? What is the role of a visual artist when everyone is already capturing their own "living history?" But this blog entry is getting long, so more on this later...