Online Newshour Tackling Digital Copyright 173
dmabram writes "The online version of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is tackling copyright in the digital age. They are sponsoring a forum where Lawrence Lessig will square off against RIAA executive Matt Oppenheim. Anyone can submit questions, and the best questions or comments will be posted to Lessig and Oppenheim for debate and discussion. I know that the producers understand the importance of this debate, and would love insightful questions." Looks worth tuning in for.
Free Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more than just the right questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is getting them, specifically Matt Oppenheim, to actually answer the question that is asked. Just like a politician, I assume he's going to go off on a tangent, sidestepping and dodging anything that would make the RIAA smell like shit.
Here's an idea - Give me a camera, a room with a locked door, an RIAA executive (or any politician or lawyer), and I'll show you how it's supposed to be done.
You have to keep pressing them, don't let them change the subject. If they start to go off on a tangent, you need to "violently" (physical violence is good, but just being forceful is enough) bring them back to the point. Also, watch out for doubletalk, make sure they define their terms clearly.
Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to be an optimist, but notice this is online only. It's not even gonna hit the radar of the average PBS-watching yuppie, let alone the mainstream audience.
Perhaps you should encourage Mr. Lehrer to move this copyright discussion into a broader arena. I doubt he will be convinced, but you never know.
Thank god for Jim Lehrer & PBS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I can imagine Fox News doing a piece in 2005...
When Copyright Kills: RIAA sniper bill signed into law
Forced copyright assignment (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet poses a serious threat to this. However, ISPs have been working to take control themselves. Most of them in the US now block port 80, so most musicians can't legally run a web site on their own machines. The ISPs then offer web space on their machines, but the license states that all files on such a web site belong to the ISP. The result is that, once again, musicians must give the copyright to the corporation that controls the distribution channel. The most notorious of these is msn.com, of course, but others have been doing the same thing.
If they succeed with this approach, it will mean the end of the recording industry, since the ISPs will own the copyrights to everything on the Web. But it will be just as big a financial disaster for musicians, who will still live in a world in which the local internet monopoly controls the distribution channels and can demand the copyright in exchange for making files available.
Is there any solution to this?
Balance of Power (Score:5, Insightful)
I decided to be a little less flippant and submitted a question quite like this one to the site.
One thing that occurred to me and that I asked in the extended question was this:
In the new world of license enforcement, every time I make a tiny use of a song I end up having to seek a license and pay for it. But here I am the little guy submitting a question to the big guys in Television Land and I have no mechanism for forcing them to pay at all for a BIG use of my words if they decide they are important enough to use on their show. Something seems unbalanced about that.
As a straw man, shouldn't they be forced to offer me royalties and trickle out money to me every time they rerun their show? In a world that's becoming increasingly peer to peer, why should an individual do all the paying and none of the receiving?
I suspect the answer is "Because we can" from the big guys. That doesn't seem very fair though.
Big easy question of ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's new EULA demands the use of "Windows Updater" and grants Microsoft the ability to search for and remove files they consider copyright infinging. The music and film industry has demanded the same "protection" for all digital devices. Do I really own a computer that I can't write files on and that's run by someone else? What does this kind of ownership do to journalism and free press?
DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild (Score:5, Insightful)
an inflamatory question from a coward. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing dangerous or unlawful about my the files on my computer. For you or anyone else to search them would be unlawful as I run free software and have not granted anyone permission to bother me.
It astounds me how people who threaten others with all the force of law over file copying turn around and call those engaged in such activites violent. The felony convictions they have aranged for copyright violation include loss of livelyhood, loss of life savings and jail time. Yet proponents of these insane copyright laws refer to their victims as "dangerous", "pirates" and all that. Try as they might, copying a file against the wishes of a publisher will never be the moral equivalent of murder on the high seas or any other violent act.
The AC then states that DRM will have no effect on journalism or free press. Think about it some more AC. When DRM gets to the point that your post to any electronic network must pass a copyright violation filter that's embeded in your hardware in some mysterious way, you might understand. Yes, your silly post to Slashdot might one day be filtered by your own computer to make sure it's "safe" for public consumption and violates no copyrights. If your computer is smart enough, you won't even know your post did not make it through. If you don't control your press and someone else does, you have no free press.
Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild (Score:2, Insightful)
digital copy versus material copy (Score:3, Insightful)
Now another scenario. We have again a 2nd PC , however its the neighbour's PC. This time he paid the $1500,= for his PC. He wants to run that msoffice too. I give him that CDR with msoffice on it. He inserts it and install/runs MS Office completely without extra efforts than inserting that CDR. Now we ask again, is this illegal??? Some say yes, some say no. It depends. lets assume that the $1500,= covers also the expenses for running msoffice, then its completely ok. If the $1500,= does not cover running msoffice then it is not ok to give your neighbour that CDR. But then again. What value does the msoffice CDR represent? The CDR itself is just a lousy $0.25 media costs. If you find it in a desert with no PC's for over 5000 miles, you can only use it as a coaster. The msoffice CDR will only be of use if you have a running PC.
Bill gates said exactly the opposite to the director of the Altair factory : "Without my software your Altair is completely useless". Well that is just not true. You can always find some other version of a office package or OS to run on your PC. There's expensive ones, cheaper ones and even free to download iso versions which you then burn and install.
What i want to make clear is that for a digital copy to work one needs some sort of a materialized copy to go along too. Staring at a directory and watching at two files : msoffice1.iso and msoffice2.iso ain't a real copy. It takes a extra CDR to burn and a 2nd PC to install/run msoffice also on that one.
Now comes the Internet. suddenly people don't need CDR's anymore to transport iso's from Joe's PC to Jack's PC. Jack anyway burn the msoffice2.iso on a CDR and installs/runs it. Jack also paid $1500,= for his PC. If that price covers running/installing msoffice its ok. If not, then Jack is the bad guy. Not for having a $0.25 CDR with msoffice2.iso on it, but for installing/running it.
Oh what a mess. In the old days making a copy was technically also easy, but media, harddisks and tapes were way more expensive. What i want to point out here, is that a digital copy technically takes no effort at all. its sometimes just 1 command on a prompt. There's no regulations i can think of that can prevent that from happening. Its a digital cyberspace thing. What matters in the end is the materialization efforts/costs which are needed to run a copy on a different street address. That would take a 2nd PC and CDR. if we want to have a sane digital copying act , let it act on the extra materalization efforts needed to run it on a different place.
Tax my blank recordable media? (Score:4, Insightful)
rob
What I wrote... (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, I don't download music, nor do I share my CD collection on-line. Downloading content I haven't paid for, or that isn't given to me by the rightful copyright owner, in my opinion is wrong to do.
That being said, I also believe that the "technological cat is out of the bag", so to speak.
I haven't bought a CD in over 2 years, since they are outrageously priced, and there just hasn't been anything out there that I feel warrants such an expense. There have been a few songs that I wouldn't of minded getting, but I would be paying the full CD price for a song or two. I have spoken to many, many people who feel the same way - not enough quality content to justify the full price of a CD. Add to this the onerous copy protections that the Industry wants, their seeming hatred of Fair Use doctrine (I have each of my CDs backed up in MP3 format on 2 separate computers in case the origionals are damaged in some way), the well known fact that very few artists actually make money from the sales of CDs and the way the RIAA has tried to stifle technological advances, you end up with many, many people who are angry at the record companies and feel justified in acquiring thier content via P2P networks. This trend started quite a few years ago, and since the music industry did little to re-close the bag back then - by addressing what thier customers now wanted, not how to prolong the status quo - the cat left.
Sharing of content is taken as a misdemenour at best, and an inherent right when you're connected to the Internet at worst. You are no longer serving your customers, you are fighting them. This being the case, any Economics undergrad can tell you that the current business model of the Music Industry is now fataly flawed.
Seems to me that people are just voting with thier dollars. If it were easier and less expensive to acquire the content that customers of the RIAA actually wanted on a CD, rather than putting up with the hassles of downloading said content, this issue would just go away.
Regards,
Ron Sokoloski
What needs to be done! (Score:2, Insightful)
INFORMATION IS NOT PROPERTY.
It cannot be. There would be no need for 'copyright' if it could be. Yet corporate lobbyists have hammered the word 'intellectual property' into dozens of laws over the past couple of decades and have managed to replace copyright law with a fraudulent redefiniton of the concept of 'property'.
You can ask obvious things like "Why is copyright so different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago?" and "Exactly what IS 'intellectual property' and how is it different from copyright? or you can go for something more subtle if you have a good understanding of some particular issue that will leed into this. But we must get this one issue exposed as much as possible.
Re:It's more than just the right questions. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Friend, you raise an interesting point there. Nobody can deny the significance of plaigarism. In some ways modern technology is making it easier and easier to plaigarise. In fact, due to plaigarism concerns, a significant college admissions exam was cancelled recently. Often the same technologies that make plaigarism easy make copyright violation easy. A search engine can be used to find essays just as easily as it can be used to find copyrighted music. Now artists worked hard to produce that music, and pirates just want to have it for free. While plaigarism affects the original artist's reputation, copyright violation can affect the artist's bottom line. And if the artist can't afford to make new music, wouldn't that be a shame? Next question please!"
Re:Forced copyright assignment (Score:3, Insightful)
The last time the subject came up here and created a great public outcry -- turned out no one had actually READ what the ISP's TOS *said*. In the case I refer to, the ISP's TOS had words to the effect that "you grant us the right to *distribute* whatever copyrighted material you put in your webspace". This is precisely so you CAN'T sue your own ISP for "copyright infringement" thru "unauthorized copying" -- because technically, the web server is "publishing" your files (ie. copying them to whatever random users access your website). Frex, if you happen to upload a file that you didn't *mean* to have "distributed", but thru dumb HTML mistakes, you let users get at it, the ISP isn't liable.
Nowhere did the TOS referred to say that the ISP now *owns* the material.
I know there have been draconian TOSs in the past that said precisely that all your copyrights now belong to us, but most say no such thing -- if you actually read what it says and don't just assume.
That aside, as to RIAA members stealing from artists... it's going to continue until someone with the balls and the deep pockets takes them to court, and gets a precedent set that the typical RIAA contract is usury, thus illegal and unenforceable -- and perhaps even actionable under fair lending laws -- since at bottom the typical RIAA member contract is really a complex loan against future earnings (if any).
two tough questions (Score:5, Insightful)
1.The value that the entertainment industry has traditionally brought to the artist has been production and marketing. But costs of producing artistic works has plummetted, and many would say that "viral marketing" (through the sanctioning of alternative/free distribution channels) is cheaper and more effective anyway. Given the ever-shrinking royalty percentages and restrictive nature of entertainment contracts, why does it still make economic sense for artists to sign up with major media companies?
For Mr. Lessig:
2. Nobody ever put a gun to an artist's head to sign an unfair contract with the entertainment company. These contracts are freely entered into because both parties believe it in their respective self-interests. Why then is legislative tampering necessary? Isn't the problem self-correcting? If enough artists get screwed or perceive themselves as getting screwed by signing up, they won't sign up, or they will insist on more favorable terms. Why then should Congress hamstring the ability of artists and companies to enter into contracts? To justify legislative intervention, it seems to me that you would need to demonstrate that entertainment contracts are instrinsically predatory and exploitative.