Lawrence Lessig On Hollywood's Attack On Fair Use 211
Richard Koman writes: "Tim O'Reilly and I interviewed cyberspace lawyer Lawrence Lessig about the law and P2P for O'Reilly's OpenP2P site. He makes some great points about the legal and investment climate for P2P (the RIAA's goal is to "guarantee that no venture capitalist invests money in new modes of distribution unless Hollywood signs off") and the full-bore attack on fair use in the DeCSS case (the DMCA says "you cannot crack copyright protection schemes even if your purpose is to allow you to have fair use of the underlying material.")" I disagree a bit with Lessig's statement on the second page about why we don't have book licenses - I think it's because the legal system refused to enforce them, not because the book industry thought it was futile. But overall it's definitely a good read.
Re:Beggars belief (Score:1)
Re:The Copyright Bargain is Dead and Gone... (Score:2)
Note also that the original copyright law in the USA was unusual in giving the original author control over "dervied works". Somthing which dosn't tend to be the case where copyright laws started out being long term. At least this kind of addition was related to copying whereas the more recent attempts to broadern "copyright" have nothing to do with copying.
Copyright Revision (Score:1)
Re:The Copyright Bargain is Dead and Gone... (Score:1)
Re:Reading aloud "Alice in Wonderland" (Score:1)
Edward Burr
Re:Unfair use?? (Score:2)
Businesses that engage in the practice of selling hardware that doesn't work and doesn't accept returns invite big Chicago law firms to do what they have done for years to great effect -- file national class action lawsuits that change the behavior of companies or cripple them.
Re:Here's the key point (Score:1)
I remember reading something at least similar to what he says she said. I believe it was in an interview and the question was something along the lines of, "Does the RIAA really believe they can stop all of these new software programs and devices from appearing and allowing people to get music for free?" I'll go dig around in my bookmarks and see if I can find a link when I get home tonight.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:1)
At this time, you could also dub cassettes easily, nobody really complained, artists and the recording studios made lots of money, and everyone was generally happy.
However, they realised that if they could edge out fair-use, they could squeeze just a few extra dollars out of the people. And here we are. Everything is protected from copying now, CD prices are still high, DVD prices are *reasonable* for the most part, but should come down in price within the next few years. Note that I said "should". I think it will be much like the CD however. They will keep the price artificially high, just to line their pockets some more.
Who are the crooks in this situation? Average Joe who buys 20 movies and pirates 1 or 2, or the production companies who make billions of dollars each year for doing very little, while attempting to take away our rights to make even more?
Preaching to the converted (Score:3)
This has had enough coverage on
Headlines such as
"Publishers to prosecute reading children's stories" and
"Hollywood to ban VCRs"
are the way to get the message across. This will be the only way to get to the politicians who right now are aligned with the media if for lack of a strong (ie, voter affecting) counter-lobby.
Re:Here's the key point (Score:3)
Loophole(s) in DMCA (IANAL of course) (Score:2)
If they then turn around and say 'you can't make a DVD player, it can copy _our_ stuff', you say, well, fine. SONY can't make DVD players either - those players can copy _my_ stuff! (A large reason why DVD player manufacturers aren't guilty of breaking the DMCA is that they are 'commercially viable')
Note well that the new ~$3000 PowerMacs from Apple have a DVD-RW, _and_ firewire ports. The $1600 model has DVD-ROM and firewire. And Darwin has the drivers. (Or should anyway.) There's got to be some sort of interesting & useful hardware hacks in there. [Glares at tangled pile of silly analog cables in his entertainment center]
The free speech argument is all well and good, but this seems like a much faster (and clear cut) way of dismantling this hideous law.
Re:This book cannot be read aloud (Score:2)
This same web page has Adobe's reply to complaints about their permissions page.
The real role of industry... (Score:2)
Also, P2P and direct artist to consumer sales are not one in the same. In fact, they're almost mutually exclusive. P2P is probably not going to facilate actual sales, that'd much better suited towards centralization. P2P hasn't brought micropayments and the like any closer. The artist is just as capable of doing that today as they were before P2P emerged. So suing P2P outfits will do little to nothing to stop increased artist independence. Even if the industry wanted to, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on [if they wanted to sue an unsigned artist using a respectable website, something akin to mp3.com, that simply isn't getting near their copyrights] In short, they're quite seperate issues.
Now I know you realize the importance of marketing, but I don't see Napster and the like as being a marketing tool. Personally, I think the "just personal channel" aspects are overhyped these days. We may see increased personal targeting of marketing, but I don't think the majority of consumers will ever be there own DJs--it's just too much work. What we may see is increased specialization, i.e., 50 MTV channels...but even there there would be a lot of homogenization and crossover. Witness the perseverence of the likes of MTV.
Though this isn't my field of expertise by any means, it's pretty clear to me that the real reason is that people like to have things in common with their peers, whether it be music, sports, movies, politics, or whatever. People need to talk to each other and these things provide grounds to talk. In other words, even if they were willing to devote the time and energy, there is a natural force that pushes people back together.
Re:Mountain out of a molehill? (Score:2)
The attitudes at the time would have ment they would have been greeted with laughter had they attempted to lobby for legislation to protect their interests. However situation now is that governments (especially the US government) tend to view protecting the interests of established industries as important.
Re:Copyright Terms (Score:2)
We also get situations of an artist saying "I wish I'd never written than book, song, etc". With long term copyright they can go a little futher and "unpublish" something.
Re:Copyright Terms (Score:2)
Even where there is some commercial basis for creating the work in the first place then a return is going to be expected in at most a few years. Not decades!
Re:Just a question of mine (Score:2)
I've also heard stories of the same device being sold at differing prices depending what version of the firmware is installed, when the firmware is freely down loadable.
The Copyright Bargain is Dead and Gone... (Score:4)
There was originally a balance struck with copyright. People accepted the rights of authors to have control over their work for a period of time (then 14 years). This allowed the author (and publisher) to make money from his work. In return, at the end of that period of time, the work would become part of the public domain, free for all to use. That bargain is long dead, broken by publishers. They continually lobbied for more control and longer copyright terms, and they got them. Now copyrighted works don't go into the public domain for at least 70 years, and that's only if the author dies right after creating the work. Is it any wonder that many people have no respect for copyright anymore? We haven't seen anything go into the public domain for decades! We're going back to the times before the Statute of Queen Anne in Britain where publishers had perpetual copyright control over works they published. That was stopped by the Statue of Queen Anne, and US courts acknowledged that copyright is a privilege, not a right, and that there were no perpetual rights granted to authors or publishers for control over the works they create and publish.
Today, publishers are still seeking perpetual control over the works they publish. People should understand that if there is to be a bargain, they must keep their end. Why should we create laws that serve only to enrich a few at the expense of the freedom of the rest of us? We grant copyrights so that authors will continue to create new works for us to enjoy and learn from. They will continue to create these things whether we give them 14 years of copyright protection or 1400 years of copyright protection. It is in the best interest of most of us if we limit the term to something reasonable such as 14 years. As things stand today, anything created in our lifetime will likely not go into the public domain in our lifetime. That's just not right and illustrates how the scales are tipped heavily in the publishers' favor. What we need now is copyright reform. We need to roll back the copyright term to the original 14 years (plenty of time to turn a very nice profit). There will be a fight. Highly profitable corporations do not give up money without a very big fight. But we need to restore a balance between the creators and the public. That alone could go a long way towards restoring respect for the copyright system and ensuring that the creators will profit from their creations. Yes, the publishing industry will have to resign themselves to not being able to milk a creation for all eternity, but there's really no reason they should have ever had such a right to begin with.
Middle ground is to not accept death of copyright (Score:2)
Yes. Enforce copyright, and get rid of copy protection.
No draconian laws that remove fair use (e.g. DMCA) are needed. Just a few narcs who hang out on IRC, use Napster, etc. When they catch someone breaking the law (e.g. redistributing copyrighted material without permission), get their identity somehow, and throw the book at 'em. Then publicize the hell out of their victories in court, in order to spread fear. When people hear that the college kid who runs an FTP site where you can download entire albums or movies (instead of samples) ended up having to sell his car and computer in order to pay the legal judgement, maybe they'll be less likely to violate.
If the pirates can be made to suffer, then the rest of us won't have to. We'll be able to copy our DVDs to hard disk so that we don't have to deal with removable media, we'll be able to listen to the music that we bought in our cars, etc. And the people who made it will still get paid. And the pirates will be broke, or live in constant fear that the guy they met on IRC might actually be a RIAA rent-a-cop.
In order to make this work, though, there has to be ways to hold people accountable for their actions. It seems to me that the purpose of things like Freenet is to avoid that. Freenet is going to fail, though.
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Did You Even Read My Post? (Score:2)
As I stated my original post, the threat of Napster wasn't to immediate CD sales but the future sales. Eventually when I can download music of the 'Net direct to my Aiwa, Sony, Bose or Kenwood CD player then store that on a personal recorder when I ride the train or in a car stereo, what is the incentive to buy CDs? Believe me, the RIAA is not stupid, they aren't fighting over a few million CDs sales now but over the survival of a multibillion dollar industry.
And to those who consistently point to the French revolution and the lack of copyright at that time leading only to the production of dreck, that hardly an airtight counterexample. What you imply is that the only way high quality creative works get made is when there is a copyright system in place (and, by extension, that an author of such a work gets paid), and I don't believe that's the case at all. You will be hard pressed to prove that the only motivation for creation of high quality works is monetary.
Now you are being illogical. The only known example of abolishing copyright lead to a dearth in the quantity and quality of music and literature being produced yet you brush this off as being inconsequential. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
Frankly, it's common sense, if less people can make a living doing something, less people will do it. Secondly most artists cannot maintain the high quality of their work if they have to work day jobs to make ends meet or even worse have to tour just to put food on the table. Of course, when we include books in the equation, you realize you are stating that authors simply do not deserve to eat since they don't tour.
Grabel's Law
Re:Why bother running articles critical of the DMC (Score:2)
Re:This book cannot be read aloud (Score:2)
Actually, I interpreted it as meaning that blind people are allowed to use text to speech, it's just that the software is going to be extremely uncooperative. Much like (prior to DMCA), you can record a Macrovision-protected signal, but the equipment will try to stop you.
It's not a legal restriction. It's not part of a license that the user agrees to. It's just an artificial crippling of the content by using a closed format. As such, it is subject to market forces, and therefore not a legal problem.
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Re:This book cannot be read aloud (Score:2)
But the meaning of "permissions" is. It's not a restriction agreed to between the copyright holder and the end user. It's a restriction agreed to between the document and the software.
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In France, some do want fee-based libraries. (Score:4)
Re:Beggars belief (Score:2)
Yes, I do. I do because that is fair use - to do anything I want with the cd and the music on it, short of distributing it to other people. That's protected by copyright law. Anything else is free game."
So let me get this straight, you can do "anything" you want with a CD except distribute it to others.
So basically what you're saying is that you don't own the right to do what the hell you like with them.
Re:Why bother running articles critical of the DMC (Score:3)
ok, i'll bite.
SlashDot is not an activist group, it is a news site. for nerds. not all nerds are into the same things; some of them even have tastes and opinions which conflict with those of other nerds. some nerds want to watch movies. some nerds want to boycott the MPAA. supporting all these diverse interests doesn't make SlashDot hypocritical, any more than your local newspaper is being hypocritical for publishing editorials of differring opinion.
so enhance your calm. Slashdot is a rich tapestry!
/bluesninja
Re:Mountain out of a molehill? (Score:2)
The situation is not exactly analogous because there are not (yet) companies putting them out of business by exploiting the new technology. Customers themselves are going to put them out of business by exploiting the information infrastructure that is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. I don't think most people want to deliberately rip off the people who create the media, but on the other hand, they have no compunctions against ripping off people. What goes around comes around.
Furthermore, people like Napster, MP3, and who knows who else are trying to find a chink in the corporate-driven intellectual property armor to provide the services that the media companies refuse to provide and eventually they will succeed. The AOL/Time-Warner/Netscape/Yahoo!/Microsoft/Sony/Ni
Re:Currently P2P is synonymous with piracy (Score:2)
A) Most people associate P2P with piracy, hence the word synonymous.
B) The industry has sued P2P piracy agents, not just P2P concepts.
C) The industry is NOT just suing any new distribution model; they're suing agents that have a direct affect on their own copyright. If there is some overlap (assuming you could really call napster a new distribution model with a straight face), it's coincidental.
But we don't really. (Score:2)
The only use that I see is that it's cheaper (Score:2)
The only one I can think of is that it allows them to distribute the server and bandwidth costs. If you have a sample of your work that you want to spread far and wide (so that people who like the free sample will get hooked and want to buy your non-free products), it costs you money (server and bandwidth) to make the sample available. P2P lets you move that expense to your fans.
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Re:the root of the problem (no solution though) (Score:2)
Fascinating argument. There's one thing that I might question, though. "...authors who, given some choice... "
Speaking from the sidelines of the musician community, I don't see a lot of choice either there or in the publishing industry. If you want to make a good living and reach a wide audience, you deal with the publishers and accept their lobotomy licenses. If you want to retain reasonable control over your material and distribute it how YOU want it done, then you self-publish and maybe sell enough to cover your costs.
I'd be very interested to hear how your book is doing in a year. I suspect that if it's good, you might have covered costs by then. No more. I'd love to be wrong about this, mind you. I think that the world is just now starting to develop cheap and efficient self-distribution channels for independents like yourself which will create the choices we want to see. Really, that's what scares the Big Media Companies(tm) the most. The spectre of most musicians and writers being able to live comfortably off of self-published material, that doesn't involve them!
Yes! (Score:2)
There were MORE forms of music and more people making it before Gilbert and Sullivan's copyright BS attack, phonographs, radio and all that mass produced garbage culture.
Sweden has a similar system (Score:2)
Re:Copyright Terms (Score:2)
A 10 year copyright (very short) would not affect the huge losses occuring today by people downloading Britney.
What huge losses? The music industry just had a record year for profits. Even when asked, they haven't been able to show any real losses. The losses are just as imaginary as copyright itself.
But the only "problem" is the "problem" of "I don't wanna pay for it and don't wanna have to wait 75 years for it."
No, the problem is that there's no reason for us to grant a copyright to artists and other creators or publishers if we aren't going to get something out of it as well. The original "bargain" was for 14 years. We wouldn't publish something that was copyrighted without paying the artist for it, and at the end of the term the work went into the public domain and was free to all. That bargain is long broken and there is no longer anything in it for the public. The US courts said long ago that copyright is a privilege, not a right. If that privilege isn't benefitting the public as a whole by making more works part of the public domain, then what reason do we have to maintain our end of the bargain long after the publishers broke their end?
Disney wants to keep it's rights to early Mickey Mouse because they KNOW it's sill a valuable property. This hasn't stopped them from continuing to spit out new movies every other year.
Aside from the distinction between a trademark and a copyright, I don't think that it matters that the mouse is still profitable. The term should have expired long ago. Trademark law might still apply to it in some cases, but other than that, the mouse should be fair game.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
(p.s. if you don't like my overuse of quotes - you know where you can stick it
P2P or not P2P? - That's the question (Score:2)
Sounds like an attempt to exercise an existing monopoly to control another industry, IMO.
--
Re:Just a question of mine (Score:2)
You're committing copyright infringement by just *having* a copy of that shareware game unless the author gave you a license to use it. When they gave you that license, they gave you a bunch of terms to agree to -- one of them being that you wouldn't crack the game. Hence, when you crack the game, you break the license.
This has no bearing on whether cracking tools should be legal.
Re:Copyright Terms (Score:2)
Up until '76 or so IIRC that was required, so I can see it coming back.
2 and 3) I disagree. Something like Mickey Mouse has netted Disney *BILLIONS* of dollars over the years. They would, I am quite certain pony up for everything to be registered as long as possible. The prices are absolute which lets the rich copyright holders keep them for as long as possible, and the poor ones lose them right away.
This is why I had a percentage of the gross. If it's worth it to Disney, they'll figure out how much Mickey made them, and cough up a hefty amount.
While Joe Blow, author of "Meet Joe Blow: An Autobiography" only has to put in a few bucks... if he even cares.
Possibly a minimum could be put in - no less than $1000 to renew....
But I strongly feel that copyrighted works should enter the public domain no matter what during the lifetime of the author and the audience. First because there is no amount of money that can encourage an author to write more works (the actual purpose of copyrights) after he's dead. And if he has a bestseller, which implies that he could make a significant contribution to the arts, he shouldn't be able to retire on it. Let him be prolific!
And as for the audience, they too can make contributions to society. Derivative works are close to my heart, and I don't see a problem with some of them (e.g. fan fiction - often better than the original)
4) I agree. Additionally, since ALL copyrighted works would have to be preserved in the best possible form in the LoC (none of this situation where a large number of famed silent films have been permanently lost) and made publicly available there's still a hope left even if the work is more or less abandoned.
5) Agreed - see my note on point 1. Also make it an abuse of copyright (resulting in the loss of the copyright of the offending work) if the date is changed without getting a legal extension. On a composite or extended work there could simply be multiple dates, eg. Copyright 1995, 2005
6) Quite so.
Note also that some trademarks must also necessarily expire when the earliest work incorporating it does.
It is not enough that Mickey Mouse films be available to everyone as they expire. New, independent films also have to be produced, and unless the trademark on the character runs out at the same time as the first work he's in enters the public domain there's no real gain.
Anyone can write a story about Odysseus, or King Arthur, or Paul Bunyan. Imagine the blow to the arts if they were trademarked. Characters like Superman or Bugs Bunny aren't special, and should also be able to be used by anyone when the time comes.
IIRC this is already a principle of copyright and trademark law, and is the reason Disney's so frickin' evil in that regard.
Re:Copyright Terms (Score:2)
1) Terms of 10 years, retroactively applied
2) In order to gain the ability to levy civil or criminal charges against an infringer, works must be registered with the USCO.
3) Registration requires:
a) Archiving a useful copy of a work (high quality masters of video, source code to software, ordinary copies of books) in the Library of Congress
b) A fee to handle processing by the USCO and storage fees at the LoC.
4) One extension may be granted for a maximum 20 year term. If this is done, a significant amount of money (1/100th of the gross of the work over the previous ten years?) is charged for this. The money goes towards the creation of public domain works: software, art, literature, etc. which are also archived in the LoC.
5) Fair use rights are protected, as are any necessary steps needed to exercise these rights (law doesn't matter here - this derives from the Constitution)
We need numbers people.... (Score:2)
This may well cost more than just providing the mp3s themselves, especially when you stop and consider that 99% of their searches and database are for pirated material.
You keep saying this, but you aren't really giving us any evidence either. How much does it cost MP3.com to create and maintain their databases? How much does it cost Napster? That's the information we need, and apparently don't have. So this is all just idle speculation with nothing to back it up on either side.
Re:In France, some do want fee-based libraries. (Score:2)
The media giants want to force everything to a per-use charge based system. Look at DIVX. This was the media companies' dream: every time you want to watch your copy of "Broken Arrow", your DIVX machine dials up the Central Server and you account gets charged and a record is made that you watched "Broken Arrow" for the 144th time a 3:56 A.M. on 1 February 2001. Not only do they eliminate those pesky consumers cheating them out of good revenue by viewing something over and over again (like with VHS tapes... that's tantamount to piracy!), but they also get excruciatingly granular usage info, which the marketing folks will snap up with great glee.
DIVX failed because no one considered that the customer wouldn't want a product that screws him over without providing any real new benefits, but the idea is just in its infancy. Just look at all the copy-protection schemes being bandied about for hard-drives, digital TV's, new generations of CD players, and you can see that the might of billions of dollars is being plied against the concept of fair use.
The French folks are just a little ahead of the curve by applying the same logic to books. If you have to pay everytime you watch a movie, someone should have to pay every time he reads a book. Lending a book (or DVD, or CD) to a friend is stealing, by this (ludicrous) reasoning and should be prevented.
As the media companies marge and accrete size and power to rival national governments, this trend will continue to gain momentum despite the wishes of us poor law-abiding citizens who just want to listen to our Cyndi Lauper CD's.
Welcome to the future.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
To answer what is middle ground: High quality product distributed at a resonable price that can be manipulated by the end user (backed up, mixed, etc. If the price is resonable and the product usable, sales should increase. The more muddied the waters get with all this copy protection bs, more consumers will get confused and abandon the technology - see DIVX and DAT. Give me a cd or dvd at a fair price and I will buy it. Make it overpriced or unusable and I won't. Most people are inherently honest. There will always be some who aren't.
A minor nit-pick:
There is a flaw in the Metallica logic - they became huge, with NO radio or video support. Until "One", there was no airplay, not even on rock stations (there were a few, but very few). One of lifes greatest ironies was hearing "One" on a top 40 station because album sales were so high. Until "And Justice..." there was no support from a marketing standpoint. It would be interesting to see what effect a P2P distribution system would have had if it existed during the first two albums - would they have become huge faster, or bombed?
(I worked for a rock radio station during this timeframe, so I have some idea of what was going on behind the scenes at that time)
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
It was very hard for anyone to afford getting custom tapes made professionally. In the era of tapes the recording and editing equipment wasn't as common as it is now, and was thus much more expensive. Tapes also cost a ton to duplicate because the only method available was to actually run all the tape through the spool while recording. Unlike CDs which are mastered in a second.
The labels are getting obsolete, except as marketing. And PR companies exist on all scales, from someone to promote you locally to a world-wide campaign. These companies also contract for a specific job for a specific fee, not the complete rights to everything you produce for a number of years.
Re:Beggars belief (Score:2)
You don't own the right to do what the hell you like with them. "
Yes, I do. I do because that is fair use
No, that's first sale. The doctrine of first sale says that you can do what you like with the physical object you purchased, aside from making copies of it.
Fair use allows you to make copies of a work or portions thereof without the copyright holder's permission, depending on what you're going to use it for.
Two different legal principles.
Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:4)
On the one hand the "Digital Rights Management" technologies being created to combat these threats to copyright are ominous. Microsoft plans to support digital rights management at the OS level very soon and has started making moves in that direction [microsoft.com] while hard drive manufacturers have considering adding hard drive copy protection [slashdot.org] to all systems built in future and Intel has flirted with copy protection for monitors and other display devices [slashdot.org]. All of the aforementioned technologies are invasive, distasteful and prevent users from exercising their rights to fair use of copyrighted or non-copyrighted works [cetus.org].
Also recent legal wranglings aimed at protecting copyright have robbed consumers of rights that they have had or should have such as the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act [educause.edu]. In the same vein certain rulings against opponents of the RIAA and MPAA such as the $118 million dollar ruling against MP3.com [slashdot.org] or the ruling against 2600.com [slashdot.org] are ridiculous.
So my question is this: Is there a middle ground?. On the one hand I am opposed to piracy and "Information Wants to Be Free" has always been a poor justification for piracy in my opinion (whether software or music) but on the other hand it is clear that something has to be done soon about the way in which consumer rights are constantly being eroded. Basically I believe that until advocacy against the RIAA, MPAA and other copyright cartels begins to counter their arguments with reasonable points that can benefit both sides, we are doomed to continue in this downward spiral. As long as our arguments boil down to "I want free shit" or "No encryption can't be hacked", we will constantly be at war with the RIAA & MPAA and since they have more money (and thus better lawyers) than us, they will win.
Grabel's Law
All DVD playback software infringes on fair use. (Score:3)
Personally, I believe that the user should be legally entitled to take 720x480 screenshots and extract 22kHz 8-bit stereo sound (if not 48kHz 16-bit stereo). The program would restrict the NUMBER of the screenshots (so as to prevent frame-by-frame piracy, as if DeCSS and DivX haven't already made this obsolete), and one minute of audio per session. The current content-control system (and that's exactly what CSS boils down to: content control) is truly Orwellian (if not also Draconian). Those who control the present control the future, those who control the future control the past, and those who control the movie industry indirectly control the sanity and demeanor of the people.
Re:Just a question of mine (Score:3)
It's just propoganda, or PR if you like. Sellers call it "theft". Stallman calls it "sharing". Both have connotations that the correct term, "copyright violations" does not have. However, the people calling it theft or sharing want people to identify with those connotations.
If you copy an entire piece of commercial software and use the copy instead of purchasing that software, the software vendors argue that you have used their service but did not pay them their demanded fee for that service. That would be theft.
It is the using their product without paying their fee that is theft, not the copying part. It's just that the copyright laws are the best tool in law to protect against such theft, but don't knock them because they also bring useful protection, like the right to make a backup.
Mountain out of a molehill? (Score:4)
About thirty years ago it became possible and easily accessible for anyone to copy an entire book on a copier. They could then bind it and voila, a "free" book. This did not herald the end of the publishing industry. My opinion is that, although easy to do, it's not worth the time/cost of doing. It may be that this ability reduced the cost of books to consumers; if a book cost $34,000 one might consider copying and binding it.
Twenty years ago it became fairly simple for someone to copy software using cracking utilities or just a disk copy. Did this begin the downfall of the software industry? At that time, the software industry believed it would but ultimately people continue to buy software. Most readers of Slashdot can find a crack for a demo program and use it. But your cracked demo usually is somehow not quite as good as the purchased version -- there might be stray lines in some graphics or some driver is not supported. It's usually easier and cheaper in terms of time to buy the CD, stick it in and hit install than modify some DLL with a hex editor. Again it is likely that the ability to copy puts downward pressure on software prices which is good for consumers.
The most recent developments make it possible, for example, to obtain almost any song and play it at near-CD quality. Woe to the music industry! Of course using Napster you have to find the song, wait in a queue for your download to begin, then hope that your song wasn't encoded by some ninny at 20kbps or stops before the last 20 seconds. If, on the other hand, you could say "Stairway to Heaven" into your remote control and 5 seconds later it downloads (and can be replayed ad infinitum) to your Sony MP3 Jukebox thanks to your gigabit connection to Columbia House wouldn't it just be easier to pay $.003?
My point is that the result of these new technologies has not and will not result in ruination of an industry. Instead it will result in lower consumer prices and _possibly_ lowered profits for some copyright-based industries. The RIAA and Hollywood have no right to force profit-protection legislation on consumers. They simply need to make it easier for consumers to buy music/video than to copy it.
Re:Here's the key point (Score:2)
My Question (Score:2)
What happens when a CD is scratched or stolen? I should be able to replace it (for cost of the CD itself, not the music) so long as I have proof of purchase, right?
The fact that I can't do this is quite irritating, as I had a few hundred dollars worth of CD's stolen a year ago. I refuse to buy the songs again, so have been rebuilding the collection through online sources. Definitely a pain, but paying twice for the same thing is ridiculous, especially when said price is hyperinflated to begin with.
Re:My take on copyright (Score:2)
errr, what? (Score:2)
That sounds nice and all, but what does it mean? Let me try an awful analogy:
The irony of the Anit Piracy case is that the ships that were labelled contraband were not built or planned by shippers, but by the Pirates! It was pirate built ships that were restrained. That is why all ship builders must worry about this.
No, I don't morraly equate the copying of software or girl scouts singing "America the Beautitul" with murder and pillage. I simply want to know what goes on inside the head of a "strong-IP" guy.
It looks like you mean something like the DCMA goes above and beyond the power and intent of both copyright and patent laws. Copyright laws are intended to foster publishing and the expansion of the public domain by granting copy protection limited by the life of the contents creator. Patents are designed to encourage research and invention by granting a time limited protection on the invention's use. The DCMA combines the much stricter implementation rules of patents with the much longer, even infinite, time rules of copyright. This much too powerful device is now being used to prevent others from publishing original and useful material. In the end it may serve to reduce and eliminate the public domain which both patent and copyright laws seek to expand.
Ah, what do I know? I think that copyright protections are obsolete as the costs of publishing has been reduced to next to nothing, that Gilbert and Sullivan were Satan's minions, and that IP is BS. People will always publish, for the reasons they did before they were "protected", pride, philanthopy, and propaganda. Money is a byproduct.
Re:The only use that I see is that it's cheaper (Score:2)
The only way I can see that argument applying substantially is if the sampling to payment ratio is extremely high. e.g., 1000 downloads for 1 payment. That, of course, would beg the question of the small artists' benefit. This also assumes that there would be no supplemental revenue such as banner adds....
Put simply, to whatever extent that people believe the small artist can benefit from Napster (which i'm extremely skeptical of), I believe can be done better and cheaper for all involved with a centralized structure. Witness mp3.com or, somewhat related, tucows.com and the like. That kind of bandwidth and indexing is quite affordable these days, especially since the presumed revenues would scale with the demand.
Anyways, even if you presumed this off-loading of quality to be a good thing, the same fundamental offloading of bandwidth could be achieved while essentially blocking piracy through the use of enumerated legitimate indexing. For instance, the small artist would go to some website on Napster, and upload their OWN songs, sign a document saying that it belongs to them and that they agree to be held liable if it is not their own song (complete with contact information, etc), Napster would then produce a checksum of sorts such that the song could be verified to be that same song for every search and index. Thus Napster could serve the small artist well, mantain indexes of quality songs, and prevent any measurable piracy.
It may be a little more complex but it is very much dooable. It would have virtually all the presumed benefits of today's Napster with little to no costs for the established artists and industry.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
Between license agreements and the DMCA, content providers attempt to limit your ability to use their content after you have already purchase a copy. In effect, they are trying to destroy the normal consumer model.
In the traditional consumer model, I go out and buy something--and it's mine. I can buy a car for the entire purpose of beating on it with a sledgehammer--or extracting the motor and running a generator out of it. I can buy a book for the entire purpose of lambasting it in an acidic review--or even for publically burning it. In this consumer model, I have an implied limited warranty--I can reasonably expect what I buy to work as advertised. And if it doesn't work, I can return it and get my money back.
The restrictions on use are the onerous issue. Should I be able to give you a copy of my copy of the Bleeding Trees' new album? No! Should I be able to buy something that allows me to copy music around? Yes! Having a tool that allows you to commit a crime is not commiting the crime. If I have a bag of lock-picking tools, am I a catburgler or a locksmith? If I have a password cracker, am I a cyberintruder or a sysadmin? If I have a Napster account, am I trading Metallica tracks or just distributing some from my garage band?
The line was drawn over a century ago. Corporate Power is moving that line, very quickly. I for one don't like it.
Cost-benefit analysis. (Score:2)
This whole issue is coming up BECAUSE the cost-benefit analysis of preserving copyright protection has changed.
There's a new cost, the DMCA, the restrainment of the first amendment, that wasn't there before.
There is an implicit assumption in what you say that the cost-benefit analysis for copyright has remained unchanged. It has.
Oh, wait, artists produce little of value! (Score:2)
In the grand scheme of things, the filter of time and perspective tends to add value to the works of past artist. Moby Dick and The Raven are examples of 19th centry works that are popular today but were not well recognized or even accepted by the critics of the time as being good examples of art.
Today, however, book companies can make a living off of reprinting these copyright expired works.
Musicians, as well, rarely ever acheived great fame or wealth in their time. Many works for the orchestra familiar today are from artists who did not make much money in their time. People such as Gustov Holst, or Richard Strauss whose works are well known today had little recognition in their own time.
How does this apply to Britney Spears and N' Sync? They are more of a social phenomanon than musical or visual artists. Granted, their works are visually fast and full, and musically upbeat, but little of either philosophical or literary value is contained within. Is this bad? No, not in a artistic sense, thier art stands in its context. What does this mean for the economic value of their works? A 14 year old girl might have biological reasons for wanting to see N' Sync, and a social need as well, because all of her friends are "in to them". Does this mean the work they are producing is valuable? Well, in monotary terms, yes, it is. But will the music of N' Sync stand against Beethoven's 7th? No. Because Beethoven crafted the music as an art form. N' Sync crafts their music as a vehicle to collect teenage dollars.
When all of this is put in a context where people can download any arbitrary work of music without paying money then things become interesting. The concept of economic value is thrown out the window. It has been my experience that people will indeed download Britney Spears over Beethoven, and this is reasonable given other pressures associated with it, not to mention peer approval. Perhaps people enjoy the thrill of 'stealing', or think they are getting the most economicly for free.
But which work is more valuble? My humble opinion is that I would rather familiarize myself with the timeless quality of Beethoven's works rather than the fleeting emotion that Britney would give me. Although other people most likely will reach a different conclusion, I think the crux of the matter is that the value of music is embedded in its quality to the beholder, and that no one monatary value can be attached. Personally, I think that there is little of value in most recent music, and it does not deserve a copyright. If no works had copyrights, then we would go back to the old days were there were only a few rare superstar artists and most others quietly labored away from the spotlight. Others would be subsidized by organizations who have an interest in such things. Bach, for example, was paid by the church to write music and direct choirs. Many orchestras today have composers-in-residence, who produce works that may or may not have great artistic value, but who know in advance that they most likely will not profit greatly from them.
In the end, people will surround themselves with the art they enjoy, so the whole conversation is moot other than to see which big record company and/or profit making artist gets your money.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
Re:Mountain out of a molehill? (Score:2)
The media companies are refusing to evolve to reflect the new technology that almost everyone has access to. They are forcing an outmoded form of distribution on us, because the newer technology gives them less control and less chance to gouge people. Customers aren't going to stand around and take it from an industry that flagrantly fixes prices in our faces and pitches a tantrum when people won't stand for it (even if they are breaking the law by violating copyrights). What do you expect? Screw with people and they'll screw with you.
Right now, we pay and exorbitant price for a music distribution system that is technologically obsolete. Until and unless the media companies offer something more reasonable, people are going to continue to flout the law more and more brazenly. Right now it seems that the consumers and the media companies are in a pissing match with each other. The media companies started it, and until they back down in some way, the consumers won't stop trying to circumvent their "protections".
Re:Reading aloud "Alice in Wonderland" (Score:2)
Obviously, one is capable of reading the text aloud. In this case, you can interpret may and can in a straightforward manner.
However, with the arrival of DMCA protected systems, your rights and the technical capabilities of the software become as one.
Take the case of the electronic book. Let us say, say, for instance, that a user is blind, and wants to use a braile out put device. The user has software that allows them, to 'cat' the contents of any text file to 'dev/braile', which will allow them to read the text file in braile.
Now, suppose this user buys an electronic book. The book is not a mere collection of text files-- instead it is supplied in an encrypted format-- and is thus only readable by an approved "client." (Let us imagine that the encyryption is strong enough to resist the efforts of cryptoanalysts).
It does not matter that the publishers did not exclude braile readers by design. It does not matter that reading a text file in braile constitutes "fair use."
It only matters that the designers of the client software did not contemplate that a blind user might read their book, and therefore did not design their client software so that it would be compatible with a braile reader. Their design flaws are now protected by law.
Re:DMCA clarification (IANAL) (Score:2)
Why no "book licenses"? (Score:2)
So Michael, your correct, the Supreme Court refused to uphold book licenses. In fairness though, the publishing industry could have continued to fight the decision by revamping the licenses or by pushing Congress for a legislative change to the doctrine of first sale.
The big question I have, however, is if anyone has tried to apply the right of first sale to software? Anyone know?
-sk
DMCA clarification (IAAL) (Score:2)
That, of course, is the problem with DMCA -- it makes unlawful conduct that used to be officially sanctioned to support IP policy.
Problem with the interview (Score:2)
Currently P2P is synonymous with piracy (Score:3)
I'll grant you that the fundamental idea behind P2P is cool in and of itself. However, realistically, what additional advantage does Napster (et al.) offer to the consumer or the artist over and above the traditional centralized client server architecture (which has the added, and well established, benefit of preventing piracy)? It's actually worse for the artist. Ok, so they can stick their song on their own computer and serve it. Maybe if they get really lucky someone will randomly stumble across and download it. Of course, in the mean time, the song may be renamed, damaged, replaced, etc. A central server can do all of this and more. Storage is cheap, certainly cheaper than the expensive database systems that napster employs. You can still get the "random search"--if you believe that important. What's more, you can insure consistent quality, information on the artist, etc. You can also create indexing systems, web pages, common tastes/suggestions (similar to what Amazon does), etc.
In my opinion, until the proponents of P2P can offer a convincing cost versus benefit argument for society that doesn't thumb its nose at copyright, it won't stand a chance. Like it or not, copyright is an integral and important feature of our society. Limiting or regulating P2P to preserve the intent of copyright may well make more sense than just allowing P2P to ride roughshod over copyright. Sometimes inaction can do far more violence than action. It is ridiculous to assume that inaction of the law is necessarily the safer course just because there are some legal complexities.
Good but a misleading point (Score:2)
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:3)
I dissagree that it would mean the end of musicians excepts as marketed. I think perhaps the other way around.. Most musicians get the vast majority of thier money for live performance, not for records sold. Selling CDs or singles is a way to get people to want to see them live. Marketing by the big labels does the same thing. Distributing the music for free will not really change this. Perhaps it will mean that more people are exposed to more bands, and the good ones hype themselves. who knows?
I do this a lot: I'll 'priate' a certain song from someone on napster.. then I'll browse thier collection. If they have lots of stuff I like, I'll try d/l ing some of the stuff I haven't heard of. I figure, they have tastes like mine, so this unknown stuff might be something I like.
Now, I'm not saying that this will make all good bands succeed and all hype-only bands lose, but I am saying that I think 'P2P' sharing of music will not seriously change the industry for the bands or for the fans. who cares if it screws up the labels.
MP3.com (Score:2)
True, MP3.com was not making it easier for users to copy music illegally -- users had to either buy the music from an affiliate of mp3.com or insert a copy of the cd to prove they owned it before they could listen to the mp3 version stored on mp3.com's servers. The court found that mp3.com had willfully violated copyrights because the company did not have permission to make copies of the music (in mp3-compressed format), so that it's copying of the music onto its server was an infringement. The concept of a user being able to access music on a server after proving ownership of the original cd can still fly - - but the company with the server first has to get permission to put copies of the music on the server.... Companies may come up with new methods of distribution, but can't simply use content from others which they have no right to distribute. I don't see what's unreasonable about that.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
Besides that, napster & MP3s are helping some local artists build fanbases beyond their local area, without selling their souls to a record company.
Fair use (Score:2)
User Friendly spoof (Score:4)
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This book cannot be read aloud (Score:4)
Copyright Terms (Score:3)
Re:In France, some do want fee-based libraries. (Score:2)
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Re:Middle ground is to not accept death of copyrig (Score:2)
Won't work. Too many jurisdictional problems. Too expensive (would you rather see cops scour the net for child porn rather than bootleg Briney Spears recordings?). And the true pirates will, as always, stay well beyond the reach of any law.
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What about artists who aren't live-oriented? (Score:2)
Most musicians get the vast majority of thier money for live performance, not for records sold. Selling CDs or singles is a way to get people to want to see them live.
Your argument seems to discriminate against artists in genres that don't have a concept of live performance. For instance, do electronic artists perform live? Most of their music is generated by a computer program (e.g. Modplug Tracker [modplug.com] or some other sequencer); what is there to watch?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
--
Interesting (Score:2)
What happened at the DeCSS trial was more of a mockery than anything. If someone is able to pull the covers over the eyes of the law then anything will remain possible. I'm not arguing the point for or against DeCSS, I'm not really even caring (I'd rather watch DVD on Hellevision).
When a lawyer can totally mangle the information of a case to suit his clients purposes I really think that an obstruction of justice has occured. Granted, I didn't hear the entire trial (I only got the two days that Emmanuel Goldstien was on the stand) but, it was apparent to me that the prosecuting attorney was using the judges lack of knowledge to his cases interest.
While its nice to know that there are well studied lawyers out there that are willing to learn what they need to better their understanding of technology, I think that judges that could/will be presiding over the cases should at the very least take it upon themselves to RTFM so they can better serve the people that they are paid to.
Wait, maybe that already happened
Nice piece. At the end of the day . . . (Score:4)
The irony of the DeCSS case is that the subject matter that was labelled contraband was not written or conceived by the plaintiffs, but rather by the defendants! It was the original intellectual property of the defendants that was restrained. This is why the First Amendment is so clearly implicated in this case.
Re:Unfair use?? (Score:2)
Businesses that rip off their customers by delivering broken product and not accepting returns quickly go out of business.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:4)
Sounds like the market we have today. So what's the big deal?
Re:Unfair use?? (Score:3)
You mean like how microsoft is going out of business?
Bullshit. Businesses that don't make money go out of business. Businesses that rip off their customers can make a fortune if they are the only supplier for that product.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
I'm sure there are some services that are getting more expensive, because certain technologies are being invented. But the standard services that were available five years ago are getting cheaper.
It's like with computers and techs. You can always blow half a million on really funky hardware, and $250 an hour on a special consultant to run it. But if you have the same project to do that cost a million five years ago, it'll cost about $100,000 now.
If you always insist on the bleeding edge then you'll always pay insane prices, but that's not relevant here. These cutting edge services are uncommon and very expensive in an already overpriced industry, the recording companies aren't going to send their new talent to these uber-studios, they're going to send the incredibly well performing artists who are guaranteed to perform.
So it's apples and oranges.
Perhaps for a new artist, the top recording houses are beyond reach, but they always were because they wouldn't have been sent there even with a music contract.
So they settle for the same quality that was cutting edge a few years back and they can swing it with a small bank loan.
And this isn't a misconception. I have installed nonlinear editing systems in the past, and I know how cheap it is now.
The system I used to install had 90GB of SCSI HDs, that's 10 in a RAID. It was a high-end 486 (soon to be pentium) with 128MB of RAM, two custom video cards for MPEG-1 realtime compression, and a bunch of expensive extras like turtle-beach sound cards.
It cost, as a complete system, around $75,000, mostly because of the disks.
I could build a better system with a 160GB IDE RAID, dual P3s 800s, 2GB of RAM, and better sound and video cards. For $2500...
That's dropped the barrier a LOT. I knew the art students who used to work there to pay their way through school and get some editing time. Now they can afford to buy their own hardware and setup an editing studio that does 90% of what the full studio did. They're obviously skilled because they're the people who'd work on your project for you if you paid the studio to do it.
The only thing this system can't do is the actual tape splicing type stuff, but it generates the same list of timing codes to feed into the same machines. So you rent 5 hours of studio time, instead of 200. It helps the budget a bit.
So don't give me crap about how equipment and skilled professionals are getting more expensive. You're talking out of your ass and you know it.
fair enough (Score:3)
But great care must be taken to balance the grant of rights solely to serve those purposes. To this end, the Courts have assiduously avoided broadening the scope of remedies beyond the typical: measurable or statutory damages, and narrowly tailored injunctions to prevent infringement of the work (and nothing else).
My problem with DMCA is that it does not provide remedies focused on protecting the work itself, but rather on protecting something other than the work. In the DeCSS case, the defendant wasn't enjoined from copying or distributing the plaintiff's work -- he was enjoined from distributing his own original work.
That's where the first amendment is so deeply implicated -- this is original expression that is being stifled, allegedly in a good cause, but it is original expression that is being stifled. It is not derivative of the plaintiff's expression -- indeed, it is entirely unrelated.
Re:The Copyright Bargain is Dead and Gone... (Score:2)
Congress made the term for corporate-owned copyrights to be 90 years with their most recent term extension bill.
Here's the key point (Score:5)
But now the real danger is that the recording industry has succeeded in its objective, which as Hillary Rosen (president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America) said, is to guarantee that no venture capitalist invests money in new modes of distribution unless Hollywood signs off.
This is the guts of it. Media companies don't like the potential that new technologies have for distributing content (and excluding them from the supply chain). So what's their strategy been? Armies of lawsuits to make sure that a) anyone with a good idea has to waste their time defending a legal case and b) anyone who wants to fund a good idea won't - because they don't want to get involved in a legal case.
Ironically, the most dangerous and subversive tools are the ones written by individuals or small teams with zero funding - Gnutella, OpenNAP and Freenet.
Re:Beggars belief (Score:2)
You don't own the right to do what the hell you like with them. "
Yes, I do. I do because that is fair use - to do anything I want with the cd and the music on it, short of distributing it to other people. That's protected by copyright law. Anything else is free game.
The bike analogy is misapplied. When I listen to a cd, I'm not borrowing anything from anybody. I'm using a copy. It would be like if Johnny asked Susie if he could take pictures of her bike and make a duplicate. Arguably, he wouldn't even have to ask, because building a duplicate of Susie's bike doesn't hurt Susie in any way.
Re:Currently P2P is synonymous with piracy (Score:2)
One can extend this idea to geological surveys, amongst others.
That's not very different from how Napster operates. One querys a central server, and the peers who hold the actual data return the result.
So you see, there are many ways in which peer to peer is not about piracy at all!
The sheeple are a large part of the problem. (Score:2)
In a large, free market, with all kinds of roughly interesting movies to choose from, this is no big deal. You don't do business with the movie studios that require lobotomies.
But what if 90% of the sheeple[?] [everything2.com] do? The 10% of knowledgeable geeks (I'm overestimating) who boycott "lobo studios" won't be enough to put them out of business. The only way to win is to educate the sheeple. Join EFF [eff.org] and help fight the good fight.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Re:Here's the key point (Score:2)
The analogy to the printing press and the church is one that needs to be driven home with everyone.
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:3)
And this business of calling people who trade music (or books for that matter) pirates or thieves is playing into the hands of the IP cartels. Piracy and theft is depriving someone else of something that they actually possess, and the last time I checked nobody can actually possess an idea, piece of prose, melodic line, etc. For crying out loud, call it what it is--unauthorized use.
Disclaimer: I think that the whole concept of IP is flawed--once a song or book or whatever is out among the public it is de facto public domain (notice it's not de jure!) and the only way to enforce copyright is at the end of a bayonet.
And to those who consistently point to the French revolution and the lack of copyright at that time leading only to the production of dreck, that hardly an airtight counterexample. What you imply is that the only way high quality creative works get made is when there is a copyright system in place (and, by extension, that an author of such a work gets paid), and I don't believe that's the case at all. You will be hard pressed to prove that the only motivation for creation of high quality works is monetary.
You seem to be missing the point that the IP cartels aren't reasonable. They will not rest until all media is under their control. The beginning of that is extending copyright, and they're pretty much on their way towards that as witnessed by the Sony Bono Act.
Don't be so sure. And I would open up my eyes and look around if I were you, since there are a lot of arguments out there beyond the "I want free shit"/"No encryption can't be hacked" variety.
-- Shamus
O Brave New World, with such People in it!
Re:DMCA clarification (IANAL) (Score:3)
Re:Just a question of mine (Score:3)
This part is ammusing. And correct, much as it pains me to admit it. The ammusing part is that it is a tool to break *MY* lock. That lock is MINE, and I can break it if I want to. Just like a hammer can break the lock on MY house, and it's perfectly legal to do so, DeCSS can break the lock on MY DVD.
Now, if I break the lock on my neighbor's house, I will rightfully be prossecuted. This is as it should be. Just as if I break the lock on my neighbor's DVD. *THAT* is wrong. Unless I do so with my neighbor's permission of course.
Now, whose is the DVD, that is the question. Going by what I understand of copyright law, specificly First Sale, the DVD belongs to me once I buy it. The restriction is that I may not make a copy to give or sell to another person. The content is protected by copyright law, the PHYSICAL OBJECT is mine to do with as I please. This includes renting, loaning, selling, or destroying this object. And I am allowed to make copies for my own PERSONAL, NON-COMMERICAL use. The FBI warning even says that, IIRC.. Or at the least it's not included in the stuff I can't do.
So yes, I do indeed have the right to distribute the tool to break a lock. In my analogy the tool is a hammer. I can buy this at a hardware store. Or I can sell or give away my hammer. If I know that the person intends to use my hammer to break a lock that isn't thiers without permission I suppose I could be an accessory to the crime. However, there are a number of perfectly legit uses for that hammer and as long as the person did not tell me specificly that they intended to do something illegal with it I would not know. Nor should I be held responsible for it.
This applies to DeCSS just as well as my hammer. If I put DeCSS on a website for download, I don't know the people downloading it. I don't know what they intend to do with it. For all I know they are making a backup copy for thier kids to use so that the original doesn't get scratched up. This is legal, so I'm fine. Or they are planning to quote it for fair use, this is also fine. Or they could just want to watch it on a Linux box. Yes, they could intend to pirate it and sell it to thier friends. Just like the guy that bought the hammer could intend to break into houses or kill people with it.
Point is, if the hammer is not illegal, why is the code for DeCSS? The hammer can be used to KILL. The code can only facilitate piracy, and even that is not the only use it has. So the worst case senario for both shows that the hammer is a FAR greater danger to society.
This is INTOLERABLE. We must start a campaign to ban hammers at ONCE! They MIGHT be used to kill someone, the safety of our CHILDREN is at stake!!! Join me fellow Americans, help me lobby Congress!! We must stop the danger that hammers bring to our families!! If corporate profits are reason enough to ban something that can, at worst, be used to steal content, than the protection of our CHILDREN MUST be a good enough reason to ban something that can KILL! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!?!?!
;)
Re:Currently P2P is synonymous with piracy (Score:2)
This is what I have always wondered. Are these industry groups only interested in the piracy, or do they see their long term obsolescence as distributors? I agree, right now the primary use of P2P is to illegally trade copyrighten material, but will this always be the case?
In a future when I attach to a bands server to acquire their music directly (micropayments, macropayments, just plain free, or whatever) of what use are the recording companies? One of the biggest roles of the recording companies today is to get radio play for their acts. In a future when all "radio" is personalized digital streams customized by each listener their won't be much room for recording industry back room deals to increase their favorite products airtime.
Are the recording companies (and all media distributors) fighting these practices because of a short term interest in limiting the illegal trading of their wares, or do they truly see the end of their role in commerce?
Re:Death of Copyright: What is the Middle Ground? (Score:2)
At the time, digital audiotape was The New Technology That Threatened To End Copyright As We Know It; Congress required digital-recording devices to incorporate a certain kind of copy protection, and imposed a tax on digital recording media that would compensate musicians and studios for their lost revenue. Stallman proposed that the law be revised to (a) drop the copy-protection requirement and (b) distribute revenue from that tax to musicians alone, in proportion to their popularity.
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Re:It's like this + law problems (Score:2)
Exactly.. the physical object is mine, and in the 80ies people would consider a CD their personal property and they would make as many taperecordings of them as they liked. The only thing that was illegal was the sale of these copies, because the content was copyrighted and therefor can't be pirated.
But now were past the nineties and cd's still read "reproduction prohibited". The fact of the matter is that the law and it's customs have not evolved. Every time I play a cd, or I read a book, or I tape something with my videocam, I'm reproducing something. Companies apprently strike deals with lawyers to buy up rights on something they don't own, namely: configurations of letters, notes, soundwaves, radiofrequencies.. Once they have bought these rights, they are supposedly allowed to claim every right on everything that resembles what was copyrighted, binary or not. That claim is based upon constitutions and law principles that can date back over 100 years. However, today, content and channels are starting to become less proprietry and more common property.
Obviously, the internet and new technologies and applications, which are entirely free, have played a big part in rendering this model obsolete. Distribution is being taken out of companies hands. Even expensive content generation, like software or websites, is being paralleled by anonymous groups of people doing it for nothing at all. Self-regulative systems are emerging everywhere and on every level (distribution/generation/..), with things like p2p and streaming as fine examples. Instead of trying to protect the old market, the music industry had better found ways to benefit from p2p-like models. And law-makers better start being creative and look at society and it's customs again, because what people are supposed to do, and what people are really considering as ok
People need to start thinking differently, but then again, I believe that slogan is allready copyrighted as well.
Re:Currently P2P is synonymous with piracy (Score:2)
Anyways, I'd say the only bandwidth that matters is from the consumers perspective, how fast the consumer can attain the song of the quality that they desire after they decide to initiate a search for it. With Napster you're obliged to find a fast and reliable share. I'd argue that this tends to be much slower for most people than a reasonably well configured server would be, especially if they went to an Akamia-style configuration.
Uhuh, and this is why Napster has to segregate their users to seperate databases?
Which really doesn't happen at all -- see my response. Also "piracy" != "piracy". Napster and kin revolutionized piracy, in the sense that it brought it to the masses. Yes, before you could go to IRC, usenet, ftps, etc for them, but the barriers to entry are too high and the scalability too low for the average user. Empirically speaking too, piracy was just for those with the time to waste and the requisite skills. If you don't believe me, just sample your average university's bandwidth consumption patterns....
Re:Why no "book licenses"? (Score:2)
Copyright owners have always tried to take more than what was given to them under law. If you look at old 78's on the label you would think that you were reading a software license (later defeated in court - I don't have time to look up the cases).
Why is it that we have a legal system that is willing to break up monopolies, but when it comes to "copyright monopolies" it looks the other way?? Why does copyright terms need to last longer than patent terms?? (And don't give me the half ass "because the copyright owner deserves it" I don't blame people for pirating stuff left and right. With copyright terms extending to infinity (the DMCA now makes that a reality, not that the century and a half now possible with the CTEA isn't like infinity), the public domain is not getting is due.
Scholars in the know (Patterson - GA univeristy) have reached the conclusion that copyright has reached the point that it needs to be defined in the political arena not legal. Which means that we sit our politicians down before an election and ask specifically 'Where do you stand on copyright issues?" Chances are they don't know themselves, or they'll let campaign contributors [eagleforum.org] decide for them.
The mere thought of book licenses should be abhorred unconditionally. With the advent of electronic books on the horizon, the scenario of Richard Stallman's right to read [gnu.org] becomes a very real possibility.
Every generation has it battles, and I'm convinced this is ours.
My take on copyright (Score:5)
Reading aloud "Alice in Wonderland" (Score:3)
conflict of law!!!! (Score:2)
But, for them to take action against you for doing that would violate the anti-retaliation provision of the ADA.
What a tangled web we lawyers weave when we practice to greed.