The End of Innovation? 323
Simone writes: "2001 has been a bad year not just for dot-coms but also for people interested in preserving the public's right to fair use of copyright materials. From the shutdown of Napster and the DeCSS case to the prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov, federal prosecutors and U.S. courts have acted in support of copyright interests and against the public's ability to use technology to secure fair-use rights. OpenP2P.com editor Richard Koman talks about these turns of events with Lawrence Lessig." Not particularly coincidentally, Lessig has a new book coming out on this very topic.
The crux is buried away in the article. (Score:2)
Lessig: Yes. I think we should go back to the principles that defined us originally, which was about open societies with free people who should obey the law but you don't get them to obey the law by basically coding it so that they can't do anything different. You get them to obey the law by making the law reasonable and getting people to be respectful of it, and that's the direction we ought to be going.
Now, to me that makes sense.. In all of history, when organisations have overreached themselves, and tried to force control on everything, then other groups have leaped up and revolted.
The more serious the overreach, the more serious the backlash.
The whole reason the States seceeded from England was because the king of the time was forcing unfair measures on each and every person there. And lo, they all got a little upset, and went independant.
Now, several hundred years later, the lawyers of the US seems to be forming laws that are just as unfair and predatory as those that were around back then.
Personally, I know very little about "The Law". At least from a technical point of view. I'd hazard a guess that I comply about 99.9% with it, simply by following the rules of common sense.
I have respect for those rules that are actually put there to protect people, and civilisation as a whole, and make the world a better place.
However, I strenuously object to those laws that are in place solely to allow money to speak, and ensure that it makes more money, at the expense of the little guy.
It seems almost like a throwback to medieval feudalism, with IP laws instead of land, and the consumer being the peon that does all the work, provides all the input to keep things moving, and at the end of the day gets shafted by the 'lords' with no recourse or protection.
So, I laud anyone who simply says "Make the law fair.. Make it something people can look at and respect, and lo, it shall be respected.".
That's sense.
At the moment, the law is saying "You'll respect me and like it, because I tell you so", which bears far more resemblance to a tinpot dictatorship than the enlightened society that the Western World is supposed to be.
Once disrespect begins to grow, it weakens the credibility of the whole.
The whole reason that there are software companies now is that the original concept of copyright seemed fair.
People didn't just copy everything in sight.. They actually respected the right of the producing companies to receive their payment, and the law that protected that.
The DMCA is a law that just begs to be disrespected, and one wonders what effect that'll have on the public perception of the rights that's intended to protect...
Malk
Creativity and Copyrights (Score:2)
This is a potent argument, because of its patent fairness. However, I don't think it really applies to the kinds of copyright extensions and attacks of fair use, and onerous applications of IP laws we've been seeing.
The real advocates of this are the large corporate interests that hold huge bodies of existing, and in some cases quite old IP. I don't have anything against large corporations per se, but it is important to realize that they are posing as proxies of the creative people that in realities are employees, contractors or independent vendors. Their implicit argument is what is good for them is good for the artist. That is only partialy true: protection from copyright infringement on recent works increases the sale value of creative work, and thus certainly helps the artist.
However, artists and creators have an additional interest that the corporate interests don't share: an interest in their personal productivity. Creative people are empowered by being able to fairly use the works of others, to rely upon a body of works in the public domain, and to use publicly available knowledge as a basis for new creations. For artists, inventors, researchers and programmers, maximizing their return involves trading off having a rich source of material to work with, and having a restricted market for their output. They therefore have a much more balanced interest in the fair use/copyright extension/patent extension debates than their employers.
Traditional IP protections -- moderate copyright periods, fair use, limited kinds of patents that can be obtained -- have been proven effective to both incent and empower creativity.
A few additions... (Score:4, Funny)
It's also been a bad year for the stock market, most all technology fields and on top of all that, my sex life is down 5 points... go figure, I'm still blaming el nino.
Definition of "Fair Use"? (Score:2)
Re:Definition of "Fair Use"? (Score:2, Insightful)
In your sig, there is truth.
That which was costly is now free (or very inexpensive). In the past, reproduction and distribution had substantial marginal costs and the middlemen were able to make a living. Now these costs are dropping precipitously and the middlemen are being cut out. The bottom line is that the coming of cheap information transfer will ditch the old economy. Any government who recognizes this and facilitates it will be ahead of any that doesn't and tries to prevent it.
And I got news for all you Luddites out there - information isn't the final step. Pretty soon (within 50 years), biotech and nanomechanics will get to a point where you transmit a blueprint and you can have an object the next day. And our economy doesn't know how to handle this. Do I have an answer for what gets put in place of our current economy? Hell, no. But it won't look the same as the current one.
The only really important question is whether or not you'll continue to have relatively large amounts of freedom or if you will be buried under a neo-feudalism. In my opinion, the rush towards ever more draconian laws is the last gasp of the current economic order. They will not be able to hold on. Short-term, it's going to look feudal. Long-term, the stars are ours. But we should work towards more freedom, just in case...
Economic Theory for Information (Score:2)
I don't suggest this as a solution, but a springboard to think about further solutions. Look here [rr.com] for a discussion of something called the Stone Society. Enjoy!
Re:Definition of "Fair Use"? (Score:2, Informative)
"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-- (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors."
Those four factors are how a court determines if an otherwise infringing use (e.g., quoting a book in a book review of that book) is actually a fair use. Fair use is not really a right of the user, but a limitation on the right of the copyright holder.
However, the Supreme Court, in the 1985 case Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, stated that these four factors were not exclusive of all the things that should be considered when determining if a use is fair. The factors are a guide. In reality, any court dealing with a fair use defense is going to start with those four factors and only deviate from that analysis in exceptional circumstances.
________________________________________
This post is not intended to provide legal advice.
What does this have to do with innovation? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing to stop people coming up with new and better ways of carrying out these same tasks, or entirely different tasks - the constraints that we're looking at here are primarily on reverse engineering, which has never really struck me as being an integral part of innovation...
Re:What does this have to do with innovation? (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost all technology in use today is in part available because of reverse engineering.
Without reverse engineering there would be no interoperability between Windows, Macs, Unix, etc.
Without reverse engineering we wouldn't even have the current PC at all.
Without reverse engineering we wouldn't have the huge microwave oven market we have today.
Car manufacturers buy each other's cars and completely take them apart to see how competitors do things.
There is simply no end to how much technology is improved through reverse engineering. Reverse engineering has ALWAYS been a huge part of innovation.
So, how big is sealand? (Score:2)
Freedom Ship (Score:2)
You don't want Sealand, you want Freedom Ship [freedomship.com]. Who knows whether it will ever see the light of day, but the idea intrigues me. More the idea of travelling around the world over the course of 2 years, but it has several benefits that could appeal to the Slashdot crowd.
Re:So, how big is sealand? (Score:2)
Shotgun!
The ambiguity is overwhelming... (Score:2)
The DeCSS case is about the ability of a manufacturer to control a proprietary means of accessing content in DVD format. In my opinion, too bad for the manufacturer in choosing to protect its control mechanism as a trade secret. Trade secrets are only good so long as they are secret. Reverse engineering is an accepted method of properly discovering trade secrets. They should have gotten patents which offer stronger protection, even against reverse engineering, but they got greedy and wanted to keep their rights exclusive past the limited term a patent gives you.
As for Napster (yes, I know I will get flamed and/or modded down for this - I have enough Karma to take the hit because it is the TRUTH), since when is it "sharing" when you make another copy of copyrighted material that you do not own? People have been ripping off artists for years. 20 years ago it was by making bootleg cassettes. Now that the digital format has come of age, why does the ease with which something can be stolen convert "stealing" to "sharing"?
Don't get me wrong -- I believe it is a fair use for someone who has already purchased the music to convert it to any format they want and make back up copies for their own use. HOWEVER, when you make a copy of a song in a digital format that you did not buy, it is stealing. Plain and simple.
Not plain, not simple, and not true... (Score:2)
What has been affected is a potential revenue stream, not an actual piece of property. It's convenient for the Content Cartel to use intellectual "property" because it automatically activates subconscious connotations in those who hear the term. But IP simply does not behave the same way physical property does, and it makes less than zero sense to pretend they're the same.
Make no mistake: It's not that you have a copy that the RIAA objects to. It's that you have, potentially, cut off a sale that they might have made -- a chance for them to make a zero-cost reproduction and so even more massively inflate their profits.
There's a reason why copyright "owner" is not the preferred term and copyright "holder" is, in the laws...
Re:Not plain, not simple, and not true... (Score:2)
As for legal rights, there is NO difference between intellectual property and other forms which may attach to physical objects.
Lastly, infringement, from Black's Law Dictionary: "A trespass...used esp. of invasions of rights secured by patents, copyrights... " Trespass: unlawful interference with one's rights. Steal : The commission of theft. Theft: the taking of property without the owner's consent.
It is all the same. You have TAKEN a COPY without the owner's permission. By copying "your" file the other is stealing from THE COPYRIGHT OWNER!!!
Stop stating what the "law" is until you get a law degree and pass a bar exam. You are seriously misstating the law and are using words with very precise definitions in twisted and plainly wrong ways.
Re:The ambiguity is overwhelming... (Score:2)
Additionally, copyright law gives the creator of the music to control its replication, subject to fair use by the purchaser. If Napster can build a way to track and verify who holds legal copies and allows only those people to "share" (which is obviously not its intended purpose - why "share" something with someone who already has what you are "sharing"?) then it would have no problems at all. It could claim fair uses among those using the service because those people would legally have copies already.
Face the truth - Napster is the equivalent of a huge cassette tape duplicator that hands out copies of copyrighted material for free. That has never been allowed before and cannot become the rule simply because the format has changed. Paper, 8-track, vinyl, cassette, CD, DVD - the format does not matter. The copyright holder controls the content. People cannot steal content and that is what Napster was allowing.
Is it any coincidence that Napster's usage has dropped off precipitously since it started filtering copyrightred material? All those users wanted to get property for nothing. Plain and simple.
DeCSS and P2P (Score:2, Interesting)
Stuff distributors wrap their stuff up. Hackers create breaking technology to free it and there's nothing to be done to stop that. Stuff gets freed, even if its in the privacy of an individual's home.
Then another technology comes along (P2P) that allows the Stuff to be shared: it gets shared and there's nothing to be done to stop that. Stuff gets published anonymously from the individual's home into the homes of thousands of others.
So a law (DMCA) says, there's a (usually broken) technology to protect our Stuff, but you can't break it or allow others to break it. Too late, the stuff is out there, and will always continue to be out there.
Even if you add another law that says 'you can't share Stuff'. How do you stop people using Freenet to anonymously make Stuff public? That new law would be totally unenforcable.
So the next step of the corporate-backed lawmakers is to come up with a Better Law - even better than the appalling DMCA: the 'We own the Net: We own your Computer' law.
This law makes it mandatory on Operating System writers and vendors to include a reporting mechanism that can send back details on request of anyone's machine (what hardware, what software is running) to a central enforcement agency.
Further, it is mandatory on network owners to supply to this agency details of the ports and message protocols being used from anyone's machine.
If you're spotted running unapproved software or using unapproved ports or protocols, you are subject to investigation.
That's the only way to go! Look out for this law at a government near you.
Solving Sociological Problems Technologically (Score:4, Interesting)
copied directly from this article [openp2p.com] without permission, with all due credit, and with unknown intentions.
Yes. I think we should go back to the principles that defined us originally, which was about open societies with free people who should obey the law but you don't get them to obey the law by basically coding it so that they can't do anything different [italics added]. You get them to obey the law by making the law reasonable and getting people to be respectful of it, and that's the direction we ought to be going.
end quote
This statement interests me, because it seems that there is an even stronger statement to be made, namely that: Replacing the responsibility of the individual to obey the law with the inability of the individual to break the law not only encourages an ignorance of the law, but also encourages a lack of basic moral judgement.
Now for some justification.
Historically, moral philosophy has often considered the ability to reason practially about ethical and moral issues to be a sign of some maturity. Rousseau's Emile encourages this view especially with respect to children when it presents the advice that one not command a particular behavior from a child; rather, make it impossible for the child to misbehave. Similar thought has gone into modern society in every niche from electrical-outlet-covers to child-safety car-door locks. The underlying principle at work is that a child has not developed the practial reason required to go from an abstract commanded behavior pattern (Don't stick the scissors into the outlet) to the benefits (not getting electrocuted) without experimentation.
Very much simplified, in the case of persons without the ability to reason practically about ethical and moral issues (those who cannot understand *why* they should obey a guiding principle) technology is an oft-used preventative measure.
With respect to children, the profoundly impared, and other similar cases, no one argues that the use of technology to prevent a harmful outcome is innapropriate; however, I would argue that the continued use of technology to make impossible the breaking of a rule frees the faculty of reason from having any connection with that rule.
In other words, utilizing high technology to keep people from being able to commit a crime does not in any way educate the moral faculties of the people being so protected from their impulses. In fact, I would argue that through reliance on that protection, people become inherently less able to distinguish the moral reasoning behind the rule being enforced. Instead, it would be much like your telling me "It's illegal to fly by jumping up into the air and flapping your wings". Should you say that, I would give the moral reasoning behind it no thought simply because I can't accomplish the deed.
Certainly in such an imaginative case, giving the reasoning behind the law no thought would do no great harm; however, in a society where we are all in theory responsible for the health of our democracy (I seem to recall hearing that once with respect to the American legal/judical system) an inability to clearly reason about the morality and justification of the social contract under which we live spells the eventual end of that social contract.
Perhaps
it is better that way.
Re:Solving Sociological Problems Technologically (Score:2)
The moral disconnect is already present. As it is, people already lack ability to reason why a law is there, and thus to voluntarily obey the law, at least relative to the idealized past (though there is some evidence that said moral reasoning never was all that widespread). Furthermore, there are honest disagreements about certain laws - for instance, IP rights are basically limited to one's ability to enforce said rights (through any means, including raiding businesses that are using pirated software).
Given that, getting everyone to voluntarily obey the law does not seem to be feasable in all, or even most, cases. But where and when one can come up with a technological solution, that may be feasable for all users...
huh? (Score:3, Flamebait)
exactly which part of downloading mp3s without paying anyone a dime is "fair use"? I didn't think anyone actually believed that Napster was used for anything other than wholesale copyright infringement.
Re:huh? (Score:2)
Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:5, Insightful)
When they shut Napster down, you couldn't trade your recordings of Dave Matthews concerts unless the files were named undescriptively (read: uselessly). Many smaller artists were/are finding that their music is NO LONGER available for download over Napster. This is exposure they *depend* on.
Not all copyright holders are the RIAA. I've said this before and so have many others, but I will say it again. The RIAA represent themselves, and their own bottom line. They do not represent the artists. They think they represent all of music, when in reality they are crushing the "little guy" who is so important to musical innovation (eek, I actually used that word?!?) to preserve the status quo.
Re:Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:2)
ANALOGY: This is just as stupid as me bitching that you can't work on OSS projects related to what you work on in your dayjob because if you signed an NDA, well "Duuuh". If that is a problem then don't sign the NDA and get another job and if you can't find an employer that will let you work on OSS projects then go in business for yourself as a consultant.
Re:Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:2)
the ramifications of their decisions before acting."
Right, they could have signed with some tiny label and thrown their career down the tubes. See, choices are good!
"The so called "little guys" have nothing to lose if people download their stuff over the 'net...The same is not necessarily true for the major players."
Except, of course for "major" players like Offspring and DMB. Oh wait, you meant "major" players as in the labels - they're the ones who get to decide how to market the artists' music. Oh yeah, they *do* have more to lose.
Re:Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:2)
2. I was merely pointing out with these examples that the will of the artists was not being done. This also makes me see the problem with that fact that the record company holds the copyright under the "hired works" loophole in copyright law.
Also, for 2, DMB concert recordings are not copyrighted works, and therefore should not be stopped from being published.
3. The little guy artists don't lose anything they already had (at least not anything physical). They lose the chance to have anything (e.g. a fan base, record sales). To me this is such a fine distinction as to make the distinction meaningless.
I understand the intention behind your post, and don't disagree with most parts per se (except that the little guys don't lose by not having their music heard as a result of record companies trying to protect their copyrights). I still think that there are many things the record companies choose to ignore to preserve a known source of income.
There are market forces at work here. There is enough of a demand for this pirated music that I think it definitely shows that the record companies are doing something wrong from a business perspective. They are charging too much for their records and it is starting to hurt them. Rather than lower prices as market forces might dictate, they resort to litigation.
I never really liked Napster, the company. But Napster, the phenomenon, is here to stay, and the record companies need to find a way to deal with it.
"Some people want ..." != Napster 1% legit (Score:4, Interesting)
First, relatively few major artists encourage or allow bootlegging. Second, those bands which do invariably have vastly better organized websites and ftp sites dedicated exclusively to that pursuit. I am a DMB fan, and I would far prefer to go to from the dedicated ftp/www sites, where I can download entire/full/non-corrupt albums, than a disorganized system like napster, where anything I searched for (any time during its existence) would result largely in his COMMERCIAL recordings. Third, given that most of the legitmate uses are not from well known/signed artists and the fact that Napster's user base absolutely plummetted after they blocked the various signed artists, how can you reasonably claim that even a reasonable minority was using it for legitimate means?
I hear all this crap about protecting the little guy, well that's fine and good. But the little guys interests needs to be balanced against the interests of society at large (and the legal claims of, what is in economic terms, the real majority). When the vast majority of the use is for piracy and the minority can have their legitimate claims answered by alternative means, in a superior way nonetheless, why bother? Even if we accept P2P as being important, P2P does not necessarily mean that we need a system of total anarchy, whereby any content is allowed. Napster could have implimented a system of trust for the much-hyped little guy, where they could register their songs and allow them complete access to the system, but they choose not to. I have very little sympathy for them.
Re:"Some people want ..." != Napster 1% legit (Score:2)
However, from a pragmatics perspective, these people are dinosaurs and will become extinct (or perhaps adapt?) sooner or later. Hopefully they won't bring the rest of society down with them.
For one, I think it is terrible that most bands discourage bootlegging. For one, it is legal. Bootlegs are not copyrighted to the band or their label. Also, I would think that anyone who buys or trades bootlegs of a band has already bought all their records and also shells out major dollars to see their concerts.
Now for the ethics vs. pragmatics part. It doesn't matter what people *should* do. It matters what they *actually* do. Laws work in two circumstances. The first is where people by and large agree with the law, and act along those lines. The second is when people are forced into compliance. Normally this should not be a problem in a free society, because the laws would represent what most people want, so most people will not break the law. It is only when laws do not represent the will of the people that most people break them.
I would suggest that the current status quo in copyright law is not the will of the people at large, but the will of the large people. The ones who have the money want to keep it, so they pass laws (err, lobby for laws, the distinction eluded me for a moment) to protect their interests.
Granted, challenging the law itself is the last resort of the desperate when trying to defend themselves legally, but I believe it applies very well in this case.
Re:"Some people want ..." != Napster 1% legit (Score:2)
Outgoing bandwidth costs money.
I am a DMB fan, and I would far prefer to go to from the dedicated ftp/www sites, where I can download entire/full/non-corrupt albums, than a disorganized system like napster, where anything I searched for (any time during its existence) would result largely in his COMMERCIAL recordings.
It sounds like the best solution would be for the DMB site to post freenet keys for non-commerical recordings.
So what? That wasn't the law . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of free speech is that it is free. One cannot regulate free speech in all channels other than those necessary or superior to deliver it. This also used to be true of Copyright, at least before the Ninth Circuit hit with the Napster opinion.
Indeed, the Ninth Circuit came up with a similar standard to the one suggested above in the Sony Betmax case, and was amazingly completely dissed by the Supreme Court, which said that it isn't necessary that an instrumentality be either necessary or superior for fair uses to avoid contributory infringement for infringing uses, it sufficed that there COULD exist ANY substantial noninfringing use.
Now the Ninth Circuit, once more, protects Copyright holders with a test not very different from the Betamax case (ironically in a case where Sony is now a plaintiff). Perhaps the Supremes may reverse it someday, perhaps not. But don't pretend that the fact that there are other ways to distribute free subject matter doesn't mean that the public was not deprived of an important instrumentality for file-sharing.
More important, if there ever WAS another instrumentality that might be superior or necessary, the Ninth Circuit opinion assures that development of such technology would be chilled, lest those funding and using it be sued into oblivion by the big bad RIAA, right or wrong.
Fact is, Napster and DMCA have struck a blow to innovation, because they are permitting first entrants into a marketplace from competing with subsequent entrants, even where the instrumentality is not inherently infringing.
DMCA provides patent-like protection of unlimited term for unpatentable and unexamined inventions. Only the blessed unsued (read, licensed who pay the fees) can compete in that arena, and forever. First entrants win, for reasons entirely unrelated to any salutary intellectual property policies.
This is what we IP lawyers who don't work exclusively for such interests call, "a bad thing." Ultimately, its bad for those interests, but in any case, its bad for America.
At one time not too long ago, the information economy was just booming and CD sales were higher than ever. These interests went pleading to the Congress and the Courts claiming that they "needed" special protections to protect and enhance the economy.
Isn't it interesting that they got what they asked for, from both Courts and Congress, and almost immediately thereafter the information economy and record businesses tanked!
Kicking and screaming, the music and film industry has whined about EVERY new technology, from piano rolls to radio to television to audio tape to video tape to dat to streaming digital communications. Until recently, they lost every time and made much more money as a result. Now, they won and all they have done is to kill off a thriving and dynamic source of business.
Re:Some people WANT their stuff downloaded... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this? Because of a loophole in copyright law that allows these records to be recorded as "hired works". A "hired work" is when someone asks you to write a song for them about x, y or z, etc., not when a record label says they will distribute your music.
An entire underground music community existed before Napster and will exist afterwards, sport.
Yes, and will the community get as much exposure with such a huge potential distribution method turned off for them? Read my other posts on this thread if you want to know how I feel about Napster (inc.).
No, they don't represent artists, and they've never claimed to.
Why then is that a major benefit listed by record labels when trying to sign independent artists?
You would do yourself a lot of good to actually educate yourself about the music industry.
Most of the above-mentioned independent artists which I reference are friends of mine, describing to me the trouble they have. Oh, and owners of small record labels which aren't part of the RIAA. As for protesting business practices, the only way to do that effectively is to put someone out of business. When the business practices go hand-in-hand with the law, there is little place to protest.
But that would take some foresight and empathy for the greater social welfare
The greater social welfare? Whose welfare? Just as there was an independent music community before the Internet, there was a flourishing music community before the Recording Industry.
When laws can be bought, social welfare goes out the window. And as for "Libertarian feelings", in what way are the opinions I've expressed here Libertarian? Private property is greatly espoused in the Libertarian philosophy. It would make more sense if you called my opinions (in this case at least) Commie-leftist propaganda.
As I've suggested elsewhere on this thread, you should read Thomas Jefferson's deliberation on copyright. It was intended to be a limited monopoly granted to an individual for a limited period of time. Individual. Limited. It was to encourage innovation. I don't see current copyright law and current recording industry business practices encouraging innovation in any way.
Legal != moral (Score:2)
For me specifically, this usually means that I listen to free music (meaning music that is given away rather than music that I can take). Most people are not this principled (haha, I just called myself principled!! Will the wonders never cease?). Therefore they pirate the music.
You should read Thomas Jefferson's letters regarding copyright, which he termed as a "monopoly" given to an individual for a limited period of time. To an INDIVIDUAL. For a LIMITED period of time.
Re:huh? (Score:2)
But, Napster provided a convenient intermediary whom they could demonize and sue. In other words, if Napster hadn't existed, they would have been forced to invent it... to have a proper target for their misinformation and lawyers.
bad title (Score:3, Insightful)
A good part of the problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know for other countries, but in France, for example, while the commercial rights on the content belong to the producer, the intellectual rights belong to the author. There, a producer can't force an author to change the content in a way supposed to make it sell better if the author doesn't want to (alright, so that might explain a few things as well...
Of course, slightly less stupid laws doesn't mean less stupid lawsuits, but that's still something worth pondering, I think, since those laws do extend to software authoring.
Re:A good part of the problem... (Score:2)
Thus, in the book-publishing industry, you will see them having standard contracts wherein the author owns the rights to the book after some time, that the publisher only has a right to publish in North America. But in other industries like the music record industry, pracitices are different.
Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:4, Interesting)
I find it both amusing and disturbing that he can be so strongly in favor of fair-use, reverse engineering, and against the DMCA, among other hot button
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
For example, ISP's may want to reject incoming port 80 connections. becuase of the Code Red worm. Is this action so legally clear cut? What about the home user who needs to run a server now?
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
1. Find an ISP who allows you run a server. Most home broadband ISPs have clauses preventing people running servers. Just because they haven't stopped you before technologically doesn't mean they approved of it.
2. Run it on a different port. You're likely still in violation of your user agreement, if it has such a clause.
3. Get a dedicated connection. T1's can be had for $500 port and telco. Just because you can run a server on a DSL or cable modem connection doesn't mean that you should.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Absolutely, IMHO. The ISPs own the network. They are entitled to run it as they see fit. Nobody is obligated to purchase their services after all.
What about the home user who needs to run a server now?
How many home users actually need to run a server? Some might want to, but few really need to. If that is a requirement, then the solution is to purchase a dedicated line.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
It is not a crime to host a small webpage so that a few family members and friends can share photos. No commerce is being done, so what is wrong? Now these guys will just have to shut down or move to another port.
If there is any real victim of Code Red, it is these people who run a small Linux or BSD without ever causing or wanting more.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
It is presumptious to assume that the person blocking port 80 is the legitimate authority. You work to serve a client right? Diod you consider his wishes?
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Also, a major point Lessig made in the article you linked is the unaccountability of the people compiling these lists. There have already been abuses. Quite simply, it's part of the vigilante mindset that this comes from. Some people can remain totally objective, but most cannot.
All things considered, Lessig appears to be significantly less self-contradicting than many people I've spoken with who support blackhole lists.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
They're accountable to their users. If I use a list that is abused, I will try to correct the abuses. If I cannot correct the abuses, I will cease to use the list. No one's telling anyone they must use a blackhole list. It's a voluntary choice.
Regarding network admins polling users, I don't agree with that. A network admin is charged with operating the network as they see fit. I don't like that I can't listent to streaming radio at work. It is my employer's network, and they don't want me doing that, hence I don't do that. If my ISP used any filtering I don't want, I'd use another ISP. If my employer does something with their network I don't think they should, I raise the issue with management.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Also, a network admin is not charged with operating the network as they see fit. In my view, the duty of a network administrator is to focus on the reliability, availability, and usability of the network. Yes, a network administrator should identify types of problem traffic that affect these three areas. But he should take great care that he does not inadvertently go too far. In the average corporate environment, killing p2p filesharing or streaming audio/video has only a tiny chance of affecting someone's ability to do their job. Email is a much trickier subject.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
It all comes back to the individual, be it the network or its operator. If the owner doesn't like the operator, they change the operator. If the operator doesn't like the packets, they drop the packets. If the operator doesn't like the owner, they change who they work for. No one commands anyone to use or abide by blackhole lists. It's voluntary control of the network and its use. For someone (other than the owner) to say how I should run a network (in ways other than maliciously broken..) smacks me as being totally wrong.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
In many organizations, the person or handful of people who run the servers and networks are often the only people in the organization who can grasp the technical issues. What I was saying is that all too often these people subscribe to the blackhole lists with good intentions, but often don't think about the possible problems that could arise. No one else in the organization, even upper management and owners, might be thinking about it, either. You know why they're not thinking about it? They hired people to do that. And quite simply, a lot of technical people in the world have such a hard-on for killing spammers that they don't think about the possibility of an error in the lists, or a list manager slipping in something for personal reasons, etc.
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:2)
Re:Lawrence Lessig = Wanker (Score:4, Informative)
No, it was the open relay that MIT was running. If someone is running a relay that takes all comers, and someone else is using it to send spam to my network, I'll ask the admin to deny relaying. If they won't, I'll blackhole it. If someone doesn't prevent their resources from using mine in a manner I don't want, I disallow them the right to use my resources.
The key point is I don't tell someone how to use their resources. If they want to allow relay, fine. I just won't allow them to use my resources.
As I wait for /. to quit /.ing the /.ed (Score:3, Insightful)
Out of the three cases mentioned, the one one that made me the most upset, and is still the one that makes my blood boil the most, was the DeCSS travesty.
I'm talking, particularly, about the case with 2600. I'm not a big backer of 2600 or Emmanuel but in this case I had to give the respect where it was deserved. This was the case, IMHO, that set the tone for all cases after it and because 2600.com made the hearing available on their site [2600.com] I, we, were given a first hand listen to just how badly lawyers could manipulate judges in technology cases.
After listening to this case, at least the whole of 2600 / Emmanuel's side, and finally finding out the judgement, I knew that it was only going to get worse was only going to get worse (I suggest doing a search here for 'Court' it's truly appalling). It wasn't as though the judgement and the judgement alone upset me. It wasn't that I was all "rah-rah" for 2600. It wasn't even that I thought DeCSS should be "legal." It's that the judge had no concept of technology and the justice system allowed a mac truck of a manipulative lawyer to run him over. Listen to the testimony.
I said it before and I will continue to say it, the judicial system needs better qualified people presiding in these cases. I say 'these' because, and IANAL but, this is an entirely different concept than, say, laws of the physical world and laws of the 'cyber one.' I've often thought and giggled about the idea that files are never stolen, because if you copy something it's still there. I truly feal that we need judges that know the facts of the technology before it's sppon fed to them by the attorney's on both sides.
Until that happens, and / or until the hearings on Dmitry, Napster, etc. are made public (if they have been could someone please link them) so we can know for sure if proper and fair judgements were passed [lysator.liu.se].
Without that, and without the DMCA being either a) abolished, or b) re-written (I'd much prefer the latter) the companies that own the DMCA will continue to 0wn anyone they want.
That's my two cents. Mod it to hell.
Ch1War on Drugs Ch2War on smart computer people (Score:3, Insightful)
Not discerning the difference between selling cocaine and smoking marajuana (most laws go by weight of item in posession.) is frightening.
Many drug users get high and dumb and rob, rape, fight and even kill. Most of the ones who get dumb are on a non-marajuana drug.
Voters get pissed when to many people are robbing raping, fighting and killing, so congress acting in self preservation is commited to the war on drugs. It doesn't seem to matter that these behaviors are no more common in pot smokers than in say alcohol drinkers. Do they care if a couple(of hundreds of thousands) pot smokers get locked up to? They don't seem to.
Marajuana is an introductory for drug dealers. They get started selling pot. see Dope wars [sourceforge.net] for a tutorial. People say marjuana is an introductory drug for users, well that's because they meet dealers who can sell them other things. If pot was sold in Seven Elevens with 1/10 the THC at five times the price to people 21 or over, people would have no idea where to get crack, acid, or ecstecy. Steamroller action.
Now congresses revenue stream is being threatened by RIAA/MPAA. Now they must act in self preservation again. Do you think they diferentiate between a person who .mp3 of vital information to the chinese underground about the democracy movment?
*legally owns 2 copies of Genisis Invisible Touch and downloads the mp3s because it's saner than tring to burn them?
*a person who never contributes anything back to artist while downloading hundreds of songs?
*a person who distributes a
Why would they. Steamroller action is tolerated here.
Campain finance reform MUST go through so lack of support from the RIAA/MPAA is no longer a threat to these peoples careers. Congressmen in a panic seem to lose touch with the meaning of the word liberty.
This can get really ugly.
When they are done with us, any guesses who's next? What will they do when physical scarcity begins to end.
The way things are going, then next war will be fought over IP.
Typical lifecycle of any industry... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the computer industry is that that wasn't happening, so companies had to turn to the courts to force it to happen. As for the dot coms, I think that was Wall Street's way of saying, "party's over, nerds, now get to work". I just hope things don't end the way I think they will (no more individual innovation in the computer industry, death of open source from IP lawsuits, etc.).
On another note, I'm going to play devil's (lawyer's?) advocate and defend the DMCA (sort of):
Seeing as I haven't seen a realistic, workable alternative economic system for what we now call Intellectual Property, I figure we should probably stick with the current concept of IP, and try to patch it up so it can survive the "digital age" without being too broken or stupid.
Re:Typical lifecycle of any industry... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, let's see. Last time I looked at power windows. Oh, and last time I saw a friend's home built sheet metal intake (30% Horsepower jump). Oh, and the college kid I met that fabricated a jig for easily adjusting holley carbs. What about the guy who came up with splitfire spark plugs? Yes, sometimes innovation happens in corperate labs. Sometimes it doesn't. Don't assume that every industry has to turn to corperate labs to get anything done.
Unbreakable encryption is a myth...
Not at all true. There is lots of unbreakable encryption. Aside from 4096 bit keys and the like, just use a one time pad. The problem is that as encryption gets stronger, it becomes inconveniant(sp?). People aren't willing to go that far out of their way, witness Circuit City's DivX. Cheaper (sort of) but too inconveniant. People probably won't be interested in calling the publisher or what have you to get unlock codes for their DVDs. What you wind up with is a balance between what the consumer wants (completely open and free access) and what the copyright holding corperation wants (complete lock down of the work). This balence leads to balence in other areas, including fair use. This is how a free market is supposed to work- the current IP laws are broken and stupid because they upset this balence.
How do we fix it? Personally, I submit that if we make copyright non-transferable most of this goes away. I tend to think that a copyright should only be held by the creator. It cannot be sold and transfered, even if the creator wanted to. Then if Metallica didn't want their music traded, fine. If Offspring did, fine. Sony (Offspring's label IIRC) would NOT be able to block Offspring from sharing their music, because Offspring would still own all of the rights. Sony would only be able to contract for the privelage of distributing The Offspring's fine music, rather than contracting to own it. This would, IMO, shift us back to sanity. Artists would be protected not only from people who wanted to copy and illegally distribute their work, but also from those who would seek to own and control their work. Consumers would be given more choice in the sense that if I didn't like Metallica's restrictions on distributing I could listen to MegaDeath (better than Metallica anyways but I digress...) As it is, If I don't like Sony's restrictions on distributing then I can't listen to a whole load of bands.
Typical of Patent Monopolies stifling innovation (Score:2)
This "maturity" isn't a result of everything having been discovered, or a shortage of creativity or new ideas, or of capital, or of an installed base unwilling to adopt new technologies. It is IMHO a direct result of the US Patent system and its propensity for favoring large Patent portfolio holders over small inventors, coupled with the effects of granting government sponsored monopolies and locking up ideas upon which even newer and more innovative ideas or improvements could have been based. This isn't maturity, it is stifling of innovation, of the economies, and of the wealth, which innovation creates.
Software didn't have this problem until software patents started to be granted. Even then, it takes time for a critical mass of founding ideas to be locked up before innovation is brought to a grinding crawl, and we are starting to see the beginnings of this now. Another thing that has, up until now, worked in favor of the software industry has been the fact that the rest of the world has not endorsed software patents and so has been free to continue to innovate, with things like GPG, xine, and livid being developed abroad, then imported into the US either serreptitiously or, when the patent(s) finally expire, legitimently (but with the development time already behind them). This advantage may be going away as Europe and others consider implementing software patents of their own.
The problem with the computer industry is that that wasn't happening, so companies had to turn to the courts to force it to happen. As for the dot coms, I think that was Wall Street's way of saying, "party's over, nerds, now get to work". I just hope things don't end the way I think they will (no more individual innovation in the computer industry, death of open source from IP lawsuits, etc.).
It is more akin to the Big Boys saying "get your bitch ass back on the couch and consume what we give you. Raise your voice, innovate in any manner that might threaten our cartel, or our hold over your lives and the flow of your money into our pockets, and we'll crush you, if not ourselves, with the politicians and police we have so inexpensively rented."
We seriously need to question the basic assumptions of IP law, the notion that granting braod monopolies for extended periods of time is somehow conducive to those things a free and competetive market are supposed to encourage: innovation and improvements in the products we create. In point of fact monopolies are antithetical to a free market, quite destructive and not at all conducive to innovation. We should seriously consider dramatic restrictions on copyright priveleges and getting rid of the patent system altogether. If that is to great a course-change for people to stomach then at the very least we need to address the problem of monopolies, perhaps through manditory licensing of copyrighted works (so anyone can start a radio station for example, not just members of the recording cartel) and offering tax exemptions to inventors rather than twenty year monopolies.
Until we reexamine our basic assumptions with respect to IP and confront the contradiction that is at its very heart these sorts of problems will persist, irrespective of whatever quick and dirty patches we apply to the system.
Re:Typical lifecycle of any industry... (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's exactly the point: digital copying is a new thing, compared to physical world stuff. The cost of many goods and services are based on not simply the IP, but also production, printing, distribution costs which can be very significant. When you obliterate those costs, it's unreasonable not to expect prices to drop radically in line with the new lower cost of distributing the IP. The whole 'everything must be free' thing is simply an overshoot of a shift in value that DOES need to happen.
Not necessarily (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internet can be used for wholesale piracy of music, videos, commercial software, you name it. Is the Internet being shut down? No, because it has many redeeming qualities.
I'm not trying to justify keeping Napster alive - I recognise that the number of people using it legally was somewhere between zero and zero - but nevertheless, I believe that shutting Napster down is not all that different to shutting down Hard Disk manufacturers because their media can be used for piracy.
Just my 0.02 Euro...
On contrary, innovation starting again (Score:3, Interesting)
past four years as people were rushing to bring
startups to IPO. Most people doing this were in
for the money, not the technology. And the tech
guys had worked 80 hour weeks developing boring,
me-too apps. Now there is time to be creative
again.
Never has the foundation been stronger-
2 GHZ, 1 GB computers for a grand, decent OS'es
with a maturing Linux and MS XP, decent development
language like Java and C#, and so on.
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is only human convention that keeps copyright around, not some law of nature. And, at present, the original motivations for copyright are being perverted in the current implementation, so civil disobedience is a valid response.
Wrong, just look it up! In any case, so what? (Score:3, Insightful)
These debates over semantics are tiresome, and unproductive. The result doesn't mean anything -- it neither proves that an infringement isn't wrongful, nor does it prove that an infringement is evil. I think it is fairly clear that infringement is probably malum prohibitum (wrong because prohibited) rather than malum in se (prohibited because it is wrong. But once again, so what?
Strictly speaking, however, the quoted remark above is wrong. Dictionary definitions support the use of the verb "to steal" to embrace misappropriation of a work of authorship. On the other hand, so what? Just because a word can be linguistically used properly doesn't mean that it "proves" that one use of the verb "to steal" denotes the same form of evil as another use of verb "to steal." Sure, the denotation is correct, but a connotation equating it with, say, theft of a diamond is wrong.
More significantly, stealing one of Jon Katz' works is quite different from, and less wrong, than stealing my thunder, or stealing away to marry my daughter. (Or, while with her, attempting to steal a kiss).
From a legal perspective, the remarks above may be technically correct, although, indeed, forms of theft for which the taking of untangible copyrighted works under some circumstances. It is difficult to "steal" something intangible, just as it is difficult to "steal" real estate. So what? The appropriation or unauthorized exercise of exclusive rights of another in such property, however denominated, is actionable and, in some cases, criminal.
That aside, my Webster's Third New International includes definitions of stealing that supports the theft-name-callers. So at least one dictionary proves the contrary point. But, once again, so what?
Here it is -- copyright is at least malum prohibitum, is probably not malum in se. It is certainly actionable, and sometimes criminal.
One really doesn't need to inquire much deeper. You would be wrong, denotatively, to flame at someone who calls an infringer one who stole a work, but so what? You would probably be wrong, connotatively, to demagogue as the person making the claim, but so what?
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:3, Insightful)
But I agree with the statement that Napster contributed to copyright infringement. Sharing Britney Spears and Eminem with people I don't know is not Fair Use. It is an attempt to get the goods at less than market price or for free. The question is still there, would Napster survive if it somehow was limited to legal file sharing? The answer is still pretty obvious: no. It required a mass of popular music to have sufficient users to be useful.
I am hosting two mp3s for your entertainment at www.ichimunki.com, just go there and type 'mp3' into the command line. I permit you and everyone to share these files as much as you will-- and I can do that. I created the songs and the files. However, there is not enough interest in work like mine to keep a Napster viable legally. And most work in which there is enough interest to get a Napster up and running is going to be work that the copyright holders do not want to share for free to the world.
But just because I am giving my files away for free online, does not mean I'd condone stealing the CD from a store. That results in the real loss of physical property. And if my bandwidth needs become excessive due to the files' popularity, I would-- of course-- have to charge for them to help cover the expense of hosting them. Internet services cost money to provide, and the people who do the work need to eat. This is the lesson we are learning in 2001.
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:2)
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:2)
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:2)
Re:Napster Fair Use? Give Me a Break! (Score:2)
In fact, the distinction is a really important one. There is a doctrine of copyright law called "first sale", which means that once you sell a copy of a copyrighted work (unless you are a software company and turn logic and the law inside out by calling it a "license"), you have no control over what happens to that copy. The reason that there is such a doctrine is that producers of copyrighted works would love to make selling your CDs to a record store or at a garage sale a crime; after all, it's "their" work, and by selling it to someone else, you are STEALING their property! Of course, once upon a time the courts were not 100% focused on maximizing shareholder value, so they explained the semi-clear legal principles regarding copyright with this doctrine and thus limited the degree to which copyright holders could use the law to create protections that nature does not provide.
So, really, each CD bought from a used bin is like getting it from Napster; the work is further distributed without the artist seeing a dime. Remember next time you buy used music that you are taking food out of the mouths of a boy band somewhere.
Re:Nailing artists on crosses (Score:2)
Answer: "Copyright Infringement".
Q2: Why isn't the charge "Theft"?
Answer: Because Theft involves deprivation of assets - something that doesn't happen when a work is copied. And no, potential sales - though they do have potential value - are not assets.
Re:Nailing artists on crosses (Score:3, Insightful)
"Intellectual property is to property as fool's gold is to gold." -- multiple, anonymous, unattributable (and wonderful) internet quote
"The value of a thing is what the thing will bring." -- ancient maxim of law and economics.
When you create a piece of "intellectual" property, it can only be of any use to you if you share it with someone. It's fundamentally an idea. If you lock it in a box and keep someone from knowing about it, it will be silent and useless. Once you allow someone to read it, see it, or hear it, the idea escapes. It now is part of a conversation you have initiated with your audience. Copyright was originally granted by royal fiat, and later encoded in law, as a means of keeping printing presses in line. Around the 17th and 18th centuries, it became a legal protection for printers. When copies were limited and difficult to produce, it worked. The value of the copy could be expressed as partially the value of the intellectual effort of its creator, and partly the material investment of the publisher, printer, film studio, whoever. Now that copies are trivially easy to create digitally, this paradigm no longer applies, and people are trying to restrict copy rights based solely on the intellectual value of the property, and they're doing so by treating their customers as criminals, guilty until proven innocent, bunch of thieving bastards, all of them.
Release an album under a major label and watch as people download your material, without your permission, off of AudioGalaxy
I don't know if you've done this Vilk. I really don't care. When I was playing with up-and-coming bands in the late 1980's, I remember a hilarious scene with one of the many, dreary "battle of the bands" gigs I played. One of the acts in the seemingly endless lineup tried to get some sort of agreement or something that no one would attempt to steal "their" songs. It was funny because their music sucked, but it revealed generally how absurd and paranoid people have become about granting ideas the status of property. Anyone at the event could have "stolen" their songs. It was simply a matter of watching and listening, and about half the bands there had already demonstrated via their ability to play covers, that they could ape another's songs. The only way they could have avoided "song theft," to me, was to take the obvious precaution of not playing their material aloud.
Digital media has only excaberated this already precarious status. The cat is no longer in the bag, if ever it was. Songs and music were routinely copied back in the days of the cassette tape. It's just that the activity was not happening in an open, trackable public forum. What gives your "intellectual property" any value is that people are willing to pay for, not only the material, but the packaging and officialese that go along with a legitimized sale. If they aren't willing to do that, you won't ever have a career as an artist, or author, or otherwise.
I have yet to see any data showing how artists are starving on their feet because of napsterized "piracy." Being purely honest, I have to say that I have never, ever, not once in my life, logged on to or downloaded from Napster. I have on occasion been provided with some pirated mp3's by friends. I have retained only one of the cd's thus pirated, the Barenaked Ladies' debut "Gordon." And in all honesty I can say that I believe I've fairly compensated BNL for that CD, even though I have yet to buy a legit copy, because after hearing the songs on Gordon I went on to buy copies of "Born on a Pirate Ship," "Maroon," and "Stunt," all of which I have enjoyed immensely. I will, at some point in the future, make good on my however miniscule debt and buy a legitimate copy of "Gordon," if only because I want to see the packaging, and get back some of the loss from the mp3 compression. But I feel that if I had never been given a rip of "Gordon," I would probably have gone the rest of my life without putting $50 or so into the purchase of other BNL cd's. So whether or not it's paid for as a physical object, as an idea, it has paid for itself because the open circulation of a non-legitimate copy resulted in a willing fan who expended the effort and cash on other material from the group.
I know the intellectual-property hard-liners will have a problem with this kind of argument. To them a copy of a CD is as good as the original, and every copy represents money that the owners could make. However if I had been chased down by some sort of campus cop or "pirate hunter" and forced to relinquish my ripped mp3's of that CD, I probably would have gone on to avoid any further trouble from that area altogether.
There is a middle ground for all of this, I firmly believe, that allows artists and authors to be compensated for their efforts, as much as is possible. It will probably involve re-gaining the trust of audiences (do NOT call us consumers, please!), which could start with not chasing down kids in college dorms, confiscating people's equipment, slapping them with lawsuits, etcetera. Not that I expect that to happen.
But fundamentally, the rules have changed. There's a great song by the Presidents of the USA that I think is about this kind of thing. It's on their latest CD and it's called Blank Baby. "You might see somone taking pictures. You can't put them back and I'll tell you why . . ." And later on "You might see a painting in a studio / might test the paint to see if it is wet / might start scraping down as far as you can go / till the canvas is as blank as it can get / even though the paint is dry / you can just erase it all by rolling back your eyes." Art exists between an artist and an audience. It is a dialogue. You have to give your end of the dialogue to your audience, or you're not going to be able to carry on the conversation. If you restrict that conversation, it ends because the audience can always find other people to talk to. They will be for the most part unwilling to give up their rights just to accomodate your profit motive, which is where we're headed with draconian copyright laws and the DMCA. A law which is absurd and trivially easy to violate is a law which is not respected, and when the law is not respected, it doesn't mean much anymore. If the law makes innocuous harmless activity criminal, as we have obviously seen with Napster, a large segment of the population has no problem being innocuous, harmless criminals. Certainly they've been primed for this role with invasive and idiotic drug laws. Laws keep honest people honest, and when they make criminals out of formerly honest people, they and their makers lose their credibility.
It may be that it is not practical to make money as an artist in the digital era. It may be that you have to go back to making money off of live performance, or find yourself a patron. It does not seem "natural" or inevitable that society will bend itself to accomodate that profit motive.
The horse and buggy companies, before they all but vanished in the early part of the 1900's, were able to get all kinds of aggressive and draconian laws applied to automobile drivers, requiring (as I recall) what probably timed out as a 10-minute ritual on the part of an automobile driver at a stop sign, of standing, jumping around, waving, honking, firing a pistol, and the like. No small part of that was probably on behalf of horse-and-buggy proprietors to make the use of automobiles less convenient, and so they probably hoped, kill what was certainly a stupid fad before it got out of control. But for all the protestations, all the fiddling, the technology was there, it was in demand, and they were unable to stop it.
Digital music isn't quite an apples-and-oranges comparison, but it similarily makes trivially easy what was monstrously difficult before, and threatens to put a lot of people out of work. I don't know where it's written in the Constitution that anyone has a natural inalienable right to a job, nor to a guaranteed protection of their "revenue stream." Certainly music and art existed long before profit could be made thereby, and the fundamental urge to create is not driven by profit, but by need. Songwriters write songs because they need to, first, before they discover they can make money at it. I can easily see, if heavens forfend, the RIAA and all their members go out of business, that culture will somehow survive. Whether individual artists survive depends on how smart they are, and how willing to accomodate to a new reality they are. Browbeating their audience, I predict, will be a career-limiting move. You can see how much credibility Metallica pissed away with their Napster suit (please remember, Metallica gained their original legion of fans through the open trading of their bootlegged demos). Accomodating them, respecting them, treating them as participants in your conversation -- that will be a winning strategy.
If the DMCA and other absurd extensions to copyright laws aren't struck down, I suspect the general level of civil disobedience will rise, and the credibility of our lawmaking and corporate institutions will take another major hit. How low can they go?
Down on the analogy hell ... (Score:2)
Let's suppose tha you had just spent one whole month painting a very cool picture on the hood of your car. Also assume that you are a taxy driver and that you now hope to attract more clients with your very artistic car.
Then you wake up next morning and discover that thanks to the cloning ray every other tax driver has a car identical to yours.
Wouldn't you be more than a little pissed of?
Re:Down on the analogy hell ... (Score:2)
Do I somehow have a God-given right and a state-sanctioned guarantee to somehow make a living off the painting on my car? I don't think so... If that was my plan, and if the cloning ray exists, then it's a pretty dumb plan and I deserve what comes out.
Of course, the cloning ray will threaten the Association of Decorative Car Painters, and I imagine that the ADCP will lobby Congress for a draconian law that says, "No, you can't use the clone ray for anything because you might use it to undermine our business, so, to the starving children, sorry.."
Re:Down on the analogy hell ... (Score:2)
The music-copying issue is only the tail end. Just wait until all factory workers are made redundant thanks to nanoreplication devices. It's already happened to the scribes, with the invention of the printing press - the scribes, at least in England, fought very hard _against_ the introduction of the printing press, and they had the ear of the King at the time. But look who won in the long run...
Re:Down on the analogy hell ... (Score:2)
It is up to the author of a book to decide if they want to print it or they want the scribes to duplicate it by hand. Nobody IMO has the right to take a scroll made by a scribe and make thousand of press copies of it without author permission.
Re:Down on the analogy hell ... (Score:2)
But no one seems to believe me.
Re:What dictionary do you use? (Score:2)
Stealing is extra-emphasys put by the copyright holders, which also call the infringers (sp?) pirates.
Said that, I _do_ recognize the natural right of an author to dispose of the product of its work as he/she wants, including allowing only users with blue eyes to use it, and only on Wednesday from 15:00 to 17:00, while standing upside-down, at the modicum price of $100 per second. The same goes (unfortunately) for any entity the author transfer the right to.
Re:What dictionary do you use? (Score:2)
If the above quoted falls under the category of "promoting the useful arts," I'm a monkey's uncle. As an author myself (I do have a copyrighted work resting in the Library of Congress) I believe and subscribe to the concept that once an idea is disseminated to an audience, through whatever medium, that idea becomes part of a common conversation.
Copyright is the right to copy, not the right to dictate use, nor the right to dictate fitness of the user, or their method of use. Once you (or I) write a book and publish it, we relinquish most of our ownership of that idea. We are granted an artificial monopoly by the government over the copying of that idea, for the purposes of encouraging people to do it more. But if we were to really and truly enforce that monopoly in the fashion you dictate above, we would by the very nature of our dictatorial control over the material squeeze any meaning or purpose out of it. Draconian copyrights, copyrights that treat the consumer like a potential criminal, rather than the endpoint of your conversation, are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. If a perfect encryption scheme was created, and a book or movie or CD could be locked up for pay-per-view or pay-per-read use only, reading, listening to music, and watching movies would rapidly become pastimes of yesteryear. Maybe people would have to fall back on gathering for live performances, and memorizing the books before they are yanked from their personal collections and burned.
What happened with napster was the revalation of how artificial the copyright monopoly is. People have been copying and trading music amongst themselves for years. Napster just made it visible.
Please don't give me your starving artist routine. I know it too well, and I've been there myself, and I just don't care. Artists, authors, programmers, and musicians can make plenty of money, still, by charging for their presence and appearance. It's the tremendous parasitical apparatus that seeks to put itself in the position of fee-charging gatekeeper of "intellectual property" which stands to suffer from the free exchange of information and intellectual "property."
Ideas are only worth something to the human race if they are easily available. An idea locked in a box might as well not exist. And a book that can only be read on alternate tuesdays by the blue-eyed upside-down persons who qualify for the free discount on reading fees will be passed over by those not meeting its terms, for the book that everyone can read for a moderate and reasonable fee. A book is a thing. It can exist or not exist. The words on the page, however can only exist while someone is reading them. A book which cannot be read or a CD which cannot be played or a film which cannot be watched will become a brace for a wobbly table leg. I see the quote from time to time, "intellectual property is to property as fool's gold is to gold." I can't think of a more current and relevant platitude to have stenciled on my car bumper.
Let's play semantics (Score:2)
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?take
"So if your belief is that if you write a piece of software, book, magazine article or song and then anyone is free to redistribute it"
That's not a belief. That's a law of nature. We, as a society agree to artificially restrict people from performing certain actions for the sole purpose of fostering creative works. The second our restrictions go one iota above fostering creative works they are unjustified. That's the current situation - the scales are tilted inordinately in the favor of content owners (note, I don't say creators) at the expense of everybody else. "Rights" to constrain ownership of such non-physical objects such as ideas, sounds, images, are wholly artificial, and any laws created to enforce those "rights" should damn well be balanced so as to benefit the society as a whole.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:3, Funny)
The price of the DVD and/or player isn't the issue. DVD's aren't priced much higher than VHS [in some cases they can actually be less than a comparable VHS tape]. Likewise, the players are now at rather reasonable prices, about where VCR's stabalized to after they became common [incidentally, VCRs are now DIRT cheap]. The issue is fair use violations [it is not possible, under current law, to legally copy ANY portion of a DVD, even a small excerpt for use in a classroom.] The other issue is region encoding [I can buy tapes from Europe, Asia, etc that play fine in my VCR so long as they are the right format {VHS}. Yet, DVD's from each area may or may not play depending on the region encoding]. Region encoding is, flat out, screwing the consumer. The only possible reason for it is so people in region A have no choice but to pay region A prices and can only get films at region A release dates. Currently, especially for those of us in the US, this is not much of an issue, but the potential is there for a great deal of abuse, and it would be best to nip that in the bud. Lastly, there have been reports of DVDs the refuse to fast forward [one of the wonderful points about DVDs is the ability to jump straight to a scene as opposed to winding tape] through trailors. On rental only copies, maybe I can see this, a way to offset the discount rental places must get, but for consumer purchased discs? I think most would agree if I buy it I ought to be able to watch however I like, be it straight through, no trailors, or the last 5 minutes only. I paid my money, it ought to be my choice.
Basicly, the DVD opposition isn't about copying. Even with today's huge hard drives, you still couldn't put too many onto them at DVD quality, and besides, to download them off the net would take forever even at broadband speeds. The issue is consumers losing rights they have been entitled to and enjoyed since the dawn of home entertainment devices.
Re:PAL VHS (Score:2)
Re:PAL VHS (Score:2)
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
The advance of DVDs certainly did not have to include these features. Are consumers supposed to play dead and simply vote yes or no to the things presented to them?
It seems that under your vision, consumers aren't even allowed to vote yes or no.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
It doesn't and hasn't ever stopped me from playing a dvd on my laptop, my dvd player at home or my dvd player at my friends house or the dvd system at work or the dvd systems in hotels.. (i could go on and on..)
sure it sucks you can't run your dvd through your vcr because macrovision puts the god awfull blur effect on your screen, but DVD's are already a well preserved medium and there is no means of copying the movie without changing it from its orignal form which is considered REPRODUCING instead of backing up for backup sake :)
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
Everything about region encoding is about enforcing the status quo. These visionless MPAA executive snever think that one day, through diplomacy, we may persuade China, say, to enforce copyright. Or if one day, a favored trading partner may turn rogue. And when that happens, what will they do about this obsolete encoding?
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
I HIGHLY DOUBT you keep your "backups" on tape or on file to restore originals if you lost them, your probably watching the backups on your pc and sending them to your friends or sharing them on Morpheus.
If you do save your backups in a fireproof safe then more power to you. Until then YOU didn't loose anything.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
When men of no vision rule the future world, that future will not be worth envisioning.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
No. Regional encoding is to protect profits: nothing more and nothing less. Its only purpose is to allow the same product to be sold for different prices in different markets. A DVD that sells for $25 in the US may sell for the equivalent of $35 in the UK and $10 in the Far East.
This practice is thought by many (such as the large UK retailer Tescos) to be in breach a free trade, and should be banned by the WTO as a restraint of trade.
Re:REGION CODING?!?!?! (Score:2)
You are really confusing the issue. Maybe there is no need for a German language version of "Dude where's my car", but a German in Germany may want to view this movie in English when his friend from the US visits him and bring his region 1 DVD of it along. Oops - private, shared viewing of DVD's is NOT ALLOWED.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
Mp3.com has tons of legal mp3's that napster could have traded, but yet again i don't think it would have been as successfull because people want what they hear on MTV.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
You own the phsyical DVD, you DON'T OWN THE MOVIE TO DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WISH
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
No, but there have been certain liberties that you could take (and technically still can) with DVDs, such as taking quotes and excerpts from copyrighted work for scholarly or critical review purposes (the oft-cited fair use doctrine), or reselling YOUR ORIGINAL copy (and not keeping any copies) without having to compensate the copyright holders (first sale doctrine).
I say technically because the DMCA doesn't outlaw these things, it just outlaws posessing the tools you need to do these things. It's like making guns legal, and then making the technology needed to use guns (read: bullets) illegal. How long would the NRA let a law like that stand?
The whole point is that then you release a copyrighted work to the public, it immediately becomes a part of popular culture, and in a sense "owned" by the public, too. However, the copyright holder must be able to make a profit on these works, or else there is no incentive. Copyright law is an attempt to balance the rights of the holder with the rights of the public to access their popular culture. Current copyright law is balanced in facor of the copyright holder, at the expense of the public.
If you disagree, I'm sure you're already giving Fox a royalty everytime you say (or even think) "D'oh!" or "Mmmm.... Donuts". Because Fox owns that little bit of popular culture, and we have no right to do with it what we wish, according to your logic.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
Bzzt. Thanks for playing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, copyright law -- especially before the stillborn monstrosity called the DMCA -- recognized that, in creation of a work, an author is vested with certain rights and the public is vested with certain rights. Copyright has traditionally been seen as a balancing act between the public's interest in open sharing of the work, and the public's interest in encouraging other authors to come forward and create.
As noted in Digital Copyright [doubleclick.net] by Jessica Litman, it is only recently that the attitude has begun to shift toward investing "property" rights to the hands of copyright holders. Ironically, this means that almost all of the culture held up as a justification for the current system is actually a holdover from the earlier one.
Re:W e didn't loose anything, look at what we gain (Score:2)
If you READ what i said then you wouldn't come off sounding like a troll. IF someone MADE a viable commercial effort for DVD sotfware under linux then it MAY work.
you still have to BUY powersoft DVD, DVD PLus or anyone of the many windows dvd playing programs out there.
What is this innovation you speak of...? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The internet brings an end to innovation (Score:2)
Look at your example from this direction: You are not allowed to just give up and declare your research a waste of time in the scientific method, you are supposed to go back over it and see what can be improved (hence the experiment-revise part of the cycle). The only reason a team might conclude they are on the wrong track is that someone else proves they are on the right track or disproves a central theory of the wrong track. This inter-team communication requires widespread, highly efficient communication, in which case the Internet would be a great help rather than a hindrance. Plus, it enables useful things like direct publishing of data and global peer review.
Re:Nonsense, dissembling, misdirection. (Score:2)
If I thought you were actually interested in learning something -- something which might, just maybe, open your eyes to the past and current state of copyright law -- I'd probably suggest that you pick up Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman. It's a lucid and incisive analysis of recent legistlative and PR initiatives.
But I suspect you'll just want to go back to munching your Cheetos and bleating at Must See TV.
By the way, I am not against intellectual output, but I am foursquare and certain against the bastardization of the word "property" to describe it. I would think my .sig would have made that clear. And while I am probably ignorant on many things, I know that "piracy" has been (mis)used to describe copyright infringement for a long time. But the usage only penetrated to the mainstream relatively recently (thirty years or so), and it has always been a misappropriation of a word in order to derive benefit from the subconscious connotations it evokes.
I will not surrender the language just because the Content Cartel demands it.
Re:Redefinition of Innovation (Score:2)
1: the introduction of something new
2:: a new idea, method, or device : NOVELTY
I agree with your points about p2p, however, microsofts definition of innovation does not include any of merriam websters. That would require MS to come up with something new, when all they do is "embrace and extend" i.e. they take something somone else thought of, "innovated" and use it themselves. This is hardly innovation
Re:How Ironic you speak of Innovation (Score:2)
But I guess a crowd that equates digital information (infinitely copiable) with physics property (automatically scarce) -- and somehow believes that digital copying is the same as rape, pillage, and murder with an eyepatch and a parrot -- would have no trouble believing that unlocking ebooks is the same as attempting to shoot someone.
Sometimes I am tempted to believe the good guys will win this just because the other side is so, well, laughable.