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I heard the same thing about Sweden... (Score:5, Informative)
I heard the same thing about Sweden... then suddenly The Pirate Bay went down after police raided the building that housed the servers.
Re:I heard the same thing about Sweden... (Score:5, Funny)
The article was just saying that torrent sites are presumed innocent until proven guilty. I didn't expect this kind of Spanish Inquisition.
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Re:I heard the same thing about Sweden... (Score:5, Funny)
And as a meta-comment for all the redundant ones:
No one (sic: everyone) expects the spammish repetition!
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downloading copyrighted material (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure if I go to microsoft.com or any other website the content over there is copyrighted, but yet it's legal for me to download it. I can even download software they provide free of charge, and they are copyrighted, but it's still 100% legal.
Just why would anyone think downloading something that has a copyright on it would be illegal?
Re:downloading copyrighted material (Score:5, Insightful)
Just why would anyone think downloading something that has a copyright on it would be illegal?
Maybe because the copyright lobby has been pushing the "downloading X is illegal" meme for all it's worth (X = music, movies, software, ...) without bothering to draw a distinction between the circumstances under which it's legal and the (far larger number of) circumstances where it's perfectly legal.
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Re:downloading copyrighted material (Score:4, Insightful)
When you go to microsoft.com or any other website, its assumed you have the right to download them.
No, the reason you can download MS software from microsoft.com is because MS is authorized to distribute their own copyrighted content. It has nothing to do with the downloader needing any rights.
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Practice! (Score:5, Funny)
I want you to say:
Lack of gain
in Spain
Drives RIAA mainly
INSANE!!
fifty times. You'll get much further with the Lord if you learn not to offend His ears. ;)
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Short lived ruling? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that the ruling seems to violate several international agreements on copyright, I wonder how long it will last.
I also don't get the common sense aspect of it. If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business? Well, they'd do it by erecting technical barriers to copying. DRM plus a million. Because they would have to.
If you justify copyright infringment based on "information wants to be free", then expect people to try their damnedest to change what their information wants to be.
Re:Short lived ruling? (Score:4, Insightful)
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
Even in the complete absence of copyright, the first sale can never be lost to piracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_performer_protocol
http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html
Plumbers only get paid once for installing my toilet, no matter how many people use it. I'd rather a world with no professional musicians than no professional plumbers.
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Re:Short lived ruling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Allow me, for a minute, to be a Professional Musician. I shall now think to myself.
Me to Self: Self? ("yes?") You know, I wrote[/performed] some great music here. I think I'd like to sell it to people.
Self to me: That's a great idea. But you know, once you sell it the first time, anyone can download it for free.
Me to Self: Well, I really do want to make some money on this... but I'll only get paid for the first sale, huh?
Yup.
Ok. Well here's what I'll do; I'll just wait until someone is willing to buy my 3 minute recording for about $10,000. They can distribute it as much as they want after that.
...
Seriously. Plumber analogy is bad. Why? Toilets keep breaking. The SAME toilet. Music doesn't "break." And if it's free to download again, and if the only time the originator gets paid is the FIRST time, then that FIRST time is going to be pretty stinking expensive, and we'll be back to the rich people (or a church) being the "patron of the arts" ... that system. Which worked back in the 18th century. But really not a whole lot since, if I remember correctly, Beethoven.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Spot on. However, don't expect that to go over very well. Folks have been conditioned to believe they are entitled to get whatever they want for free. Somehow to them, the only thing worth purchasing are physical goods.
Re:Short lived ruling? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. David Bowie gets to pump himself out to the AudioPlumbers union
and can't just sit on his ass and collect his royalty check. He has
to work in order to get paid just like the rest of us.
He gets to "play for his dinner" like the rest of us.
Re:Short lived ruling? (Score:5, Insightful)
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
By selling services instead of copies. You can't pirate technical support, programmer man hours, etc..
Well, they'd do it by erecting technical barriers to copying. DRM plus a million. Because they would have to.
And it still wouldn't work.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And lastly, a lot of good programmers want steady income to work on products, not occupy the lowest rung of the ladder/innermost circle of hell.
Something like 95% of programmers work on in-house projects for their non-software companies.
DRM works. It's not foolproof, but it does cut down on the piracy.
No, it doesn't [guardian.co.uk]. Not even a little bit. Not a smidgen. There is no credible evidence to support that position.
Spanish Justice : a oxymoron (Score:3, Interesting)
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I wouldn't go so far as calling us "lucky"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita [wikipedia.org]
Common sense in copyright?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, never thought I'd see common sense creep into any courtroom when it came to copyright. Doubt it will last.
Cost of Doing Business (Score:5, Insightful)
From a business perspective, I am absolutely certain it has become cheaper to produce their content to CD over Tape (or DVD over VHS), and even more cheaply as a digital download. Content, just like insurance/financial services, is one that should could thrive if it embraced the newer, cheaper methods of production/sales/distribution than trying to do things the old way.
I'm glad that the court is identifying that internet-based sharing is no different in essense, than sneakernet sharing which is always something the companies have had to deal with and has always been a cost-of-doing-business. The fact that it is "online" is ultimately irrelevant, and even if greater sharing drives down sales (which is debatable), online/digital distribution should also lower costs which if done properly, should allow them to remain profitable. Business is about adaption. No business has a fundamental right to exist. Suing your customers and taking rights they either explicitly had, or felt they had is no way to keep those customers, in which sharing and distribution become irrelevant.
This is what I've said all along (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's put it this way -- if receiving on unauthorized copy of copyrighted material was actionable, then I could just copyright something, arrange to have someone else email it to everyone in the world, then start suing everybody who didn't delete the email!
Re:This is what I've said all along (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you suggesting being in possession of copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is legal ?
Absolutely! I bought a used CD yesterday, and am certain that the copyright owner did not authorize or endorse that purchase. Yet, I am now the rightful, legal owner of that CD - their permission or desire to the contrary be damned.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they could prevent re-sale, they would. Haven't there been plenty of stories about copyright owners trying to prohibit re-sale in the license agreement?
Certainly. But the issue at question here is legality, not copyright holders' desires.
that's really the entire crux of the entire issue: (Score:5, Insightful)
no profit
copyright laws were created so that some other guy with a printing press or vinyl press wouldn't make and sell copies of a book or recording all on his own without regard to the creator
it never was intended, and never had anything to do with, the idea of someone reproducing material and giving it away FOR FREE
simply because such a person would be insane: all that expense for nothing. to not be motivated by profit is simply nonsensical on the old media world, which was the whole point in copyright: keep the profit with the creators
but the issue of effortless file sharing is a fundamental change in how media works, and has more to do with traditional publishers coming to grips with a new reality. IANAL, but i would like to see a legal argument that says copyright law is only valid for the pursuit of those PROFITING from illicit copies, that those copying for free are essentially outside the scope of the spirit of intellectual property laws and their intent and purpose. which is a fundamentally true argument: the internet is new technology and makes possible what was not possible before, so to apply laws from an old era onto it without thought is to fail to understand the issues in play
such an approach would draw a nice line between the old media world and the new media world as defined by the new economic laws the internet forces onto the world, welcome or not
Re:that's really the entire crux of the entire iss (Score:4, Insightful)
since you said Intellectual Property, what about stretching your claim to patents: if person X patents an item, and person Y makes the item for free and gives it away, is he in violation of the patent even though he isn't selling it? what if Y does it to flood the market and put person X out of business, because his other product lines can support the cost? I thought that IP law protects X in that regard. Perhaps the same or something similar could be said for copyright.
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Copyright was intended only for commercial use (Score:3, Informative)
Well... the original intent of copyright was as applied to "commercial copying"... his reading of the law is 100% valid.
How is this a change? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I know, downloading always was legal.
What was illegal, was uploading, when you did not have a license to do so.
The reason downloading is not illegal, is the same reason it is not illegal to buy stuff from somebody, when later, you read in the paper that the guy you bought it from had obtained it illegally. (Note that I'm avoiding the word "stolen" here, because stealing implies that the original owner does not have it anymore.)
The person that in these cases gets prosecuted, is the seller. You just show the cops your contract, with the address of the seller on it, and you're good. Of course you have to give the object back to the person it got stolen for. But you can sue the seller for the money.
At least in Germany.
I know this, because it happened to a friend of mine.
Of course, because the **AA do not care about any authors or rights, and their objective is not to protect anyone, but to make money trough mafia-like tactics, they do not care, and spread FUD all over the media, about downloading being illegal etc. Which the media picks up happily, bundling it into a nice sensationalist news.
So what changed exactly? Did the **AA equivalent of Spain run out of money? Because that would finally be nice news. :)
P2P sharing is not downloading (Score:3, Informative)
When you upload a file to an FTP server you are violating copyright laws, since you are using the right to distribute copyrighted content. When you share the same file on a P2P network, from the legal point of view, you are using your right to private copy of copyrighted content. Here in Spain we do still have the right to private copy, so when I buy a CD I can copy it for personal use. I have the right to lend my original copy of the CD to a friend, but private copy rights allows me to lend not the original but also the copied CD to a friend. And what can be shocking is that private copy law in Spain does not restrict users to a fixed number of copies for personal use. So, from the juridical point of view, sharing your CD songs on Bittorrent network is no different from lending your CD copies to friends.
Having reached this poing technology has evolved much more than laws. So copyrighted content sharing is no longer related to lend some CDs to some friends or relatives, but to the whole world. Spanish RIAA (SGAE) is struggling to press politicians so they "adapt" the private copy law or even make it disappear. I think they are taking the steps, though the things go slower that in other near countries. They have not managed to limit private copy law but they have succedeed in broadening the range of the "Canon compensatorio" [wikipedia.org], that could be translated as compensatory fee. This is a tax that has been around since tape times, and used to add a percentage to the price of blank tapes or photocopiers among others (books, as copyrighted content, were also protected by this law). Nowodays SGAE has managed to extent this compensatory fee to not only blank media supports (DVDs, CDs, etc.) but also flash cards, mobile phones, hard disks, computers, mp3/4 players, etc. They even managed to ask for a fee on the Internet connection, though I think they have succedeed in it yet. It has been reported that the average Spanish family pays now over 300 euros a year with the current compensatory fee, that is entirley redistributed between Entertainment companies and artists (though the say they share it between artists) by SGAE itself, which is an obscure and privately led organization. 300 euros a year pro family is much more than what an averege Spanish family spent on copyrighted content a few 10 years ago (when copying means where not so effective).
Having said all this I would thank that at least I no longer have to put up with the ads at movie theaters or on TV calling me a thief for legally sharingmy copyrighted content, when I am just using a right, for which I have literally paid a significant amount of money. And not only that, but also taking into account that this money goes to an obscure and mafioso association (not even a company, that must keep its balance clearer), whose role in society is quite a bit less than beneficial.
Re:What isn't copyrighted material? (Score:4, Informative)
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In the Netherlands for example we pay about 24 eurocents on every empty cd or dvd we buy
And this makes sense? I buy all my music and use CD/DVD for data copying. So I'd have to subsidize someone who doesn't feel he has to buy music/movies? What a joke.
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It doesn't make sense, but it was the media companies who pushed for the levies in the first place.
Once they realized that everyone said "ok, screw you, I'm downloading since I've already paid you" they wanted to have their cake and eat it too -- they want the levy and for downloading to be illegal.
I'm betting that a couple of courts have sided w
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That's not "fair use," if you have to pay a tax to do it. Fair use is by definition non-infringing use of copyrighted material. As such, copyright holders should receive no compensation for it.
We have a similar tax on blank media here in Canada, and people use a similar line of media industry propaganda to justify it,
Re:What isn't copyrighted material? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, we do. We also pay to SGAE (the spanish RIAA) when you buy a DVD recorder mp3 player, a mobile phone or a hard disk. 6 months ago I bought a 500 GB hard disk, and 13.92 of it went to SGAE.
Obviously, after paying that I demand the right to pirate all what I want.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To be clear, the SGAE is not "The Spanish RIAA." The RIAA is a trade group representing record labels. The SGAE represents music composers, lyricists, and publishers. They are the Spanish equivalent of ASCAP and BMI.
In the eyes of many Slashdotters, this is a meaningless difference -- both groups are interested in protecting the rights of the folks behind the stuff that we feel should be freely (as in beer AND freedom) available and thus are the "bad guys." But if you're of the "artists good, record labels
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There's only 3 countries that haven't signed on to the Berne Convention (Iran, Myanmar, and another one I can't remember), and Spain isn't one of them.
Now, you are correct about the expiry of some copyrights, but let's be honest, the overwhelming percentage of works being shared by P2P and torrent sites are still under copyright.
Re:What isn't copyrighted material? (Score:5, Informative)
There's only 3 countries that haven't signed on to the Berne Convention (Iran, Myanmar, and another one I can't remember)
The one you can't remember is Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, The Maldives, Mozambique, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, The Seychelles, Sierra Leone, The Solomon Islands, Somalia, Taiwan, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda and Vanautu.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So I was off by a few :)
(it's worth noting that more than a few of those are either failed states, dysfunctional states, or in weird political situations (taiwan))
The list of signatories [copyrightaid.co.uk] is extensive, however.
Re:nice! (Score:5, Informative)
Now I can have legally approved sex with a 13 year old AND listen to my downloaded Counting Crows album at the same time... *take a holiday in spain, leave my wings behind me*
I am sure you are joking but just an fyi - if you happen to be coming from the US - going to another country with the intent of doing something that would be considered illegal in the US (e.g. sex w/13 y/o) you would be convicted of doing that crime upon your arrival (assuming they 1) knew of your intent and 2) prove that you did it).
/. so step 1 is out of the way :)
Well you made a post on
BTW there was, about 6 months ago, a trial where a guy sent e-mails to his friend talking about going to south america to get underage prostitutes. He did this. When he came back the cops arrested him. Not sure how they knew he actually did the deed (I don't remember) but they used his e-mails to show his intent. He is in jail.
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I am sure you are joking but just an fyi - if you happen to be coming from the US - going to another country with the intent of doing something that would be considered illegal in the US (e.g. sex w/13 y/o) you would be convicted of doing that crime upon your arrival (assuming they 1) knew of your intent and 2) prove that you did it).
That does not appear to be correct. The anti sex tourism law is 18 USC 2423. It prohibits going to foreign countries for illicit sex. It defines illicit sex as that which would violate 18 USC 2241 if it had occurred in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the US, or any commercial sex act with anyone under 18.
So, going to Spain to use a young prostitute is right out. But if you are going to Spain in the hopes of non-commercial sex with a 13 year old, then 18 USC 2241 is what you need to watc
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I looked up the text of that law and I'll take a stab at parsing it (however, IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc.)
(omitting the punishments and also omitting the bulk of sections (a) and (b) since those apply to individuals of any age and I'm mostly focusing on their role in the proper interpretation of (c), i.e. "the circumstances described")
US CODE: Title 18,2241 [cornell.edu]
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Perhaps he didn't know that the Canadian provinces are in a separate country?
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For the other folks who asked about "well what is considered under age, since each state is different". Honestly I don't know what the federal rules are...maybe it goes by the state in which you reside, maybe it goes by some federal limit - I don'
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Re:pre-trial ruling (Score:5, Informative)
(IANAL but I live in Spain...)
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You cannot download privative software legally from P2P or whatever (note that you cannot share that software with your friends either).
Not a layer, but a Spanish guy as well.
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The law in Spain is that any non-profit copying of material is OK. All the judge has done is make it clear to the RIAA that P2P involves no exchange of money so therefore it's legal under Spanish law.
The same is true for the Netherlands, although Brein [anti-piracy.nl] pretends it's otherwise. So here you can download copyrighted content for private use. Another thing that's legal is to make a copy of a cd or dvd for a friend or relative. As long as you don't ask money for it, and don't do this in batches (like 30 cds for the complete classroom) you won't have any problems.
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and then sell those drives all over the world.
. . . which would immediately break the not-for-profit stipulation . . .
Re: Following suit... (Score:3, Informative)
No new laws have been created, all the judge did was spell out Spanish law to the RIAA, ie. that non-profit copying isn't illegal here and never has been.