Copyright!

Slashdot's received a lot of submissions about RIAA actions recently, and the actions of colleges taken after the RIAA sent them nasty letters. One of the interesting things about this is that the RIAA is apparently not listing any specific offenders, just sending general warnings to any and all colleges with computer networks. Under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, copyright holders acquired several new rights, with the promise they wouldn't abuse them. They're abusing them. (More...)

A good example is a demand letter to a Swiss university, ETH Zurich, which demands that the school immediately terminate all web pages with illegal MP3 files (illegal is of course a judicial decision; the letter presumes that all MP3s are illegal); that the school provide names and home addresses of all students with MP3 files hosted on the school's servers; that the school provide the date that those MP3 files were first hosted (for every MP3 on every server); and that the school provide the IP address for every machine anywhere on the internet which downloaded a MP3 file from the school's servers.

The letter closes with a carrot: we'll adjust our monetary demands based on how well you comply with this letter. Better hope your IP address doesn't appear too many times in those web server logs.

We can probably assume that the demands to U.S. schools are much the same - far-reaching, extortionate letters which are not specific about any particular infringement alleged to be occurring, but which are intended nonetheless to scare the universities into cracking down on their students. The terms of the compromise of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act were that the RIAA and related groups would do the policing of their copyrights - if they found a specific file that they alleged was unlawfully infringing, they have a procedure to follow, specific information to provide about the specific infringing file, and the ISP (college or whatever) is supposed to "do their part" by deleting/removing said file if the paperwork is correct. ISPs and colleges are not supposed to do the grunt work themselves - that results in the kind of overbroad crackdowns that we've seen. This was the subject of specific negotiations during the process of creating this law.

But the RIAA, of course, would prefer that schools and ISPs do their cracking down for them. So they send these general scare letters, hoping to trigger a reaction.

Scare tactics work. Universities scan through student computers, trying passwords on protected directories. The new Rio players will incorporate all of the RIAA's desired protections against copying of MP3 files - the price of settling the RIAA's lawsuit. The next target is Napster.

RIAA will now be filing suit against Napster, an application which effectively functions like a single purpose IRC server, connecting people who want to share MP3 files, whether legally or not. (There's a linux port of Napster; better download it quick.) Some schools, like Oregon State University, are so scared they're blocking all access to Napster servers from school systems. In the ideal world, Napster should probably win - the RIAA could monitor their servers and demand that infringing users be eliminated, but the service equally provides people with an avenue to share legal MP3 files, and this significant non-infringing use is all that is needed under copyright law. The article I just linked to and a nice Wired story both show Napster feebly trying to insist on their duties under the DMCA, saying that the RIAA needs to tell them in writing about specific instances of infringement - but the RIAA doesn't care about the law.

Napster, of course, has no money to fight a lawsuit. This is exactly what happened to the Rio: they won in court, but since the RIAA planned to appeal the suit and drain more money out of Diamond Multimedia, they settled by promising that future Rio's would include the RIAA's copyright protections. Like the Dentist's extortion tactics in Cryptonomicon[1], RIAA lawsuits are equally powerful whether they are on solid legal grounds or not - Napster will lose this suit, whether they win or lose, because the RIAA can afford the money to fight it and Napster cannot. So presumably Napster and RIAA will come to some agreement, settle the lawsuit, and Napster's next generation will incorporate the RIAA's demanded copyright protection system.

Just remember, RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen says she loves the idea of Napster to build communities, "but not on the backs of huge mega-corporations with billions of dollars of revenue quarterly."[2]

The RIAA is hardly the only abuser. The Business Software Alliance, essentially a front group for protecting Microsoft's copyrights, does similar things with regard to "pirated" software. (What a PR genius it was who thought of describing all copying of software as piracy! Probably the same person behind the "cyber-squatter" label for anyone who owns a domain that a company covets.) The BSA is now raiding homes of people accused of copying software.

The idea behind copyright is to expand the amount of information available to the public by creating a government-mandated monopoly on reproducing it - for a limited time (28 years maximum, at the beginning - today the maximum copyright term could be over 150 years). Copyright has always has the inherent give-back to society - the work would pass out of protection, and then anyone could copy it and use it as they saw fit. But copyright is now essentially unlimited - over the last twenty years, the length of the copyright period has increased by forty years, so that essentially no materials produced since World War I have entered the public domain. In about 15-18 years, copyright holders will again be petitioning Congress to extend the copyright term, so that entities like Mickey Mouse never enter the public domain. The extension is now being challenged as unconstitutional, but the challengers lost in District Court and it's far from certain that this suit can succeed.

In today's world, it's customary to speak of copyright as some sort of innate right. It isn't. It's there for the betterment of society, but its functioning, today, contributes nothing to society - all it is is a government-sanctioned monopoly transferring money from your pocket to others, with nothing ever given back - and no possibility of give-backs until 2019, under current law.

We need to rethink copyright. It's not a fundamental right of corporations to receive a 95-year government monopoly. Businesses plan on a five-year cycle - if something isn't forecast to make a return on investment in five years, it doesn't get done. A five-year grant of copyright to corporate authors would serve just as well in promoting the development of new material, and would bring a tremendous amount of material into the public domain, which is copyright's true intent. With a much smaller amount of material actually under copyright, enforcement of it would be far simpler and more straightforward.

But naturally this would cost certain companies a lot of money - they're used to wallowing in their government-granted monopoly. Disney has made back their costs for creating Mickey Mouse billions of times over, but they're used to the cash flow now and would be willing to buy an entire Congress to protect it. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was passed with the aid of a great deal of subterfuge, but most importantly, a great deal of campaign contributions. Now you can be a criminal not just for actually copying anything, but for making a "device" (hardware or software) which facilitates copying - we're talking five years in Federal prison. Imagine doing five years in Federal prison so that Congress can protect their campaign donations, errr, I mean, Disney's cash flow.

We're extremely close to the day when debuggers are illegal. Through threats, strategic campaign donations, and outright extortion practiced on upstart companies, copyright-holders like the RIAA are building copyright protection into the very infrastructure of computing.

Making changes in this system requires a fundamental commitment from the U.S. populace that it be changed. The commitment doesn't exist yet, but as more and more people experience the power of copyright to affect what they can and cannot publish online, and the abuses of the companies dedicated to protecting copyright beyond the terms of the increasingly-protective law, perhaps it will in the future.

Some slashdot readers will no doubt say, "Open source, you idiot!" Open source is a reaction to these problems, not a solution to them. Despite the open source phenomenon, the trend is toward more and more works being locked up, and locked up permanently, behind laws and cryptographic protocols. It shouldn't have to be a war between words, pictures and code that is always free to use and words, pictures and code that is locked up for all eternity - we should demand that the social contract envisioned in the Constitution be fulfilled by forcing copyright holders to give back to society, whether they want to or not.

-- Michael Sims

[1] Gratuitous Cryptonomicon reference provided free of charge.

[2] Quote may not reflect Rosen's exact words, but does reflect her intent.

Economics of copyright

folks would be wanting to read this very fine text [berkeley.edu] on the econ. of copyright, which msakes the same points as the article on copyright-as-monopoly, in a slightly more rigourous fashion.

jsm

Consequences?

At Emory, we get the following login message:

NOTE: Any MP3, MP2 and GAME files not related to school and academic research will be deleted without advanced notice. If you need temporary disk space then type make_download and read the instructions.

Whether or not anyone is actively checking through accounts for MP3 files, I can't say (I haven't had any in mine.) It is tempting, as a friend suggested, to rename all files to *.MP3, just to see what happens. After a thorough backup, of course.

Greedy Corporate Scumfucks

Rant:

I couldn't agree more that the copyright system is in need of serious modification, if not outright elimination. The rabid libertarians (and believe me, I consider myself one) will scream at me about the right of an individual to profit from their labor. Blah Blah fucking Blah. I agree in principle, but:

We're moving into a new world here, ladies and gentlemen. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, it's time to evolve ideas. The reason our cherished institutions (religion, government, intellectual property, etc.) are crumbling around us is because They Are No Longer Relevant. It's as simple as that. The ideas just don't apply any more. They're outdated. The world has changed. It's time to move on.

Unfortunately, "moving on" (at least as us idealist type geeks have envisioned it) involves radical concepts like giving things away for free. Ideas like this are dangerous. They scare the living shit out of the entrenched power structure (which tells us over and over again about how it nailed this guy to a tree about 2000 years ago for daring to suggest ideas like that) If we were to start thinking in that direction, we might do something really radical like abandon our current concept of money (just an example, don't go there ;).

So, keep buying those $18 CDs guys. You're supporting the artist you know.

Anthony

^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Guess What

Giant impersonal corporation is trying to screw you.

I would say that this is a very defendable proposition. Wouldn't you? Maybe not all the time as you suggest, but my experience in the corporate sector has shown me that (for the most part) they don't give any more of a shit about you or me than they have to in order to get our money. The corporate world revolves around the bottom line. Keep that in mind at all times.

Nope, they never have a case or a legitmiate point, they are just trying to give you the bone.

I'm sure in many cases they do have legitimate points. We're just as wack as they are sometimes ;) Either way, discussion forums like this are a great way for people to bring into the open and discuss/debate the relevant issues in the case.

Would you rather we just shut the fuck up about it? I'm sure they would.

Anthony

^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Consumers need a new fair-use "bill of rights"

We need Congress to enact a law spelling out a list of things consumers may do with copyrighted materials they purchase (CDs, software, video games, movies, etc) that are explicitly guranteed to be legal and to bar lawsuits filed directly against the consumer for exercising these rights. These rights would also preempt and override anything vendors try to write into the license.

With this in mind, I hereby propose the following "Consumer Fair Use Bill of Rights" that among these rights shall include:

(1) The RIGHT to convert copyrighted media [*] to a different format. e.g., copy CDs to to Cassette for the car or to copy a DVD to VHS for viewing in the bedroom (where a 2nd DVD player is not present).

(2) The RIGHT to make compilations of copyrighted media [*] for their own use. e.g., combine tracks from several CDs onto one CD.

(3) The RIGHT to make a backup copy of copyrighted media [*] for archival purposes. e.g., backup that PSX game, as kids are often burtal to delicate CDs and one scratch can too easily ruin a $70USD game.

(4) The RIGHT to rent copyrighted materials [*] to others for a fee. This is allowed by well entrenched precedent for movies but needs to be explicitly allowed for all copyrighted media (video games, audio CDs, and software).

(5) The RIGHT to record unowned copyrighted broadcast material (including Satellite and cable as well as over the air) for time-shift-viewing purposes. e.g., legally record a movie from your subscribed HBO channel while you're at work for viewing later that night or on the weekend.

(6) The RIGHT to allow certain other 3rd parties to view copyrighted materials you acquired [*]. e.g., explicitly allow for all residents of the household to view the DVD Dad bought or use the software Dad bought, and explicit allowance for other relatives and friends to view/use the copyrighted material in a non-commercial manner. e.g., make it explicitly legal to invite a friend or SO over to watch your DVD.

(7) The RIGHT of consumers to modify their own equipment and for the necessary parts and optional installation service to be legally available in order to carry out the above 6 rights. Additionally, the sale of already modified devices shall be explicitly allowed. e.g., I legally bought import PSX games and import DVDs and need my playstation/DVD player to play them and grant me access to what I paid for legitimately.

Write your representative and senator and copy them this message! Raise this issue on any wide-reaching media (TV, radio) you have access to. Get people talking about it.

[*] of course this refers to copyrighted material legally acquired by the consumer.

Re:God this section of Slashdot gets old quick...

Nope, they never have a case or a legitmiate point

Enlighten us. What is their "case or legitimate point" for demanding that all MP3s be removed from campus networks without any proof that any of them infringe any copyrights? What is their case for demanding that products with legitimate, legal uses be pulled from the market or crippled because they "might" be used to illegally copy copyrighted material? What is their case for using the civil justice system as a club to get restrictions enforced that they could never get past a duly elected legislature (even one as heavily influenced by campaign contributions as ours is)? What is thier case for demanding that they be allowed to keep their copyrights for over 4 times the length of time originally envisioned by the writers of the Constitution? What is their case for continuing to own a copyright decades after the person who did the actual creative work is dead; for that matter, what is their case for being entitled to nearly a century of profits for work done by someone else? (Reality check: how many musicians sit on the board of recording companies? How many authors sit on the board of publishing companies?)

In other words, your objection would be more credible if you actually addressed the (IMO quite serious) issues the article raised, instead of just slinging names.

Corporations exist to maximize their bottom line profits. For the most part they will use every legal means at their disposal to achieve that goal. That means that we have to make sure the law really does do what we want it to, and only what we want it to. If any loophole exists, you can be sure businesses will exploit it. Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to people making an honest profit. I am not even opposed to people getting filthy rich by making honest profit by the bushell (although I do think that as a society we place far too much emphasis on this dubious goal). However, if a law has negative consequences that outweigh its benefits, then that law can and should be changed. That some corporation depends on that law to make staggering amounts of money concerns me not in the least. I am not out to put anyone out of business, but I do not think they have a God-given right to make their executives and stockholders rich at everyone else's expense.

In this case, I think it is clear that there are some fairly negative consequences to the copyright laws as they stand; viz., they produce a chilling effect on legitimate uses of technology, and due to the long copyright terms, the copyrighted material is effectively never given back to the public domain, as was originally intended. We should be thinking about how we can fix copyrights so that these problems are mitigated or eliminated, while retaining the incentive to publish original music, manuscripts, programs and so on. We also need to end the abuse of the civil justice system and put the burden of proof back on the accuser. (Yes, I know, technically it is on the accuser, but having rights does you no good if you can't even afford to set foot in a courtroom to defend them.) If these reforms mean that record executives will wind up making only 5 times
instead of 100 times the median household income, (and don't let them fool you into thinking that they will be sent to the poorhouse by reforms; it just won't happen--people will always be willing to pay a fair price for quality entertainment) well, those are the breaks. Nobody promised you a rose garden.

-r

Re:God this section of Slashdot gets old quick...

Limiting this not only annoys consumers, but it binds their hands, so to speak

So what's to stop somebody then from making a digital copy of some company's latest work and redistributing it to a list of free subscribers, completely bypassing their need to pay for what you've created.

I won't disagree that copyright laws need some changes, but I do disagree in the extent of those changes. A lot of people here seem to want them abolished in the case of digital works because of the "ease" of duplication. If unlimited digital reproduction were ever legalized, it would have disastrous consequences for producers of all digital works.

Everyone would start (through free and public channels) redistributing everything everyone ever released in digital form (CD's, movies, books, etc.), and the authors would never receive a dime for their efforts. For that reason, authors would cease producing and the industry would shrivel up and disappear.

Re:Greedy Corporate Scumfucks

Man, crap like this gets marked insightful?

If I put random words in BOLD will I get marked up too?

But enough of my rants, lets look at yours:

The reason our cherished institutions (religion, government, intellectual property, etc.) are crumbling around us is because They Are No Longer Relevant. It's as simple as that.

Lets see here more people attend religious services now than at any point in the last 20 years, democracy is spreading around the world, and more patents and trademarks are applied for everyday. Do you have any evidence that religion, govt and IP are crumbling around us? Looks like they are doing fine to me.

Unfortunately, "moving on" (at least as us idealist type geeks have envisioned it) involves radical concepts like giving things away for free.

If you can make a living giving things away for free, more power to you. Why don't these Lunix companies give away support along with their software too? Here's a hint.. bankrupcy.

Ideas like this are dangerous. They scare the living shit out of the entrenched power structure (which tells us over and over again about how it nailed this guy to a tree about 2000 years ago for daring to suggest ideas like that) If we were to start thinking in that direction, we might do something really radical like abandon our current concept of money (just an example, don't go there ;).

Yawn. Ideas like this are stupid, that's why they are never acted on. Got any suggestions for how to replace a money based economy? Didn't think so. Smarter people that you have tried and not thought of one either. (Not that that is a bad thing, since the current system works fine.)