Does Copyright Deter Social Movements?

Daniel- I understand your point, and I don't actually disagree, at least as to the specific situation you seem to be envisioning. But it seems to me your critique applies only to the most obvious use of copyright to stop social movement--- a mustachioed villian swooping in, withdrawing his precious copyrighted work from use by a social movement in order to slow it down or stop it. The John McCain? reference is exactly this sort of "obvious" problem--- that is, a song or other copyrighted work is already being used by a "social movement," and withdrawing might conceivably have some effect on the efficacy of that movement. I agree with you that, in this instance, removing the ability to use a copyrighted work is a pretty ham-handed way of stopping the machine.

But I don't think the obvious is really Justin's point. I think (and correct me if I've misread you, Justin) the more important part of this argument rests on the invisible loss--- the movements that never happen or those that fail because of what they are unable to take from the culture around them.

I've noted to Justin offline that the weakest part of his argument is that he hasn't quite proved his point that music, particularly familiar music, which draws on lyrical or musical themes recognizable to a population, can be an agent for social change. If you spend your Friday nights like I sometimes do, hanging out at Woody Guthrie sing-a-longs (or, if, like Justin, your wife is the archivist at the Woody Guthrie Foundation's archives), that point is evident; knowing about black slave songs, the folk movement and other rebellions and revolutions based around music is what enables one to accept the second part of the argument. But if you don't know, then it's easy, I think, to miss the subtler point, which is that part of the success of early social and musical social movements is owed to the less restrictive copyright, particularly in terms of length (see my comment above). They were able to access the familiar, to speak to people in a language they understood, and their movements were able to succeed thereby. In a world where that doesn't happen because of copyright, there is an inhibition on social movements, both nascent and existent, an inhibition which doesn't depend on a few nefarious copyright owners clumsily trying to put down change.

-- DanaDelger - 11 Mar 2009