Let’s assume that there is copyright and that language functions. Next, let’s assume that I must write something from the term “copyright”. What is copyright? How can I answer that question? Is it possible to answer that question? Whether it is or not, should I still attempt to answer it? Or should I do something else from that question?

I’m going to assume that my language functions, and that the professor, and the students, who read this text – as I assume that there will be such humans reading these words in the near future… I’ve realized something quite different about the nature of this text. My first thought is that this text and copyright are two concepts graspable within a sentence; e.g. “This text is copyrighted.” I will proceed under the assumption that I possess – if that word functions – the function “copyright”. Why must I refer to that metaphor when stating what I do with that word? Can I speak of “copyright” as if it were immaterial? I assume that when I speak “copyright”, I can also define the word in a way acceptable to the readers; or, that I can violently impose meanings on the readers; or, that readers won’t understand much of the text.

I have to mention the concept “authority” and to affirm that in the sense that I assume that my audience – as I’m speaking to you in the present tense from the past; furthermore, “my audience” assumes that I possess you in some way – or, if I don’t have an audience, the human or humans reading this text, understands it. I either violently impose the meanings of the text in them, or, I have authority in that the audience accepts the meanings in this text. Perhaps I am speaking in this text, perhaps the text isn’t speaking me. Perhaps I won’t be here, or I is not what I think it is.

The copyright concept is present here.

“Subject to this Act, copyright shall subsist in Canada, for the term hereinafter mentioned, in every original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work if any one of the following conditions is met,” (Copyright Act 5(1))

I do not like the Copyright Act. If I waive my copyright rights, I accept that there was a copyright to be waived. However, the armed police will not protect my copyright if I ignore this text. Furthermore, I cannot prove that there was copyright in this text unless someone infringes on it and I ask the government to enforce it, and they do.

“Don’t copy this without my permission.”

The government might not enforce the copyright if someone infringes on it in a specific way that it terms fair dealing. Maybe certain infringements of copyright do not infringe copyright. Maybe the government in practice tacitly asserts that my copyright was infringed and maintains that it could protect my copyright, but won’t in a specific case of its choosing.

I don’t know what the government is, nor do I know what the law is. But I feel fear at the latter word, as I fear the markings of law enforcement. I’m guessing that government controls the ontology of copyright: what copyright is and what are its features. It would then address it periodically, through legislation and case law.

What is it to guess at the ontology of copyright? Laura J. Murray and Samuel E. Trosow have attempted that guess with Canadian Copyright: A Canadian Citizen’s Guide. From past law and legislation, we cannot predict future court decisions. (What is it to know something? What is it to be accurate?)

Maybe there are, effected by self-identified citizens, a or numerous copyright simulations. The effect of such are to generate similar results as to what is copyright as if each instance of pseudo-identified copyright infringement were taken to court. The goal of copyright law seems to be the dissemination of simulated instances of government enforcement of copyright law.

Is there copyright here? This text will show up on numerous screens. The moment one of you devious humans enters www.amplab.ca into your browser and scrolls down, you will actively be copying this text. If you charge a human 100$ to spend some time in your room, and he peeks over your shoulder as you scroll down that page, thou hast infringed on mine copyright as per the words of the Copyright Act. However, I don’t know about said event; nor perhaps were you. Was copyright infringed?

More obviously, were one of you scoundrels to copy and paste this text and sell it to a publication for a stupendous sum, if I wielded large amounts of money myself I could first threaten to beg the court to bring copyright into existence in the text in my favor and thus erase your previous action by erasing a significant sum from your bank account. Were this successful in that you were willing to avoid paying large legal fees for an instant out-of-court settlement, we would have successfully simulated copyright. Were the case to go to court, the judicial system would decide the matter.

It is unnecessary to define copyright in terms such as intellectual property. It is unnecessary to examine whether a right “to produce or reproduce the work” is ownership of the work. Furthermore, the true ontology of an author as relates to copyright is the prerogative of the court. In copyright simulations, the author as relates to copyright is simulated as well. In this last case, the ontology of the simulated author is circumscribed by mutual interests of the parties: whether these be arrived at through threats or courtesy. Courtesy itself responds to the threat of the breakdown of someone’s safety as to the web of social relations in which they assume themselves to live. One could also add that agreements are contracts. Do these always function in the same way as copyright does? (A never ending cycle of contracts.)

These copyright simulations are backed up by the possibility of legal action. They can be substituted for the real thing, they can feel like the real thing, but if a case is taken to court, the court undoubtedly manifests the real copyright.

When both you and I disagree when attempting a copyright simulation, does a copyright simulation subsist within the work in question during the time before the court speaks the truth? Do two copyright simulations for a single work battle until they are dissolved and replaced by the court’s true copyright? How does this affect the truth of the work?

Is there a truth of the work within the simulation of a copyright simulation battle? While the copyright simulation is effective? Is the realm of these questions separate from the realm of questions such as the nature of the author? The nature of art?

Rights, ownership, tangibility, expression, form, ideas; these terms circulate in discourses outside of copyright; within law, they have a concrete reality.

Bibliography
Copyright Act. Statutes of Canada, c. C-42. Canada. Deparment of Justice. 1985. Department of Justice. Web. 24 Sep. 2016.
Murray, Laura J. & Samuel E. Trosow. Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide. Second edition. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013.