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Lessig on the Future of the Public Domain 154

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
hank writes "The O'Reilly Network is running an interview with Lawrence Lessig -- author of "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" and "The Future of Ideas" -- on the future of the public domain, reaction to his calls to arms, and his next venture, Creative Commons, "machinery to build licenses that allow people to mark their content as available in any number of ways to the public domain.""
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Lessig on the Future of the Public Domain More

Lessig on the Future of the Public Domain

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  • Limited Copyrights + Patents within reason= Great.
    Any ref to DMCA = Bad.
    SSSCA= worse.
    CPBTA or whateverTF its called now= a sure sign that our gov likes to be anally raped. :(

  • ... Congress' passing of a law that extended existing copyrights for another 20 years (the 11th time in the past 40 years this has happened)

    Whoa, I didn't know that it's that absurd... 220 years is really quite a lot ;)

    • Whoa, I didn't know that it's that absurd... 220 years is really quite a lot ;)

      That's the problem though. If Disney^H^H^H^H^H^HCongress keeps passing these B.S. copyright extensions, copyrights will be protected for 220 years.

    • Re:Is it *that* bad? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:05PM (#3297006) Homepage Journal
      See the chart of:

      The Growth Rate of the Public Domain [harvard.edu]

      This chart is a visual representation of amici's understanding of the decline of the growth of public domain as a result of repeated copyright term extensions.

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

      • The way I read it, the chart should show PD being about half of what it would be without copyright extensions, not a percent or two. The chart makes it appear as if the PD has been reset to zero with each copyright extension. Rather, works would have ceased entering PD following extensions, but the PD itself would not have decreased (excepting a legally significant, but still small, number of works which were withdrawn from PD following some recent revisions). The title of the chart (but not the legend which refers only to the "Public Domain", not a rate of growth) states the chart is of "rate of growth". In which case I find it odd that this growth is strictly linear over time. I'm also curious about the lack of a vertical scale. While I feel that the damage done to the public domain should be stressed strongly, it shouldn't be misrepresented. As a champion of the PD, I have to say that this chart does misrepresent the damage.
        • I think you are misreading the chart. The large wedge is the entire universe of copywritten stuff that would have entered the public domain if no extensions had been granted. The areas under the saw-tooth do not mean that PD stuff was returned to copywirght status. Rather, the total area under the saw-tooth is the stuff that is actually available under PD. Maybe 25% of what it "should" be.
        • I have to agree that it's a bit of an odd chart.

          As you say, the PD doesn't significantly decrease. Maybe they mean it as scaled by the number of works created, which has (IMHO) exploded over the timeframe in the graph.
  • ...should be a very interesting Supreme Court case. I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts". Over half of the supreme court members have directly signed rulings which state unequivically that this is a constitutional requirement.
    • I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
      I'm not a lawyer. But, careful, that argument has actually lost (by 2-1) in the Appeals Decision [harvard.edu]
      (emphasis added)
      Such guidance as the Supreme Court has given further confirms us in this view of the matter. The Court has made plain that the same Clause permits the Congress to amplify the terms of an existing patent. As early as 1843 it established that the status of a particular invention and its protections must depend on the law as it stood at the emanation of the patent, together with such changes as have been since made; for though they may be retrospective in their operation, that is not a sound objection to their validity; the powers of Congress to legislate upon the subject of patents is plenary by the terms of the Constitution, and as there are no restraints on its exercise, there can be no limitation of their right to modify them at their pleasure, so that they do not take away the rights of property in existing patents.

      McClurg v. Kingsland, 42 U.S. 202, 206.

      Within the realm of copyright, the Court has to the present era been similarly deferential to the judgment of the Congress. "As the text of the Constitution makes plain, it is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors or to inventors in order to give the appropriate public access to their work product;" that "task involves a difficult balance between [competing interests]" as reflected in the frequent modifications of the relevant statutes. ...

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

      • High sounding language, but the intent of such escape clauses is to allow Congress to normalize laws to reflect changes in the rest of the world. E.g., if everyone else has standardized on 50-year non-renewable patents, then US inventors are at a sharp disadvantage if they lose patent protection after a 20-year non-renewable term.

        But note well that 20 years is well within the expected lifetime of the inventor, and even 50 years is well within the expected lifetime of his immediate family. The recent extension to copyright law is so long (75 years after the death of the author, IIRC, which could translate to well over a century after first publication) that heirs born long after the deaths of the author and his immediately family still own the copyright.

        It is hard to identify much difference between this and the Titles Of Nobility explicitly prohibited in the Constitution. The main difference between the Duke of New Jersy and the Duke of Disney is that there can only be a single Duke of New Jersey, whereas the Dukes of Disney may number in the hundreds and have such diluted interest in their 'property' that it is essentially abandoned yet still denied to others.
        • High sounding language, but the intent of such escape clauses is to allow Congress to normalize laws to reflect changes in the rest of the world.
          Don't mix up the issues of retroactivity (extending copyrights on already-existing works), and limited times (length of the copyright). Retroactivity isn't slam-dunk un-Constitutional. I don't like it any more than you do, but we have to deal with what the Appeals Court has ruled [harvard.edu]. In fact, they would use your "normalize laws" argument directly against you to justify the time extensions! (again, emphasis added)
          Judge Sentelle concludes otherwise only because he sees a categorical distinction between extending the term of a subsisting copyright and extending that of a prospective copyright. This distinction is not to be found in the Constitution itself, however. The dissent identifies nothing in text or in history that suggests that a term of years for a copyright is not a "limited Time" if it may later be extended for another "limited Time." Instead, the dissent suggests that the Congress -- or rather, many successive Congresses -- might in effect confer a perpetual copyright by stringing together an unlimited number of "limited Times," although that clearly is not the situation before us. The temporal thrust of the CTEA is a good deal more modest: The Act matches United States copyrights to the terms of copyrights granted by the European Union, see Council Directive 93/98, art. 7, 1993 O.J. (L 290) 9; in an era of multinational publishers and instantaneous electronic transmission, harmonization in this regard has obvious practical benefits for the exploitation of copyrights. This is a powerful indication that the CTEA is a "necessary and proper" measure to meet contemporary circumstances rather than a step on the way to making copy rights perpetual; the force of that evidence is hardly diminished because, as the dissent correctly points out, the EU is not bound by the Copyright Clause of our Constitutionn. As for the dissent's objection that extending a subsisting copyright does nothing to "promote Progress," we think that implies a rather crabbed view of progress: Preserving access to works that would otherwise disappear -- not enter the public domain but disappear -- "promotes Progress" as surely as does stimulating the creation of new works.

          Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

          • Preserving access to works that would otherwise disappear -- not enter the public domain but disappear -- "promotes Progress" as surely as does stimulating the creation of new works.

            This is exactly why we need reasonable copyright terms - so works will enter the public domain before they disappear. Oh, wait, this was arguing against reasonable copyright terms, nevermind...

        • . . . that there can only be a single Duke of New Jersey

          Not to mention only one Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

        • But note well that 20 years is well within the expected lifetime of the inventor



          Damn, you mean I'm only going to live to 37? Seriously, 50-somethings aren't the only ones who invent things.

      • I'm not a lawyer. But, careful, that argument has actually lost (by 2-1) in the Appeals Decision

        Well, I am under the impression that arguments which lost in the Appeals Decision are the only arguments which can be used in the Supreme Court anyway. The whole point of a Supreme Court Appeal is that the Appeals Court made a mistake.

        Specifically, the Supreme Court is going to answer two questions (from the petition [harvard.edu], the third question was denied appeal):

        Did the D.C. Circuit err in holding that Congress has the power under the Copyright Clause to extend retrospectively the term of existing copyrights?

        Is a law that extends the term of existing and future copy-rights "categorically immune from challenge[] under the First Amendment"?

        Unfortunately, the second question alone I believe will at best get the case remanded back to the Appeals Court, with the ruling that the Appeals Court was "categorically wrong" in that regard.

        It's all actually much more complicated than that. Apparently Eldred made a stipulation "that the preamble of the Copyright Clause is not a substantive limit on Congress' legislative power." This contradicted an amicus filed by Schnapper, on which much of the dissent was based. Due to a rule that an amicus "generally cannot expand the scope of an appeal to implicate issues that have not been presented by the parties to the appeal", the majority opinion essentially threw out that amicus.

        Hopefully this angle will be reopened in the Supreme Court case. It seems that there would be a new discovery (?) process, and that the government could not argue that it was unprepared to respond. Now the SC did reject hearing the question "May a circuit court consider arguments raised by amici, different from arguments raised by a party, on a claim properly raised by a party?", but I don't think that is tantamount to rejecting the amicus for its own use.

        I'd love to hear from someone following this case more closely than I, if I've misconstrued any of it. I've read it a few times, and I have followed other supreme court cases, but I've never taken any formal classes in constitutional law, so I very well may be missing the point.

    • I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts".

      You're wrong - a person whose father's works entered the public domain (thus cutting off the son's meal ticket) could be inspired to develop a time machine so he could go back and warn his father of the dangers of insufficient copyright terms...

  • Creative commons as licensing infrastructure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zavyman ( 32136 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:09PM (#3297022)

    Lessig has an interesting take on public domain, in that it is quite similar to the whole watermarking / DRM scheme.

    That's why in one sense we're pushing to advance the public domain, but as a compromise position we're also pushing to enable people to make their work available in the public domain in an extremely easy way. So we're going to build machinery to build licenses that allow people to mark their content as available in any number of ways to the public domain, so that search engines can find and link to that content, and people can easily get it and understand the terms under which they're getting it.
    This idea should sound familiar. This strikes me as a scheme quite similar to Digital Rights Management, but in a different direction. Instead of restricting the distribution of content, this technological measure would allow anyone to readily identify the license of a particular work.

    Let's face it, small-time writers, musicians, and artists do not want to see their works used inappropriately in a commercial setting (and maybe not even inappropriately in a noncommercial setting), but they might want to allow individuals to share their respective works. This scheme would allow people to mark that situation so that anyone with the file could readily understand the author's wishes.

    But, if this licensing scheme is put into wide use, it makes it trivial to implement a DRM management system that disallowed copying of files tagged with a restrictive license. So you have to ask yourselves, is the aforementioned benefit of marking your works as copyable or not in a commercial or noncommercial setting worth it if it means that all commercial music will tag themselves as commercial and noncopyable?

    • Yup. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jcsehak ( 559709 )
      is the aforementioned benefit of marking your works as copyable or not in a commercial or noncommercial setting worth it if it means that all commercial music will tag themselves as commercial and noncopyable?

      First of all, I think it'll be proven trivial to hack files to change their tags from not-copyable to copyable (as another poster suggested, repeat after me hackers: "I will not decrypt a copy-protection scheme until it is a widely accepted standard."). But even if it wasn't, I simply won't support any musician who takes that kind of stand. And not even as a moral thing, more as a matter of taste. For example, I liked Metallica until I saw Lars being a prick over the whole Napster thing. Now I think they're greedy bastards and it's ruined any enjoyment I've gotten from listening to their music. Personally, I hope a lot of other people will do the same thing and only support musicians, authors and publishers who use a more open licensing scheme.
      • If you care about what the file says about its license you'd want to verify with an external source, e.g., a file metadata catalog [bitzi.com].

        I think it's an open question whether a "whitelist" or "blacklist" approach would be better for freedom. Whitelists could lead to basically everything being off-limits, as most files won't be marked. Blacklists could explicity take a huge amount of content out of play (if you care to abide by the list), though a huge amount would be left on the table by default . OTOH a whitelist scenario in which everything not whitelisted is not defacto blacklisted would leave things as they are and help a highlight a growing culture of freedom. Chances are we'll have dueling whitelists and blacklists, with most files remaining in the murky middle.

    • Overlooking a key point.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:40PM (#3297097)
      You're overlooking a key point here.

      The problem isn't that the RIAA and MPAA want to make it impossible to copy their product, it's that they want to make it impossible to copy *ANY* product because their schemes implicitly assume that all "legitimate" files are under their umbrella.

      That's nonsense. I think we all have friends with their own bands - the RIAA proposals would make it impossible for them to share their own music. We all have friends with young children, the MPAA would make it impossible for them to share video footage with friends. It would make it impossible for older kids to put together video domentaries for "what I did this summer."

      If the RIAA actually succeeded in making it impossible to copy their product, provided that it didn't interfere with other legitimate copies, I would cheer. I would see this as bringing us one day closer to a day when real diversity returns to the music store and airwaves because the non-RIAA players could get their voices heard.

      But the current proposals would lock in the RIAA and the MPAA as THE arbitrators of their respective arts in this country. If you don't sign a deal with a major label under terms even worse than today, you would be forced to live in the technological gutter. On countercultural-friendly college campus it may become cool to go analog, but everywhere else it would be an insurmountable barrier.
    • But, if this licensing scheme is put into wide use, it makes it trivial to implement a DRM management system that disallowed copying of files tagged with a restrictive license.

      Actually this would be anything but trivial. You'd have to mandate that not onlt does everything which could be used to copy contain a DRM machine. But also that that DRMM include a AI which can understand software licencing and implied context.
    • Commercial music draws on timeless shared traditions of musical knowledge, folk tunes, public of music education, etc. If access to their product is perfectly controlled (pay per listen, listen in one medium only etc., differentially pricing for multi-user licenses etc.) it will be ignored.

      good ref: Jaques Attali, "Bruits" (older edition translated as "Noise").
  • I do not trust this court to uphold public domain. Clinton practically held onto power with the help of media conglomerates, and like it or not Bush or any successor must reward or break the conglomerates to their will. Given the outcome of the 2000 campaign and other rulings, I suspect they will lean towards the corporatist viewpoint.
    • I don't think you have enough faith in them.

      Keep in mind that they are appointed for life. They will decide based on what makes sense to them (legal arguments, personal philosophy, etc.).

      They don't have to kiss up to anyone. That is the whole point of the supreme court.

  • Lobby Groups and Laws (Score:4, Interesting)

    by m0rph3us0 ( 549631 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:11PM (#3297026)
    When I look at the amount of money that Hollywood groups give to Senator Hollings, I think that its an amount that the supporters of the 'open source' movement could match. I think that if everyone who reads slashdot on a regular basis took up a collection for the EFF to be used to 'support' (read: buy off) law makers we could more then equal their buy offs by each donating $10. Personally, I would like to see open source lobby groups show up on the donation sheets of law-makers. What do you think about this idea? I'm willing to talk to the EFF and see if they will setup a pay-pal account for people to donate and help us encourage laws to be written that favour intellectual stimulation.
    • I think that's a great idea. If you contact Lessig or EFF or whoever and can get something set up where people can be sure it's not a scam, I'll chip in the $10.
    • You also need someone in Washington on a daily basis to sweet talk the politicians and all the other things that they can do.

      For Hollings, it's probably not the money, it's the access to Power Elite that he is after.

    • If anybody needs dollars to act responseably he is not the politician who gets my vote. If the dirty old $$-politicians are continuing their copyright-extensions they kill their own political base of the future - the young people.

      A better tactic would be to inform the youngsters of what is going on. Let's better support a FreeCopy movement with free webspace and bandwidth.

      Today it's MP3, tomorrow it's our freedom which is at stake.

    • The campaign contributions are likely a drop in the bucket compared to the unaccounted for gifts they likely shower on him. Nights out at titty clubs, as many hookers as he can handle, limo's to ride around town in with fully stocked bars and lines of coke already laid out. The things that really tip the scale are unlikely to show up on the balance sheet.

    • Bullets are cheaper, and the effect of them more permanent.

      My guess is that using ammo on those elected representatives who sell out to corporate interests would have a far more fundamental influence upon their thinking than simply playing the same game as the other johns. A whore is a whore is a whore, after all.

      Hey, it worked wonders for our Founding Fathers; why not us as well?

      Max
      • Hey, it worked wonders for our Founding Fathers; why not us as well?

        Good try; but England of 1776 didn't have the technological resources that America of 2002 has.

        Our Founding Fathers also had a lot more guts than we have now. Most people won't get off their comfy chair and leave their reruns of Friends to overthrow a rather prosperous society and start living like frontiersmen.

        Oh, and last but not least, it's immoral. (Yes, it was immoral back then too.)

  • Not that impressed by Lessig or the EFF (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:15PM (#3297034)
    It seems to me principly they have failed to look beyond their own field. As a lawyering organization, the EFF has this belief it can "finess" and solve legal issues thru high mindend ideals like "software is speech" and then proceeds to loose case after case. The problem is they fail to see the system is so broken that it can no longer mearly be solved within itself.

    DeCCS as a free speech issue is dead. The system wont accept this. Clearly, instead, this should have been done as a 4th ammendment case, not 1st! "Code as speech" nobody will get. That I have an absolute right to be secure in my own property is an issue every living breathing American can and will understand. The right to private property is what we often stated makes us different from "them", when "them", of course, was the good old "red menance".

    What does DeCCS and the 4th ammendment have to do with couchmaster joe sixpack watching nascar is very simple. Tell him he cant take a cd, his own private property, and hell, stick it in a toaster if he so chooses and can get it to play that way, or similarly play it using a linux machine in his own home if he can figure out how, using his own property. That he can be arrested and jailed under the DCMA for simply using his very own private property. That he will understand. It's what we liked to say "they" would do.

    There is a very valid 1st ammendment issue as well, but "code as speech" is not the one. If I can figure out how to make a toaster play my cd I have an absolute right as a free citizen to tell another and he has an absolute right as a free citizen to do this with his own propertly regardless of what the DCMA may claim about circumvention. DeCCS represents permitted and protected speech as public communication between individuals sharing knoweledge on how to use their own propertly, end of story.

    • You make a good case about how to argue highly-technical (well to vast majority at least) cases. The system really is pooched. And argueing for free speech (or free code) probably isnt going to be recieved well unless its put in the context of books. (ie. if i publish the source code to the DeCSS in a book I can go to jail.) Hmm... maybe one of us should try that so it forces the comglomerates to take a bad case to court.

    • Finally someone has said it, mod the parent post up. The EFF is screwing things up, even when they win they loose. I am not sure though if the 4th Amendment would be the correct.

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

      The 4th Amendments speaks more to search and seizures than the absolute right as a free citizen to do this with his own property as he sees fit. Since I am not a lawyer I can't speak to this absolutly.

    • Re:Not that impressed by Lessig or the EFF (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Sunday April 07, 2002 @12:53AM (#3297636) Homepage Journal
      Arguing DeCSS as a fourth amendment case is like arguing against cryptography restrictions as a second amendment case (i.e., if crypto is a munition, we have the right to bear arms, so the right to use cryptography). It's something which sounds cool in a web-posting. But the courts aren't Slashdot posters, and they will take that argument down to (-1, Troll) as fast as an editor with infinite moderation points (which, in this case, they are).

      The courts reason that they're protecting the property rights of the copyright owners, and only the speech aspect even gave them pause. Read the decision [eff.org]:
      (emphasis added)

      In considering the scope of First Amendment protection for a decryption program like DeCSS, we must recognize that the essential purpose of encryption code is to prevent unauthorized access. Owners of all property rights are entitled to prohibit access to their property by unauthorized persons. Homeowners can install locks on the doors of their houses. Custodians of valuables can place them in safes. Stores can attach to products security devices that will activate alarms if the products are taken away without purchase. These and similar security devices can be circumvented. Burglars can use skeleton keys to open door locks. Thieves can obtain the combinations to safes. Product security devices can be neutralized.

      ...

      At first glance, one might think that Congress has as much authority to regulate the distribution of computer code to decrypt DVD movies as it has to regulate distribution of skeleton keys, combinations to safes, or devices to neutralize store product security devices. However, despite the evident legitimacy of protection against unauthorized access to DVD movies, just like any other property, regulation of decryption code like DeCSS is challenged in this case because DeCSS differs from a skeleton key in one important respect: it not only is capable of performing the function of unlocking the encrypted DVD movie, it also is a form of communication, albeit written in a language not understood by the general public.

      Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

  • Why not go PD? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why do hackers write programs? Even ESR (boo, hiss) said that we write them to "scratch our own itch". If we can "scratch our own itch" why do we need to copyright our ideas? Shouldn't we encourage, rather than discourage, use of our programs? All copyrights are discouragement of our products. The only decent argument I have heard in favor of copyrighting "free" software is that someone else might copyright it and then sue the original author. That might possibly happen, but it's not very nice. We need to return to the days when we can trust and honor each other and distribute our projects freely. Peace.
    • We need to return to the days when we can trust and honor each other and distribute our projects freely. Peace.

      If only we could! You said the reason why not yourself, though.

      Look at Disney. Say I wrote a story about The Little Mermaid. Say it was popular, and I started selling it. Do you really think Disney wouldn't sue me? Even though the original story, "The Little Mermaid" is in the Public Domain.

      Perhaps they wouldn't sue me. I haven't got enough money to throw at lawyers to find out though.
      • IANAL but...

        Creating a story called "The Little Mermaid" and releasing as public domain would probably qualify as free speech. You might be able to sell it, but someone could come along and steal your work, modify it, and claim they created it all.

        The thing to get is this: you _aren't_ claiming ownership. You might have written the story, but you aren't legally claiming ownership to the work.

        The only way I see Disney suing is perhaps trademark infringement. If they don't have a trademark on "The Little Mermaid" then it shouldn't be a problem, as you are not stealing copyrighted work either.

      • They wouldn't have a leg to stand on. "The little mermaid" is a classic fairy tale, written by Hans Christian Anderson. They'd be just asking for a countersuit. Now if you included those crab and fish characters that Disney made up, then you might have some trouble. I think you should anyway though, if just to prove a point about the hipocrasy of Disney.
    • Copyrighting free software is done for licensing purposes; to claim legal ownership of software so enforcement of the license is possible. It can discourage the use, but that depends on the type of license the software is under. The GPL, for example, discourages proprietary shops from using it in a number of ways. But it also guarantees that the software licensed under it must remain free (for as long as the software is in use regardless if the public still has a copy). Public domain has no such guarantee. If a public domain software package gets incorporated into a proprietary package, the source code may completely disappear from the public at some point in time never to be seen again. Copyright also allows people to gain credit for their work. This is a big motivating factor in the open-source world, IMO. A license such as BSD is mostly a "credit" license. A while back you had to preserve the "Berkeley message" in any advertising material for BSD-licensed software. Today the BSD license merely retains copyright and disclaims any warranty. Other than that, it is equal to public domain software.

      As for being sued from someone copyrighting public domain software, this can't happen. IANAL, of course, but public domain software is not owned by anyone. There can be no original author. If the person who created the software is sued by another who copyrights the software, he can simply deny _ownership_ of the software. There is no basis for suing and no legal action which could be taken. Ownership != creator. The only real reason to copyright free software is for 1) credit or 2) to force freedom (GNU's definition of freedom, which some people would claim is a limited definition of course).
      • There can be no original author.
        Err forget that line. Replace with this: "There can be no original owner." ..as PD software was never owned in the first place.
        • No software is ever 'owned'. In fact, no copyrighted work is 'owned'. The correct way of describing this is that a Copyright is 'held'. There's a good reason for this: Copyright is NOT a property right--it's a MONOPOLY right.
          • Yes, that is a nice play on words that essentially means the same. If you have some insight besides this "information wants to be free" propaganda, I'd like to hear it.
            • If you have some insight besides this "information wants to be free" propaganda, I'd like to hear it.

              Sure. From a letter by Thomas Jefferson [loc.gov]:

              Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature & their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding ... years but for no longer term & no other purpose.

              (There are more references in his letters and writings but I don't have it all at my fingertips.) A further point: since property rights were so essential to the founders, why did they have to have a separate clause for Copyright and Patent, if it were just another case of property? More evidence that the founders didn't consider Copyright and Patent to be property is the matter of the time limitation. Now, I'm assuming that you are familiar with the history of Western law concerning property. Let me ask you: what kind of property can only be owned for a limited period of time (the founders used a period of 14 years) before becoming public property? Would our founders have decided that, after 14 years, all farms would be taken from their owners and made public property? I think not. And this is the primary practical difference between property and monopoly rights: property is exclusively yours (and your heirs') FOREVER, a monopoly (in this case, an artificial one) is only yours for a short time. Why do you think that we have all these ridiculous extensions of Copyright term? It's because people have started to consider Copyright to be a property right (and property belongs to you FOREVER).

              On a less practical and more logical note (but a much more meaningful one also) ideas cannot be owned. It simply doesn't make sense because the whole concept of ownership is wrapped up in the scarcity of resources. If someone takes my car, I'm deprived of its usage. If someone uses my idea, I'm NOT deprived of its usage--we can BOTH use the idea! And if that person tells someone else, they can use it too! It's great! (BTW, Jefferson also spoke about this somewhere--sorry can't track down the reference right now.)

              In short, a good summary of Copyright and Patent would be: we're going to let you corner your market for a FEW (!) years but then you have to get the hell out of the way and give other people a chance.

              • Thank you for the sermon. The choir is now enlightened on the gospels.

                I really don't care about one idea that came out of Thomas Jefferson's head. Are his ideas about ideas, the end of discussion? If he wants information freedom, why does he want you to believe his idea of information? Sounds like freedom to me. There is no freedom to think that information should be anything but their definition.

                Ideas are owned. You just don't see it. Every idea in your head right now, that no one but you can examine, are owned by you. What difference does it make if you take those ideas, in your head, and place them in your computer? Your brain, your computer.

                I'm really sorry you brought Thomas Jefferson in. I mean, the man didn't even know what he wanted. He tore apart the bible in the White House and removed Jesus as lord. He then claimed he was still a Christian, even though he believed Jesus was only a good _man_ with good beliefs or morals. And it shows how much he really believed in those morals, since it is likely he had an affair w/ his _slave_. While others, perhaps Washington, had already freed their slaves.

                Despite popular Slashdot belief, ideas can be a scarcity. If someone uses my idea that was going to help me make money, get a job, get laid, whatever, then I have to find a new one. How do you create a new idea? You must _spend_ time creating one. You aren't paying money (unless you purchase books), but you are spending something, such as time (which _is_ a scarcity).

                Ownership is an imaginary concept placed over physical goods, whereas copyright is an imaginary concept placed over non-physical goods. They are both the same concept, just different legal specifics like you pointed out. Whether one should be limited and the other not is debatable. Government could say "there is no ownership." Someone could borrow your car then, but you haven't lost anything. You might not have a car when you need it, but thats orthogonal to the point. If there was no concept of ownership, then you, like everyone else, owns everything. Someone takes your car? Go take any car you see. They are all "yours" (and everyone elses'). Thus, there is no real scarcity. If the same amount of cars was produced, as in America today, then there would generally be a car to use every time you needed one. You should be wondering now, "how will cars be made?" Or where the incentive is. Same thing can be said about information. Ultimately, you can't keep selling the same idea just as you can't keep selling the same cars. Ideas need changing just as much as physical goods.. to keep consumers interested. So, IMO, the debate over information ownership is moot.

                To the point: Copyright = Ownership for every intent and purpose. One simply has an expiration (that keeps growing), the other doesn't. It's pedant to point out a difference so small when I gave no hint that I didn't know the difference. Which is why I called it "propaganda." You are using simple terms, such as "ownership" and "copyright" to pursuade an audience to believe in your concept of information. Then you whip out good old Thomas Jefferson to point out that copyright is a monopoly. And we all know monopolies are bad, mmkay?
                • I really don't care about one idea that came out of Thomas Jefferson's head.

                  Nor do I, as far as abosolutes are concerned. Jefferson is not God and his ideas are not laws. However, you seemed to be questioning what the founders had in mind when authoring the Constitution and what the Article I, Section 8 clause was supposed to mean. It's clear that they didn't have a property right in mind when they conceived of Copyright. There can be no question about that. Now, whether you think they were correct or not is another matter. But the Constitution is clear.

                  Are his ideas about ideas, the end of discussion? If he wants information freedom, why does he want you to believe his idea of information?

                  It really has nothing to do with information freedom. That phrase would have been meaningless to Jefferson. All he is saying is that there is a fundamental difference between the scarcity of physical goods vs. the non-scarcity of ideas. Only one person can use a physical item at a time. More than one person can use the Pythagorean theorem at a time, however. In fact, an unlimited number of people could use the Pythagorean theorem at the same time, if they wanted to. This CANNOT be said of physical things. That's as simple as it can be put, I'm afraid.

                  Sounds like freedom to me. There is no freedom to think that information should be anything but their definition.

                  Sure there is. But: 1) other definitions don't make sense; and 2) the Constitution is the law of the land. Until there is an amendment to alter Article I, Section 8, legislation that keeps extending Copyright is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. That is a significant fact.

                  Ideas are owned. You just don't see it. Every idea in your head right now, that no one but you can examine, are owned by you.

                  It has NOTHING to do with who can examine it. It has to do with who can use it. See my earlier comment about the Pythagorean theorem.

                  What difference does it make if you take those ideas, in your head, and place them in your computer? Your brain, your computer.

                  I'm not sure what you're driving at here. We're not talking about how the idea is expressed (on a page, on a computer, on a recording, in your brain, etc.) because that has nothing to do with the idea as such. We're discussing the idea in the abstract.

                  I'm really sorry you brought Thomas Jefferson in. I mean, the man didn't even know what he wanted. He tore apart the bible in the White House and removed Jesus as lord. He then claimed he was still a Christian, even though he believed Jesus was only a good _man_ with good beliefs or morals. And it shows how much he really believed in those morals, since it is likely he had an affair w/ his _slave_. While others, perhaps Washington, had already freed their slaves.

                  I never attempted to defend Jefferson. As stated earlier, I only attempted to demonstrate that the founders had a particular understanding of Copyright.

                  Despite popular Slashdot belief, ideas can be a scarcity.

                  You just don't understand the term 'scarcity.' It has nothing to do with whether or not someone can make money off of something or whether someone expended money or effort ON something. It has to do with the ability to be used in more than one location by more than one person at a single time. Refer back to my example of the Pythagorean theorem. Again. (*sigh*)

                  If someone uses my idea that was going to help me make money, get a job, get laid, whatever, then I have to find a new one.

                  BINGO! And that is why Copyright was created: you will be granted a short monopoly on the *expression* of your idea (publishing a book, publishing music, distributing copies of a computer program, etc.) You still don't own the idea, you just have an artificial monopoly over the production of the *expression* of your idea. And this monopoly MUST be time-limited. (Hint: a permanently increasing time-limitation ISN'T really a time-limitation.) And for the record, I support Copyright--*as it was originally intended*.

                  How do you create a new idea? You must _spend_ time creating one. You aren't paying money (unless you purchase books), but you are spending something, such as time (which _is_ a scarcity).

                  Again, you don't understand the term 'scarcity.' It refers to whether more than one person can use the same thing at the same time.

                  Ownership is an imaginary concept placed over physical goods, whereas copyright is an imaginary concept placed over non-physical goods.

                  Only one person can use a physical item at a time. I don't know why you can't understand that.

                  To the point: Copyright = Ownership for every intent and purpose. One simply has an expiration (that keeps growing), the other doesn't. It's pedant to point out a difference so small when I gave no hint that I didn't know the difference. Which is why I called it "propaganda." You are using simple terms, such as "ownership" and "copyright" to pursuade an audience to believe in your concept of information. Then you whip out good old Thomas Jefferson to point out that copyright is a monopoly. And we all know monopolies are bad, mmkay?

                  Except that my goal is not to convince people that Copyright is wrong. I NEVER said that I thought Copyright (a monopoly) was wrong--so long as the period of monopoly-enforcement was short. I think it makes a lot of sense and is very much RIGHT. It should just be limited to a short period of time, that's all. And something that you can't pass on to your kids does NOT fit under our concept of ownership.

                  • Except that my goal is not to convince people that Copyright is wrong. I NEVER said that I thought Copyright (a monopoly) was wrong--so long as the period of monopoly-enforcement was short. I think it makes a lot of sense and is very much RIGHT. It should just be limited to a short period of time, that's all. And something that you can't pass on to your kids does NOT fit under our concept of ownership.
                    And I don't give a _damn_ about your fucking opinion. I did not ask for your opinion, you can keep your propaganda to _yourself_. For all intents and purposes copyright is the same as ownership. Such arrogance. To think that your opinion is the only valid one and you need to shove it down everyone's throat. Fuck you asshole.
                    • And I don't give a _damn_ about your fucking opinion. I did not ask for your opinion, you can keep your propaganda to _yourself_. For all intents and purposes copyright is the same as ownership. Such arrogance. To think that your opinion is the only valid one and you need to shove it down everyone's throat. Fuck you asshole.

                      Hmmm, someone had too much coffee, it would seem.

  • Million Mouse March! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jparp ( 316662 ) on Saturday April 06, 2002 @08:19PM (#3297050)
    If the Eldred case fails,
    we should all dress up like Mickey Mouse and stage a protest in Washington.

    That would get media and public attention, plus, we would all be violating copyright law!
    • Would that really violate copyright? I think that would only be a trademark violation, if at all. What might make more sense is to set up a booth in Washington (or outside Disneyworld) where you gave away DVDs with "Steamboat Willy" on them, including of course, proper credit given to Walt Disney.

  • Hey, He Can't Do That! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He can't do that! My automated patent generator already patented an automated license generator!
  • So if Copyright had been invented in say the time of Mozart extensions over time and dealings with his estate would have resulted in his music being private right up until today. Seems kind of absurd doesn't it?

    I think copyright should end the day you die. You created it, you can no longer benefit from it, and your children should have find their own damn way of making money rather than living off of the income from your great ideas.

    Of course it gets complex if an item is the copyright of a company because companies could theoretically last a long time (re IBM).

    Everyone always says code rewrites are bad. I think the copyright laws are in severe need of a good rewrite.
    • Adult children can "find their own damn way," but what about young children? Even unborn children, e.g., several of the children born after their fathers died on 9/11?

      In recent years, it's also been the source of funds for the old-age care of the surviving spouse.

      But both cases should be easily handled by "death + 20 years"
      • Adult children can "find their own damn way," but what about young children? Even unborn children, e.g., several of the children born after their fathers died on 9/11?
        In recent years, it's also been the source of funds for the old-age care of the surviving spouse.

        Don't they have pensions and life insurance in the US?
    • no, it shouldn't expire the day you die. Someone may kill you in order to expire your copyrights. There should be a time length after you die (something reasonable like 10 years).

      I agree that your children should make there own way. I won't be getting any royalties off of my father's 30+ years of work (he is an engineer not an author or artist)
      • no, it shouldn't expire the day you die. Someone may kill you in order to expire your copyrights.

        There is already a way to deal with this. In criminal law.

        There should be a time length after you die (something reasonable like 10 years).

        In which case you can still be killed by a patient murderer. e.g. a corporation.
    • How about life with a minimum of 28 years?

      Corporations get 28 years.
    • Not so complex. Make it law, that corporations caan't own patents or copyrights. Make them license everything that they want/need. That alone, might really fix things... still, I want 5 yr renewable corporate charters.
    • your children should have find their own damn way of making money

      Tell that to the Italians [yahoo.com].
  • The only way to combat copyright control is to start creating quality content and offering it in a GPL type way. It could even be something similar to how Ghostscript is done if you need to make money off of it. After a year give it away.

    We need to start making high quality music that people would enjoy.

    We need to get video editing equipment and start producing quality videos, shorts, and full movies.

    I realize that there is a need $$ to produce high quality works, but that amount of $$ is dropping fast. This is the creative commons. It's us being creators and producers, not consumers and passive audiences. Make it a point to produce more than you consume!

    Daniel
    • We need to start making high quality music that people would enjoy.

      "High quality" requires large amounts of time, which translates to non-trivial amounts of money. Non-trivial amounts of money can only be made by:

      1) selling the product

      2) Working another job, which makes it impossible to devote large amounts of time. Solution: see #1.

      This cannot be avoided, regardless of the license or idealism. Period.

      There are two absolute, inviolable rules of business:

      1) Time is money

      2) Good, Cheap, Fast: pick two.

      • 2) Working another job, which makes it impossible to devote large amounts of time. Solution: see #1.

        Wrong. There are people who have done exactly this. In fact, many great composers did other things to live. Most were performers who composed in their spare time. Antonio Vivaldi was a Roman Catholic priest who wrote music in his spare time. Mahler conducted for a living and wrote in his spare time. Charles Ives, one of the most intruiguing composers of the twentieth century, was a freaking *Insurance Salesman* for pete's sake!

        Not only do we have these examples, but we also have examples of artists in other fields doing things like this in their spare time and producing great works of art.

        What it comes down to is: how badly do you want to create art? If you want it enough, you'll do it in the time you have. You just have to cut out some of the other things (like vegetating in front of a television).

    • On it (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jcsehak ( 559709 )

      I'm at this moment writing up a license based on the GPL except to be used for musical recordings. I've started a label, Root Records (www.rootrecords.org should be up sometime next week), to distribute this open source music. An interesting twist is that I've decided that open source for music means that the source audio (the separate tracks--bass track, drum track, etc) should be distributed like a program's source code. So people can remix the tracks any way they want. Since I've just started, the only artist under this label is myself. If you want to check out the music before the site goes up, my first album is available in its entirity in the audio section of www.joshuacsehak.com [joshuacsehak.com]. It sounds something like a cross between Moby and William Orbit. I think it's great stuff, and the people I've had listen to it agree. One of my friends mentioned he'd been listening to the album every day since he downloaded it. CDs (and source CDs) should be available soon (less than a week) after the site goes up.

      The problem with independent music isn't that it takes a lot of $$ to produce it (I actually like Liz Phair's Girlysounds CDs--demo recordings made on a cheap 4-track--better than her studio albums), the problem is that it takes, and will always take a lot of $$ to market it. Especially for musicians like myself who make music that can't really be performed live. Large labels will always have the advantage of being able to tell people what they want to listen to. But here's to "word of mouth!"
      • "You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. --Bhagavad Gita"

        Ugh... this quote is completely misleading. For your information, the Bhagavad Gita really has nothing to say about property rights. I don't know what translation you are using, but the Gita's general statement about work is personal: if you want to be free of the shackles of greed and desire, then work hard, but don't worry about the outcome, or fruit of the work.

        • Not sure about the translation; I got it from Salinger's "Franny and Zooey." Or maybe "Seymour," can't remember which. I never said it had anything to do with property rights, it might've just looked that way in the context of my post. Your translation is pretty much how I understand it anyway--that it's talking about moral rights, not legal.
      • Some comments / critiques of the work.

        On the track daylight, I think some of the vocals
        are mixed up to much. The aahaa- sound gets a little annoying, kinda stands out like a sore thumb. I'd lower it's volume in the mix, or have it start loud and go softer with repetition. Another thought is that you should fill this track up more, add more instruments behind the vocal samples.
        I appreciated the music. Using jazz-styled drums with samples is always a good thing. (Atleast until everyone starts doing it :) )

        -Rofgile
        • Well, as soon as he makes the source tracks available, you can! :-)

          And that's pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

      • check out moonfrog-records. it's EFF open music license music, and your stuff might fit in there


        • Interesting. I didn't know EFF was making licenses like this. I got in touch with opensource.org and gnuart.org, but neither were able to offer too much help in the way of writing a new license, so I just started writing it up on my own. Well, I emailed them, maybe they'll be willing to work with me on this...

          Their existing license, the Open Music License, is nice, and the closest thing I've seen to what I want to do, but it says nothing about making available the source audio, which is pretty important to me. I really want to see a day where the open source music community is as rich as the software one; where massive amounts of samples and patches are freely available to everyone, and anyone with a cheap midi controller can make pro-quality music. We're not too far away as it is, but I think that opening up the source to some tunes will bring things along a little further.
    • Absolutely. However- I'm not sure artistic expression translates to a 'GPL' type way, simply because IT ALREADY IS at least partially open. The fact that the content industry wants to change this shouldn't distract you from the reality of it.

      This isn't an abstract comment- I'm soaking in it ;) for example: I make music [ampcast.com] and distribute it online. I use Ampcast for this- they let me m produce very high quality CDs. At that page, near the bottom, you'll find a tune called 'Horse'. (At the moment, their streaming software is sometimes broken by VBR mp3s, so only the download link works. If you _do_ download it and put up with the site-registering, maybe you could rate the tune while you're at it? It'd be a help)

      The reason I point out 'Horse' in spite of knowing there's technical glitches with the streaming versions, is it helps to make my point. Horse is off an album dedicated to animal themes expressed in music. I wanted to do something big, maybe a bit grandiose, reminiscent of schoolgirl horse obsessions and that kind of exaggerated lushness and grandness. There's music out there which is like this- namely, Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", which has parts that were literally called 'theme from an imaginary western' by the band as they were doing it. I think they in turn were drawing from movie soundtracks. It was the mood and sweep of this music I wanted, not an exact cloning. I ended up using similar but different chords- intentionally making the progression go somewhere else, using strings and piano to give an upward swoop to the progression, and laying down possibly the best guitar solo I've ever played, which thanks to the chords has lots of David Gilmour flavor (not an easy thing!). The result is 'Horse'- and while it plainly 'feels' like Atom Heart Mother, it just as plainly IS NOT.

      This is permissible already. George Harrison got in trouble for (inadvertently) copying 'He's So Fine' almost exactly- had he changed the basic melody of the hook, the lawsuit would have been a nonissue. So- where is the need for a GPL-type license when you CAN ALREADY take and modify melodies?

      I can see that it gets more complicated when you are dealing with, say, Puff Daddy heavily sampling the Police's "Every Breath You Take"- taking and making use of someone else's actual recording, with their playing and sound engineering as well as just the notes and rhythms. Wanting a license that will permit this as well is reasonable. But how many people consider just asking? Is your ability to use someone else's RECORDING so compellingly important that it needs to be covered by a license to protect your rights? When you can 'cop' the feel of the music, change some things, and be home free?

      That said, I have heard some disturbing things- having trouble finding it, but I've heard of jazz recording sessions where a soloist would be stopped during improvisation if they quoted the intellectual property of a representative of an IP holder. Like *tweet!* "That's too much like 'Kind Of Blue', outta the pool!". I wish I could find the reference to this: if this sort of thing actually becomes common, it'd be a big problem. I'm _sure_ I ran across this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Well... good! Means it's not a problem yet ;)


  • Lessing really bothers me, he fails IMHO to understand that what we have here is a classic case of old economey trying to regulate the new economey. He also fails to understand that the problem will not go away till we get rid of the notion that it's allright to derive value by restricting the copying practices of other. Even if you do it nicely, or more nicely than is done now, it is still wrong.
    Not to flame, but if he lived in the industrial revolution - he would have advocated that the free states could peacefully co-exist with the slave states. They didn't get it back then, he doesn't get it now.

    • get rid of the notion that it's allright to derive value by restricting the copying practices of other

      Isn't this just the opposite extreme? Why not just restore the original balance of copyright and try that?

      For the best example of this working, take a look at the patent system. 17 years. That's it. Companies make fortunes on patents. So do the companies that don't own them (after 17 years).

      A 20 year copyright would dramatically improve the situation. Removing copyright completely would do significant damage to the economy, and make it near-impossible for anyone who's work is copyrighted to make a living.

      • For the best example of this working, take a look at the patent system.

        It does not function well in the semiconductor industry. Patent battles are a significant problem for all companies there. 'Parasite' companies appear, which patent concepts, and then sue people for a living (Rambus etc.).

        The main trouble is that people patent constructions which any engineer would pick when faced with a certain task (like making, say, a soundcard chip). The people who first made money from the task (like Creative) then have lots of patents covering it. They can then eliminate new competition using costly lawsuits (like Aureal).
      • A 20 year copyright would dramatically improve the situation. Removing copyright completely would do significant damage to the economy, and make it near-impossible for anyone who's work is copyrighted to make a living.

        The latter isn't necessarily true. Remember that the concept of copyright is only a few hundred years old. It might make better sense to have the term length something more like twice the median amount of time a copyright holder will attempt to make money on the product.
        The alternative is registering every 3-5 years with an exponetially rising fee.
      • No, you don't understand. If we hadn't increased the copyright term to 90 years recently, disney would never have been given the incentive to practise his useful arts back in 1920. The only reason he created the cartoon was that he was relying on that congress would later change copyright to make sure his company could still make money from it in 2005.

        Of course, it would be stupid to extend copyright any more retroactively, because that would make illegal disney's plundering of recently-out-of-copyright work to make his cartoon, which would make the copyright status of Steamboat Willie start to oscillate.

    • This fight between old and new society is going on all over the planet - be it copyright or patentability of software.

      The current usage of copyrighting software (and even more patenting it) will create a lot of the so called 'illegal' activities. Pretty much like the prohibition created 'illegal' deeds.

      Laws should be a help to life, should support the overall situation, should regulate but not rule our lifes. If we continue these old laws, our children grow up as law-breakers, but that's not their fault.

      Either the Western Sphere adopt their laws to the modern pace of development or the really interesting software development and distribution in 2020+ will happen in countries without these wrotten old concepts of intellectual property.
  • No equipment shall ever be made that will not ensure the intentions of authors of open source.

    Hop to it tech boys.

    should be easy enough.

  • Here's a possible choice... (Score:3)

    by SkewlD00d ( 314017 ) on Sunday April 07, 2002 @12:43AM (#3297611)
    Why not have public patents [ucdavis.edu]?
  • The problem with current talk about License Management originating from old style industry is it focuses on denying rights -- "you can't copy this". What we need is a License Management system that upholds rights -- saying "you can copy this, and you can make derived works". That entails essentially building a license into each creative work, and making that license be machine readable so that tools can be used to exclude proprietary works. It is a big problem with creating new digital works when you don't easily know which of the various digital items you may have collected over time (like sound files or pieces of text) can be used in a derived work. To the extent Lessig's "Creative Commons" helps with this, I support it.

    I started a thread on this issues about a year ago on gnu.misc.dicsuss. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=bc4138180 3b7e0c0&rnum=1 [google.com]


  • This is interesting. The following post about this very topic was Pending for 3 months (I submitted it in January) until last week, when it was somewhat surprisingly rejected. Here it is for those interested.

    2002-01-08 15:54:26 'The Future of Ideas': Intellectual Property (yro,doj)

    Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig's book is about intellectual property, copyright law and the Internet. He proposes an 'open access' society with less of the IP extremism we've seen in the recent years. Lessig thinks patents and copyrights should be short, renewable 5-year terms vs. the current 90- to 150-year terms, writing, 'The distinctive feature of modern American copyright law is its almost limitless bloating.' And on the Internet he writes 'An environment designed to enable the new is being transformed to protect the old.' Lessig is pro-Napster and anti-RIAA and rails against Lucasfilm on the Phantom Edit. You can read a review at the New York Times [nytimes.com], as well as the first chapter of 'The Future of Ideas' [nytimes.com].

  • Amendment I

    as read by the layman:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
    or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
    or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
    the government for a redress of grievances.

    as read by a Supreme Court Justice:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
    or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,
    except in matters concerning Kiddie Porn or Copyright;
    or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
    the government for a redress of grievances.

  • It's one thing to insist on using whatever means are possible to protect the copyright on what the courts have deemed your property. But where the RIAA and MPAA are concerned they want to control not just their property, but the entire *genre* of property regardless of who it belongs to.

    These vermin are well aware that if they implement their protectionist schemes and piss off the consumer that said consumer - not a big fan of corporate welfare - will take his business elsewhere. The only way they can protect their position in the 21st century, against forces that'd in a truly capitalist market would make the lot of them obsolete within the year, is to legislate themselves monopoly powers by purchasing congressman. They have to make sure that they not only control access to their property but *everyone else's as well*. That's the only way the whole welfare-oriented house of cards can stand for any length of time. Without this monopoly and the power of the government to stand behind it protectionist measures would simply drive consumers into the arms of competitors.

    If ever there was firm indication that America is *not* capitalist, and is becoming less capitalist as time goes on, this is it. I have no idea what to call this economic system (corporate statism?) but it has nothing whatsoever to do with capitalism and is, in fact, fundamentally opposed to capitalism at its core. Because capitalism would wipe these bastards off the face of the map.

    Max

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