Twitter is down for maintenance again, that god-damn, good-for-nothin’… alright, my anger doesn’t run that deep (I’m sorry, I love you). It’s still worrisome. Imagine if MySpace were offline for the same amount of time per day — thousands of naive little teenagers would twitch and cry and approach that terrible brink that we now term “emo.” Indeed, the scale is much smaller, but the results are equally devastating. I can’t imagine what they’re doing to the API that requires the causing of so much pain and detachment among their users. Example: what am I to do, now that my tweets are hours and hours late? I could possibly turn into a wailing lemonade kiosk — probably not, but the possibility is there regardless. A word to you, Obvious: lemonade kiosks are known for their savagery and inhuman strength. And their fangs. Their savage, wailing fangs.

Of course, that apocalypse is already in motion. That which keeps this violent lemonade kiosk rolling towards our eventual destruction is the same as that which has kept the e-Illuminati (that would be you; you may now clap and cheer) on their toes for the past week. It’s called perpetual copyright, thought up by a silly man named Mark Halperin. In his New York Times Op. Ed. article entitled “A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?”, Halperin compares intellectual property — that is, ideas — to physical property — billion-dollar tangerines, and explores the virtues — indeed, there are few — of making the ownership of intellectual and physical property … identical. A copyright would never expire, the public domain would be swept out of the water, and all this because “… ideas are immaterial to the question of copyright”?

Copyright, as the opposition argues is nothing more than a reward for a promotion of intellectual works. What Helprin, ideally wants, is for a work to continue to provide for its creator and his family and his descendants, and for the copyright of that work to remain with its creator for all time. He argues the following:

Would it not be just and fair for those who try to extract a living from the uncertain arts of writing and composing to be freed from a form of confiscation not visited upon anyone else?

This “confiscation” he refers to is the transfer of work, 70 years after the death of its creator (in the United States), into the public domain where it may be reprinted or compiled freely by the general public; it is possible to make a profit off of these works. To this, the “Against Perpetual Copyright” wiki replies:

Copyright terms are already set at longer than the expected lifespan of the author in the US, and to outlive the author by 70 years in jurisdictions such as the EU. Either model provides ample time in which the typical author can (if sufficiently successful) leverage his copyright to support himself, his children, and even his grandchildren into adulthood. If an author cannot “extract a living” while he is alive, how does making copyright terms last a thousand more years allow the author to “extract a living” when he is long-since dead?

The argument, in essence, retreats to a simple battle between money and glory, and which better serves the public good. There is no intellect lost by the transfer of works into the public domain; authors and artists are still granted credit for their respective works. There is, however, as Halperin seeks to constantly argue, no money gained by the estates of these authors and artists. A perpetual copyright is nothing more than a greedy enterprise. As the wiki mentions, forcing would-be creators to request permission from a barely-existent family tree for say, derivative works of The Prince by Niccoló Machiavelli discourages the production of new works of art and literature. It effectively destroys the ability of a civilization to participate in its own enlightenment. “[T]he overall impact on the Public Good,” the wiki summarizes, “would be much more negative than whatever positive bonus comes from paying the thousandth generation of some author’s descendants.”

I think Mark Halperin could use some lemonade, don’t you?

Read 6 comments (Leave a comment?)

Henry said:

Twitter has been down frequently due to their inability to scale (grow a network to match an increasing load) fast enough to handle the growing influx of users.

The site is programmed in Ruby on Rails, and I’ve heard that the only way you can really scale a site running on it is by adding more servers to your processing cluster.

A new company like Twitter only has so much they can spend on new technology, and clearly there’s a disconnect when it comes to their profit (if any) and expenses.

Posted on May 22, 2007 3:01 PM; Permalink

Matt said:

Copyrights already last way too long in the US. Patents only last for 20 years!

No one becomes a musician or artist to get rich. There are way easier ways to get rich. Just go to business school.

Posted on May 23, 2007 9:33 AM; Permalink

Matt said:

Your comments don’t like me.

Anyway a perpetual copyright is retarded. Patents only last 20 years and you have to pay the patent office to keep it lasting that long After which anyone can copy your invention and sell it. It’s retarded to expect to make money forever off of work you did 40 years ago. How about I just do one design job and expect the client to pay me for the rest of eternity? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to fly.

Posted on May 25, 2007 12:16 PM; Permalink

Jorge Quinteros said:

First time reader here and I like what I’ve seen. Nice content and I’m enjoying the Minimalism throughout the site.

Posted on June 2, 2007 4:41 PM; Permalink

Zachary said:

This makes me remember when I was really young, and everyone always had their OWN possessions, and if you ask to have one, the answer was an automatic “No, it’s mine!” I figured out this typically prevents any transfer of materials or playthings, and that was lame. I also remember how my brother never wanted to sell or trash any of his toys, and that made things that might be used by someone else just sit on a shelf and collect dust. I think somebody needs to bitch slap Helprin, because nothing good can come from holding on to old things. The authors should be proud of their accomplishment, and their CONTRIBUTION to the future of society, an intellectual advancement to spur progress and nurture the growth of the human race. I agree with you, copyrights shouldn’t last forever, and the satisfaction of helping the world grow is in no way a confiscation.

I really like your site, its very nicely and artful, and is much easier on the eyes then the plain, noncreative sites that litter the web. Keep up the good work!

Posted on June 4, 2007 3:02 AM; Permalink

Ranjani said:

Hey, thank you guys! I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to your comments earlier — Movable Type died on me, but it’s all back now!

Zachary: I very much agree that the contribution to society far outweighs the monetary rewards. Also, thank you :)

Matt: Exactly! The idea is ridiculous in the grand scheme of things! It’s an endless funnel of money.

Jorge: Thanks! I’m a fan of yours as well. I meant to compliment you on that AIDS Walk. It was incredibly awesome for you to participate :D

Posted on June 4, 2007 10:16 PM; Permalink