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corporated in the District of Columbia. It was formed by a group of persons interested in solving, before it became too severe, the problem of reconciling the copyright principle with growing use of the new copying and processing techniques. This problem and its possible solutions was discussed by CICP as early as 1958. What we have to say now also applies to the future rather than to the present-we are looking ahead, perhaps to the next 25 years. Because our recommendations depend closely on this view as presented in the statement, they are summarized after rather than before it.

Joined with me in this presentation are my fellow directors and officers of CICP, Alexander A. Baptie, Laurence B. Heilprin, and Gerald J. Sophar.1

You are familiar with Benjamin Franklin's remark to the Members of the Continental Congress at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: "We must all hang together, or assuredly, we will all hang separately."

That is our message today. Gentlemen, if we don't hang together in support of the copyright principle, assuredly it will be weakened, and much of our separate interests will go with it. If we can't overcome our narrow parochialisms and unite, we will not only not get what any of us wants, but contribute to the downfall of an institution essential to the American way of life.

Let us now see how those concerned with copyright form interest groups which differ widely on many points. We will then show how these views can be reduced to essentially two, which cannot be reconciled unless they broaden their viewpoints.

1. THE COPYRIGHT INTEREST GROUPS

One of these groups looks at copyright from the viewpoint of publishers for profit. They and many related industries have developed almost solely because of the protection of "intellectual property" by the copyright statute. They are doing well and do not want change. Their interest is to protect protection.

Another interest group are authors who write for money. Their views tend to coincide with those of publishers. If they did not have copyright protection against infringement, selling their intellectual produce (as shown in copyright history) would be as unprofitable as carrying a pig to market through a countryside of starved bandits.

A third interest group are scholarly and scientific authors. In general, they are not paid, and not particularly interested in copyrighting. But they are interested in communicating. In fact, they would like their articles copied, and some even urge their publishers not to copyright. More specifically, they stand for freedom of communication in the sense of not copyrighting articles, as long as they are copying the papers of others or encouraging others to copy their own. However, when they use duplicated material to write a textbook, this view is reversed. They feel that to allow chapters of these books to be mimeographed by enterprising youngsters and sold to the class at small or no profit is unethical. "It hits us right in the royalty check," they cry, and join the textbook publishers in invoking the copyright principle.

A fourth group are the publishers of scientific and scholarly periodicals. They also are not too interested in copyrighting their publications, but most of them say they must do so in order to maintain high professional standards through prevention of misuse, and to maintain the circulation of their journals. This last is rather half hearted, as they do not take the threat of reduced circulation seriously, trusting that if it should materialize they can charge their subscribers more or obtain a subsidy in the "public interest."

Another group with parochial views are the educators. Education, they say, is our most important national occupation. Therefore, while there is something to what the author-for-pay and the texbook publisher say about "drying up the sources," still, communication and dissemination of ideas with ever-freer access are so much more important that the educator should not be hampered in discharging this function. He should be able to make a royalty-free copy or copies if and when they are needed; and even have much free use of educational TV and other audiovisual media. In general, the educators tend not to discriminate between free physical access and free economic access.

The librarians as a group assert that they are in the middle. Granted, they sav, were it not for copyright many good works which are their stock in trade 1 Alexander A. Baptie, vice president, Microcard Corp., West Salem, Wis.; director, CICP. Laurence B. Heilprin, staff physicist. Council on Library Resources, Washington, D.C.; director, and chairman, CICP study group. Howard A. Meyerhoff, chairman, Department of Geology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.; director, and president, CICP. Gerald J. Sophar, vice president, Jonker Business Machines, Gathersburg, Md.; director, and secretary-treasurer, CICP. Walter J. Derenberg, professor of law, New York University School of Law, New York, N.Y.; director, CICP.

52-380-66—pt. 3——7

would not exist. But their chief clientele are readers who occasionally or often need single copies of documents, single uses of audiovisual material. A single copy, they argue, is all they ever need. It does nobody harm and has been traditionally allowed the student or scholars patiently copying by longhand. Why not now, by rapid mechanized methods? They even go so far as to say that if a whole book is not in print they should be able to make a single copy for a client, in the "public interest."

The makers of film, photographic materials, and reproduction equipment are not greatly concerned whether copies are royalty free or not. Their main interest is in the number and cost of the copies apart from the royalty. Like the scientists who do not write for pay, they support greater freedom of communication, since this leads to wider use of their materials and equipment.

Another interest group are commercial makers of audiovisual products such as television films used in the educational process. They feel that use of such products should be protected like other copyrighted works. Closely related to them are the makers of computer programs, also for sale to education. They feel that use of these programs should be protected.

On the other hand, manufacturers of computers, which can swallow great masses of copyrighted materials and digest and regurgitate them in new configurations, are worried lest these transformations be construed as "copies" and their use as infringement. For if so, they warn, it would mean really serious obstruction to scientific and educational advance. Like the scientists who do not write for pay and the makers of graphic equipment and materials, they stand for greater freedom of communication, since this leads to wider use of their equipment.

While there are other groups with special interests in copyright, we mention only one more the "general public." What is their interest in copyright? In the main they are neither aware of its advantages, nor feel constrained by it. Like the law and medicine and politics, copyright does not ordinarily touch their lives. Nevertheless, in the long run the general public will be the heaviest loser if copyright is weakened.

Summarizing the various interest group views, we may say that each is one of more or less enlightened self-interest. Our task in this paper is to increase the enlightenment with ultimate benefit to the self-interest.

2. THE TWO BASIC "FACTIONS" IN COPYRIGHT: AN ANALOGY

If we sort out these various parochial attitudes and interests, we find that they can be roughly divided into two groups: that of the goose which lays the golden eggs, and her assistants; and that of the consumers of the eggs, and their friends and assistants. Since these are intellectual eggs they are, of course, intellectually and spiritually edible. Those who produce the golden eggs of intellectual creativity want protection and encouragement to lay. Those who are nourished by the intellectual feast want freedom to consume. While some consumers recognize that productive geese must be fed and tended, most are aware only of the eggs and only after these are so accessible as to seem free-i.e., in the public domain. Users in small quantities often tend to confuse free physical access with free economic access. Once the prototype egg is laid, they may rationalize, what unfairness is there in making a little more use of it, say, by making a personal copy? True, the copyright statute requires permission to copy-but is it necessary or even possible to ask each time if one needs only a single copy? Obtaining permission for a few copies, under today's conditions of diffuse organization, great speed and fast competition is no longer practically feasible. The enormous amount of trouble and time needed to get permission far more than offsets any slight economic loss to the copyright owner. Besides, there is not necessary any economic harm. Who can measure so small an amount as the economic effect of one additional copy?

But the goose-who in reality is nobody's goose-has learned statistics. She replies it may be that the loss to me of a royalty on a single copy is quite smallpennies compared with the dollars it would cost you to get permission for access to my work. But that is the point of what is going wrong. I am paid by the total. One and one and one and one-is becoming more of the total. In future it will make a bigger and bigger difference to me whether my egg is duplicated one-at-a-time, or in an edition, if I am not paid for one-at-a-time copies. I can see my income shrinking-simply because there is no way to pay-because it costs you more to pay for permission to pay me than to pay me.

Before we go further with this discussion, let us introduce a simple analogy from physics. You are familiar with the experiment of hanging a weight to a spring which is fastened to a support. If you pull down the weight and let

go, the weight oscillates up and down as the spring is alternately stretched and compressed. The energy in the compressed spring passes into that of the motion of the weight, and back into the spring, and so on. This exchange of energy between weight and spring keeps up until friction brings it to a stop. However, if you pull the weight down again at just the right time (i.e., add just a little energy each cycle, to overcome friction) it will keep on going and like the pendulum in a clock, will keep time.

The point I wish to make is that this simplest of all oscillators is a going "dynamic" system only as a whole. The cycle does not depend only on the spring, nor only on the weight, but on the spring-and-weight. The spring must not be too stiff for the weight, the weight not too heavy or light for the spring. Only when spring stiffness and weight are "matched" does the system oscillate. And so it is with the dynamic system consisting of the goose that lays the intellectual eggs that largely underlie our national creativity, and those who consume them. It is impossible to maintain the creativity cycle if we consider only the producers, or only the consumers. The dynamics according to which this country operatesthe "free enterprise" system-requires that both parts be matched to each other. The energy of the producer is his effort in creating and disseminating ideas. This intellectual creativity is transformed mentally-analogously to the way food is transformed into chemical energy-into the productivity of the users. The users then feed back to the producers part of their product in the form of royalties for use of the ideas, and the cycle is completed.

The above is, of course, an oversimplification. But it is exact insofar as the inseparability of the parts is concerned. It is clear that neither can afford to neglect care for the other. Thus consumers who only make use of the ideas of others and thoughtlessly fail to replenish the creativity cycle by paying for them in some way will slow down or stop its dynamic action. Likewise, if the goose and attendants try to hold on to their control by the economics of scarcityand limit egg-laying, or impede widespread dissemination and consumptionthey also will slow down or stop the action.

Let us now resume our examination of the goose's changed position, as it has developed through the advent of new copying and communication techniques. Until recently the goose insured her return on the eggs of the economics of scarcity. Protected by the copyright statute, she controlled the number of eggs laid, and largely, how they were consumed. The statute was effective not only because it was the law, but because it was possible to control production. Today, however, the goose no longer has as tight a monopoly of the supply. There exist many new ways of "multiplying" an egg, once laid. Particularly in the fields of graphic art and printed works the user can, if he wishes, amplify the number of replicas to suit himself, and not consult the goose. The law is still the same, but there is less and less chance that an infringement can be detected. It would take a very large increase in Federal expense to maintain the same degree of control as in the past. Thus the user is in a new and potentially much stronger position. He may not and so far has not chosen to exercise his new power to its fullest extent. The areas where he has chosen to do so are the most highly competitive: industrial production, research leading to new industrial or military products; any situation where there is strong economic, political, or other incentive. And so far the consumer has limited himself to types of copying which are less evident infringements on the economic position of the goose. The goose is still fat, and, as the consumers like to point out, among publishers it is still true that the goose hangs high. But some geese are aware of their growing vulnerability to being plucked. Those who are squawking the loudest are the ones that lay very expensive eggs, very slowly, and who find out that from one of these the consumer can make many other. For example; publishers of maps, encyclopedia articles, business advice, and reports.

In summary of this situation we may say that the two main factions in copyright are the producers and the consumers; that the position of the producers has been weakened relative to that of the consumers for the short term, i.e., there is less and less probability of a physical way that any law against infringement can be effectively enforced; but that for the long term the essential need of the consumer to preserve the goose that lays the golden intellectual eggs is the same as it was; and the only hope for preserving the dynamic balance and still maintain "free enterprise" is to restore the equality of the two parts of the creativity cycle.

3. A PROPOSED SOLUTION

We are now on the threshold of enacting a revised copyright statute. Nevertheless, if the above analysis is correct, there is less and less probability of

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achieving by means of a law, the restoration of a situation which essentially is economic. The law can create the "intellectual property" and can state that the author or his assigns has time-limited exclusive right to control it. But no law can control the economics of supply and demand, unless the power so legislating backs up the law with adequate police. And it is precisely here that the new methods of communication have precluded such action by enormously broadening the number of consumers and their access to multiplying equipment. The new "reprographic" equipments resemble more and more do-it-yourself printing presses. It is possible for a small office to set up and reproduce in black and white or in color, not one, nor a few carbon copies, but thousands of copies per hour. The perfection of TV and scanning have made facsimile transmission easy and have introduced the possibility of unlimited further multiplication at a distance. This is by no means all. For example, the coming highdensity reproduction of images, with 100:1, 200:1 and higher reduction ratios, makes it potentially possible to send thousands of pages on one post-card size film, and set up whole libraries for the cost of the film copies and the postage. Thus dissemination by copying of the printed page will be reduced from a few pennies per page to a few hundredths or a few thousandths of a penny per page. Can the goose hope to hold her own in such a disadvantageous struggle?

The contention which I wish to advance is that, if the narrow views of the consumer and of the producer are allowed to prevail, nothing will prevent the eventual extinction of the goose. We have passed from an economics of scarcity as the means of economic balance to an economics of superabundance in which, without some remedy, there will be no control by the goose except not to lay. But this is control, and as a nation we don't want it. Let me use stronger language: as a nation we would no longer be in the scientific, technical, and artistic forefront, were this allowed to occur.

We have seen that there is less and less probability of an effective legal remedy, unless it is accompanied by greater and greater expenditure for enforcement against infringement. Is this the correct direction to take? Should we be willing to pay a higher and higher price for policing a system which is quite essential to our well-being, but which until now has required very little enforcement beyond the previously adverse economics of the cost of making copies? the cost of copying has gone down and the cost of enforcing the law has or will go up, this kind of solution seems headed toward eventual impracticality.

Since

What then remains? There is no easy way, but there is one which is relatively easier than the others. This is to educate ourselves. We must educate ourselves in two ways. In general we must show the consumer that our national cycle of creativity depends not only on the more obvious use of ideas, but on the less obvious replenishment of the source of ideas. We as a people must voluntarily come to recognize that it is to our own enlightened selfish interest to look out for both parts of the creativity cycle, and we must as a people wish to comply. Not because we have to, but because, with a higher sense of responsibility we can see that unless we do our Nation will suffer, and each of us with it.

In a more narrow sense we must educate ourselves to the fact that the change in the balance of economics brought about by more rapid, easier, cheaper ways to copy and use, can be restored if we can supply something now missing: a rapid, easy, cheap way for the consumer to pay the copyright owner for permission to use or copy. The method of payment of royalties has not kept pace with the method of use of the copyrighted material. The methods of copying are new, the methods of payment are old. This is the crux of the economic impasse, for we can realistically count on the voluntary payment for use by the majority of users, if there is an easy way to do so. So the program of education has two objectives: to recognize national self-interest in maintaining the creativity cycle, and to develop the engineering or systems analysis of a way to restore the economic flow back to the producer, assuming the first objective is accepted.

4. THE "CLEARINGHOUSE FOR COPYRIGHT" SOLUTION

Having got this far I will merely mention that this middle way has been under quiet study for some time. Many have already cast aside, at least temporarily, their parochial interests and views, and by a really enlightened effort, tried to look at the whole cycle, not just at the part which concerns them. No doubt the effort made by the small group called the CICP is not alone in this. At any rate the CICP has, since 1958, been trying to look at the whole problem. It has looked at all of the suggested solutions, and has evolved a set of specifications for any solution, which should restore the balance. What these specifications are has been

published, and you may find them in the appended references. The general consensus of this group is that the solution most likely to succeed is that of a clearinghouse for copyright (CHC). In its simplest form this is a switching system. See figure 1. (We changed the initials CCH to CHC, for obvious reasons.) Figure 1 is reproduced from a paper which appeared in 1963, entitled "Working Paper on the Feasibility of a Copyright Clearinghouse." I quote from this

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First Annual Report of the Committee To Investigate Copyright Problems Affecting Communication in Science and Education, report of May 1960, reprinted with addenda in 1961, and reprinted in the Bulletin of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., vol. 10, No. 1, October 1962. (See also app. C in reference 2, below.)

"Reprography and Copyright Law." L. H. Hattery and G. P. Bush, editors. American Institute of Biological Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1964. (See I(1), IV (14), V(16), and app. C.) "Working Paper on the Feasibility of a Copyright Clearinghouse," L. B. Heilprin, June 26, 1963. For copies address CICP secretary, G. J. Sophar, Jonker Business Machines, Gaithersburg, Md.

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