The economy of the 21st Century Earth is going to be radically different... reflecting a shift of human values. Copyright is already being dramatically redefined in courts in cases regarding DVDs, Commercial and Free Software Licenses, and services like Napster. Customers, Artists, and Distribution Companies (with their Lawyers) are each taking a different spin on this age old question: What is, and what should be, the role of Copyright?

It's in the American Constitution... Congress is allowed the power to grant copyrights in order to encourage Artists and Scientists to produce their original works. Is copyright fulfilling that intended purpose? And what of the role of distributors, like record companies and motion picture corporations, who often become the holders of copyright rather than the original artists? Are they helping bring forth even more originality beyond the meager means of otherwise starving artists, or are they actually destroying the very innovation that they so loudly demand?

INTRODUCING THE PLAYERS...
That's a lot of questions, and a lot of controversy. Clearly, there are differing points of view. Too often, the almighty dollar is the paper-thin measure for many of these parties' morality. Some customers just want to buck the law and recklessly exploit the works of art. Some artists care nothing for their own popularity if the quantity of their hacks outweigh any quality of product. Some distributors will bite the fan that feeds them by exhibiting unbecoming insecurity and greed. And some of their Lawyers are so invested in self interest that they'll give their clients bad advice, just to fill their own coffers and better entrench their profitability in the Litigation Industry.

So here's an even more unnerving question: Is Star Trek™ dying? Several layers of accusations can stem from that one.

Some fans will question whether the whole of science fiction itself is in desparate need of the next "kick in the pants." Think about it... Aren't the same forumlae reused a little too often? Aren't Andromeda, Babylon Five, and Enterprise just recycling the same old "Sailor boys in space" paradigm that's been growing crusty buildup since the late sixties? Do these guys even know what "enterprise" means, in terms of human endeavor?

It can be argued that distributors are the death of everything; Once the copyright is transfered from artist to an institution, the spark is
lost and the artist is making a product rather than a unique expression of creativity. Musicians who want Napster to succeed, and thus increase their chance for creative fame, are often at odds with mainstream hacks who have worked traditional marketing to their advantage.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COPYRIGHT
If copyright has been part of America's Constitution, how much can it have changed? Well for starters, the span of monopoly has grown to a superhuman scale. The original term of twenty years has been extended to seventy years, then to a lifetime, then to a lifetime *plus* seventy years. Clearly this does not favor individuals as it does institutions. One can argue that this is a 'neorepublican' change, where the rich are not only favored over the poor, but where prosperous corporations are favored above all, leveraging any rift between the "haves" and "have nots."

Publishing companies have changed the picture too. Sure, the goverment plays a funny role by limiting free speech and even banning cryptographic programs from export as if they are "munitions." But the law is bent to the service of these distribution companies, as is witnessed in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the extended terms of copyright monopolies, and the court cases pitting distributors against the public consumers.

Then cometh THE WEB. The World Wide Web has stood these corporations on ear, because now everybody on the planet is their own publisher. If there is an aspect of human interest to be shared, it probably has several pages already on the web.

THE NEW ECONOMY
The 21st century ecomony is based on human interests... the subjects that capture our attention. Many books have been published under the topic of the New Attention Economy, and how it has grown new structures, markets, and institutions. Do telemarketers annoy you? They're just out to grab brainshare, if not directly ask your money. We have to develop new management skills in order to to sort all this out. As a Nobel prize-winning economist said, "With a Wealth of Information comes a Poverty of Attention."

But nothing assures success as much as having human attention and concern lavished upon it. One can say that love really does make the world go around. The new market economy of human interests creates entire new communities to address shared concerns.

The Free Software and Open Source movements are good examples of this. Richard Stallman, the best known pioneer of Free Software, points out that things were very different in the seventies when virtually all software was free. Even if you did buy software, it became yours, and you could share it with friends, as well as modify it to your needs. When the eighties popularized licensed software, the buyer no longer had ownership, but rather the publisher used license agreements to force terms with the users. Companies like Microsoft, whose innovations in licensing and acquisitions outwiegh any so-called software innovations, could deny any rights to the user for making the software more useful, while in the same breath disclaiming any obligation they would have that their software should be useful, and not damaging, to the user.

Obviously old notions of Intellectual Property are evolving, and old proprietary monoliths are fearing the change like dinosaurs facing a deadly meteor. Free Software, such as Linux and FreeBSD, remain free for the user to use... No one can take them away from you by legal finagelling and contracts. Sound like socialism? Capitalists at Microsoft are so threatened by these Open Source solutions that they have attempted a feeble counterstrike called "Shared Source." In a nutshell, it essentially says 'you may offer us free contributions, but you are still forbidden from modifying our code to actually become useful to your purposes.'

AND WHAT OF TREK?
Ever since Gene Roddenberry died, leaving Rick Berman holding the reins, many fans have voiced their disappointment. Is it that lately is has more in common with soap operas than the space operas that were the birth of Trek? Is it that the characters are too carved in stone? Is it that the formulas from the past are reused in all the wrong ways? Each fan has their own likes and dislikes of the show, but while the quality of the production itself is one issue, the handling of the industry behind the scenes is a very different battle.

Many fan sites have been closed in the last decade as a result of Paramount's lawyers mailing "cease and desist" orders. In their defense, Paramount may state that they must police the abuse of their copyright, or lose it... but is that really a necessity, or just bad
advice? It's hard to imagine the recognition factor of trek being exploited by fans to such an extreme that "prior art" would go to anyone other than Paramount. It seems likely that the lawyers are just filling their own coffers, milking a cash cow that will asure them ongoing job security with litigation that is really unnecessary.

But that's not the only sour taste left in the mouths of fans. It's bad enough that distributors like Paramount chose to guard their monopoly with ill-advised litigation... the unbecoming insecurity goes farther. Writers have an uphill battle getting scripts published. If you're on the outside looking in, your submissions are tethered to release forms that essentially say, 'what's yours is ours, and what's ours is ours. -signed Paramount.' How often are outside scripts credited to the original authors when they can be reverse engineered by the internal staff? Even on the inside, creative differences have stiffled many staff writers into leaving the show, including Ron Moore, who wrote a majority of the Klingon episodes.

"GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, I DO! -Sledge Hammer"
So is copyright to blame? Let's be frank... copyright is a tool, just like a gun or a pen. It can be used to its owner's benefit or detriment and injury. Perhaps the laws will be forced to adapt as a result of the Web replacing traditional distribution channels. Perhaps it's not even as much a legal issue as an issue of institutionalized mismanagement... and old distribution chains will be driven faster into extinction, by the necessity of artists seeking expression.

Still for many, Trek is more a concept than a franchise... one that will never die, no matter what politics and mismanagement can beset it. There will always be a need for a warrior spirit in the human equation. There will always be a desire for the hope of improvement in our foreseeable futures. Even if it were to vanish, even if it were to become the antithesis of its heritage, Trek will live for what it was, and its dynasty of meeting human need.

- Admiral KwISt “twistai” XuDetlh
AKA Joel ‘Twisty’ Nye, [email protected]