counsel of google presents his thoughts on the current state of copyright law. the author argues that today's copyright laws are outdated because of ever changing technologies. and contends that future laws should balancing the furthering of creative pursuits. this is about an hour.

>> thanks, everybody, for joining us. i'm honored to have today for the conversation about his latest book. william patrick known to us as google as bill. who serves as a senior copyright counsel at googling. and had a copyright scholar, a copyright lawyer, and as one of the authors, as one of the leading treaties on copyright law on copyright. thanks very much for joining us today. >> guest: thanks for having me. my mother wanted me to keep a job. >> host: low and behold. it worked out in the end. thank you for talking about your new boom. it came out a few months ago. >> yes. >> host: we'll have a conversation here. we have questions we'll take

some questions from the audience. i can so you you ask a question to wait for the mike so we have that on the table. so, as i was reading your book, bill, i couldn't help i was feel i was reading. it's almost like it was a sportability. n't. and yet is leaply unhip with the direction the managers had been taking it. what do you think about that? how far astray do you think things have gotten. have you given up hope? >> host: >> guest: it's like a favorite aunt or uncle who's always been a bit goofy, maybe creative, never as creative as they think they are. and so you have a good time. and then all the sudden, after awhile, thicks take a hard turn. it's --

you're a bit surprised by that. and you try to work things out so you can get back to being the nice goofy person you were before. >> host: you're saying the book is like an interenergy for conk l copyright. >> guest: right. being within the family. the opportunity for years. i enjoy waste the time. >> host: you care about some things. and you. ed to work out well. it's not let, you can either shut up or in this case, you shouldn't complain about it. you don't like the way it's going. and you probably should say something and try and point out wayings to so that your favorite aunt or uncle can be goofy again and not such a difficult directive person. >> guest: with that, let's start with what you view of the afflictions of copy right. the way copyright has gone a bit off the rails in recent years. what would you say are sort of

your top three ills that you think need fixing? glg right. not the ten plagues the pass over coming soon. the three things afflictions. right. just in the first born. that sort of thing. one would be probably all of the rhetoric that used about what copyright can do, should do, is doing, and so the inability to get past that. the inability to have a rational discussion about where we. want copyright to be. the second affliction would be also too many policy makers believe it. they believe all of the things that are said. if you read some of the things that are are said, copyrights supposedly can do everything but cure the sick and take care of global warming.

once something can do something like ha, then everyone wants to sign on. if it can't do those things and people get disappointed. it's surprising the people believe it can do all of those things. the one thing would be -- the copyright it's been a tread issue. it's always been a trade issue in some ways. didn't protect english works for the national 100 years. it was not national trade policy not to not pay english authors. what happened since at least the mid '70s. it became part trade agreements and benefits for providing adequate effective protection to u.s. works. and it's become rigid. first of all, ain't democratic as the demonstration in the protest act have pointed out. antidemocratic way to trade officials doing it. once you do it, then it becomes

rigid and you can't go back. unless youing a regrate the trade agreement. the ideal world, policy makers are things terrific like we are at google. figure out what you want to do. you have the d.a. too to support it. if it doesn't work, you constantly reintegrate until you get it right. it's a logical, radiological way to do things. when things become put into trade agreements, you know, you don't have that flexibility anymore. you don't have the choice offing a regrating the trade agreement or not. and not the local listing that don't work. so i'll give you an camp. this is one certainly has defied the lots of good data on. what's the appropriate length of copyright and back in 1998, when we extended it twenty more years, did the twenty years lead

to anymore works being created? that was the argument. the argument was, if we extend the copyright twenty more years. it's going make people create things they wouldn't create. that's the factual statement. it's one that you should be able to apparently figure out. how and did really great work in figuring that out. and, you know, the answer is no. it's not going to lead to the creation of anymore booked at all. it hasn't. >> host: it struck me the motion you tell the author today 70 years after you die you'll feel invested. it's hard to see that has being highly motivated in the moment. >> guest: right. here's the fact situation. 1998 the policy maker. the exiging term with copyright, your life plus fifty more years. all right, the argument is no, we need to insent incentivize

people more. if you again twenty more years, you're going create more twenty years. it is tacked into the end. talking about somebody say in 2012, sitting around saying, well what do i do today? do i write another book or take the trash out or find some other way to make money. in figuring that incenttive saying how long will the copyright last? it last for my life and i can expect to live 80 when i'm 30. it's 50 more years. that's 100 years. you sit around and say that's not long enough. i'm going do something else you know, more years on the line and fifty more after? that's not a sufficient. it's got to be 70 years after i'm dead 120 years. suddenly realized what you said

a minute ago copyright can cure everything except for global warming. we need to talk about whether it can cure global warming. gloig gloig if we look at the another way. the argument is no, you're making a silly case. the real case is that in 2012, a publisher is going to give you more money for that work based upon the lasting 70 years after that than fifty. because you don't know whether you're going die. the publishing allegedly will live forever. right now the present value is going to be more because we're going give you more. that's not true either. if you talk to publishers. book publishers is going give you more money today rather than 10 10-years. we talk about 120 year are copyright rather than 100 copyright. most work don't have any market.

to have a market it's not more than a year or two years or three years. in my case, a few weeks. >> host: yeah. buy it now! >> guest: buy it now. >> host: move back to the first things you mentioned with copyright. namely what you view as the unrealist rhetoric and the fact that politician makers seem to accept it. one the main themes you decry is the notion. the truth is often you hear it often at the heart of the base of copyright. the notion that copyright law is necessary for create an inventive for creative. s that a central story that copyright supporters tell. and you really take that notion to task. what's your sense of why that's actually overselling what copyright can deliver? >> guest: if i can go back to your sports metaphor. liking the sports team whether

it's 49ers. i grew up in connecticut. i'm a 49ers fan. you interview the losing coach. they say things like well, we're going get back to basics. running the ball, throwing the ball, good defense. i think well, aren't you supposed to be doing that anyway. you're going get back to the basics. if you're going apply that to the copyright. what are the basics. what do we want it to do. the goal is not to have laws. >> host: don't tell politicians. >> guest: my father, who is really conservative guy was deeply disappointed in me because he thought i was going to work for, you know, an organization that didn't do upstanding good things. and passed too many laws, and

they were there to pass lawyers. laws. that was their product. if you're going do the copyright stuff, new law, you have to make sure you areal three others. otherwise don't give. don't give us more laws. if you take approach that the law is actually a tool not of itself. it's a tool to do things hopefully that only law can do. i think we want laws to do that laws aren't supposed to do. things that are business problems, solutions to business problems. are business problems. if you have a business problem, the way to handle that is to have a better business problem and not have a law. that's important a bad business model. if you look at one of the basics of copyrights, and running, throwing, good defense. find out what's that's supposed

to be for copyright. people say lots of things. one of the embarrassing things nobody can agree what copyright is supposed to do. that makes rational policy making difficult. you can't drew agree what it's supposed to do. it would be nice for everyone to agree on what it's supposed to do. you can't test that. you can't figure out how to works if you can't agree what it's supposed to do. one of the things people say it's suppose to do is to protect free writing and that makes sense. i think it can do that. if you have a motion picture that costs $200 billion and somebody else comes along and captures the investment on that. that's something copyright can do. that's actually stopping something. now the positive things it's supposed to do are a little bit more difficult, i think, to establish. one of which is to encourage creativity. you say the purpose of copyrights is to encourage

creativity, and we need creativity because creativity is necessary for culture and copyright necessary for culture. this is like a -- for that. we want culture, therefore we all want creativity. we need copyright for that. we are going to copyright if we don't have creativity or culture. but, you know, if you break that similar i'm not sure how it's true. i'm not actually sure that copyright causes more creative works to be creative than otherwise would. like, this is a argument. but for copyright people wouldn't write creative things. which is a different one. and so i don't know. i don't know the that end this is a question. i don't have an answer. it's adjust question. i don't know when people are creating things that they say, my goal to own a copyright. i doubt that.

and i don't -- i certainly think it's not true that as consumers we really care. now that i'm the average consumer of cop really a works. i buy thousands of dollars of sheet music and books. i have 10-year-old twins who, you know, read a lot too. but i never boughting in anything or not bought anything. i really don't care. it doesn't mean i don't care about people getting paid. i do. that's a different question. i buy things because it has value for me. and part of the value is not whether it's under copyright. i think that people create things not because they want to own a copyright, but because they want to create it, they want to make money. they want to engage in intect yule discussions with people. i'm not sure giving people longer term copyrights or stronger rights is going to

incent vise people to do things they wouldn't. it's certainly not true the copyright historically has head to more works. it historically based in the artificial saucerty and the role of copyright at least in the age log world was to make sure that thosegate keepers could control the copies and limit the number of works and prices that were out there. so i'm not sure it's true that leads to creativity. it's an important question to ask. it's an important thing to figure out why people to do stuff. >> host: i was reading the book. by that point i was struck by the notion there's two beneficiaries here may not related. son out one hand, you have the free writing question you mentioned. i talked to movie studio executives who say it may be cheap to record your own music, now days.

it may be cheap for you to write your own blog. it's not cheap to kind of special effects that draw inteem the theaters for the new transformers instawment or what have you. 0 so the question is, i really wondered are we asking too much of copyright to serve these two very different needs of communities. we need one thing to allow people to recoup $300 million investments that require thousandings of people to work together to lawfng a movie. we want copyright to encourage incentives for individual creators to write the next song or write that next book or that next blog post. is it your sense we ought to somehow have two different systems or do you think it's compatible to have copyright handle both sides? >> guest: i think there's two

sides here. when we talk about creativity here. i think we're talking about it not sense. we're talking about work that are interesting. works that have some sort of appeal, esthetic appeal, emotional appeal, something like that. it's not the sense the coil right uses the word creativity. one of the big things, one the big problems with the ailments, as you said, when policy makers talk about encouraging creativity through copyright. copyright law uses creativity in a totally different way. creativity in copyright means only that you didn't copy it from somebody else, and there's like tinny bit of something that somebody else didn't do in the same way. the reason for that, is that we don't want judges to be ash stories. we don't want judges to decide subjectively this is a creative work and this isn't. within the system of copyright,

that actually makes a lot of sense. but when you use the same word, in a cloakial sense to say you want to encourage creativity through copyright. you're using a totally different word to mean different things. under copyright we protect e-mail perhaps credit posting. we are protect documents, lawyer, underwriting. inganything that anyone creates. we do it without any formalities. to say it encourages creativity is missed the point that most works that are protect rtd not works that are creativity in colleague yalg that we're debating. it's like using -- i'll give you an camp example gloips you haven't been reading my e-mail >> guest: we wanted to protect act tech yule works. the three dimensional plans or buildings. we wanted to do it because you

had a treaty obligation to make it. you had to make the case. so hearings and i had michael graves who was at the time. had a number of famous architects come and explain why the works are creative. and you can get that. that was easy to see why they're artists like everybody else. the most actor tech yule are over semicuss come or for a lower of works. you know, it was a it was a use of creativity through famous architects to make the case why we should do a general law that applied to other works. that's where the problems are using creativity in copyright as sort of rally cry or can do something. you're using one case that maybe

easy to prove for 99 percent of the cases that have different policy issues. the second problem, is that the scope of copyright, the inventive you would need for a $300 ,000 movie define the marketplace. the stuff that we say that we want, aren't work that's do well in the marketplace. so the problem with saying the copyright can solving in. it may solve free writing problems for the expensive works, and it should. it doesn't doing anything for the 99%. personally. we would be better taking the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend and going east palo alto and having something. if we want to encourage creativity among mass of people and other people. let's spend money it do it. it's the only way it's going

happen. if we claim, don't worry. we're going give you a copyright. that's crazy. i play the base collar net. i'm trying to encourage people write more works for bass claire net. if you spend six months or a year, at the end of the time you're going have a copyright. they would laugh at me. there's other reasons for them do it copyright isn't one of them. if we want diverse cultural works we need to figure out ways outside of copyright. it's not a knock on copyright. it can do some things but others it can't do. if we fool others into thinking it can do everything, it's not. it can't. >> host: so the discussion about extending copyrightses to three dimension works. it reminds me of the -- reflects a disappointment if you

will, in policy makers who have not demanded support for expansion of copyright have not more, i guess discerning customers when it comes to proposal. in fact, you used the term in the book which i quite like. you call it lobby nomics. rather than too often are swayed by lobby. by whatever the lobby has come in and delivered. i was reading the question came to me, do you feel like fixing many of the problems in copyright require us first to fix a larger law in the political process, and if so, that's a pretty tal order. or do you think there's actually hope make progress on copyright without fixing by what is viewed by a lot of people which is a larger difficult by imperial fact driven to congress. >> i worked on capitol hill for seven years. i had, you know, some experience

with how members of congress -- and, you know, things have changed over time. but when i was working for the copyright office, there was 1989. i was on l panel in san francisco. and it was 1989, and there were a bunch of programmers who were upset about software copyright. they thought it was inappropriate. and i actually agree with them. but it was inappropriate thing. and they wanted me as member of the government to go fix it for them. and i said, you know, unless you get off my butt, i used the general word, and do something about it yourself, you know, it's not going change. i i i grew up as a child in the

'60s. in those days there were protests about stuff. i remember i went to the people -- second people's park march. this is in may of 1969. it was the first one in which at least there was when region was governor. i had him for eight oar 16 years, governor for eight years and president for eight years. ed northeast took over the place in berkeley, and there was disputes about people's park. he took over the place, and during the protest, the police shot people. one guy was killed. a lot guy was blinded. and then two weeks later, there was a protest. a lot of people came. i came. you go over to the east shore of cleveland. you go along that, and then you get on university avenue, and there's like the little color

leaf there at the top of the clover leaf. there was a big tank. reakingen had called out 2700 national guard. it all the way there were guns and inches away from you. and they didn't doing in stupid. people did complain. and, you know, whether people listened or not. but 1989, people then said to me, well, you know, you work in washington. you're a government official. they said, "go fix it "i said "if you don't like the system you have to do it yourself. only then will ?ings change. >> host: do you think that the most recent events part of something like that. >> guest: that was too easy. i transitioned for you. it took 3 years and things

changed. i guess the point of my story if you want things to change, you have do it yours. >> host: i used to say on the radio, if you don't like the news, make son some of your o own. before questions, we want to shift to the negative side. there's a lot of things you view as copyrights failing as some of the positive prescriptions as why you think they could be made better. one of the things i noticed is your emphasis shifting from the analysis of exclusive rights the idea that copyright owners should be the only one to make copies or disrupt the public system that looks more on remediation. making sure that rights holders and by extension creator themselves are paid for what they don't even if they don't have exclusive control. i wonder, i mean, in some ways that's a real departure from traditional copyrights.

formally it has been about exclusive rights. what do you say to creators who say, i would rather have the right to say no, than the right to get paid a few nickels and not have the right say no? >> guest: right. the short answer. you can't eat ideology. the longer answer is, i don't regard the book saying copyrights fail. the law isn't a thing. it doesn't have feelings. can't hurt its feelings. i don't think you can, you know, respect it in the sense that you respect people. it either works well or it doesn't. it will work well if it does the things it's supposed to do, and if it's fit for the purpose. and if it doesn't. it's not working well, you need to change it. it's that simple. it's not a sense of disappointment. you let me down, it's more like the coach thing. we're going to get back to basics, running, throw, you have to get back to getting people

paid. it you want to encourage creativity, if you want to have more working i think a good way to do that is make sure people get paid. in the past, the sort of conceptional model has been that control equals payment if i create something, the only way i'm going to get paid is if i can control most had things about it. and the ideal of the golden age of -- of course complete control. the write, you own the stars, you own the copyrights movie. you own the theaters. you own everything vertically. that was a great system. jack gave a speech which he demoased department of justice killing. that's the system control. that was the model, the model was control equals payment. and copyright is what gave you control. so copyright equals control, equals money. in the end, it was still about money. right but the thought was the only way to get the money is

control -- the only way to control it was through copyright. that was the system. and, you know, it worked well, not well, good sometimes or not good other times. depending upon how well i think it matched the business models and consumer demand. the one thing the copyright can never do is make people buy stuff they don't want. if you take it as a corp. hearsive thing. sure, maybe it can stop freedom doing things. if you want to make money your approach has to be different. you want to make them do things and buy stuff. copyright can't do that. whatever else it can do i'm 100% convinced it cannot people make things buy things they don't want to buy. that should be the focus. it's the goal to go back to the coach thing. it's the goal to get people paid. in the past having an analog world and having copyrights get

get you a lot of that. it's not true anymore. you know it's not true. you have the digital environment. you have digital abundance. you can't control it. the idea that you're going grasp some 18th/17th century form of control into a system that you don't have control, just doesn't make sense to me. what you need to do is figure out a way for people to get paid. that's the ojt. and it's good. it's proper that people should be paid for things they create. the goal we share. the question is how you do it. i think what you have to do give up the idea that the copyright is control. because it's not there. i mean, why invest that many resources in something that you can't doing in. and do something else. that's something else that is either abandoned exclusive rights for most things. not everything. if i read a novel and motion picture company wants to make a motion picture out of.

it's the one to one things you do. the people most upset about the one to one things. they work. it's the other stuff. the other stuff has to handle differently through licenses, through terror, through collective administration of rights, through comment instances. i think we actually do have to shift through the model of control to model of -- instead. if you want to say, i really care about my ideology. it's mine. and you can't use it. that was nice. i don't think you t actually works anymore. you can't take that the bank. i'd rather you can take something to the bank instead. >> i want to ask for questions. while we get to the mike to somebody. ly ask you quickly to tell us what is on the sweat shirt. >> guest: npc means the mouthpieces. a friend of mine, jim cantor,

from woodland hills. i had the t-shirt made up for him. he makes these truly mystical mouthpieces that you feel like you're not actually playing on physical things. he manages living -- talking about getting paid. he a rear career in hollywood. he was a film studio new seeings. he was in the movie and television ads and stuff like that. he's a cool guy. >> host: questions? >> all right. i'm intrigued by your description for how we can change the copyright. look at the different dimension. there's the battle between the big con dent companies like disney that will stop nothing to make sure that mickey mouse and all works are in the perpetual copyright and google, for example, where we want to scan orphan works into google books.

and we can't find the rights holders to get permission for that. do you think it's easy -- movement that copyrights would be renewed periodically by rights holders and allow work lanes into the public domain overtime? >> guest: disney. about the debate. i actually don't view it as big media companies or authors versus users. disney has benefited a lot from the public domain. most of the earlier famous works were based on public domain works. bambi. fan theysha. they were public domain. i think everybody would benefit to having access to works earlier. how they do that? i agree with your approach. we had in the united states

until 1978 for most or 1992 for others, a system that actually was amazingly great at giving market signals for the work of thing. if you want to approach the question empireically, in the days a driven way, you would try to figure out how long figure out how long does the market itself say the commercial value a work is. all right. you would see, there's lots of different ways you can do it this you can see how long certain books are in print. or you can do what the gentleman was suggesting is look at formalities. in the united states, we had system where you had saying anagal 28 year term of copyright. if you wanted a longer term of copyright, you had to file the

renewal with the u.s. copyright office. if you did that, you get another 28 years. if you ask people now, well, you know, you got 28 years for $3 filling out a simple government form you're going get another 28 years. most people would say yeah, i'll take the another 28 years. it won't hurt me. it won't take a lot of time but the actually for almost 100 years the data was uniform the renewal rate was 15%. this is a much smaller subset of copyright works because most works were registered in the first place. if you break it down by type of work, motion pictures have the largest renewal rate 74% rate. books have 7 percent. was quite enough. it wasn't book publishers were

lazy. they made a rational economic decision that the economic value of their work was over after 28 years. so in the rational system you take the market signals, you won't one one size fits all. it doesn't make sense anyway. the market shows you there's 7% for books and 74% for motion pictures. motion pictures might get a longer term than books do. by having the requirement to renew the works we cut out a lot of plaitses where there was no interest and for those works where thieves interest you can go to those people and license it. i absolutely think in answer to your question, it's a great idea. we should do it again to go back to the trade policy issue. we can't. unless we abrogate a bunch of treaties. that's the danger, i think, of treaties. they take away -- we at google take away from

granted. we can change things if they don't work. in this system, you can't change things that don't work. >> question up front here. >> i hear can you. because in the industry because we request make things work if we lose work ios work without having to -- but we there's nothing that keep the source closed while giving people the work. so, people keep a source closed keep a source closed but stay active. they need protection by law that we can protect by business means -- so if we those open to make other things work, what do you

think it would be working here in the country >> guest: well, i've been here five and a half years. i was and the books on google before them. i would think for any part they have to understand one of the things about copyright. one size fits all problem, books identify been publishing books in copyright since 1985. i have a number of different publishers. i have great relationships with them. i think they're making great efforts to try to figure things out. it's quite generational. i have a 10-year-old daughter. and she reads a lot. she reads hard copy and kindle too. but she will take her kindle to read it and take a hard-copy book to read at night. and, you know, so we're trying to figure out what the best

business approach is. i will say that the copyright issues, you know, while important, i think ultimately figuring out what's the best market solution for things that's going to get us a little further. >> host: i also think it's interesting because to some extent books actually are a closed source in the sense that in their expensive to duplicate and distribute in paper, and yet, you know, you see the places where your written word focusing on books is missing the point, i think. if you look at the places where the written word is copied. it has to be stuff that digital. if you look at the original writing going on on blogs, for example, i think it's fair to say that today more words are

written, more people write in the medium that isless protected from easy copy. to some extent, empireically, i wonder if it bears out. because what you find if the folks who insist on publishers, for example, a paper books, who have been reluctant to put their works in digital form and come slowly to the e book revolution and thing thrix. it turns out in a region of less control, the internet, people actually write more. creativity is what you're worried about, you know, you have arguments about well, those people maybe aren't being paid as much. there's lot of other arguments you can have on the question where are the people creating? they are creating more in less protected areas than they are in more protected. that's been my experience. >> guest, you know, from a -- >> host: yeah. there's plenty of books.

plenty of authors, there are some authors now who publish on paper and digitally free at the same time. and it seems oh reily has great stories where he gives away some of his books for free online and finds those books actually make more money for his publishing company than the ones he doesn't. because the effect people thoond hand, more people see them and are exposed. his publishing is mostly technical-manual type material. somebody see it is, they decide they want to have it on the show. they buy it. maybe that's not true for a novel or something like that. it goes to show where the intuition, copyright suffers from -- bill makes his point, from the untested intunetive readings.

the untest intuitive reasoning is who is it said only a blog head. >> johnson. >> host: johnson only a block head would write for free. lots of people write for free. all kinds of reasons. >> host: including him you really want to test empireically. do publishers need copyright? how do publishers do who don't use copyright? what actually happens in the markets. a lot of the answers might be surprising. it it they're not surprising. i'd be happy to learn >> guest: asking the questions, are it is not necessary. it is necessary for stuff. it is necessary for and the intuitive stuff is where we get to trouble. i had the argument with my mother. she said don't confuse it with the facts. i like to be confused by them. >> yes. as fred knowns, i've written a

bunch about this. just to get to one question, i believe that the investors who are putting the hundreds ever millions together for a movie want to be copyright for the goal. the writer is saying i want to get a copyright. i think the investors are. there's a fair point that. i want to get to the central issues, and that is having a powerful for the state in the world copyright. the martha grahams of the world who become billionaires on the publishing like the new york tiefms. she is able to take on a with the huge money she made. she's able to talk down the president using that power. and the world of the blogosphere why people willing to write news for free they'll report the news. they'll cover thing that's major news media don't find. they perform a valuable role. having powerful rich media that build a business empire based on selling that information not

based on copyright. today more based on -- how do we preserve those? how do those people who can be so rich having the control and take on prosecute and society. . >> guest: i think washington -- >> i'm certain that's true. so unless you want to claim that the news media makes millions of copyright. they are not seeing the decline because of the inability to use the same business models they had in the paper world. >> guest: it's intriguing. there's a chapter in here about the very question. how about news papers. if i go back to the motion picture one, the motion picture will certainly make money off offing. and copyright is the significant part of that licensing. so there's a secured interest in the presales and there's regional agreements.

>> host: quite famous in that regard. >> guest: it plays a role in those things. i will say, however, that the part it still doesn't create value. that's another 1 2-00 things that i don't think is true. those going to the lousy because it's copyright. they go a great movie because they think it's inherently great. >> host: the idea is if there is value -- >> guest: that's the free writing part, the mistake the copyright by itself creates value, where as to me, the market consumer demand that create value and copyright, as you were playing out plays a roll in creative ones there. i think the mistake is if the copyright was valuable and mistake becomes important when it's a policy issue. all right. and a copyright can lead to greater competition. comedy based competition it

needs copyright. -- i would say the way the question is phased, it's not one i'm comfortable of answering. >> host: okay. >> i wanted to followup on what you said about making sthiewr the get paid. rather than they are exclusive rights. it's fair to sigh, i read the book. i'll accept that answer. posing something like bm, i where your stuff is owned by central agency and sends you check periodically or what? >> guest: there's a lot of discussion right now about copyright registries and about collective administration of rights. in europe their very for a that way in pay way some people don't like. in i'm a composer in europe, i

have to -- i don't have the option of doing it directly. they're certainly having issues of transparency in some societies in europe. and even the occasionally corporation as well. with some mediterranean societies. but the basic model, i still think makes sense. you as a creator can't go around to every bar and restaurant or broadcaster throughout the country -- >> host: or website. >> guest: and spend your time licensing. it's the same issues for a photographer as well. so my point is that yeah, we need to go something like that. simply because it's the only probably way people can get paid. and one of the things that many people working on the registry

here is of course something we do very well. which is building a data base. right. it's got to be the first thing. figure out who owns the right what are the terms of it. is it time limited. it regionally limited? is it limited to the sound and not the musical thing. i know, a lot of people are doing a lot of work on that. i think it's an idea that has come to be accepted by owners as well. the only way we're going to get people spade to first build the data base of who owns what, and then it can be clear and then the second step, the licensing thing, that you're talking about. cc paid the way for a lot of that stuff. copyright clearance center here in the united states. >> guest: also creative comments. but i think it's a two-step thing. want first step is building a data base who owns what. the second step using that data

base to allow people to licensing and setting up micropayments other otherwise of doing it. there was a lot of people doing work on that. and it's on a point out there's a lot of situation where that kind of solution happens already. and youtube comes to mind, for example. where the major record labels have granted youtube licenses essentially to their entire cat goaling. there's some exceptions this and that. the general way it work website, you know, you user can upload a video with a song as the sound track. and, you know, without the user figuring having to own who own it is without the headaches that the holder is exe sated based on the advertising that appears around the video. that is in a way, is a sort clengtive approach almost like a blanket license that works well

enough in practice to be a win for everybody. a win for users who get to post if what they like. it is a win for rights holder who gets to get paid. it's a plugs for google too because we get some of the revenue. i agree, it's readying use to figure out who owns what. we need to solve that problem. we adopt have to wait for the perfect utopian registry. we need to get there. at the same time. we are participate anything the union right das that base. there's been a lot of work done internally on that with rights holders to make it happen. >> host: yeah. another yes qe? >> how do you feel about the twin books rulings for the ninth circuit court? >> guest: insane. >> okay. i'm glad i'm not alone. we might want to know what twin

books. >> the ninth circuit of courts. not my fault. not a problem when i was there. >> guest: there is a highly technical issue. and but, you know, it's also how we make living. you can't be -- i hope. so here's the issue. it was under a prior law, a requirement that for a form work to be subsequent to copyright. you had to put a copyright notice on it. we were the only country in the world to really have that. the circumstance with the name on it. the motion pictures did they did the roman letters to figure out what year it is. i still can't figure out what year it is. they can't comply with it so nobody knows it's the last year's movie. that's the purpose for that. yeah. even though i studied latin in

school, i can't figure it out. there's a german author, you need to have naught notice on it. if you put it on things were great. you had a copyright in the united states leaving nothing but the manufacturing clause. but you had your copyright in the united states. that was true for the u.s. too. we had to put the copyright. it goes on, if we didn't did went into the public domain meaning there was no copyright. what happened if a foreign work didn't put that copyright notice on it? the easy answer. it was first published overseas. the easy answer is the text yule answer would be it's in the public domain too. afterall, if you get copyright by doing it, and you don't do it, then the logical thing is you suffer the consequences because you got the good, and that's what the statute says. all right. now, that of course, is not what

the ninth circuit did. they created this sort of weird hi breed which is that well, it wasn't protected but it wasn't unprotected quite, either. and then so that has caused lofts problems. one of the caused problems we're trying to figure out whether the foreign work is in the public public domain or not why worked for congress in 1994. we passed this law, the general agreement on terrorist and trades. which took out from the public domain these foreign works that hadn't complied with that obligation. and that was upheld by the supreme court quite recently. i know, a lot of people adopt like it. i personally was relieved that the statute i wrote wasn't unconstitutional. it's a small matter of pride.

so that law actually took care of the situation. if you were in the foreign person and you didn't realize it, it's okay. we're giving it back to you. you had the same term of protection you otherwise would have. but no, that's not what the ninth circuit did. that's a problem we live with a lot. how do you engineer that? how do you engineer something saying we can engineer easily for u.s. works where it's in the public public domain or not. how do you actually have the next level if it's a foreign work and you have an sane ninth kir cut decision. what do you do? that's not an ease engineering problem. another question? >> so it seems like there's a certain pressure to these like laws around copyrights, sort of, like the one that comes to mind dmca they another law based

around the enforcement debt takes the

across the cubeon into the met four of giving control over a third party's due. and personally, i would love to have those repeals. i think they don't make sense.

but again, their there so many trade agreements now. it's be hard. we decided we were wrong. it's a stupid thing to do. it harms markets, it harms like everything it touches. it's radioactive. there's nothing we can do about it. we have toking a regrate all the treaty agreements. they're antidemocratic but they stop us from pig fixing our mistakes. i think it's time for one more. okay. yeah. i have a question that seg ways off this but gets back to the earlier discussion about creativity. just on the number of friends who are djs and video ed stories and a big trend is to take existing songs throughout and mash them up and remix them in a way where you create a new work with the video as well. i was wondering what your thoughts are on perhaps how we

could help move the copyright into an area where it would kind of work in the new digital one environment where we'll use for example, when a friend uploads the video to youtube sometime it'll say we found you're using five different samples from the songs. it'll recognize who owns the rights. it sometimes it will prohibit him from uploading the video at all. sometimes there will be a cost-share program going on. i was curious as to what do you recommend for these sort of remix and mash up work. >> the canadian has a provision on that. >> host: move to canada on that. >> guest: that's the second part of that. they actually have specific provision for user generated content that is noncommerc