February 1, 2006
NYU Student Fired Over Copyright Beliefs
Oh, to be young and naive! The president of the Free Culture chapter at NYU got fired from her clerk job at a Manhattan intellectual property law firm. Her crime? Holding beliefs that were incompatible with the work of the firm: namely, that draconian copyright protection is bad for consumers, bad for the economy, and bad in general. Read Inga's whole story at the NYU Free Culture blog:
First, my taking a job in an IP firm was neither a subversive attempt to wreak havoc “from the inside”, nor a hypocritical denial of my Free Culture values. I was, and still am, a student interested in the scope of copyright law, and determined to pursue a career in the field. I wanted to gain an understanding both of the theory of copyright, which my work with FC provided, and its practice. The firm exposed me to the day to day operations of an IP lawyer, and I was nothing if not receptive to these lessons. I was baffled that someone saw fit to fire me over an expression of dissenting views. Doesn’t the field become richer when the wider spectrum of legal thought is explored and encouraged? Certainly, it is wrong to eject someone from their field of interest simply for exercising her first amendment rights and speaking out against the current.What leapt out at me in rereading the article was my statement about breaking the law. I’d like to clarify that when I said “if there are laws I believe are wrong, I will break them,” I was not making a general statement. FC does not endorse reckless lawbreaking; nor do I. I made that comment in the specific context of CD’s with DRM encryption: I would hold down the shift key and download my CD onto my laptop without a twinge of guilt toward the RIAA executive sitting in his corner office and “getting squeezed.” That does not, however, make me an internal threat to a major law firm. And it’s a sad commentary on the autonomy of law firms that if one is rumored to represent Sony, it must keep its employment policy in check with the politics and business models of its clients.
We are big supporters of the Free Culture movement-- people should have the right to purchase music and video and then use it as they please. Still, it seems pretty obvious that if you are the president of the Free Culture chapter, you shouldn't be working at a law firm whose sole purpose is to protect corporate copyrights. In the same way, if you are the president of the NYU Reproductive Rights group, you shouldn't be working as an intern for the Christian Coalition. Let's hope someone at the Electronic Freedom Foundation is listening-- and can give Inga a new job! Good luck, girl!
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Vomit. Kind of sounds like Ignatius Reilly.
"Still, as a member of the Free Culture movement, and a young woman of 19 without children to support, I can afford to take this blow in the name of progress."
Sure miss being young and idealistic before the real world breaks you down and eats you up. Not that I agree with her cause, but I definitely feel no sympathy for her situation.
Corporations are not up for moral debates, better to fire your ass than loose a multi million dollar contract.
The abortion analogy doesn't fit. She obviously wants to work in IP law, presumably as an attorney. Being opposed to DRM and overreaching (and potentially crippling) legislation does not put her at odds with the complete mission of the firm (as it would in the abortion case). For example, if the firm took Google as a client, then her views would perfectly fit with the copyright protections that the firm was hired to protect. I also doubt that the firm handles exclusively cases in the digital world. She was there to learn (and earn) and was in exactly the right place.
Nice comment, by the way Samantha. Unfortunately, not every one who believes in a cause is an overweight, spoiled buffoon. The Free Culture movement has a sensible and balanced approach to copyright that protects the right of the property-holder, for a limited time, while keeping a proper balance with the ability to take artistic license. The rapid and unprinted extension of property rights in the digital age is a major obstacle to natural economic and creative expansion. But maybe it will take the blacking out of your Crackberry to realize that..
I suspect many a well-paid lawyer in this city doesn't necessarily think what they do for their clients is for the betterment of everybody. They're paid to look after their clients interests, regardless of their personal beliefs about what's best for everybody. If they wanted to do "good" work they'd get paid a lot less...
This reminds me of one of my best friends, who---very early in what has become a very successful career---wrote a letter criticizing a particular product on his company's letterhead and sent it to the editor of a trade publication. That letter was printed, and he was identifed by name and employer.
It turned out that that product was produced by a division of one of his employer's major clients.
He quickly learned that many employees are expendable. Many clients are not.
By the way, "unprinted" was a typo. Obviously these laws are very well documented. I meant unprecendented. Speaking of unprecendented, I don't think printed has ever been wrongly substituted for precedent.
Bill, have you read "A Confederacy of Dunces" or, perhaps more important, do you have any sense of humor whatsoever?
Yes (hopefully on both counts). I wasn't being sarcastic when I said "nice comment." Ignatius Reilly is one of my all time favorite characters in literature.
She will, of course, always have the option of the hot dog cart if the whole law thing doesn't pan out.
Bill - very chagrined. Sorry about that. As a lawyer, I vote for the hot dog cart.
"We are big supporters of the Free Culture movement"
Oh yeah, Jake?
"Publisher: Jake Dobkin
Content © 2003-2005
Gothamist LLC. All rights reserved"
You should license your content under creative commons http://www.creativecommons.org if you feel that you would like to contribute to Free Culture.
I am going to go make a weblog and paste all gothamist posts verbatim. It will be called blothamist.
There is an old Irish saying, often the response to somebody looking for directions: "I wouldn't start from here in the first place". Most people make the fundamental error of starting from the lawyers' perspective on copyright; lawyers only know about copyright from their corporate clients' perspective, usually in opposition to the creators, because they get more money from the corporates. Lawyers - like many left wing academics - do not understand the fundamental purpose of copyright is to provide a pension 'equivalent' to the creator. You will notice that all objectors to copyright are non-creators. I wonder why?
Hugh Kearns
100% BS!
Purchasing a "copy" of a song does NOT mean you own the song. You own your "copy" and do not have the right to then distribute your "copy," since you don't actually own the song... only your "copy" of it.
As a photographer, I am sick and tired of people arguing that they own something that is my property/copyright. If I cannot protect the images I create and sell them for a profit, I cannot function as a photographer.
All this confusion over copyright is a huge load of BS. If I create something, then I own it and nobody has the right to simply take it and do whatever they choose without my permission, period.
It's not like I can create images for free... so why should someone else have the right to take what I spent decades learning how to do, hundreds of thousands of dollars in my ability to create imagery and what equates to my personal effort to survive and do whatever they please because they gave me a small fee for my services once.
This free culture movement is nothing more than naive children whining because they can't afford something and not yet realizing that things cost money and money requires WORK.
Earn a living, buy what you can afford... and if you can't afford something, it's simply because you haven't worked hard enough or are too stupid to earn enough to afford the "things" you think will make you happy.
Fucking children!