Could Eminent Domain Break The RIAA Stranglehold? 265
Thales_of_Miletus writes "Findlaw has an editorial today on fashioning a compulsory licensing scheme (the IP version of the real property eminent domain takings power)to allow third-party online music distribution to proceed without the RIAA's permission. Thoughtful arguments are made about the role of IP in a free society and restoring the public benefit function of copyright."
Read Lenin (Score:2)
Re:Attack of the Slashdot Libertarians (Score:2)
The Interstate Highway system was pushed through by President Eisenhower, whose earlier training for road-based tranport in WWI deployment exercises (that's One, as in the Great War) was a disaster. Of course, the major automakers, tiremakers, etc., had something to do with it too.
Re:A particularly interesting quote (Score:5)
A photographer friend of mine a few years back told me of a drunken party he took place in back in the late 50's. A collection of original glass plates of photographs of American Indians had been found, and people were having fun by throwing them to the floor and smashing them. (this is a real story, not flamebait). Shit like that happens all the time. Beautiful buildings are torn down. Big archives of magazines or books are cleared away for recycling.
That's life. The day we decide all of everything has to be 'preserved' for historical purposes is the day history stops. They pour in the formaldehyde and we all die.
Deal with it.
Re:this makes no sense... (Score:2)
Where it's paid for, on a per-play basis. The music may be "freely" available TO YOU, but the radio station or MTV paid for the right to play it. And YOU are paying, indirectly, by being exposed to advertising.
Everything free is worth what you paid for it.
...phil
Eminem's Domain (Score:2)
If you're a Natural Person, then you deserve access to whatever is in the Public Domain in addition to what you pay for. If you have to break encryption, compress, expand, xor, rot13, format-shift, time-shift, or export to another country then it's your skills against theirs sans DMCA, and we all know how that one ends.
If you're a FAKE Person (a Corporation), then you deserve access to nothing unless you have explicit permission in the form of a license (which will probably cost you several bags of moolah).
If you're a Natural Person, you deserve the right to safeguard your IP for a limited time, after which it becomes public domain.
If you're a FAKE Person, you deserve the right to NOT complain about ANY of these issues because YOU DON'T EXIST. You deserve the right to go about your business in a peaceful manner until such time as We The People decide we don't like you anymore. And we will tell you so, in no uncertain terms, when we YANK YOUR CHARTER.
The catch is: If you're a FAKE Person, then you DO NOT have access to the public domain. Only the PUBLIC gets that, see?
I'm thinking this ought to apply more to Copyright than Patent. Someone else will have to write those rules. And anyway, if Corps aren't people and can't hold rights, then there's probably no need for Compulsory Licensing in the first place. Mickey Mouse was just ink on paper until we made Disney Corp a Person. Now he's a commodity that should have reverted long ago.
(All copyrights mentioned in this post are the property of their respective holders, though I think they ought to all be tarred, feathered, and run out of town.)
The real Threed's
--Threed
Re:Founding Fathers... (Score:2)
As you may have noted, most of us agree with the need for copyright. However, many people (myself included) believe that Congress has overstepped its bounds in extending copyright in both term length and scope. Seems to me that the "limited times" clause has been thrown out the window. What good is it to have a term length longer than a normal human life? Those works will not fall into the public domain and be freely available to all within the lifetime of anyone who was around when they were created. That seems to defy the purpose of limited the length of a copyright term in the first place.
Furthermore, I thought it had been plainly obvious to people that the right to reverse engineer was essential to progress and innovation. Now that right is under serious threat from the DMCA.
One of the most onerous effects of the DMCA is to allow copyright holders to dictate terms of how some bit of information may be used via contracts and enforced by the anti-circumvention clause. Whatever fair use rights we had left are basically history now when we want to use some information that is only sold in encrypted format, even if that encryption is of the most rudimentary and laughable sort. The owner must only declare that it is meant to protect the work, and it then becomes illegal to circumvent it.
While the French may have screwed up by abolishing all copyrights, we may be heading for a simlar catastrophe by giving nearly absolute rights for an effectively unlimited time to copyright holders. I hope we come to our senses and realize that copyright is nothing more than a bargain between the creators and the public, and the public has been getting the shaft for a long time now. When was the last time any copyrighted work became public domain? We need to restore balance to the bargain. Unfortunately we're up against people with A LOT of money, and they don't plan on giving up ANY of their newly bought control.
Re:Happy Birthday isn't public domain (Score:2)
But dammit, the world owns Mickey Mouse by now
The world will never own Mickey Mouse. Disney has DEEP pockets.
Re:french revolution and typesetting (Score:2)
The point was even in those days the cost of printing was not the signifigant obstacle to having content published.
It was the cost of creating the content. i.e. the scarcity of talent.
Founding Fathers... (Score:4)
One note of historical perspective... Right after the US achieved it's freedom and own form of government, the French attempted to do the same.
The French weren't quite so reasonable in their argumentation and many of the extremists took over the revolution. One aspect of this extremism was that all copyrights were revoked, and all information was totally free.
No publisher could afford to make the investment in printing something that was quickly copied by everybody else and sold for a fraction of the cost. The end result was an increase in the number of tabloid rags at the cost of real literature. Stuff so wild and ridiculous that it didn't matter if the content only lasted a day.
The French later realized that this was a bad thing.
It's important to learn from history...
Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll (Score:3)
http://www.doxpara.com/read.php/music/trinity.htm
A number of writers here have stated that Eminent Domain should never be applied to the benefit of individual corporate providers; while I'd normally be inclined to agree, I note there is a strong compulsory licensing program (administered through BMI and ASCAP) that effectively gives radio stations the freedom to play whatever music they like on the air, as long as they hold to certain restrictions(no more of a certain band in an hour, they may only play "official releases"[grr], etc.)
Mass outlets of content should be more free and open, not less free and tightly controlled. As elements of culture become progressively more productized and trademarked(even our stadiums are monetized, at the cost of the legitimacy of our homes), I do believe it's clear that, at least conceptually, there is some dispersal of rights and "ownerships" over that cultural artifact.
Now, what's interesting is the question of whether an artist has the right to prevent their work from becoming such an artifact in the first place. Far from an insignificant argument--it's one thing for "The Red Shoe Diaries" to be compulsory licensed and sold online; it's another for the average person's diary to be downloaded from their computer and sold online! One conclusion you could reach might be that, once the product was commercialized by its author, *but not before*, it was fair game for automatic distribution. Such creates a fluid and "free" market without arduous restrictions on the flow of money.
This does seem to imply that buyers of a good have rights and expectations over that good, even before sale. One could imagine access within a convenient marketplace to be among them.
*scurries off to think this through further*
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky, CISSP
http://www.doxpara.com
Did Mozart have copyrights? (Score:2)
No. They didn't did they?
They created music that most definitely lasts, but yet it had NO protection whatsoever (in some cases they bemoaned that fact, but produced anyway).
Protection for production of works for money does not produce better content- nor does production solely for the sake of money. I can point to numerous bands such as the Spice Girls to illustrate that point. Do you hear much of them or any of their music? No? Yet, you WILL hear one of the oft played Rolling Stones or Aerosmith songs on a rock station- they've technically not been a band for a while now (though Aerosmith's been back for a little a while back...).
While I've no illusions about either of the "classic" bands being there for the money, they were there as much for the music and it showed. The same can't be said for over 90% of the stuff that's playing today on the radio that the record companies are shoving down our throats.
As someone wise once said- you don't go into computer science for the money, you go into it because it's in your blood. If you do that, the money will follow. I believe with all my heart that this is the case for my chosen profession as well as almost every other- including being an author, actor or a musician.
Oh, by the way- they're _already_ prodcing rubbish (Score:2)
Re:Did you read ALL of the article? (Score:2)
I have a lot of respect for the guy -- he could just be a dick and do it without permission -- but instead he takes the high road and actually talks with the artists beforehand.
IIRC, the whole Coolio bit was a misunderstanding between Weird Al, Coolio, and Coolio's agent -- Al talked to the agent, who said that Coolio was cool with it, when in fact he wasn't. Coolio came out *after* the song was released, saying he wasn't OK with it - but by that time nothing could be done, as it was already out there. Al has publically apologized on several occasions for the mixup.
Getting the rights (Score:2)
My question is, does the Tasini ruling give parties with no existing copyrights the ability to sue to get electronic copyrights? That is, would Napster (or mp3.com, etc.) simply be able to sue the RIAA for the rights, or would they have to have physical rights, too? I sincerely hope for the former, as the latter would be little improvement over the status quo.
For too long, the favor has swung toward the copyright holders. We can only hope that this signals an end to the debacle that has resulted from attempts to get music on the internet.
Some comments on compulsory licensing (Score:3)
A home movie would be private property, and you would discretion over who did or did not see it. If you held the copyright, you could be forced to liscense it out, whether you had any interest in doing so or not.
Compulsory licensing only (AFAIK) applies to already-published musical works. No one can force you to allow them to publish an unpublished musical work, or any non-musical work. So your home movie example is not a good one. Just spreading knowledge of the existence of a work doesn't count as "publishing" either -- the work itself must be presented to the public, usually defined as offered in some way to people you have no direct relationship with.
Also, I don't know if this has changed, but it used to be an inviolable principle that an artist, regardless of what rights he may have signed away, had the right to determine the first publication version of his work. Bob Dylan actually denied a physical license to his own recording company for (if I recall correctly) Mr. Tambourine Man until they got a recording he liked. Meantime the Brothers Four and the Byrds were waiting in the wings with versions of their own; even though the Brothers Four version was finished first, it was the Byrds who got copies to market fastest, making them famous.
(Or so the story goes. See The Straight Dope [straightdope.com] for the details.)
I personally dislike both compulsory licensing and eminent domain; one way of looking at your property rights is examining the extent to which others are allowed to use your property without your consent, or to forbid you to use it in certain ways.
How can this be eminent domain (Score:4)
Re:What do I get? (Score:2)
In theory, this doesn't happen, because it breaks "payola" laws that state that all sponsorship of particular songs must be disclosed immediately after the song is played. However, intermediaries called "indies" are paid by the record labels to get certain songs onto radio playlists. In the past, this would involve getting cash, promotions, and the traditional bribes of sex and drugs, to the program directors of radio stations. Nowadays, the indies seem to basically take their cut and pay the rest straight to the radio stations.
There's a series of articles at Salon on ever-more-transparent channels between record companies and radio stations.
Go you big red fire engine!
Re:How can this be eminent domain (Score:2)
The city of Richfield, MN in the Twin Cities, condemned several properties, residential & commercial, to let Best Buy build a new HQ campus there. The reason they did it was for the increased tax revenue. One of the businesses, a car dealership, sued the city, but to no avail. Here's the court decision [google.com] (google cache).
The city of Columbia Heights, MN condemned a property that was being used as a charity for unemployed & homeless people because it didn't present the right "image" the city wanted for its downtown.
Re:What's Fair Compensation? (Score:4)
This is the same thing that happens when the government takes your land for public use. They must compensate you at a fair price. When the two sides cannot agree on a price they go to arbitration.
Wether this works in reality I have no idea, but that is the basic idea.
Re:That application is wrong (Score:2)
Actually there's precedent for having someone who wants to distribute a work they don't have publishing rights to be able to do so over the objections of the owner of the piece. It's called the compulsory license. Any broadcaster can play any song they want, whether the recording company likes it or not, as long as they pay the appropriate royalty for doing so. This would simply be an extension of that right.
And even the members of the RIAA are in favor of this sort of license, at least when it's them doing the broadcasting. They've already asked a court to consider their use of songs for their on-line music service to fall under the compulsory license rules so they don't have to negotiate individually with the artists for rights to use the songs.
Re:Eminent Domain (Score:2)
A shopping mall in the Fort Worth Texas area wanted to expand. So they took many people's homes to do it and paid they what their tax assessment value was. Home owners somewhat further out were now inundated with traffic, but at least they got to sell at market rates to businesses doing the normal purchase offering with incentives. However the lousy living conditions if they stayed probably would have screwed them over.
Re:compulsory licensing could be broader (Score:2)
You are correct. That practice also existed. In part they could succeed because the prices of CDs were around double that of vinyl, while production costs were lower. The first couple of years, "demand" was so high it outpaced production capacity and the record companies could therefore charge more on the basis of supply/demand, and got richer doing so. So yeah, that happened. Had there been a compulsory reproduction law in place, there would have been more incentive for independents to build their own production plants, and the supply would have been higher. This shows even clearer that the record companies, because they have a monopoly on the production, can manipulate supply. And one reason they hate online delivery (not just free sharing) is because it would destroy their capability to do that manipulation.
Re:Freedom of Association (Score:3)
If you choose to publish, you are making your relationship with the public. Anyone in between is irrelevant. If you publish a book, I can buy some somewhere and stand on the street in just a trenchcoat swaying in the breeze and sell them, or even give them away. But you get paid per copy so quit your whining. If it's popular, you get rich. If you want to choose to NOT have a relationship with the public, then don't publish at all.
compulsory licensing could be broader (Score:4)
Before the CD, music was distributed on platters of (supposedly) vinyl consisting of a spiral groove of two orthogonal analog waveforms. This was the medium for most of the 1900s. The effect of the music monopoly on this medium was that only one manufacturing company, usually owned by record company itself, made the medium. Due to this monopoly, there was no incentive to produce good quality records as that did cost a few cents more per unit. The end results was bad quality, with some major record companies like RCA producing total shit (I bought several, and every one of them was horrible quality).
I believe one reason the CD rose in popularity so fast was that the quality was so much better, not just because of the vinyl hiss, but also because of all the clicks and pops from the garbage embedded in the vinyl. The CD wasn't totally immune from this damage, but it could correct a lot of it, and quietly skip a lot more, and you never noticed it.
Also, in the early days of the CD, record companies hadn't yet learned how to cut corners and reduce costs without completely destroying the product. Now days they are learning. The quality of CDs is going down and down as the record companies are trying to push the edge of what consumers will accept.
If there was competition in the media production phase of music production, with a compulsory licensing that allowed anyone to produce the medium and change whatever they wanted to consumers, and simply pay the publishing company that owns the rights to the recording (or the artists directly if they own it) the statutory or arbitrated fees, then the consumer would have a free market choice on who makes the CDs they buy.
In the day of vinyl (and even still today to some degree) a few companies were making reproductions of music on quality media. Usually the costs were very high, almost double. I soon found out that the original record company demanded a fee that was at least equal to, and in some cases more than, the retail cost of their own garbage. This would be a fee they would collect for not even producing the media at all. Compulsory and/or statutory licensing would have prevented this rip off.
There is precendent in statute now. This is already how the law works for certain kinds of reproductions (see The Harry Fox Agency [nmpa.org] and this licensing information page [nmpa.org]) and performances (see ASCAP [ascap.com], BMI [bmi.com], and SESAC [sesac.com]), although it still does not work perfectly as reported in links found via Google [google.com].
Still, I think this would be a good step forward to have this kind of law in place not only for media reproduction, but also for digital online delivery.
Re:Eminent Domain (Score:2)
Re:Eminent Domain (Score:2)
I am aware of the prevalence of quasi-governmental redeveloment agencies that act as a legal front for the private use of eminent domain, but at least they have to pretend like they're a government agency. The NYT got a governmental ruling, but will any other newspaper need to get one as well, or does this ruling enter into common law for any private publisher to use for their private benefit?
Eminent Domain (Score:5)
The New York Times and other publishers are NOT the government. They should not get the benefit of Eminent Domain. The consequences would turn all of property law on its head.
Consider the implications if this were extended to other non-governmental organizations, or even individuals. "We want to build a hotel on your beachfront property, which has been in your family for five generations, and you must sell to us by law." "We want to take over your company, and your stockholders refuse to sell, tough shit!" "Sorry Bob, I'm going to move your fence three feet closer to your house, and you can't stop me."
Or the really scary one if you're an Open Souce fan: "We will use your kernel in our OS despite your objections, but we will pay you market price for it."
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
20 years for corporate copyrights? First thats kinda discriminitory, and second the copywrite would then just be held by and employee, who would be contactialy bound to give up all rights to such copywrite, while it still being in the guys name.
You seem to have forgotten the purpose of copywrite when you say it should be lifetime of the creator, our founding fathers envisioned copywrite to be a very limited monopoly, just long enough to encourage people to create artistic works, not to insure that the artist gets as much money as he can from the work. And indie artist is not less likly to create a work if the copywrite was 20 years. Actually that person is more encouraged to create more works, as he cannot assume, that he can make money off such work for eternity. The only problem I see, is a corporation being more hesitant on funding a project that would receive money slowly overtime even past the 20 years. Creative works that can easily be copied rarly make much money past 20 years, and eventually corporations will just have to get used to the idea, that they can't feed of something forever.
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
Hrrmmm, interesting. (Score:2)
For one, the Music/Media companies, have been VERY succesfull in lobbying all branches of government to seeing their side. (Executive branch: restrictive FCC regs/FBI holding Sklyrov, Courts: DeCSS/Napster rulings, Legislative: DMCA)
Secondly, I would venture to think that the extensive _private_ music collections of many people would give the courts the impression that an emminant domain is not needed. An online emminant domain might be sutible for newspapers, since most people do not recieve or archive all newspapers, but not for musics, because people personally archive their music into collections.
However, i'm also unsure as to whether music would be as quick to be proclaimed emminant domain, since i'm not sure if musics is as an essential "protected speech" as the press.
What do I get? (Score:4)
Say record company A produces a record that becomes hugely popular. I'd like to dissect exactly how it becomes popular.
Part of that increase in popularity comes from using public airwaves to broadcast the song on radio. Part of the increase comes from me telling my friends what a great song it is. Part of it is just from the general sheep mentality of the population.
My question to
How much of the value of a popular work is derived from no effort of the publisher and should be returned to the public at large, and how long after a work becomes part of our culture (like the Happy Birthday song) must we continue to be indebted to someone?
Re:PUBLIC domain, not eminent ... (Score:2)
The problem is that the solution is incompatible with Republicans (sucking up to Big Media and Big Media Money) and Democrats (sucking up to Big Media Money and Big Media).
Big Media is even harder to fight than Big Oil. Big Oil is just money (which every politician needs). Big Media is money and influence over voters (which every politician needs more). Get AOL/Time-Warner pissed off at you and see if you can run a decent campaign.
Scared yet?
License costs. (Score:3)
Ok, so the record companies do pay money for marketing. So what? That should not be a factor when considering the proper fee since without that marketing they might not have ANY sales, in which case they wouldn't have to worry about these issues. In the end, we're looking at what?
I don't remember the exact amounts but from what I recall from old arguments, the artist probably gets about $1 per CD in royalties. Assuming there are 10 songs on the average CD, thats 10 cents per song that the artist recieves. And thats about what napster should be required to pay per song. That amount could ALMOST be completely covered with banner ads, although some revitalization in the banner ad business will be required to really make a go of this. However, marketers have an advantage with napster users. Direct marketing will be effective with them with regards to music. You know exactly which music they're listening to, and if you want to fire off advertising relating directly to that music, the case is likely that someone might actually pay attention to that advertising and it might be worth the cost.
-Restil
Re:A particularly interesting quote (Score:2)
USGov: I'm sorry Mr. Eisner, but Mickey Mouse is too important to the culture of the USA for a single corporation to control; you're work is now public domain (for US citizens only [ed: this leads to its own problems vis-a-vis a new class of quasi-protected works]), here's x dollars.
On the surface, we (the people) get (free) access to works protected either by patents or by copyright. However, the implication of doing this is to equate a principle of Property (in the Tangible sense) Law to (so called) Patents, Trademarks and Copyright ("Intellectual Property" in the vernacular of the law). The danger, then, would be that this treatment of protected ideas the same as Property gives credence to content holders' arguments that "piracy" (however defined) is the same as stealing property thereby perpetuating the myth of "Intellectual Property".
Regards,
Slak
No freedom here. (Score:2)
All it means to the RIAA is:
1. They must negotiate the right to publish online separately. They'll just add another clause to the existing contracts and continue as usual.
2. Older content that was not licensed under the newer contracts must be renegotiated for electronic format with the artist. That just means that older content is not likely to make it into newer distribution channels if the artist doesn't agree or can't be found.
So less music makes it into the channel. And we all lose more of our history and old favorites becuase RIAA chooses not to redistribute or can't.
Putting further restrictions on content flow is not a good thing, even if it is limiting the RIAA.
Re:Great then.... (Score:2)
No... the end user will be paying the record label (I don't know why the RIAA would be involved at all).
Stop thinking about Napster, start thinking about CD-Now (or Amazon, or B&N or whatever) where you can pay and download any given track from their libary, instead of buying a whole CD and waiting for it to land in your mailbox. This decision would (if I understand it correctly) allow CD-Now/et al to do this as long as they give a cut to the label that owns the copyright. That cut has to be negotiated, of course.
What's Fair Compensation? (Score:4)
Re:A particularly interesting quote (Score:2)
PUBLIC domain, not eminent ... (Score:3)
The real problem is the way copyright terms have been extended far beyond the the realm of sanity.
That's the way "holes in history" get created lately: companies are able to prevent independent collections of relatively recent information from even getting created. In the US, copyrights haven't expired for any work since shortly before Mickey Mouse was created; that's another part of the "copyright bargain" that has gotten completely corrupted.
The simple solution to this problem is compatible with both conservative ("the good old days did it right!") and liberal ("give us our civil rights!") political philosophies: restore copyright terms to sane periods, so these problems don't need to come up, ever. Let them enter the public domain just a few decades after they're copyrighted, the way they were supposed to.
Heck, there's a lot of older music I'd love to have access to. If it weren't for the way that the media (RIAA just one member) have locked it up in endless copyright, Napster (and the like) would be able to offer it for free (or for money!) without needing to worry about lawsuits. (And likely the new music coming out would be better, since it'd have to compete in terms of quality not just marketing!)
Re:No freedom here. (Score:2)
What? According to the article, in Tasini, the supreme court specifically addressed removing the content. They seemed to have some amount of concern that "holes" would be created in the historical archive of information, so they required that compulsory licenses be negotiated.
A compulsory license limits the rights of the copyright holder, and prevents them from holding content hostage by refusing to license it at any reasonable fee. What happens is that the copyright holder and the licensee will go into arbitration, which will determine a "reasonable" compensation for the copyright holder.
So the point of the article is that if compulsory licenses are applied to RIAA and napster, then the RIAA loses some of its grip over their copyrights of the songs. Napster users will still have to pay (because compulsory licenses do not alleviate the copyright holders right to compensation) however it would prevent the RIAA from holding songs hostage in order to be able to set prices and force out competition.
This doesn't put restrictions on content flow. It specifically puts restrictions on copyright abuse, which frees content flow. This is a good thing, and I hope it works.
$.02
--
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:3)
Reducing the period of the limited monopoly will have the desired effect, because artists/creators/publishers/RIAA/whoever will have to continue to invent new things to sustain a steady income.
Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:5)
We only need one reform: incredibly short terms for patents and copyright. Although any decision is arbitrary, I think that 3 years is more than generous enough in the case of copyright these days, and that 7-10 years is more than generous enough in the case of patent.
Re:If? (Score:2)
Here [ij.org], or here [bostonherald.com], or just search on google [google.com].
This kind of crap is nothing new. The only thing new about it is how egregious governments are becoming about it. Now, they no longer need to lie and say it's to build a road, or expand a school. Now, they'll just come out and say it's so we can hand it over to a developer to build a shopping center [ncpa.org].
Yeah right... (Score:4)
keep the government out of it (Score:2)
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
Do you know how many people won't go see movies in the theatre because they say "Oh, I can just wait six months and rent it."
What would happen to the copyright holders if people said, instead "Oh, I can just wait three years and download it for 10 cents."
Also, this kind of disfavors indie movies ... big hollywood movies (planet of the apes) tend to make most of their money up front, while indie films make much less money consistently over a period of time. Also, in terms of movies, this most disadvantages *good* movies, which are the only movies that continue to make money after four or five years.
Also, short software patents are a good idea, but I can envision patenting something mechanical and it taking ten years to develop the processes need to mass-produce it, by which time you will have lost your patent :P
I would say, less than five years for software patent, fifteen for normal patent, life of the artist for copyright and 20 years for corporate copyright.
Compulsory Licensing is not like eminent domain (Score:2)
Compulsory licensing is already implemented with regards to music broadcasting, I'm pretty sure. That's what ASCAP and BMI are for; radio stations can play any song they want, and they just pay a bit more to ASCAP or BMI (more like ASCAP _and_ BMI) for the priviledge. So that's the kind of thing we're talking about. Not "taking" the music from the labels.
Furthermore, this seems silly, because napster would still have to pay royalties. At least as much as a radio station, and probably more since it's music-on-demand. So, there would still be usage fees and/or tons and tons of advertising to support it, both of which seem to be death knells for that service.
---
Re:What's Fair Compensation? (Score:2)
- Russ
wrong (Score:3)
Look at that. It is a sentence. Sentences follow rules according to the English language.
Congress has the power to
What power does Congress have?
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts
How is Congress supposed to do this?
by curing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Congress does NOT have the right to regulate copyright, it has the right to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and it is allowed to do that by "curing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
If it isn't being done to promote science and arts, Congress doesn't have the power to do it.
wrong (Score:5)
That is false. Copyright exists solely for the purpose of promoting progress. Read the Constitution.
If? (Score:4)
You Gotta Remember... (Score:2)
Happy Birthday isn't public domain (Score:2)
Goddammit, the USA had declared folk music illegal. Isn't that sick?
To answer your question, if something becomes so popular that it's part of the national culture- be it a catch phrase, song, picture, movie, cartoon characters, etc., then the public owns it. Sure, the author/publisher deserves a some profit for it for a little while, perhaps a single lifetime. But dammit, the world owns Mickey Mouse by now, just as much as it owns Ichabod Crane, Merlin, or Oedipus.
M$, Drivers, and Eminant Domain (Score:2)
bash-2.04$
Re:Freedom of Association (Score:2)
Irrelevant, since that is not what is being argued in the article here.
There are times when content producers, especially musicians, object to being associated with other content producers.
Suppose the NRA wanted to make a video about guns and include a Sheryl Crow song as background music. I'm assuming Sheryl Crow, given her anti-gun views, would strongly object to that. But the second you talk about compulsory licensing of content you immediately step into these problems.
That's why the author of this article brings in the eminent domain argument. When they need to tear down houses to build a new sports complex for some NFL team, some homeowners would prefer not to do business with the team, but eminent domain allows the government to force the homeowners to do so on the grounds that they are creating a public good.
The author is arguing that if the RIAA doesn't bargain in good faith, that Napster should be given the right to exercise a compulsory license in music. But, as he notes, you wouldn't be able to do that just for Napster.
So what happens when the NAMBLA decides it wants to start selling MP3 downloads from its site to raise money? Or [fill in the group here]
And what happens when such a solution is inevitably applied to other forms covered under copyright laws?
Re:Freedom of Association (Score:2)
Compulsory licensing assumes that the only interest copyright holders have is monetary. That is simply not the case.
Freedom of Association (Score:5)
For example, a few years ago an essay I wrote about rape was stolen and put on a porn site, because it did well in search engine searches on "rape."
Now even if the porn site were willing to pay me $1,000 for that short article, I would not be interested in granting them a license to publish.
But once you get into compulsory licensing, this sort of discretion goes completely out the Window, and creative types can no longer choose for themselves who they will associate with.
One small and essential detail missing... (Score:2)
Suppose John lets Alice to publish his work, and John gets a reward. Then as I understand it, it is Alice who has now the rights to republish John's work and put him for an arbiter in worst case.
In that story, Alice and John had a relationship, but if now somebody called Pete drops in, does Pete *really* have the right to put Alice for an arbiter? Or does Pete need to negotiate with John? Isn't it like this: Alice has the right to republish such that John doesn't get a monopoly?
--
RTA (Score:2)
Subscriptions? (Score:2)
Yowzers (Score:3)
At some point, each of us has hated the US legal system and the evils it produces. Then you see something brilliant, simple, and reasonable like this and it all seems worth it. Maybe. :^)
Oh, and free speech ain't too bad either. :^)
Eminem's domain?? (Score:3)
Registrant:
Goliath Artists (EMINEM2-DOM)
444 Washington Blvd., #5522
Jersey City, NJ 07310
US
Domain Name: EMINEM.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Paul D. Rosenberg, Esq (EP2695) paulbunyan@MAILEXCITE.COM
Goliath Artists
444 Washington Blvd., #5522
Jersey City , NJ 07310
(201)8760313 (FAX) (212) 935-0554
Technical Contact:
Rogas, Adam (AR1789) adam@PHUTURSOFT.COM
PhutureSoft
3013 La Mesa Dr.
Henderson, NV 89014
702-898-1234
Record last updated on 31-Oct-2000.
Record expires on 22-Nov-2002.
Record created on 22-Nov-1998.
Database last updated on 30-Jul-2001 02:05:00 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.PHUTURESOFT.COM 206.159.180.2
DNS4.REGISTER.COM 209.67.50.254
Re:bout time (Score:2)
Re:Let's see now. (Score:3)
The problem here is that, while possibly helping napster and screwing the RIAA (which is what we all want, right?), it also takes certain freedoms away from the little guy. If I copyright something personal *just* for the sake of protecting it, I could, theoretically, be screwed into releasing something that I never wanted anyone to see.
Then again, IANAL and all I really know of this is what I read in the article. I could be wrong.
bout time (Score:4)
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
Whether IP is property or not is a lot less relevant than people think.
You can define IP as property, or you can define it as a limited monopoly granted by the government. You can define it as the square root of PI. It doesn't matter.
All of these definitions are simply a convenience for lawyers, so that they can have a starting point on which to base the law. The programmer's analogy is whther IP could have Foo as its base class, or Bar as its base class. Regardless of which one you pick, the customer has a set of specifications that you want to meet.
In this case, the customer is the public, and the specification is that we benefit producers and consumers without violating the rights of either. This formulation of arbitration between RIAA and Napster in terms property law illustrates my point. They could also formulate a remedy in terms of limiting the monopoly, but regardless of how they formulate a remedy they need to respect both sides.
IP will be the Power source of th 21st Century (Score:3)
This is why there's such a fight for intellectual property rights. Only by controlling the knowledge of how and what to produce can power be maintained by those who value it. By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge. With production automated, almost everyone who is employed will be working in service jobs by 2050. And then it gets more interesting.
For all the gory details, http://www.consumerrevolution.com/IPR.html [consumerrevolution.com]
Re:What's Fair Compensation? (Score:2)
3 year copyrights (Score:2)
Under capitalism, you only need to give as much incentive as necessary to get the product to market - any more is waste.
Real Literature Overrated (Score:2)
Tabloid rags are still around today, so copyrights certainly didnt cure that problem. The French are a bit snooty about their "culture", so they overreacted again when they thought it was being diluted.
Basically without copyrights the printing houses couldnt afford to commision the creation of new books. But they could print whatever they wanted at the same cost.
So they print what they think people want to buy. There is no artificial scarcity of tabloids, or popular books, and no artificial abundance of books that noone wants to buy. No artificial monopolies. Whats wrong with that?
If no printer was making a book that people wanted- then the first publisher to do so would stand to make some good money.
If another printer insisted upon printing books that were not worth buying, or were overpriced, they would go out of business.
Good writers have other motivations for writing books, so content would always come around, though one might never see millionaire authors.
Question... (Score:2)
Is there any evidence that the artists actually want their stuff traded for free? Or are we imprinting (that's not the word I'm looking for) our "information wants to be free" mindset on them?
We all know that the RIAA is against this, but what about the artists. There are artists that have come out against it (Metallica), and some indepentants that are for it, but I never got the sense that there was a prevailing opinion either way.
Maybe its something I missed.
Re:No it isn't. (Score:3)
Trouble is, if an artist wants to get anywhere, they pretty much have to sign a contract with a big label. Sure, it is possible to succeed using other methods, but their chances are 10000x better this way.
---
Re:A particularly interesting quote (Score:3)
There was a post in the forums for the article which I'll reproduce here cause I thought is was intelligent, if a bit right wing...
Robert Brammer - 10:10am Jul 30, 2001 (565. 972/972)
Court to property rights: Drop dead.
You claim compulsory licenses help to avoid abuse of monopoly? WRONG! The only monopoly in this case is the arbitration board, which engages in state sanctioned price fixing, by determining a price at which a copyright holder must sell under penalty of law.
As for the court's concern for "holes in history," this is simply not a concern, and I'll explain why. Suppose a freelance writer will not give permission for the NYT to publish his article online. The Court only seems to be able to think this far through this dilemma, and claims this situation results in a "hole in history." Do they forget that the freelance writer wants money from his articles, and that is, at least in part, why he writes them? Common sense dictates he will eventually sell his article for online publication at the price he desires, even if not to the NYT. So, let's say the Washington Post buys the right to publish his article online. The Court would probably claim that this is still not acceptable, because their is now a "hole in history" if you visit the NYT site, because the article in question is only on the Post site. The Justices, in their arrogance, assume that the free market could not handle this problem. It should come as no surprise that they're wrong. Sheer market demand would quickly bring about the solution to this problem in the form of a search engine for articles, independent of any newspaper, that would be setup to include links to all of the articles on all of the different newspaper sites. Now the "holes in history" concern is a dead issue. It is disturbing that the justices overlook this obvious solution and immediately render a decision which violates an individual's first amendment right to not speak, the right of a person to control the distribution of their product, and the right of an individual to negotiate the sale of their product as a free trader.
This is undoubtedly one of the worst decisions by the Court in recent years, and certainly one of the most repugnant to the goals of a free society.
Re:pay for play? no thanks.... (Score:2)
Once again, so I am clear (as I am certainly not clear about this!):
Is it legal to burn a CD of your favorite songs via ripping them from your CD and writing them to another? If it is legal, how far away are we from the realization of the SDMI [sdmi.org] (RIAA wet) 'dream' of encrypted music that won't rip or burn?
Re:pay for play? no thanks.... (Score:2)
---
Re:What do I get? (Score:2)
Color me crazy, it's rather difficult to rip someone off once they're dead...
Also, IIRC, IP was originally introduced as a measure to allow authors to benefit financially from their works for a limited time (I believe it was originally 5 years for copyright), then have the works pass into the public domain. This would provide incentive for artists/scientists to create new works.
In the current system, an author can concievably release a few pieces of work, then sit back, relax, and collect the royalty cheques...until they die...in which case, their children have 75 years to find a new source of income...where is the incentive to create new works?
One comment which I read about a year ago here on slashdot, which really struck home for me (and I wish I could remember to whom it belonged) was that no DVDs would ever enter the public domain. CDs/DVDs have a lifetime of about 15-20 years before they begin to breakdown, IIRC. Very few, if any will survive to see their copyrights expire.
Buyers not privy to details of RIAA contract. (Score:2)
But the consumer is largely unaware of what's going on and can't even inquire about such deals because they're "secret".
The smart RIAA will even allow slots for a tiny tiny few indie bands to throw the sharp eyed shopper off. "See, they sell indie stuff". But they don't put up enough shelf space to support the indie bands as a whole, i.e., no one indie band can rely on a small chance lottery of seeing their stuff carried at major retailers.
So the indie artist can't reliably get into the major chain stores to sell his music unless he signs with the RIAA.
The consumer has no control here. The consumer thinks he sees a fair market. The consumer has been duped. The RIAA was always in control.
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
But they already own everything anyway... (Score:2)
From the article:
Uhh, I thought Napster was owned by the record industry. Didn't Bertelsmann AG buy it a while back? Or did I miss something?
Sorry to sound like such a dope, but I can't remember much with all the aluminum [alzforum.org] in my drinking water [water.com].
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:2)
Re:Ick (Score:2)
Yeah, I agree governments can be corrupt. But so can not-governments. It's people who do the corrupting, so no matter how you slice it, you're going to get burned. Unless, of course, you're one of the two or three who come out at the top of the pile smelling like roses.
I think things like this depend more on what you believe is right than on some possibly flawed, circumstantial, or anecdotal evidence. If you go around saying this or that government is a bad government, then you are admitting that you have some idea of what would make those governments better. So you agree that good government is good. Now we can discuss how good government can be achieved. Sometimes the public good can be served by taking away someone's property, especially if:
I don't think anyone would call this an ideal solution, but it may be the best possible solution given the circumstances.
Re:No it isn't. (Score:2)
So actually it is the music buyers who create the monopoly by limiting their concept of music to those artists who are "successful" or by thinking of success only in terms of being famous. I can think of many ways to judge success without considering a person's fame and renown. Why are we such suckers for Star-Power?
Re:Ick (Score:2)
Re:but why treat IP differently . . (Score:2)
Too often, people forget their real recourse - if somebody wants too much money for their work, don't buy it.
To use this argument as a defense of copyright is to miss the point of copyright. Copyright wasn't meant to turn creative output into personal legal tender. Copyright was intended to meet a social objective: to encourage creative output for the benefit of all citizens.
If a government sanctioned monopoly gives an artist enough market power to discourage distribution rather than submit to lower prices, then the system is failing. Just saying "then don't buy it" defeats the whole purpose of copyright. If artists are going to price things in a range that makes most people say "forget it", then the government has to rethink the way it encourages distribution.
Re:that's not a solution either (Score:2)
Obviously you have been well conditioned by the forces of mass consumerism. I find 'community access' television to be far more entertaining and informative than most of what I see on 'high quality, nationally recognized, brand name' television.
And as far as your contention that people only work for financial reward: you must never have had to raise a child.
Re:Ick (Score:2)
I would pay to hear a lecture. In fact, I have done that many times. And I suppose I'd buy the T-Shirt, too (like I did for Jelo Biafra's spoken word concert) but only if you *promise* to admit that you're wrong.
Re:Ick (Score:2)
I guess if I was fool enough to part with my money to hear Jelo Biafra, then yes, I would probably be the kind of person who would agree to that.
I like that: "NY Times Freelance Guy" emblazoned on a Tee! I think you're on to something!
Re:Buyers not privy to details of RIAA contract. (Score:2)
Yes, I agree they exert a lot of influence. I was trying to draw attention to the ease with which they wield that influence. For instance, one might assert that music that makes it onto the shelves of HMV or Tower Records cannot be "indy" by definition. There's no sense in which anything that is mass-produced and distributed in little packages could be called "independent". It depends on a whole infrastructure of mass markets and media.
I had a funny experience the other day that really left a lasting impression of how impossible it is to have real music when everyone thinks real music comes in a jewel case.
I have a nine-year-old daughter. A couple of weeks ago, I took her to a huge street festival with tons of live music and activities going on. There was a really funky band playing on stage, having lots of fun. My daughter called me to come and see something. She was standing closer to the stage than I was, so I assumed she wanted me to see the musicians up close. What she really wanted me to see was a discarded 7-Eleven Slurpee cup with a picture of Britney Spears on it.
What can real musicians do to compete? Nobody can be "indy" if they're already on the shelves of a music store. They've already sold out by allowing their work to be mass-produced.
I've probably contradicted myself a dozen times, but I stand by every word of it, dammit!!
Re:Ick (Score:2)
I think the guy is a real character, and some of what he says made sense to me. I like his energy. For that matter, I also enjoyed listening to Henry Rollins do his rant.
From your other posts, you didn't seem like an actual communist...are you just commie-curious?
I'm totally middle of the road, really. I think it's stupid to believe that an economy could survive without paying for some social structure through collective effort. On the other hand, it is also ludicrous to think that the requisite collective effort could be achieved under anything but the most favourable economic conditions. You can't go around arbitrarily taking stuff away from people and then expect them to participate wholeheartedly in society-building. They'd do it grudgingly, the way people in Western Countries are acting right now. They would rather withdraw from society than participate.
Governments have earned some of their infamy, but a lot of the survivalist, anti-government sentiment has been nurtured by multinationals, much the way that the entertainment industry nurtures our perception that all worthwhile information comes from -- and only from -- the mass media. It's in the interests of these behemoths to weaken governments of any stripe, the same way sellers of all kinds stand to benefit from our personal weakness and shame.
I guess I'm not sounding so middle of the road now. But I firmly believe we should solve our problems by debate and science and reason and passionate optimism, rather than by ideologies that breed hatred and suspicion. I'm not into throwing molotov cocktails at WTO meetings, if that's what you were thinking. If what I described sounds to you like an "actual communist" then yes, I suppose I am an actual communist. I certainly wouldn't be ashamed of that label, but I don't really think I'm quite so ideologically rigid.
If anything, I am a Participatory Economics - ite. For an example of what that can be, see the Mondragon Cafe and Bookstore [a-zone.org]. I am slightly commie-curious. Just don't tell my wife. What she doesn't know won't hurt her.
There. You now know much more about me than you wanted to, I'm sure.
Re:Ick (Score:3)
I find it strange that people seem to use two standards to judge value.
- On the one hand they say that a thing's value is whatever the market is willing to pay for it.
- On the other hand (usually when they are trying to defend property rights) they claim that resources and time invested in something give it an intrinsic value.
This is like the split between the book value and market value of an asset. Sometimes the asset's market value goes to zero. If the market value stays at zero, at some point it becomes irrational to say that it is really worth anything.Just look at Nortel Networks or JDS Uniphase for an example of how assets sometimes need to "disappear". The asset that disappears is usually something like "goodwill", which is equivalent to whatever the buyer paid above and beyond the book value of the company's assets at the time of the purchase. So compare that to the case of the record industry. Consumers are less willing to pay for music. The value of the record industry's "assets" has gone down substantially. Maybe it's time for the record companies to just write off these assets and get on with some other kind of business. I'm sure there's a huge market for T-Shirt and poster sales.
this makes no sense... (Score:2)
Brilliant, simple and reasonable (Score:2)
I kind of agree. I've been thinking more and more that law is like code. But think about this: this is sort of like garbage collection (removing copyright monopoly allocations) by a process with higher priority (The New York Times) than yours (citizen).
When you find an injustice without a higher priority process to take up the argument, you have a serious memory leak that is undetected by litigative garbage collection initiated by your weak citizen process. Which leads some of us to think it would be better to carefully manage the allocation of copyright monopolies (memory) in the first place.
Bryon
How's this for an example (Score:2)
I would like to present you with a song about George W. Bush. I didn't write it, of course, and the RIAA owns the rights to it, but I present it as an act of drawing upon the popular culture in order to make a political statement:
---------
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man can you see me at all
Nowhere man, don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all, 'till somebody else
Lends you a hand
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
---------
Now, what the article is saying is that the Supreme Court's ruling on the freelance publisher case could be interpreted to mean that the recording industry could be compelled to license its material to Napster by a court ruling at a price to be determined by a court. What I'd like to know is if I use RIAA material as I have just done to make a political statement would the same apply? And if so, what amount would the court set as an appropriate fee for the compulsory licence?
Eric Weisstein's Mathworld (Score:3)
It sounds like the courts are saying that the right to publish a work in print does not carry along the right to publish electronically. If so, is it possible that the court's ruling in this matter will have any bearing on the Mathworld [mathworld.com] lawsuit? Maybe its a pointless question without seeing the contract betweeen CRC and Mr. Weisstein. I think the void left by Mathworld's absense is only slightly less significant than a 'hole' left in history as the editorial describes it.
Re:Why have we let ourselves get into this mess? (Score:3)
Do you think they will make music [dischord.com] that [claptononline.com] lasts [paulsimon.com] or stupid [britneyspears.com] rubbish [backstreetboys.com] that doesn't when they know they have a limited time to milk money from people?
A particularly interesting quote (Score:5)
--CTH
Re:No freedom here. (Score:3)
Way to miss the point. This ruling (might, if sustained and interpreted loosely) give Son of Napster the right to distribute music that has previously been published, regardless of the licensing situation. Did you read the article? There were no digital media clauses in the NYT contracts, but the court decision (if carried through) both allows and requires the NYT to publish in that format anyway and reward fairly the copyright holders.
It's not relevant whether the Big 5 record companies have online media contracts with artists, or whether Son of Napster carries Big 5 tracks and/or independent artist tracks. The only salient points are:
The relevant question is actually whether Son of Napster has any right at all to publish any work owned by third parties with which it has no previous business relationship, and who have given no agreement for Son of Napster to publish their copyrighted work in any form. I can't see why this ruling gives Son of Napster that right. But it's an all-or-nothing question, not one of individual contracts between record companies and artists.
If you download MP3s ... (Score:3)
So you're saying that you would trade the de facto regulation of a business trade group for the de jure regulation of the federal government? Forgive me if I remain suspicious.
In this case, if you download MP3s, you really would be downloading Communism.
Re:A particularly interesting quote (Score:3)
This, of course, in no way means that the court should encourage such holes by an overly broad interpretation of subsidiary and non-negotiated IP rights. At the time that the agreements were reached, neither of the parties felt that these rights were important enough to hassle over.
What would you say if you bought a land to build a house on, but the mineral rights were not mentioned in the deed - neither you nor the seller felt that the possibility of there being any useful minerals were important enough to worry about. In fact, lets say no one had discovered that a new mineral - dirtonium - had amazing curative powers at the time.
But the scientists worked and discovered that dirtonium was amazingly good for people. And you did a survey and found a bunch of dirtonium right under your house! Then you set up a system for selling and distributing Dirtonium(TM).
Now suddenly, the original land holder is suing you because he didn't sign away his mineral rights to the land. How do you feel now? Again, no one even knew that this stuff was important when the sales agreement was made.
The court is in between a rock and a hard place in this one. Obviously no one knew on-line rights were going to be worth anything when these agreements were signed or else they would have been mentioned. In short, the sellers thought they were being paid for an article and the Times thought they were buying an article. Period. The court doesn't want to weaken IP law, nor does it want to screw over the Times. The best thing you can do in these cases IS to appeal to a greater interest, if there is one. In this case, the use of the information to historians outweighs the value to the copyright holders who didn't object when asking to sign these agreements and probably didn't even know that the electronic rights woul ever be worth anything. The only other possible decisions are worse - have NYT dump the articles into the river (which they seem to be doing) or preserve the status quo by telling the copyright holders to go away.